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loqi's Comments
Re: Climate Change: Isn't it Natural?
Okay, the science isn't settled in the sense that as science, it's always open to new data and interpretation. But the science is settled in the sense that not a single scientific body of any nation in the world currently dissents from the prevailing opinion that the Earth has been warming significantly over the past century, and that that warming is significantly attributable to human activity. So in the most meaningful sense, Al Gore was right, the science is very much settled.
Global warming is as certain as any scientific fact can be. We have a century's worth of instrumental records to show the Earth's global mean temperature has been rising. The confidence that this rise is primarily due to human activity cannot be pinned down. The best we have are estimates of consensus among experts in the field. Here's a 2009 survey:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
It says 97% of responding "climatologists who are active publishers on climate change" think "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures." In other words, we're pretty damn sure human activity has a net effect of raising the Earth's temperature.
So yes, the science is settled, as much as science is ever settled.
Global warming is as certain as any scientific fact can be. We have a century's worth of instrumental records to show the Earth's global mean temperature has been rising. The confidence that this rise is primarily due to human activity cannot be pinned down. The best we have are estimates of consensus among experts in the field. Here's a 2009 survey:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
It says 97% of responding "climatologists who are active publishers on climate change" think "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures." In other words, we're pretty damn sure human activity has a net effect of raising the Earth's temperature.
So yes, the science is settled, as much as science is ever settled.
Re: Climate Change: Isn't it Natural?
Well if "most climatologists" are "being forced" to "concede" that a period of "ten years" of "temperature stagnation" is in store for us, I'm afraid I haven't seen it "all over the news." Maybe I should stop getting my news from peer-reviewed scientific journals. Of course the science isn't settled. That's why it's called "science." Of course the climate models are wrong. That's why they're called "models". Of course we might not know everything. That's why we do research.
But at what point do we know enough to act? When we're 90% certain? When we're 99% certain? When we're 99.9% certain? Suppose a 75% credible tip came in to the FAA that a guy with a knife was boarding an Airplane in Houston? You think they'd hold out for 100% certainty before taking action?
We never have 100% certainty about anything, really. Moving our economy away from carbon fuels just doesn't scare me all that much. Pretending that we don't notice our only planet heating up? Now that scares me.
But at what point do we know enough to act? When we're 90% certain? When we're 99% certain? When we're 99.9% certain? Suppose a 75% credible tip came in to the FAA that a guy with a knife was boarding an Airplane in Houston? You think they'd hold out for 100% certainty before taking action?
We never have 100% certainty about anything, really. Moving our economy away from carbon fuels just doesn't scare me all that much. Pretending that we don't notice our only planet heating up? Now that scares me.
Re: 10 yo Won't Say Pledge and Wants Rights for Gays
In California, Proposition 22 was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2000. That law said "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." After years of litigation against stalling tactics by anti-gay marriage activists, in May 2008 the Supreme Court of California finally struck down all California statutes which limit marriage contracts to opposite-sex couples, ruling them in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the state constitution. This opened the door to gay marriage in California for half a year until November 2008, when Proposition 8 passed by a narrow margin. This created a state constitutional amendment whose sole purpose is to deny marriage contracts to same-sex couples in California.
If you consider the presence of an Equal Protection Clause to be a "loophole", and the absence of a constitutional amendment singling out a particular class of people for discrimination to be a "special right," well I guess we'll just have to disagree about that. You say a gay man can get married to a woman, and that counts as equal protection. Bzzzt. Thank you for playing. What if we had a law that said a Jewish man can be Jewish, so long as he worships the Christian way like everyone else? Asking to be allowed to worship the Jewish way is asking for a special right? I think that's laughable, and the court agreed.
Public support for gay marriage has been steadily growing everywhere in America. This social turmoil is a sign we're entering the 50% period. It's only a matter of time before it crosses 50% in California. The demographics are shifting one funeral at a time.
Sure, a gay man can marry a straight girl. But would you want her to be your daughter?
If you consider the presence of an Equal Protection Clause to be a "loophole", and the absence of a constitutional amendment singling out a particular class of people for discrimination to be a "special right," well I guess we'll just have to disagree about that. You say a gay man can get married to a woman, and that counts as equal protection. Bzzzt. Thank you for playing. What if we had a law that said a Jewish man can be Jewish, so long as he worships the Christian way like everyone else? Asking to be allowed to worship the Jewish way is asking for a special right? I think that's laughable, and the court agreed.
Public support for gay marriage has been steadily growing everywhere in America. This social turmoil is a sign we're entering the 50% period. It's only a matter of time before it crosses 50% in California. The demographics are shifting one funeral at a time.
Sure, a gay man can marry a straight girl. But would you want her to be your daughter?
Re: 10 yo Won't Say Pledge and Wants Rights for Gays
I would point out that it is the gender-police crowd that's changing the laws. When a court says gays can get married (to other gays), they're saying that the laws as written say nothing against such a thing. When voters pass an initiative outlawing gay marriage, that is, in fact, a change to the definition of marriage.
There was a time when the majority opposed interracial marriage. Why should we give the "special right" to someone to marry someone of a different race? They should be happy with the same-race marriage that everyone else seems to favor. Why should we let Jews own businesses? They can become Christians or employees instead of insisting on the "special right" to be both Jewish AND a business owner. I'm sure that were put to a vote in the 1920s, or if it applied to Muslims in the 2000s, it might get a majority of yes votes in Alabama.
I'm sure Ted Haggard's wife would rather have married a straight guy. Plus, the kid's not trampling anyone's liberty and justice. He's just refusing to recite his morning flag prayer.
There was a time when the majority opposed interracial marriage. Why should we give the "special right" to someone to marry someone of a different race? They should be happy with the same-race marriage that everyone else seems to favor. Why should we let Jews own businesses? They can become Christians or employees instead of insisting on the "special right" to be both Jewish AND a business owner. I'm sure that were put to a vote in the 1920s, or if it applied to Muslims in the 2000s, it might get a majority of yes votes in Alabama.
I'm sure Ted Haggard's wife would rather have married a straight guy. Plus, the kid's not trampling anyone's liberty and justice. He's just refusing to recite his morning flag prayer.
Re: Climate Change: Isn't it Natural?
I don't know which five years you're talking about. Maybe 1992, 1996, 1999, 2003 and 2005 ? Each of those years had a cooler global mean temperature than the year before. I don't know where you're getting your numbers, but mine come from the Goddard Institute.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/earth_temp_prt.htm
It appears there's plenty of hot air out there to more than offset any five year cooling trend you found. Besides, there have been several five-year cooling periods over the past century of warming.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/208488main_global_temp_change.jpg
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/earth_temp_prt.htm
It appears there's plenty of hot air out there to more than offset any five year cooling trend you found. Besides, there have been several five-year cooling periods over the past century of warming.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/208488main_global_temp_change.jpg
Re: Healthcare Reform = Socialized Medicine
This whole thing is a bailout to the health insurance industry. Private health insurance is already illegal under the laws of physics. That's why when it plays out to a point where it's about to collapse under its own weight, it has to be propped up with massive taxpayer handouts. We'll be "giving taxpayer money to in poor and middle class people" so they can buy private for-profit health insurance that's not worth the money but is required by law. In other words, we'll be giving taxpayer money to financial services corporations for free.
It's a profit layer that contributes nothing toward anyone's health. All it does is add an expensive layer of bureaucracy with nothing in return.
If only Schiff were right about his assertions that the fines for non-participation are so low that private insurance will be driven out of business. Then maybe I'd support these proposals.
It's a profit layer that contributes nothing toward anyone's health. All it does is add an expensive layer of bureaucracy with nothing in return.
If only Schiff were right about his assertions that the fines for non-participation are so low that private insurance will be driven out of business. Then maybe I'd support these proposals.
Re: Healthcare Reform = Socialized Medicine
Hey, if the insurance industry is so damaged by these proposals, why did they write them that way? I think insurance industry lobbyists do, in fact, understand the concept of insurance.
Re: Pastor Steven L Anderson Pisseth Against the Wall
I just thought it was some local dialect thing. That's a pretty common idiom in Texas, albeit in the second person. As in the sentence,
All'a y'all are geeks. I'm gonna piss all of you all to death.
All'a y'all are geeks. I'm gonna piss all of you all to death.
Re: Pastor Steven L Anderson Pisseth Against the Wall
I like the ending line, "I'm going to Germany in about a month. You better know I'm gonna stand up everywhere I go."
Believe me, Pastor, they'll know. They'll smell your dried pee mist all over the wall and floor, because your old-James-reading pappy never taught you to aim away from the bottom-water.
This guy sounds like a splasher to me. If he's ever at my house, I'll inspect the toilet area when he's done and then hand him a bucket and sponge.
Believe me, Pastor, they'll know. They'll smell your dried pee mist all over the wall and floor, because your old-James-reading pappy never taught you to aim away from the bottom-water.
This guy sounds like a splasher to me. If he's ever at my house, I'll inspect the toilet area when he's done and then hand him a bucket and sponge.
Re: A question for Pro-Lifers
So someone who evicts someone else's bundle of cells from her body is an unethical dickhead but not a criminal.
After the ectogenesis industry gets geared up to take over for the abortion industry, I sure hope I don't have to pay extra for ectogenesis insurance. Would you want to pay for ectogenesis insurance? Suppose she doesn't want to fork out three quarters of a million dollars to turn that carefully extracted blastocyst into an orphan human baby. If it were up to me, I'd rather spend that tax money on thousands of school lunches, dozens of college educations, and a couple of pieces of public art. But that's just me being a socialist.
After the ectogenesis industry gets geared up to take over for the abortion industry, I sure hope I don't have to pay extra for ectogenesis insurance. Would you want to pay for ectogenesis insurance? Suppose she doesn't want to fork out three quarters of a million dollars to turn that carefully extracted blastocyst into an orphan human baby. If it were up to me, I'd rather spend that tax money on thousands of school lunches, dozens of college educations, and a couple of pieces of public art. But that's just me being a socialist.
Re: A question for Pro-Lifers
Who said anything about socialism? We can argue forever about whether capitalism systematically destroys our planet and forces 98% of everybody into servitude, but all I said was that in other circumstances you object to taking property from someone and giving it to someone else.
Reducing this to a property dispute can illuminate the contradiction. If your house will slide down a muddy slope into the river unless I keep my truck parked in front of it, what do you do if I move my truck rather than let it get scuffed up saving your house?
Or this: You have an accident and your insurance company turns out to have a loophole in the contract saying it doesn't cover being hit by a meteorite. The hospital refuses to treat you until you come up with a huge pile of cash while unconscious.
Reducing this to a property dispute can illuminate the contradiction. If your house will slide down a muddy slope into the river unless I keep my truck parked in front of it, what do you do if I move my truck rather than let it get scuffed up saving your house?
Or this: You have an accident and your insurance company turns out to have a loophole in the contract saying it doesn't cover being hit by a meteorite. The hospital refuses to treat you until you come up with a huge pile of cash while unconscious.
Re: A question for Pro-Lifers
Jeez, Poon, for someone who so strongly objects to wealth redistribution, you don't seem to have much trouble when the "wealth" in question is someone's own body. If you can find a way for a fetus to live without the help of the woman who doesn't want it inside her, I say have at it.
Even if you see a clump of cells as a full human being morally equivalent to the actual human being that is the woman, you still have to account for the fact that one of these humans is incapable of life anywhere but inside the body of the other one.
How do you square the idea of forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy for a few months and then passing a bowling ball on behalf of preserving someone else's life, with a philosophy against taking from the rich and giving to the poor? Poor people do die for lack of physical resources held by rich people, you know.
Even if you see a clump of cells as a full human being morally equivalent to the actual human being that is the woman, you still have to account for the fact that one of these humans is incapable of life anywhere but inside the body of the other one.
How do you square the idea of forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy for a few months and then passing a bowling ball on behalf of preserving someone else's life, with a philosophy against taking from the rich and giving to the poor? Poor people do die for lack of physical resources held by rich people, you know.
Re: Should Women Be Punished for Having Abortions?
I think people obsess about the moment sperm meets egg because our civilization is obsessed with making rules. It's not that that particular half hour is any more significant than any other half hour. It's just that it's easy to point at a discreet event. Like most rules, it doesn't make sense, but it does have a clear definition to use as a convenient handle, which is more important than making sense when it comes to rules.
Most of us are just not all that comfortable with loose rules giving room for personal judgment and interpretation because they require trust in ourselves and others. Many would rather have our thinking done in advance and delivered as a list of abstract rules to be applied to all situations without further consideration. That way we don't have any personal responsibility but to be obedient.
It's easier to imagine there's a magic soul dance at conception, than to imagine that it takes years for a blastocyst to become a fully differentiated human being in a series of overlapping biological processes that nobody really understands.
Most of us are just not all that comfortable with loose rules giving room for personal judgment and interpretation because they require trust in ourselves and others. Many would rather have our thinking done in advance and delivered as a list of abstract rules to be applied to all situations without further consideration. That way we don't have any personal responsibility but to be obedient.
It's easier to imagine there's a magic soul dance at conception, than to imagine that it takes years for a blastocyst to become a fully differentiated human being in a series of overlapping biological processes that nobody really understands.
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