Comments saluki has made

More on climate sensitivity

"THAT is empirical evidence, and it makes 0.6C sensitivity look fairly uncertain."

That is emperical evidence, but it does nothing to dispute the 0.6C.  First, we were still comming out of a little ice age near the start of the modern industrial period.  So some warming would have been expected regardless.  We have also had an increase in solar activity in the last 100 years.

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2008/07/20th-centur ...

In addition to this, Spencer has been able to show that 70% of the warming of the last 30 years can be accounted for using ENSO, PDO, AMO, etc.

So the .8C that we already have is not meaningful in determining climate sensitivity, because other climate factors were at work at the same time.

On top of that, we have had no warming for the past 11 years, and ENSO does not account for it.  So if the overwhelming 3C per doubling that the IPCC advertises is at work, what has been strong enough to overcome that for the past 11 years?

"Now = Arctic melting more each year, well below previous averages for summer sea ice extent. The North-sea passge open for the first time in many millenia. Seems like at least one "serious effect"."

I don't really care about the Arctic melt.  The Holocene optimum had temperatures that were 2C warmer than today for a very long time, and most species seem to have done great.

Concerning the passages; the Northwest passage has been sailed through about a dozen times since 1904.  Concerning the passage on the European side, we have no clue how often it has been open.  We only have 30 years of satellite records of the Arctic.
On Toyota may develop "Prius on steroids" posted 1 year, 1 month ago 22 Responses

The inevitable pattern.

"The left may see corporations as big bags of free money, but the right sees taxpayers in the same way."

No, it is only the right who ever tries to lessen the load on the taxpayer.  Bill Clinton's ecomomy was due mostly to a Republican Congress.  Bill never wrote any legislation.

The excessive spending that has occured during the Bush administration is no reflection on conservatives.  All the conservatives that I know hate Bush's free handed spending.  The problem is that it was tough for Republican Senators and Congressmen to oppose Bush's spending plans since he was their President and since he was from their party.  Their refusal to pass the first bailout bill was one of the first times that they went against him.  Even the second bailout bill was not voted for by the majority of Republicans.

"And as for all of that 150 billion dollars of pork?  The difference between passing the bill and not passing the bill was that House Republicans refused to pass it unless it was full of pork."

No, you are full of crap.  The bill that was passed was a Senate bill, and it was the Senate Democrats that loaded it up with pork.  A few more House Republicans voted for the bill the second time because it had more taxpayer protections and because it didn't give Paulsen a free hand at spending taxpayer money as he pleased.

"the economy wasn't waiting until the election to take a nosedive because the markets knew that they were screwed with either one of these clowns."

With McCain at times trying to out-Democrat the Democrats, that is probably true.

The nice thing about Obama being elected is that Republicans won't have to take the blame for the kind of leftist policies that McCain would undoubtedly compromise his way to.  With McCain in the White House, Republicans would never get Congress back.  The Democrats have controlled Congress for the last 2 years; the courts forever, and starting in January they will control everything.  Then they won't be able to blame their failures on anyone else, though lord knows they will try.  People will quickly recognize that they are getting screwed; they will be desperate to stop the extreme policies of Obama, and Congress can then be returned to the Republicans.  This pattern seems to repeat itself as people need to be reminded periodically that the Democratic utopian pretentions are good for nothing but making them miserable.
On Town hall again reveals just an anti-science, out-of-touch McCain posted 1 year, 1 month ago 10 Responses

An eco fascist confesses

"We see it as a moral obligation to lessen our own impact on the planet or risk dire consequences."

Lessen your impact as much as you like.  Just leave me the hell alone.

"I can't speak for everyone but I feel the persons not taking the situation seriously are, in a way, threatening my existence as well as the existence of everyone else."

Yes, that was why they used to torture and burn people durning the Spanish Inquisition.  Just a bunch of honest, humanely motivated priests that wanted to save peoples immortal soul.  They were every bit as sure of the rightness and justice of their cause as you.

"This is why I get worked up because I know there are a lot of people that won't do anything due to laziness or ignorance."

For example, the ignorance of climate scientist like Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Schwartz, Loehle, Moberg, etc., that all disagree about there being any climate emergency.  Instead you are running around ranting because of the output of some climate models, absolutely non of which have yet been proven accurate.

Yes, that was why they used to torture and burn people durning the Spanish Inquisition.  Just a bunch of honest, humanely motivated priests that wanted to save peoples immortal soul.  They were every bit as sure of the rightness and justice of their cause as you.

"I would have to concur that if people don't make changes of their own free will then the government will have to force them to for the sake of everyone."

Thank you for admitting that you are an eco fascist.  You are like the communists of the Soviet Union who demanded that everyone sacrifce themselves for the good of all.  But somehow sacrifce for the good of all simply yielded the misery of all those that were being sacrificed, and they were the all.  

"I would have to concur that if people don't make changes of their own free will then the government will have to force them to for the sake of everyone."On Toyota may develop "Prius on steroids" posted 1 year, 1 month ago 22 Responses

Marx in the minds of the brain dead.

"Imagine instead: education centering on the land, physical health, ecological and economic sustainability, the politic of stewardship; teaching the practice and instilling the philosophy of these."

So basically you are proposing a program of brain washing children to believe what you want them to believe.  But then we have always know that kooks like you are fascists at heart.  You have no concern about forcing your idiotic ideas on anyone.

"I think of how Marx advocated that education include manual labor, not just to teach practical skills, but to instill a wholesome spiritual and political ethic. He was thinking primarily of manufacturing (which America also needs to revive). But the principle applies at least as well to farming. "

Screw manual labor.  This is something that communist pseudo intellectuals like to talk about, but it's something that they themselves never want to do.  Manual labor is hard and boring.  It numbs the mind and kills the spirit.  Manual labor needs to be done by machines, not humans.  The sooner we build the machines to do the manual labor the sooner we will free those minds for more interesting persuits.  But of course it's a problem for nuts like you because you need this imaginary entity called "the workers" that you can be constantly saving from oppression, and that you can instead oppress yourself.

From one of my other blogs:

"I decided a long time ago that there was no possiblility of a communist state ever being anything other than a police state. I think that this idea is born out by both reason and experience. Here I will assume that the experiential evidence speaks for itself for anyone who wishes to look at how communism has worked in the real world. I will therefore concentrate on the logic of why the communist state must always end up in being a police state.

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". These are magic words; just words; inspirational words. And there must surely be a race of aliens somewhere in the Universe that could apply those words successfuly. But the individuals that believed that these words could be made to work for man were drunk on their own idealism and blind to the reality of the nature of man. Today this attitude of arrogant ultrahumanism still reigns in academic circles and among the sanctimonious pseudo intellectuals who call themselves liberals, leftists, and socialists. In their zeal to accomplish this they feel certain that any means will be justified by such a nobel end. All the failed attempts to bring about this high ideal in the past have only been due to misunderstanding, corruption and the failings of man, they believe. If man could be properly educated and if the right implementation is followed, then the communist utopia is still possible. In fact, not only is it possible, but it is the only acceptable destiny for mankind.

The transparent and even obvious failings of Marx's ideal never crosses the dogmatically rigid mind of the communists and their little brothers on the left. The full impact of the term "From each" is never inspected to see what it can possibly mean in the real world.

In the early years of any communist revolution the "From each" is not according to his abilities, but rather "From each" according to his wealth. The state appropriates the property of the wealthy and distributes it to the poor. The result is a boon for the poor, but a very shorted sighted and short lived one. Wealth is not a static entity and the wealth that is distributed to the poor will not raise their living standard except for a breif period of time. After the wealth is consumed, whether it be in a year or in twenty years, they will return to being poor. The process of appropriating the property of the wealthy cannot be repeated because the wealthy were made poor by the initial appropriation and they have absolutely no motivation to reaquire wealth. Not only do they have no motiviation, but the communist system will not allow it to happen. So the revolution results in a one time windfall for the poor that can never be repeated. In any case, the appropriation of personal wealth is always the first action of the police state, setting the groundwork for the police state that must always remain there after the appropriation phase.

After the property of the wealthy has been distributed, the "From each" takes on a new meaning. Now the property of every individual must be continously appropriated so that the state can redistribute it according to what it determines to everyone's needs. Man being man, he does not volunteer his property. In fact he will make every effort to hide as much of it from the state as possible. So now the "From each" requires a huge and repressive police state to insure that those two little words are accomplished. A network of spies must exist in all communities to insure that no one can refuse to give up the fruits of their labor. Since the entire fabric of the political system depends on the state being able to take everyones property, the punishment for having the gall to try to keep your property must be high. Why, then, is it not obvious to the most casual observer of human beings that "From each" of neccessity requires the establishment of a pervasive and intimidating police state. Why is it not obvious that the individual must be forced to give up the product of his labor and therefore must even be forced to do that labor.

Man from birth seems to have a feeling of personal property that is never taught, but is simply innate to the animal. When my 2 year old plays with other 2 year olds she shows jealous ownership of her own toys when playing at her own home. And the other children show jealous ownership of their property when she is playing at their homes. I have never made any effort to teach her this characteristic. Since this feature of mankind is anithetical to the communist ideal, the individual in the communist state must be subjected to a life long regimen of propaganda in order to get him to belive and act in opposition to his natural characteristics. As far as I have been able to determine the propaganda effort is never more than partially convincing. As the Soviet Union has shown, the transition from decades of communist propaganda to a new believe in capitalism took absolutely no propaganda at all.

The natural result of the communist philosophy is that the "From each" requires a repressive police state that is able to extract only a paltry amount of wealth from it's unwilling participants. And that paltry amount will then become a "to each" that gives all a share of a small appropriation and leaves the entire state in a condition of poverty. The state is capable of making everyone equally poor. But it is not capable of making everyone rich, or even of making everyone middle class."
On Michael Pollan lays out a national food agenda posted 1 year, 1 month ago 8 Responses

Obama economics

"having a presidential candidate constantly talking about a matter as trivial as earmarks would be the same as if you were brought into the emergency room suffering from a heart attack and your doctor said the first thing to do was remove your bunion."

Yeah, what we need is more of the same from Obama that just brought us into the current financial crisis.  I've seen two adds from the Obama camp that clearly illustrates just how stupid this man is.

In the first add Obama proposes to fix health care by attacking Health Care companies.  In the second add he promises to fix people's insurace by forcing the insurance companies to accept people with pre conditions that will cost the insurance companies big time.  And then he claims that this will save families a lot of money.  Is Obama such a moron that he learned nothing from the financial crisis that he helped produce.  Now that he and the Democrats have succeeded at destroying our financial institutions, are they also going to destroy our health care institutions and our insurance companies?

One of the characteristics that all of the idiot left seems to have in common is that they think of the nations coorporations as big endless bags of money that need to be exploited by the government. They don't see them as entities that supply us with jobs, that supply us with the products we need, and that supply the government with a hell of a lot of tax money.  So the left always takes the position that large corporations must be attacked as the enemy rather than defended for all of the things that they provide to us.  Obama has the same brainwashed notions, and so we can depend on him to destroy our economy even further once he is elected.

Of course there is also the manipulative and cynical side of the left.  Their approach is to take advantage of peoples greed by promising to take money from entities that have few votes (the rich, big corporations), and give it to people who have a lot of votes (their dumb constituents).  The voting members of the left are so dumb that they actually believe that you can take money from the insurance companies and give it to them and that nothing else will happen.  It's as though they think that the insurance companies need only print the money.  Of course Obama's generosity will be paid for by the very people that he is promising to be generous to.  Because the insurance companies will either have to raise their rates or they will go bankrupt.  So in essence, Obama promises his idiot voters that he will take a thousand dollars out of their wallets and then give it back to them.  And his idiot follower cheer at his generosity and humanity.

I believe that Obama will be elected, and he may even end up with a Democratic Senate with 60 Democrats, so that there will be no stopping his destruction of the country's economy by anyone.  I pity our nation.

The last Democatic candidate, Bill Clinton, was a moderate compared to Obama.  And Clinton had 6 years of a Republican congress to keep him reigned in.  Turning Obama loose on the country will be like putting the fox in the hen house and still expecting to get eggs.On Town hall again reveals just an anti-science, out-of-touch McCain posted 1 year, 1 month ago 10 Responses

Assessment of the evidence

"Tierney just can't conceive that opponents of nuclear power might also engage in reasoned assessment of evidence."

Eco-cultists doing a reasoned assemssment of the evidence?  Bwwwaaaahhhhhhaaaaaahhhhhhhaaaaaaa.  They will always take an assessment created by a fellow eco-cultist and treat it like it is gospel.

So if scientists say that mankind is responsible for global warming, then we must trust the scientists.  If scientists say that nuclear is our best energy solution, then they must do, chuckle, "a reasoned assessment of the evidence."

This brings us to another issue.  James Hansen, the high priest of man made global warming, is also a big advocate of nuclear.  So is Hansen to be trusted or not.  Or is your position that you will trust him where it fits your agenda and not trust him where it doesn't.On Nuclear proponents are, like, totally John Galt posted 1 year, 1 month ago 43 Responses

Hansen's folly

"The problem for Hansen and company is that direct observations do not support the claims of positive feedbacks."

To get those feedbacks Hansen requires that the extra heat produced by CO2 forcing put more moisture in the air and that the extra moisture then gives us more greenhouse effect.  But the problem is that there is no evidence that moisture in the air is increasing.  If anything it seems to be decreasing.

"And Hansen still has trouble explaining why we have not had any warming in ten years"

This is not a problem for Hansen.  He simply "adjusts" his GISS temp record so that he does get warming, and he ignores the fact that he is rapidly diverging from the other major global temperature records like HadCrut3, RSS, and UAH.

Here:
http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2008/05/divergence- ...

And here is a more recent plot of the past 11 years, but excluding Hansen's fraudulent record.

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2008/06/11-year-tem ...

And here is one with a linear regression trend line drawn through the solar cycles for the last 100 years.

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2008/07/20th-centur ...

Then, of course we have Hansen testifying to legislators about 25 meters of sea level rise.  But the University of Colorado only shows a trend that would give us 13 inches in the next 100 years.  The IPCC only predicts 19 inches in the next 100 years.  And even these may turn out to be garbage, since there has been zero sea level rise in the last 3 years.

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2008/06/university- ...On Author and physicist Richard A. Muller chats with Grist about getting science back in the White Hous posted 1 year, 1 month ago 15 Responses

Yawn.

"Yes, yes, I know. You said that before."

Just as you have said everything before.  And it's all just as nonsensical as the first time that you said it. On Reflecting on (and fact-checking) the VP debate posted 1 year, 1 month ago 27 Responses

Science still under debate.

For those of you looking for peer reviewed and published scientific papers that dispute the IPCC, there are actually quite a few out there.  Here is the latest that I'm aware of.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdfOn Reflecting on (and fact-checking) the VP debate posted 1 year, 1 month ago 27 Responses

Another appeal to voting science

"I don't think anyone really expected the gadflies to go away just because the IPCC concluded that the "warming of the climate system is unequivocal" and that there is a 95% chance that it is human caused."

Are you actually unable to see the stupidity of your statement Bio.  Climate has been going up and down for the entire history of the earth.  Now we are in a warming phase, and using your moronic pronouncement, if mankind was not here, the temperature would be flat.  When you say "it" is human caused you are attributing the entire rise to humans.  Show me one credible scientist that makes such a claim.  Show me where the IPCC makes such a claim.  The IPCC position is that some of it is human caused.  And since "all of it" is only 0.8C for 157 years, "some of it" is even less.

"I honestly don't believe there is any evidence that can ever be presented by anybody that would convince you."

Blah, blah, blah, yeah, I believe the same about you.  Do we have to have these stupid discussions.  Do you actually know anything about the issues or do you just accept that same old appeal to authority because it agrees with what you want to believe.

"Essentially, that is why the IPCC was formed--so that the world can safely ignore the interminable gadflies and get on with the business at hand."

The IPCC had concluded that it was going to get rid of CO2 before it even had any of the evidence that it needed.  Once it made that decision, it mined the evidence that it needed.  Governments love the idea that they can generate trillions in new taxes using AGW as an excuse.  And of course the lunatic left loves anything that increases government power, diminishes freedom, and increases taxation.

"I presented you with an analogy and you pretended to take it literally."

It was a dumb analogy.  If you want to discredit something you can always find a parallel that will serve your purpose.  But the parallel is simply an artifact of your creation.  It has no meaning in this context.  But the lunatic left seems to be addicted to using the creationist parallel in place of meaningful arguments.

"I don't recall ever visiting that site."

My mistake.  On the other hand, it tells me that you have spent very little time trying to understand the debate.  I read the anti AGW sites, but I also read several of the top AGW sites to try to understand both sides of the issue as well as possible.

"Trolling the Grist blog sure isn't going to get you anywhere."

Sure it is.  It will expose the fact that the Grist crowd knows absolutely nothing about the basis for the debate and that they accept issues of science based upon a vote who's outcome they they are predisposed to like.  As a collection of left wing eco nuts, the leverage that AGW gives them is like a free ice cream cone.

"Good luck with your endeavor and get back to us when you have been vindicated by the scientific community."

I would prefer to be vindicated by real world climate observations.  And so far that is going quite well, thank you.

 On Reflecting on (and fact-checking) the VP debate posted 1 year, 1 month ago 27 Responses

More on climate sensitivity.

"The point biodiversivist was making was that you're using the same diversionary strategy that creationists use:"

There is no diversionay strategy.  And what does it have to do with creationism.  All kinds of people use diversionary strategies, including eco nuts.

"you're claiming that because we might not have absolute proof of a theory, then that theory can't be taken seriously. "

Absolute proof?  LOL.  No, I'm claiming that you don't have a theory that is supported by observation begin with.  Physicists are smart enough to discard their theories when they disagree with actual observations.  Climate scientists don't seem to be that smart.

First of all, the entire argument about AGW is around climate sensitivity; in other words, how much increase in global temperature results from a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.  Climate sensitivity is an output of models.  These models use as much information about the physical processes that effect climate as we think we know.  So they use parameters for things like aerosols, solar variability, etc.  The output of these models already varies from about 1.7 C per CO2 doubling to 4.0 C.  The fact that we do not know the physical elements of variation that have overriden the rise in temperature that we should have had over the past 11 years means that a very significant piece of information is absent for purposes of modeling the climate.  Here is something, we don't know what it is, that has cancelled out 100% of the effect of the CO2 increase for those 11 years.  This is not casting doubt based on what is unknown.  We know that there has been no increase in the temperature and we know that CO2 has increased as rapidly as ever over that time period.  This is the discovery that there are elements that would strongly effect the climate sensitivity number - and we don't know how they works.  Let me make it simpler for you.  If you are going to compute climate sensitivity with a computer, then the law "Garbage in garbage out" applies.  You can't compute anything if you don't have the right information for computing it.  Computers don't produce truth out of garbage.  Even if we look beyond those last 11 years, the amount of warming we should be seeing according to CO2 theory is not there.  We have had almost 40% of a CO2 doubling.  The CO2 warming effect is logarithmic.  So 40% of a CO2 doubling should give us almost 50% of the effect of a complete CO2 doubling with regard to temperature rise.  This should be about 1.5C.  And yet we have only about half that amount.  And not only do we have half the amount, we also know that some of the increase we have has other causes.  That doesn't leave you with much of actual physically observable warming that you can attribute to CO2.  The warmers claim that the wattage is being absorbed by the oceans, and that is why we don't see it in the atmosphere.  But the oceans have not warmed for the last 5 years.  So where the hell is the heat hiding?

The argument, then, goes something like this - if the effect of a CO2 doubling is as low as +.5C, then we don't have anything to worry about, because we will run out of fossil fuels before the temperature rise becomes significant.  However, if the effect of a CO2 doubling is 3, 4, or 5 C, then we may have some problems over the next 100 years.  As time and observations continue, the .5C looks like it's going to be much closer than the 5C.On Reflecting on (and fact-checking) the VP debate posted 1 year, 1 month ago 27 Responses

Oh boy - I found a contradiction.

"saluki, first you support drilling for oil, then you bait-and-switch to talking about nuclear energy,"

Once again I have to explain things for a simple minded leftist.  I support drilling for oil, but I also realize that it is a limited source of fuel.  It will probably be much longer than most eco cultists think, but eventually we would run out of fossile fuel.  I believe that the warming effect of CO2 is small, but not noexistent.  So I want to develop nuclear plants at a steady unhurried pace.  If we can be getting most of our energy from nuclear 50 years from now, that would be fine with me.  But we should start a program now.  Until that transition is complete, we will need oil.  And it should be American oil.  Our economy cannot afford to send 700 billion a year to other countries.

This is fairly close to what Palin wants to do.  You see, the contradictions that you eco cultists always seem to come up with are simply caused by your inability to think in any but the most basic and single track methods.On Watch the video and read the transcript posted 1 year, 1 month ago 14 Responses

Lessons in Banking

"The Saluki troll is racist as well?"

Only a birdbrain like Pangolin would believe that restricting loans to people who will pay them back is racist.  But of course we know that Pangolin is too stupid to come up with a real argument, so she has no choice but to play the race card.

Of course Yglesias is a left wing idiot who will always find a way to spin the facts.  The fact that Carter's Community Reivestment Act happened in 1977 is irrelevant.  Loans last for 30 years.  1977 was simply the beginning of the issuance of such loans.  As the years have gone by, a higher and higher percentage of such loans have been a part of the total.  The Community Reinvestment Act was simply the first floor of the house of cards built by the Democrats.

From Wiki:
"In 1995, Fannie Mae began receiving affordable housing credit for buying subprime securities. In 1999, the Clinton administration and Fannie Mae shareholders encouraged the lender to increase the number of mortgage loans offered to those of low and moderate income, both to improve rates of home ownership among those groups and to increase profits."

So after the Carter contribution, the next part of the puzzle was to have Fannie and Freddy buy subprime loans from the nations lenders.  The quality of the loans which Fannie and Freddy accepted was very low, at the prompting of the Clinton administration.  Of course the lenders made loans according to the quality of what Fannie and Freddy were willing to buy from them.  Since they were anxious to buy garbage, the lenders were willing to make loans that were garbage.

In 2003 president Bush raised the alarm about the danger to our finacial system that was caused by these high risk loans.  People like Barney Frank fought him off, claiming that everything with Fannie and Freddy was just fine.  There was no risk, he claimed.

In 2005 McCain produced a new bill in committee to regulate and oversee Fannie and Freddy.  The Republicans on the committe voted for the oversight.  All of the Democrats voted against it.  Because of the unanimous opposition by the Democrats, McCain never brought the bill to the floor for a vote.

"Never mind that the banks then sold the loans as 'tranches' which violated the Glass-Steagall act until it was repealed thanks to Republican, Phil Grahm."

You are talking about the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act.  This said that Finacial Service Companies could own Banks and Banks could own Financial Service Companies.  So what?  Let's see who supported the bill.

  "Let me welcome you all here today for the signing of this historic legislation. With this bill, the American financial system takes a major step forward towards the 21st century, one that will benefit American consumers, business, and the national economy for many years to come." -- Larry Summers, Then-Clinton Treasury Secretary And Current Obama Adviser, On Gramm-Leach-Bliley (1999)

Clinton's man Robert Ruben also lobbied for the bill.  And of course Clinton signed the bill.

Probably more relevant to the discussion is the Commodity Furtures Moderniztion Act of 2000.  This bill was sponsored by Gramm.  But it was also co-sponsored by 2 Democrats.  It contains provisions for credit default swaps that are mostly unregulated by the government.  Once the house of cards that had been built by Carter, Clinton, and other Democrats began to fall, these derivatives made it fall that much faster.  But this act was hardly a product of Republicans.

The vote was 180 Democrats for 2 against - 195 Republicans for 2 against.  And Bill Clinton signed it.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2000-540On Could reducing homeowner costs through efficiency help meliorate the housing crisis? posted 1 year, 1 month ago 14 Responses

Pangolin of the ranting conspiracy theories

"Saluki doesn't post it's sources because they aren't relevent."

Which of my comments do you believe to be incorrect.  I can give you the sources.

"Climate change due to human activity preceded the industrial revolution by a fair bit simply due to loss of forest cover and plowing of soils. All of which release significant amounts of CO2 and methane."

Before the industrial revolution - that was the period of the Little Ice Age.  Good point Pangolin.
On Reflecting on (and fact-checking) the VP debate posted 1 year, 1 month ago 27 Responses

What historical patterns

"When historical wind patterns change"

There are no historical patterns.  Wind patterns are like AMO PDO and ENSO.  They change from time to time regarless of CO2.

"Of course since copulation seems to be her families abstinence program I'm not sure this is a challenge for her."

Sorry that you aren't getting any Pangolin.  But that's no reason to be jealous of those who do.  By the way, what is your position on Palestinians having 8 children per woman?

Speaking of copulation, I figured out how we can solve our financial crisis.  Since it was people like Barney Frank that caused this crisis by pushing subprime loans and by preventing the republicans from regulating Fanny and Freddy, I think that he should contribute to solving the problem.  I say that we let Barney reopen the male prostitution ring that he was running out of his house.  Not only do we let him open that again, but we let him have a national franchise of male prostitution rings.  He could call it Barney's Blow Jobs.  The only catch is that Barney would have to contribute all of the profits back to pay off the 700 billion bill that he has stuck taxpayers with.  Of course Barney wouldn't make any money, but I'm sure that he would be anxious to be of service.On Watch the video and read the transcript posted 1 year, 1 month ago 14 Responses

Hide and seek. Where is Biden's brain.

Can anyone explain why Biden believes that the US and France kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon.

From the debate:
Biden:
"When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon"

Did he just smoke one too many joints?  Is he having flash backs? Is he living in his own imaginary universe? It this a little like his explanation of graduating near the top of his class when he actually graduated near the bottom.  Or is this more like the plagiarism that he used to get through school?

Personally, it think the man has long ago lost touch with reality.On Watch the video and read the transcript posted 1 year, 1 month ago 14 Responses

Biden's team

"Biden is playing for our team."

You mean the one that wants to send 700 billion of our money to foreign countries to pay for energy.On Vice presidential candidates spar on energy and climate issues posted 1 year, 1 month ago 10 Responses

A better proposal.

I have a better way to solve our financial crisis.  Since it was Democrats and no one but Democrats that caused this financial crisis, I suggest that every registered Democrat be required to pay 10,000 to solve this crisis.

Is was Jimmy Carter that started the ball rolling on loans for people that couldn't afford them.  It was Bill Clinton that expanded the program.  When Republicans recognized the situation and suggested legislation and regulation to get it under control, it was Democrats like Dodd, Shummer and Frank that fought off those efforts.  And it has been Democrats that have all along been in the pockets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - defending them against scrutiny and reasonable regulation.  It is Democrats that sued loan companies that would not loosen their loan policies and give loans to those that could not support them.  It is Democats that defended the fraudulent heads of Fannie and Freddy while those CEOs were pocketing millions.  It is Barrack Obama that has brought the heads of those failed organizations into his campaign.  And Barrack Obama is the receipient of more campaign money from Fannie and Freddy than all but one other Democratic Senator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGnZMGDG4k4&feature=re ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVi_Jjxli1o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QBRIsCkGQ0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASvqtD6g8PUOn Could reducing homeowner costs through efficiency help meliorate the housing crisis? posted 1 year, 2 months ago 14 Responses

Daily Kos - an ocean of insanity.

"The Daily Kos also points"

The Daily Kos makes supermarket tabloids that talk about ships on the moon look like reliable sources.

Is that where you people get all the information for which you provide no links.  I should have known.On Pipeline to nowhere posted 1 year, 2 months ago 12 Responses

Yawn

"They place the interests of oil and gas corporations above the interests of our nation."

The only slogans that I hear are the ones about oil and gas companies.  It isn't the companies, it's the demand of the consumers.  The eco nuts are afraid to admit the truth, which is that the consumers drive the demand for oil and gas.  I have yet to have an oil or gas rep come up to me and hold a gun to my head and tell me to consume more of their product.  I do it with joy and gusto all by myself, as does most of the rest of the country.

"That the McCain campaign recomends starting a war with russia over."

More of amazingdrx lies.  The McCain campaign has never made such a recomendation.

"It's all about the profits for mega multinational oil and gas corporations."

This is why you will always fail.  You have created a phony devil just as surely as any Christian, Jew, or Muslim.  This is why your group is a cult.

"I think they would say vote for Obama."

ROFLMAO.  Yeah, they would want us to turn the country over to a communist.On Pipeline to nowhere posted 1 year, 2 months ago 12 Responses

Buses and trains

"riding on buses and trains."

Srew buses and trains.  I don't want to ride them.  If you want to ride them be my guest.  But don't force your ideas on me.

I promise to always keep my carbon footprint as small as Al Gore - so I must be green.On Expanded transit can lead to energy independence posted 1 year, 2 months ago 32 Responses

Obama's bluff

"Obama will stop spemding money in Iraq."

He can't.  If he withdraws so quickly that Iraq fails he will be held responsible for loosing an all but won war.  All that he can do is withdraw slowly.  That is basically the same thing that McCain and Palin will do.  Also, remember, Obama promises to increase forces in Afghanistan now.

"And won't invade Iran."

Neither will McCain/Palin.  The only issue with Iran is their drive for nuclear reactors.  If McCain takes any action against them at all, it will be to bomb their reactor sites.  No boots will hit the ground in Iraq.  Such an operation would be relatively cheap.

"He will usher in a renewable energy/conservation boom in manufacturing and  jobs, and expand tax revenues through growth "

Nah, he'll build a few windmills and it will supply a tiny fraction of US power and he will claim success.  He knows that any drastic changes will collapse the economy and he knows that if he starts going after peoples cars that he will be out on his ass after 4 years.  Tax revenue increase through growth can only happen if you have growth.  Obama has no plan for growth.  Tax increases don't produce growth.  Replacing energy capability that we already have with a different energy capability is not growth, it's just additional cost.On She knows 'more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America' posted 1 year, 2 months ago 32 Responses

Biodiesel

Concerning biodiesel, the past year has shown that we cannot use farm land for generating fuel, because it will drive food prices up.  So your only option is farm waste.  But I have yet to see anyone here do anything but assert that that can be done economically.  I frankly don't believe it.  In addition, if the farmers are no longer ploughing their organic waste products back into their soil, I have to think that they are going to have to use more chemical fertilizers.  I'm not that crazy about that idea.  The eco cultists seem to think that there is a free lunch to be had somewhere.  But all I see is that they propose solutions who's price is not yet understood.  I'm going to go out on the limb a little here, but I predict that the wind generators that we currently have will be found to cause unacceptable health consequences from their low frequency noise.  Maybe we can redesign them.  But that technology is not yet a slam dunk.On Pipeline to nowhere posted 1 year, 2 months ago 12 Responses

Approval Ratings

"Here in NY, Hillary Clinton's approval rating from the state was once in the mid 70's."

I guess, "was once", is the operative word.  Palin's "is" at 80%.  Clinton is a master politician and you have to expect that she will be able to fool the public, at least for a while.  But eventually they figure it out.  Also, governors run the state, so their effect is more clearly known to people.  A Senator is just 1 of 100.  And while people might be interested in what comes out of the Senate, most people cannot give you the voting record of their Senator.  In NY they probably feel that Clinton has been voting mostly liberal, and that is what they want.On She knows 'more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America' posted 1 year, 2 months ago 32 Responses

Palin has em on the run.

"Please find one incidence where Palin has shown even a slight interest in understanding Russia."

How would you know if she has an interest in understanding Russia?  Where do you get the idiotic idea that there has to be an "incident" in order for her to have such an interest.

"Has she written a book or even article, made a speech, done anything to demonstrate even a tiny bit of engagement?"

Has Obama written a book or an article or anything that shows that he knows squat about foreign affairs?  If publication is an indication of interest, then Obama is interested in no one but himself.

"She's admitted that she hasn't paid much attention to US/international issues. Been too busy with Alaska."

At least she concentrates on her job.  Must be why she has an 85% approval rating.  Obama and Biden work in a body that is completely incompetent and has an approval rating in the teens.  In fact, the US economic turndown corresponds to the Democrats taking over Cngress.  And those idiots think that they have an answer to the economy.  Talk about more of the same.  "Let's raise taxes, that will fix the economy".  The stupidity is incredible.

"This person is so, so very unqualified to be President of the United States that it is just plain pitiful."

If she is unqualified, then Obama, who has never even run a lemonade stand, who knows squat about foreign policy, who thinks that voting present is a way to run government, and who can't find his butt with both hands, is even more unqualified.On She knows 'more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America' posted 1 year, 2 months ago 32 Responses

More information

Obviously we know practically nothing about this issue other than that it gives the DailyKos types a hard-on.  So let's at least look at the tiny bit of information that we have.  And that is some quotes from Wasilla police chief Charlie Fannon that were printed in The Frontiersman.

"In the past we've charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. I just dont want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer, Fannon said."

"Ultimately it is the criminal who should bear the burden of the added costs, Fannon said."

"The forensic exam is just one part of the equation. Id like to see the courts make these people pay restitution for these things, Fannon said."

"Fannon said he intends to include the cost of exams required to collect evidence in a restitution request as a part of a criminal's sentencing."

From the information available we don't know what the state policy was before the new law.  We don't know what the Wasilla policy was before Palin.  In fact, we don't even know if Palin gave direction of any kind to the police department on this issue.  And lastly, we don't know if any rape victim actually ever paid for such a kit with their own money.

But we do know that amazingdrx is in need of a brain cell transfusion.  Hopefully at the expense of the state.On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

Prove to me that the earth is round says Wilkes

"You haven't proved that abortion is murder yet, though."

What is there to prove.  You take a living human being and kill them - it's murder.  Where is the mystery?  What is it that needs to be proven.  You want to claim it's self defense?On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

Good grief

"Is everything Palin says a lie?"

I doubt that she can touch Biden who told 5 lies about his education in about 30 seconds.  And at least she didn't plagerize her way through school like Biden did.

Of course Obama is the biggest liar of all.  "This preacher is my mentor, but I had no idea that he was an American hating racist".  Right Obama.On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

Cruelty

wiscidea:
"I suggested nature is neutral"

Does that mean that a caribou doesn't feel any pain as a wolf is ripping it's guts out.

I thought your objective was to reduce pain and suffering.  Are you sure that your objective is not simply to heap guilt on mankind.

"A woman who becomes pregnant but does not have the resources to raise another child can terminate the pregancy and minimize suffering."

How is murdering a human being minimizing suffering?

"Why are the wolves less important than the caribou?"

You can feed the wolves kibble instead of caribou if you want to minimize cruelty.  If a caribou being torn up by a wolf is not cruely, then why should I care about your silly definition of cruelty.  It becomes nothing more than an artificial, baseless, human guilt concept.

"Kill the wolves to "protect" caribou and the caribou starve to death... "

So you are approving an endless cycle of pain and cruelty in order to maintain a balanced population.  But then why can't people be in the loop of balancing that population.

"What on Earth takes us from permitting a woman to have an abortion to contemplating means of separating predators from their natural prey?!"

The artificial and nosensical concept of cruelty that you want to impose on human hunting.On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

Getting silly

"Got to be worried about a strike party from a Siberian village carrying out a raid on some Inuit's blubber supply.
Give me a break...."

I can understand how you might need a break from your own idiotic strawmen.On She knows 'more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America' posted 1 year, 2 months ago 32 Responses

Climate Sensitivity

leela:

Let's be clear on the debate.  Everyone agrees that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is still rising.  Everyone agrees that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.  The place where we disagree is on the feedback effect of the CO2.  CO2 by itself, in a test tube environment, has been shown to have a warming effect of about 1C per CO2 doubling.  The warmers claim that the positive feedback from the CO2 causes a total effect, called climate sensitivity, of about 3C per CO2 doubling.  This is where the fight is.  The skeptics believe that this number is much too high.  They believe that there is little if any positive feedback - meaning that the total effect of CO2 doubling is still about 1C.  And there are a few who even believe that there is a negative feedback causing the total effect to be about .6C per CO2 doubling.

Hope that helps.
On In 2008, did temperatures drop as much as they rose over the whole 20th century? posted 1 year, 2 months ago 71 Responses

Left wing feeding frenzies

All in all these are the usual idiotic arguments that you expect from the left.

First of all, at their closest points, Alaska and Russia are 2.8 miles apart.  Now, while such a fact may not bestow any automatic information on one, it could certainly be a reason for Palin to have a strong interest in Russia and their policies.On She knows 'more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America' posted 1 year, 2 months ago 32 Responses

Hey Coby

You appear to be the only person here with enough background knowledge to actually talk about the substantive points.  So tell me:

1. Why has there been no warming for the last 11 years when there were no elements of natural variation to cancel out the supposed effect of CO2.

2. Why do the proxy records not reflect the same warming as the instrument records?

Security

"The reporter asks directly about her national security credentials."

Same as Bill Clinton's when he became president.On She knows 'more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America' posted 1 year, 2 months ago 32 Responses

Science by vote

Everybody:

Your argument is that the majority of climate scientists must be right.  I have heard this, oh, maybe a million times.  Another million is going to have the same effect.  If that's all you've got, why waste everone's time.  If you have any specific responses to the evidence that I have provided, let's talk.On In 2008, did temperatures drop as much as they rose over the whole 20th century? posted 1 year, 2 months ago 71 Responses

CO2 record

"If you want to study the CO2 concentration data, I refer you to this website. "

So you are going to show us what the CO2 level was 500 million years ago by providing us with a record that goes back 400,000 years.

Talk about freak opinions.On In 2008, did temperatures drop as much as they rose over the whole 20th century? posted 1 year, 2 months ago 71 Responses

Concept cars - there's been a million of them

"You can have your SUV, Amory Lovins has a great one, built with carbon fiber and a plugin hybrid drivetrain.  It cuts gas consumption 80 to 90%."

It's a small concept car built with carbon fiber composites that are currently very expensive.  They are used in things like million dollar forumla one cars.  But tell you what, you go buy one and tell me how it goes.  I intend to drive the cars that I have now for the next 10 to 15 years, regardless of Al Gore's drug induced ideas.On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

The inevitable

amazingdrx:
"This might be worthwhile someday though, when oil demand is maybe 1/10 nth what it is now.  And if oil reserves run out."

I can pretty much guarantee that shale oil is coming.  With demand for oil outstripping supply, the prices are going to continue to rise quickly.  As prices continue to rise the voters are going to get more and more pissed off about large unused sources.  And they are going to vote anyone out of office that doesn't develop those sources.  It's basically a stampede that the left wing politicians will be unable to resist.  My take is that if they are really hard over on ANWR, that they make a trade.  Keep ANWR but give up shale oil.  Considering the amount of shale oil available, they could even use that excuse to retain their bans on off shore drilling.  When you are in a position of loosing a queen, be grateful if you can turn it into the loss of only a bishop.
On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Big brother told me so it must be true

"So you have dropped the idea that "these organizations" defer to the IPCC, good."

When, exactly, did I do that.

"demanding that every individual institution redo all that work before endorsing it is silly."

No what is silly is to claim that the majority of the world's scientists support the AGW findings.  It's really just a domino situation where one knocks down two which knocks down four, etc.  Their support is nothing but an agreement that the science is probably right without reproducing the science, without contributing to the science, and in most cases without doing a skeptical review of the findings.  They say, "hey, it was peer reviewed, published in a prestigious journal, and accepted by the IPCC, so it must be true."

But if you look at Steve McIntyre's work you find that the peer review was next to worthless because it overlooked many errors and because it was done by friends or associates of the author.  You find that people like Caspar Ammann publish papers that refer to the authority of others of their own papers that have not been published.  You find that they reference "Supplementary Information" that they never provide and that their prestegious publishers never challenge them to provide.  You find that they refuse to archive their data and their methods so that others can attempt to reproduce them.  You find that they stonewall requests for data, methods, Supplementary Information, etc.  And their publishers do nothing.  This is not how science is done.  This is how scientific hoods operate.  There are mountains of this kind of abuse, and at least in a few cases, the IPCC is party to the deceptions.
On In 2008, did temperatures drop as much as they rose over the whole 20th century? posted 1 year, 2 months ago 71 Responses

Show me the beef

Coby:
1 the earth is warming
2 the primary cause is anthropogenic

Show me where these organizations did this based upon their own research instead of just a review of the IPCC results.On In 2008, did temperatures drop as much as they rose over the whole 20th century? posted 1 year, 2 months ago 71 Responses

The consensus delusion

"I asked this question somewhere else and received no answer: Are there any large professional science organizations who say that global climate change is NOT happening and that it is not at least in part human caused? "

Each of those large organizations that you are speaking about do not do their own research on AGW.  They simply defer to the results of the IPCC.  And the AGW conclusions within the IPCC basically come from a small and very incestuous group of modelers.  Did you read the link I gave you?  Here it is again.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,243151 ...On In 2008, did temperatures drop as much as they rose over the whole 20th century? posted 1 year, 2 months ago 71 Responses

The old authority argument

"You don't seem to realize that legitimate debate over whether or not the planet is warming ended long ago."

Somebody forget to tell the climate.  It doesn't seem to want to cooperate.

So, first let's deal with the goofy web sites argument.  Do this.  Go to the Hadley Center web site in the UK (hopefully you don't consider them creationists) and get their raw global temperature data set - HadCrut3 - for the last 11 years.  Take their data and plug it into an Excel spread sheet.  Ask Excel to plot the data for you, and then ask it to run a linear regression trend line through it.  It's not that much work, and you can make an easy 1000 bucks doing it, because I'm willing to bet you 1000 bucks that you get the same result as is posted in the web site that I gave you.

http://reallyrealclimate.blogspot.com/2008/06/11-year-tem ...

How about it, do we have a bet?

Now, let's look at an article on some of that consensus we are always hearing about.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,243151 ...On In 2008, did temperatures drop as much as they rose over the whole 20th century? posted 1 year, 2 months ago 71 Responses

More haggling.

"so what i'm asking you to do is not petty."

Of course it is.  Slap 20% on the $10 to $30 and it's still economical.  The added transportation cost is a fraction of the total cost, but go ahead and add 20% to the total.  The answer is the same.  Project a cost increase over the next few years as the thing is being built.  But also project an increase in oil prices.  With global oil production near it's limit and with demand continuing to ramp up steeply, chances are that future increases in the cost of oil will outrun future increases in cost of production.On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Tweek that price!

"this is wrong. you're using 2005 extraction costs and 2008 market price. go get the right numbers and come back when you're ready."

Oh, my, aren't we being petty.  Okay, add 4% per year inflation costs.  Hell, add 8% if it makes you happy.  You still end up with an extraction price that makes it extremely attactive.

"how true! and if you could buy your house at today's price and sell it back in 2005, you'd be rich!"

How is this relevant to the extraction costs?On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Oil Tech Method

hapa:
Good paper.  I'm happy to have someone bring something substantive to the table to talk about.  The paper contained a lot of information people should look into.  Unfortunately it also contained a few things that were simple handwaving and one or two things where I felt like he pulled it out of his backside.

Basically you are starting with one of those.

"A problem that is obvious from the data is that shale oil is always waiting for oil to reach a given price level at which point it will become economic. But as that price is reached and surpassed (even over time by a factor of ten) it remains uncompetitive because the cost of the extraction and processing has increased (Hall et al. 1986). The problem here as with many other alternatives to what we do today, is that as the price of oil (or fossil fuels more generally increases so does the price of everything made directly or indirectly with oil, which is essentially everything from steel to chemicals to water to labor."

This is pure nonsense.  The last time that an effort was made to use shale oil commercially, in the 1980s the cost of extraction was found to be about $35 per barrel.  At that time middle eastern oil got as low as $10 per barrel.  Now the cost of extraction is between $10 and $30 per barrel and the cost of oil has gotten as high as $140.  So the cost hasn't risen, it's actually gone down.  Adjusting for inflation, it has gone down even more.

There are two other differences between now and the 80s that are also important.

1. World oil production is near it's peak -   meaning that prices are likely to rise faster than production costs.
   
2. Shale oil technology is far more advanced than it was in the 80s.

"In the U.S., a large-scale commercial oil shale operation could have a significant impact on any nearby communities, the extent of which depends on the existing infrastructures and many other factors. As such, in a case where shale oil development overlaps an area with increasing tourism and recreation opportunities and an expanding urban population, on top of this existing network of energy development and changing land uses it is likely to put much more pressure on an already fragile ecosystem and public temperament (Committee on Resources 2005). An important issue is that most oil shales exist in areas very far from any infrastructure (housing, water, schools and so on) so that either very large daily transportation would be needed or whole new towns would need to be constructed."

That's a whole bunch of generalizations without getting into particulars.  So let's get into the particulars.  Here is a site that contains a map of where the shale oil is:

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/publicatio ...

I'm most failiar with Colorado, so I'll speak to that.

First comes the tourism industry.  In Colorado it revolves around the mountains and ski areas.  The Piceance Basin reserves do not have ski areas and they do not have tourism nearby.

The area has no major urban centers nearby.

The closest city is Rifle - population 9,000.  Rifle is right on interstate 70 - meaning that the transportation infastructure is close by.  The trip from Rifle to the basin is a short one, meaning that the access infastructure would be short.  People working on the projects could probaly live in Rifle and commute to work.  Their families would live in Rifle and their kids would go to school there.  The town would undoubtedly have an economic boom.

Now, concerning the quality of the land and what would happen to it, you should probably read this article.

"You won't think much of Rio Blanco County if you ever drive through it. In fact, unless you take a right turn off Interstate-70 West at Rifle, head north on Railroad Avenue and then west on Government road to Colorado state highway number thirteen, odds are you'll never even step foot in Rio Blanco County. But even if you keep heading west toward Grand Junction, through the town of Parachute and the shuttered oil shale refineries from the 1970s, you'll see the Book Cliffs geologic formation on your right. For miles and miles. It's a bleak landscape. Almost lunar. At first glance, it's the kind of land you'd never want to explore, much less settle down in."

http://www.dailyreckoning.com/rpt/OilShale.html

The Oil Tech technology uses very little water because it never turns the mined product into a slurry.  The biggest water use will be by the people working there.  As you can see, the Colorado River also runs through Rifle.  So water for the workes and the families should not be a problem.  Some water will have to be shipped to the sites - but that should be a very small amount.

Now, let's get on to the energy efficiency of the Oil Tech method.  Electricity would have to be used to heat the Kerogen the first time that the retort is filled.  But after the Kerogen has been extracted, it still contains enough energy to burn.  Oil Tech will use the spent shale and burn it to heat the retort that is then filled with more shale.  So after the first batch, electricity will not be needed for the heating process, because each load that has had it's Kerogen extracted will then be used to heat the next incomming load.  Further efficiencies are also possible.  The burned out mass of shale that was used will still be at an extremely high temperature.  It can be used to produce steam, and the steam can be used to drive a generator.  So the site can be electrically self sufficient, or it can even supply electricity to nearby towns.  At the completion of the process, the spent shale is inert and can be returned to the area from which it was mined.  There is a 30% expansion of volumn that results from the extraction process, so if you are mining a 50 foot depth of shale, you would return 80 feet of material.

Hope that covers most of your issues.On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Richard decides censorship is the best policy

Richard:
"You do realize, the longer you continue with this debate, the less credibility you have."

I'm thinking that the longer it continues that the more people are finding out just how clueless you are.

"You justify Ms. Palin's credibility by her high approval rate in a state with a low population, far off the beaten track. "

It justifies far more than your idiotic psychoanalysis based upon one joke.  I guess in your mind a politician must have a low approval rating to be trustworthy.

"I will make a prediction. Sarah Palin will come crashing down (in a very big way) before the election."

Apparently the Democratic National Comittee has sent 30 lawyers to blanket Alaska in an attempt to dig up dirt on Palin.  Along with the left wing media people who are already there digging they are going to be standing in line for access to the public records.  Of course they are going to poke a microphone in anyone and everyone's face, so I'm sure that they will be able to find someone who doesn't like Palin.  The Democrats know that they can't win this election over the issues, so dirt is their only chance.  Obama won his first and his third election by finding a way to get his opponents off the ticket.  Twice he used that trick on fellow Democrats.  He has ever actually won only one election in his life.

"We are talking about using wood from existing forests and planting non cropland acreage to fast growing trees... all using technology we've been using for 30 or more years."

So instead of blabbing on about biomass, why don't you provide some links, as I've done for you with shale oil.  Making unsupported assertions seems to be the norm on this site.  Are the eco cultists just too lazy?  Are they used to preaching to the choir?  Or are they simply lying and exaggerating?  Probably all of the above.

"But perhaps you believe centralized control by monopolies is a good thing."

This is another area where you show your stupidity.  If you are going to accuse someone of something at least know of some reasonable justification for such an accusation.  Why in the hell would I believe in centralized control or monopolies - espcially since I have come out again and again for minimal government.

"Sure, there are still issues to be worked out to make these technologies 100% reliable, but that's true of nuclear as well (if you take into account the three points I mentioned above)."

The points mentioned above?  Now you are going to use your intuition as support of an assertion about the unreliability of nuclear.  As though you had actually demonstrated something by mentioning your intuition.  With each post you turn yourself into a bigger nut case.

"Advanced countries throughout Europe and elsewhere are employing wind and solar at a furious pace."

Another stupid argument.  They are employing these at a furious pace for two reasons.  1. They signed the Kyoto protocol which said that they must lower their CO2 output.  2.  They are heavily subsidizing those projects with taxpayer money because private industry will not use them voluntarily.

"Finally, your statements about Oil-Tech remain hypothetical at best."

There is nothing hypothetical about the oil that Oil-Tech has already developed using their methods.  They only thing that is hypothetical around here is your biomass idea.

"Saluki... I think it's time for you to leave. "

I understand that you resent being made to look like a fool.  But hey, you didn't have to engage in the debate.
On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Let's do shale some time

Richard:
"I thought I would spend a few minutes to investigate the integrity of the statements you made about oil shale. "

Good for you.  That means we can talk about facts instead of engaging in psychobabble.

"You do realize that Wiki posts are often unreliable, at best... often serving simply to promote the position of a person or business."

You bet I do.  For example, their AGW stuff is pure crap.  The AGW editor is a guy who ran for the green party in England.  So there is no chance of getting a balanced presentation.  But a lot of people seem to put faith in Wiki.  It's good that you don't.

"Turns out, even Shell Oil is quite uncertain if their technology will work. They don't know what the actual production cost will be, nor how much water will ultimately be required or where that will come from. Most importantly, their own spokesperson said "it will be at least until the middle of the next decade before they decide if the process is commercially viable." "

I don't think that there is an issue about their technology working.  They have been working on a pilot plant for years, and they have already extracted oil successfully.  However, I have always been skeptical about their costs.  First they freeze an area around the area of interest where they want to extract the oil.  Then they heat the kerogen to turn it to oil.  The heating and cooling must go on for a long time before the oil can be extracted.  It would seem to me that would take a lot of energy.  But hey, they quoted the price.

"So it seems your statements about the viability of oil shale are greatly inflated, unless you have some specific evidence to prove otherwise."

Woohaa!  Are you telling me that the Shell proceedure is the only one that you looked at?  What about the Oil Tech proceedure that I gave you a quote and a link from.  That is the horse that I'm putting my money on.  Their proceedure looks to be inexpensive, fairly clean, and having very low water requirements.  It's also efficient and requires very little outside energy.

"Oil-Tech has perfected its extraction process by constructing a full-scale experimental retort. (See figure) The next step is to build a fully-operational commercial retort and prove out the ability to economically produce oil in scale. Each Oil-Tech retort will cost about $2 million to fabricate and will produce 1000 barrels of oil per day. The cost of producing a barrel of oil with the first retort will be approximately $25 per barrel, it will drop to $16 per barrel with the 2nd retort, and by the time the 7th retort is in operation the cost per barrel is expected to be below $10 per barrel."

http://www.eltonresearch.com/oiltechincutah.page?cart=119 ... ...

Oil Tech has now merged with an Australian company, but I believe they are still planning to go ahead with their process if they can line up enough shale oil acerage.  But most of the acerage is federal land, so there is that mess to deal with.

"but that time is still years away."

My guess is that the Oil Tech method could at least start delivering some oil in 3 years if the government got behind them.

"Given this, it would seem prudent to move ahead as quickly as possible with known, renewable alternatives that are cost effective. Do you not agree with this?"

I think we should be moving ahead with nuclear as well as with shale oil as well as with ANWR as well as with Alaskan gas as well as with more off shore drilling.  At this point I think that the renewables are too unreliable and too costly.  When they get to be reliable and cost competitive, then let's start using them.

Here is a clip of a wind farm for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m09vkAIJBXQ&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N4HQv-UyUo&feature=re ...

Not to mention the health issues that are starting to emerge about wind farms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mablINxg3zE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YvSDw5Gll0&feature=re ...
On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Those cuddly polar bears:

caniscandida:
"Of course there is no "evidence" yet, silly!, because the drilling has not yet taken place."

So what, exactly, do you expect to happen?  Do you think that the drillers are going to tie the polar bear down and run drill bits through them?  Do you think that the trucks are going to ruin the fine pasture land up there that the Polar Bear graze on?  Do you think that they are going to be scared out of their wits by having a few humans around?

You do remember that polar bears roam around downtown Churchill Manitoba without a care about the presence of human beings.  In fact it is the humans who get the hell out of the way when they show up.

Maybe you could be more specific about the nature of this disaster that you see happening if we drill ANWR.

"The oil industry's videos showing solitary caribou in the vicinity of pipelines are misleading.  Caribou have herding instincts which drilling operations do not favor, even if some individuals may be able to cope."

I guess more than a few individuals are able to cope.  The Central Arctic herd who's calving grounds overlap with the oil fields of the north slope have increased their population from 5,000 before the pipeline activities to around 30,000 today.  The largest herd that regularly crosses the pipeline, the Porcupine herd, has trippled in population.

"The Gwich'in spokeswoman and activist, Sarah James (an infinitely better pick for VP, IMHO, than her namesake), of Arctic Village, AK, on the southern border of ANWR, has not very long ago already told Grist, and Grist readers, that drilling in ANWR will be disastrous for her people."

So you are saying that employment would be disasterous for the Inuit.  How, exactly, would employment be disasterous for the Inuit?

"You know, I hope this is true, seeing that we defenders are probably going to lose."

It's 2,000 acres out of a total of 19.5 million acres.

"Still, consider the Exxon/Valdez, and remember that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong; and when it does, lots and lots of vulnerable creatures suffer and die, and there is nothing to be done about it."

Yeap, the occassional oil spill will happen.  But we are getting better and better at cleaning them up and returning the wildlife to the area.  And we are getting better and better at insuring that fewer and fewer of them happen.  Look, every time you get in your car you risk your life.  Many people are killed in car accidents.  But sometimes we decide that the rewards are bigger than the risks.  The rewards of drilling are much larger than the risks of spills.  

"And anyway, there is nothing "patriotic" or "America-loving" about Alaskan oil.  It goes to East Asia, where the market is."

Another delusion that you eco cultists live under. All Alaskan oil goes to West Coast refineries and is consumed in the US.

"And all the bully-bully-ness of John Mccain and Sarah Palin cannot change that, unless they want to morph into Joseph Stalin and Leonid[itska] Brezhnev[ska]"

No, it's Obama and Biden that are the budding communists, not McCain and Palin.

"This description of a predator/prey relationship is totally unbelievable.  It is unworkable.  It does not happen.  If prey species and predator species exist in the same ecosystem, the predation rate can simply not be as high as is here claimed.  The ecosystem would have collapsed long ago.
And so, the description is plainly a fiction."

I can't completely disagree with you on this.  The 99% number sounds exceptionally high.  But I doubt that they made up the count of the caribou herd going from 10,000 to 600.

Now, I don't doubt that caribou and wolves will balance in the long run.  But population crashes of both wolves and caribou are common.  As long as wolves are able to catch enough game, including Caribou, their populations will increase.  As their numbers increase the predation on the Caribou herds increases beyond the abilities of the herds to maintain their populations.  The herd populations crash, and eventually the wolf populations crash when there is little game for them to hunt.  After the wolf populations crash the Caribou herds rebuild and the cycle begins all over.  Many years ago I read a doctoral dissertation about jack rabbit populations in New Mexico.  They had a similar relationship with the coyotes and those jackrabbit populations varied by a factor of 10 to 1.  Now Palin could have decided to simply let those crash and recover cycles go uninterrupted, but the state decided that they didn't want to do this even before she became governor.

"Please tell me, somebody, that at some point in her life, Sarah Palin took in an orphaned caribou lamb, and nursed it with a baby bottle.  I would really love to hear such a story."

How about a compassion story about Obama.  Obama has a half brother, George Hussein Onayango Obama, who lives in a shanty town outside of Niarobi Kenya.  He lives on about one dollar a month.  Obama has visited his half brother, knows where he is and how he lives, but he has never sent him a single buck to help him.  Obama could have made a huge difference to his half brother on what would have amounted to pocket change for him - and yet he did nothing.  I expect that when Obama is able to send his brother other peoples tax money rather than his own, his compassion will greatly increase.

"But, but, but, polar bears ARE endangered; "

No, they are not.  Their population is healthy and robust.  Their being placed on the endangered list is a speculative placement about the expected results of AGW, not a placement that has anything to do with their actual numbers.  In any case, their population has nothing to do with drilling, and I see no reason why drilling would diminish their numbers.

"However, OK, I think we can all agree that discouraging trophy-hunting is a great and good thing, although it does not seem to be a high priority in Alaska state governance."

Like I said before, I don't hunt.  But I have no issues with an agency controlled hunting program that protects wildlife populations from overhunting.  And if populations get too small, I have no problem with cutting the hunting to zero.On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

ANWR

caniscandida:
"she strongly approves of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- bad news for caribou, other wildlife, and the local Alaskan Native Peoples;"

Simply untrue.  There is no evidence that drilling ANWR will have any adverse effects on the wildlife population.  This is a scare tactic akin to what was used to oppose the Alaska pipeline, and it also turend out to be 100% untrue.  You may picture the native peoples as happily living in igloos, but the truth is that they will be happy to have the good paying jobs that drilling in ANWR will provide for them.  Also, the footprint of the drilling area is about 2000 acres in an area of several million acres.  To keep that footprint small Palin has insured that the oil companies will use horizontal drilling tequniques to cover more area than their above ground access.

"she has consistently supported the aerial hunting of wolves and grizzly bears;"

Also untrue.  Her support of hunting wolves from airplanes is not a support for a hunting technique, but rather a support for a predator control technique.  The wolves have simply become too numerous and too efficient in certain areas for caribou herds to survive.  Palin has supported a program that existed before she was governor to control only certain wolf populations in certain specific areas that serve as birthing grounds for the caribou.  In one case a population of 10,000 caribou was reduced to 600 by wolf predation.  The wildlife service found that the available food and the pregnancy rate among the female caribou was high.  But they also found that 99% of the newborn caribou did not make it through their first two weeks due to wolf predation.  Palin's program was designed to remove about 600 wolves out of an Alaskan population of about 11,000, and only to allow the caribou to recover.  Killing wolves is not that easy, and doing it from helicopters and airplanes was the only way to make the objective possible.  Even with that program they didn't reach their target numbers.

http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/501699.html

"she has been conscientiously involved in the protest against the Environmental Protection Agency for listing the polar bear as an endangered species."

Which is exactly the right thing to do since polar bears are not endangered and Alaskan land usage can be severly limited by that kind of law, even though the land usage has no effect on the polar bear population.  A better approach is to limit the number of polar bear hunting liscenses to a sustainable number, or to even reduce them to zero if necessary.
On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

When can we end the psychobabble Richard?

Richard:
"What you've done in your last post, for at least the sixth time, is avoided answering my direct and fair questions."

Good grief Richard, are you going to rant on about that indefinitely.  Go back and look at this subject when I addressed it the first time.  In regards to government services I said:

"However, I didn't say that I proposed doing none of it."

I'm not going to draw up a list for you because there are thousands of government services and if I support only two thirds of them it's still a long list.  Frankly, Richard, I don't know what your point is, if you have one.

And after complaining that I don't understand your position I gave you a chance to express it and you still haven't done it.  So if you don't want me to try to read your mind, then speak your mind, otherwise you will probably be misinterpreted.

Now, you talk about my integrity, but how can one have a conversation with integrity when you are talking to people who express absurd views like this:

"You hate the earth, and love burning up the bioshpere.  In fact you derive actual pleasure from it."

And this:

"Anyone who denies that Palin is a wildlife-hater, and then tries to convince us of anything else, is grossly offensive, and is basically a major waste of our time."

And this:

"True energy independence would mean no oil used for anything but chemical feedstocks, train fuel and bunker fuel for shipping and perhaps a bit for the military.
Since nobody is proposing that it's fair to assume that they're lying. It's also pretty fair to assume that their supporters are lying also."
On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Levees

"Now, if even right now, when America is still relatively rich, and was so full of sympathy for the city's post-Katrina plight, it still can't be bothered to fix the problem, really spending just pennies,"

What rubish you eco cultists talk.  On the one hand you claim that it is impossible to get new oil on line in ten years, on the other you claim that we should be able to complete a huge levee system for New Orleans overnight.  Much work has already been done on the levee's, and the completion date is 2011.  Pretty reasonable for a project that size.

By the way, why didn't Bill Clinton fix the NO levees in his 8 years?

Of course all of this ignores the stupidity of building a city below sea level to start with.On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Those evil industries

amazingdrx:
"I think maybe we could strike a happy medium, where real competitive free market capitalism exists alongside reasonable regulation and a social safety net."

That would be nice, and that is the objective that Sarah Palin has stated many time.  Unfortunately, for the left and the eco cultists there is no such place as too far left and there is no amount of environmental regulation, short of shutting down all industry, that is enough.  And of course the left is not really interested in social saftey nets,  they are interested in government engineered equality.  Not equality of opportunity, but equality of results.  They want that safety net to be huge bureaucratic mother for them.

"So a huge mining corporation can save 5% on costs by dumping toxic tailings into the bay, instead of safely returning them to where they came from."

This brings us to the next problem.  In their drive to kill manufacturing and return mankind to the stone ages the eco cultists are willing to tell any lie and exaggerate any situation to get their fascist way.  No one is dumping any toxic tailings into any bay in Alaska.  This is an overt lie of the type that eco cultists are ever ready to scare the public with.  First, let's look at the other side of the story and also see how Alaskan's voted on this issue.

http://www.pebblepartnership.com/files/PLP_BM4-2.pdf

"Anchorage, AK - Voters issued a clear vote of confidence in the State of Alaska's water quality standards and regulatory protections for salmon and human health when they defeated Ballot Measure 4 last week, said Pebble Partnership CEO John Shively. "Ballot Measure 4 and its proponents challenged the state's environmental standards and overall regulatory
framework for hard rock mining, and suggested they were insufficient to protect Alaska's important water and fisheries resources," Shively said. "Alaskans disagreed, and reinforced their support for the state and federal permitting process and existing  standards for water quality and fish protection as the appropriate measures by which the Pebble Project and other mines in the state should be judged." Ballot Measure 4 was defeated by a 57 - 43 majority. If approved by Alaska voters, the initiative could have introduced new, undefined regulations for all hard rock mines in the state.
"Notwithstanding the outcome of this important vote, the Pebble Partnership remains committed to going beyond compliance with existing environmental regulations to ensure that the significant fisheries resources of Bristol Bay are protected," Shively said."

So there are already a large number of regulations in place to protect the environment and the Bristol Bay fish populations.  And the mining company that will be building upstream has every intention of following them all and protecting the environment.  That is where the balance is.  Not with the kind of cheap alarmist sensationalism that we get from you.

From the parent company for this project:

"The Red Dog Mine operates under the most stringent environmental requirements anywhere. In fact, Alaska is the only state where fisheries get constitutional protections in the state's constitution.  

The water quality downstream from Red Dog is now better than it was before mining. Annual studies of the drainages below Red Dog show healthy and robust fish populations.

Numerous studies and sampling efforts show that Kivalina's drinking water downstream from Red Dog meets stringent State of Alaska drinking water standards."

By now one can easily recognize that the lies being told here are the same kind of lies that the eco cultists were telling us when they told us that the Alaskan pipeline would endanger the caribou.  But instead the caribou that ranged in the area of the pipeline tripled in number.

And what are these mines doing for the state of Alaska?  Remember the people on this forum are claiming that Alaska is a welfare leech at the same time that they want to shut down vital Alaska industries.

"NANA currently operates the Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska with their partner Tek-Cominco. In 2007 mining revenues topped $58 million dollars. Sixty two percent of NANA's profits are distributed to other Native Corporations through the 7-I provision.

The mine currently employees 465 full time employees with an annual payroll of $48 million with almost 56% of those employees being NANA shareholders from a region that is beset with high unemployment and a lack of good job opportunities.

This is money that goes directly into the hands of Native shareholders and comes back in the form of money for schools and local community support. And not just in rural Alaska. The economic benefits are spread statewide.

The Red Dog Mine uses the services of over 350 Alaskan companies every year from catering and engineering to environmental research. Between 1989 and 2007, Red Dog has paid over $150 million in salaries to Anchorage residents and $60 million to those living in the Mat-Su Valley.

Over the last twenty years, NANA has built an entire suite of supply companies that have provided services not only to the mine but to other industries in Alaska. This vertical integration has provided additional benefits to Alaska's economy by creating economic opportunities and good paying jobs."
On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Leftist attack babble

amazingdrx:
"Maybe you have been dwelling on that supervolcanoe explosion about to melt the concrete in your underground "bush bunker""

Maybe you need a course in reading comprehension.  As I said before your comment, I never loose a minute of sleep over it.On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Poverty:

Tasermons Partner:
"Actually, the vast majority of the planet's population lives in poverty."

That's changing the subject, but okay let's go there.  First, however, you have made a whole shitload of assertions without evidence. Like the one above and:

"compared to what the world was before the industrial revolution, a larger number of people actually die of hunger, despite the advent of industrial agriculture."

and:
"Not to mention the estimated 5 million plus people who died last year alone from pollution-related causes."

Frankly, I don't buy any of them.

But, let's go look at some of the worst of that poverty.  Here is a satellite image of North Korea and South Korea.

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/218-koreas-da ...

Poverty, hunger, and a complete lack of freedom are the norm in North Korea.  South Korea has a booming economy, a huge middle class, and compared to North Korea, infinitely more freedom.

South Korea is the product of capitalism and free enterprise.  They have huge international corporations.  They consume large amounts of natural resources.  They burn large amounts of fossil fuels.

North Korea is the product of left wing ideaology where socialism has been taken to it's natural conclusion.  They don't consume much in the way of any kind of natural resources.  They have a tiny carbon footprint. They don't have any of the big oil companies or other international corporations that the left so loves to hate.  Their population is miserable, impoverished, and hungry.  But by your definition they must be in Nirvana because they have socialized medicine and they are not being exploited by the greedy capitalists.

That's one of the reasons that I'm certain all of you people are complete nut cases.On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Any sane people here?

For that thing that identifies itself as caniscandida:
"Idaho, Wyoming and Utah are solidly Red states"

No need to play guessing games. I'm in Colorado.

"Sarah Palin is of course a notorious wildlife-hater"

Got any evidence for that?

"Also, Idaho and Wyoming are probably the most wildlife-hating states in the Lower 48."

Yeah, that's probably why they decided to reintroduce the wolf into their states.
On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

Only the left wing politicians are in the way.

"All the oil and gas in Alaska will not make us energy independent."

Now that's a dumb assertion.  Who cares if it doesn't make us energy independent.  It can make us less energy dependent.  That combined with drilling in the Gulf, off the coast of Florida, off the coast of California, other places in the US interior, and using the 1.5 trillion barrels shale oil in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming can make us 100% energy independent.

Get educated - please.

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/publicatio ...

And I haven't even gotten into all of the new and extensive fields of natural gas that we are finding in the US.

We have more than enough US energy to stop sending 500 billion to foreign countries every year.  And if we begin a steady, unhurried, program of nuclear construction projects we will never have an energy problem - ever.

It appears that Palin has a much better grip on the energy picture than anyone on this forum.
On Palin's 'energy expertise' posted 1 year, 2 months ago 16 Responses

Adding it up.

amazingdrx:
"You cherish the unborn.
But feel the born are on their own."

If by "on their own" you mean that they are not the property of the government, then yes.  Remember, the government has no ability to do something for you without taking something from you.  And the more that you want them to do for you the less freedom and resources you will have to do for yourself.  Of course I realize that people like you think in terms of having the government take from someone else and give it to you.  And there are certainly politicians like Obama that want to feed you that delusion.  But that is not how it works.

"You hate the earth, and love burning up the bioshpere."

No, I love the earth and I love feeding the biosphere, which is exactly what CO2 does.  Try to figure out why greenhouses operate with an internal CO2 level of between 600 and 1000 ppm.  And try to figure out why the biomass of the earth is actually increasing.

"In fact you derive actual pleasure from it."

Nah, sex, good books, good music, hiking, skiing, sight seeing, entertaining my daughter, do it for me.  I'm also a big bike racing fan.  I'll be glued to an internet video of stage 8 of the Vuelta tomorrow morning. Let me guess, allowing yourself to have a pompus, superior, sanctimoneous attitude does it for you.On New sea-level rise research, part 1: 'Most likely' 0.8 to 2.0 meters by 2100 posted 1 year, 2 months ago 178 Responses

The dividing line

"Below is a graph representing the abortion debate."

Eh, no you don't have me quite right.  I do support the use of contraceptives.  And I think the amount of people who don't are so small that making them part of the debate is just a strawman issue.  But after a fetus has a nervous system and becomes viable, I don't support abortion even if the abortion was caused by rape.  If a girl is raped she needs to check and have her abortion early enough to avoid the nervous system period.  After viability I support abortion only in the case where the mothers life is at risk.

"In the middle we have people who are OK with laws that allow a woman to choose to end a pregnancy in the first three months of conception, which is the law as it stands today."

I'm afraid that is not the law as it stands today.  Most states allow abortion in the first and second trimester, and only some disallow it in the third trimester.  It was a huge fight just to be able to allow states to outlaw partial birth abortion.  Let me give you the definition of that proceedure.

"An abortion in which the person performing the abortion, deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus; and performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus. (18 U.S. Code 1531)"

Bill Clinton vetoed legislation that would have allowed states to outlaw such a proceedure.  The law allowing states to outlaw it finally passed in 2003.  But many of the left wing loonies are still fighting to make it legal.  And many of the states have not made it illegal.

Now, let's look at where I stand.  Here is a chart of abortions and when they are done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late-term_abortion

I support abortion for the first group, which is 8 weeks or less and which comprise almost 60% of the total.  I may support the second group which goes from 9 to 10 weeks, depending on a sound medical argument about where the level of development of the nervous system is.  Beyond that, it's probably a no for me.  I think that if you get to the point where there is brain wave activity, that's too far.On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

Reality is defined by the dictionary?

"Abortion is not a synonym of murder or infanticide"

Here is a definition:

"5. to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously."  

Fits abortion exactly.On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

Rules and exceptions

biodiversivist
"Exceptions always exist but are never used to prove a rule."

The rule is simple: murder is not a religious issue.
On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

Biofuel

"My interest is in seeing a dramatic increase in forest cover"

Ah, yes, no one can argue against trees - even evil conservatives like me.  Shade, wood, oxygen, beauty, building materials - what's not to like.  I'm for planting more of them anywhere and everywhere.

And since the increase of CO2 fertilization in the atmosphere the biomass of the earth, primarily trees, has increased.  Isn't that nice.

With ethanol it's an easy answer.  The eco cultists were wrong to support it.  First, the use of the farmland has increased the price of food all over the world.  There have even been some shortages.  Second, the dominance of ethanol as a fuel in Brazil has resulted in cutting down more and more of the rain forests.  It's a net loss since the rainforests are like a huge filter for cleaning the atmosphere.

The health problems to man and beast caused by wind power generation are just starting to come in.  Stay tuned.On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

Palin choice

mreinbold:
"We'll have one fantastic VP right after another. I am totally psyched! I have always been a little indifferent to McCain until now. He made a great decision."

I'm still somewhat indifferent to McCain.  I was more of a Romney supporter.  But, I must say, his speech at the convention was so poor that I may have had the wrong choice.  The Huckabee speech was decent.  Giuliani's speech was good.  And of course Palin hit it out of the park.  It'd be nice if Palin was the top of the ticket, but interestingly people are drawing comparisons between her and Mr. "Hope, Dreams, Change, Social Justice". While Obama was selling snake oil for a year without getting to specifics, Palin got to them immediately.

Nobody wants to bother to make comparisons with Biden.  I mean here is a guy whose only achievement is that he has mastered putting his foot in his mouth more quickly than any other politician.  The guy that graduated 76th out of a class of 85 and then started telling everyone that he had graduated in the top half of his class.  The guy that got kicked out of one of his courses for plagerism.  Why bother comparing to him.  He is a complete idiot.  And you have to question Obama's intelligence in choosing him.  Of course Obama has never run anything or been responsible for anything in his life.  So there is no reason to believe that he is capable of making a reasoned decision.  When you consider his choice for mentors and freinds, you have another very strong clue that Obama is clueless.
On Republicans revert to base-rallying strategy posted 1 year, 2 months ago 19 Responses

The religion excuse

amazingdrx:
"A compromise on abortion would be to fully fund women's choices either way."

Typical left wing looney.  Considers a compromise as doing things exactly his way.

"No abortion, no government social safety net.  Period."

How does society become responsible for the sexual choices made by it's individuals.  Under your scenario, where is there any motivation at all for people to be responsible for themselves.  Just the reverse will be true.  You will encourage pregnancy so that the mother can get a free ride from society.

There is no shortage of people willing to adopt children now.  That means that there is no excuse for murdering unborn babies, despite your effort to invent them.

"The abortion debate, which is entirely religious in origin"

This, of course, is the way that the left reframes the argument so as to avoid dealing with the glaring monstrosity of their position.  I have no religion.  I haven't been in a church since I was 15.  The fact that abortion is murder takes no religion at all to recognize.On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

The funeral gage.

Pangolin:
"That means that all the people that would show up for the funeral of a five year old show up."

Humanity determined by who shows up at the funeral!  Now we are really getting crazy.On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

Killing babies

amazingdrx:
"The Baby is part of the Mother until it is born."

Now there is a convenient way to rationalize murder.  As though it's location determines it's humanity.  The babies DNA is completely different from that of the mother.
On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

Sarah Palin

wiscidea
"John McCain, and Sarah Palin... as well as Sarah Palin herself ... want to see a Supreme Court that will uphold bans on abortion even in the event of threats to the life of the mother."

Do you have a link showing that McCain and Palin would rather have a mother die than have an abortion.  I mean a credible link of course.  Not the assertion of some left winger.

"Why do we have to pick hardship? Why is this morally superior than aborting a fertilized egg that has not yet developed a nervous system?"

I think we've been over this ground before.  I have no problem with abortion before any nervous system is developed  - for any reason.  Unfortunately that still leave tens of thousands of abortions of viable human beings that are not a threat to the life of their mother.  So if a rape victim allows their pregnacy to get to a certain point of develpment, then the right thing to do is have the baby.

"But, again, the Christian Fundamentalist supporters of the current Republican Party would like to see and end to birth control, an end to abortion just days after conception, and an end to abortion even in the event of rape, incest, or threats to the life of the mother."

Yes, there is that, and there is the other side of the coin of left wing extremists that demand abortion at any time after viability including seconds before birth even when there is no threat to the mother.  The Christian Fundamentalists will never get everything they want.  But apparently the left wing extremists have.  And this is the kind of extremism that is supported by Obama and Biden.

"If Christian Fundamentalists wish to stand in the way of some of the means people have for assuming responsibility for sexual behavior -- by simply using birth control or a morning after pill"

When it comes to birth control you are talking about a tiny minority, even among Christians, that are against it.  It's a waste of time pretending that such people are some kind of threat. On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

The predator

vakibs:
"Let's think, let's be creative, and let's save the biodiversity of our dear planet."

Unfortunately our ability to think often causes us to go to extremes.  We can think about compassion for animals, and we can also think about how proud of ourselves we can be for being compassionate for animals.  And we think about how we can look better, more moral and superior in the eyes of our peers by making a show of our compassion.  We are even able to think of ways that we can claim that we are acting out of compassion when we really are more interested in advancing a political agenda.  Don't you find it odd that we can have compassion for a wolf that is hunted and killed from the air and yet we have no compassion for a caribou that is run down by a pack of wolves, evicerated and eaten before it has even died.

"What wolverine is bemoaning is the appalling lack of this very human quality among several human beings, including Sarah Palin."

In regards to hunting in general, it is a trait that humans aquired over the millenia to better feed themselves.  And of course those humans that liked doing it were probably favored by natural selection.  Just because we have recently moved past the need doesn't mean that the trait is not still there.  I don't hunt myself, but I don't begrudge those that do within the context of a well run wildlife management program.

In regards to Palin and the hunting of wolves, her supposed cruelty and blood lust is simply a misrepresentation designed for political gain.  Palin inherited a wolf control program from her predecessor and she chose to continue it.  The idea that she or Alaskans hate wolves or don't care about the environment is absurd.  The wolf control program is specifically targeted to allow certain herds of caribou to recover after too much wolf predation.  One of the southern herds, for example, went from 10,000 individuals down to 600, even though the female pregnancy rate was high and food was available.  They found that wolf predation was causing the loss of 99% of the newborn caribou within the first two weeks of their life.  Palin's wolf control program is designed to remove wolves from very specific caribou breeding grounds in order to give the caribou a chance to recover.  The target was to remove about 600 of Alaska's approximately 11,000 wolves.

So when you talk about being intelligent enough to have compassion, you need to look at the bigger picture, not the simplistic and self serving idea that it is terrible to kill wolves.  Not the idea that "I'm going to look like such a great humanitarian if I show how disgusted I am by wolf killing."  That this idea is in operation here is made obvious by the fact that no one actually bothered to check into the circumstances of the story.

Here is the report of the circumstances.

http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/501699.htmlOn A look at Palin's preferred method of killing wolves posted 1 year, 2 months ago 30 Responses

Catch and Release

"Amazing how insensitive naked apes can be to the suffering of others, especially of anyone who's not a naked ape."

Actually, the sensitivity of the naked ape to the suffering of others is unique in the animal kingdom.  No other predator species shows the least concern for the suffering of their prey.  Cats often seem to enjoy playing with their prey before killing it.  Wolves, weasles, wolverines, and others often kill more than they can eat.  Only mankind has an artificial morality that he imposes upon the universe.
On A look at Palin's preferred method of killing wolves posted 1 year, 2 months ago 30 Responses

Your elaboration:

wiscidea:
"How many women have undergone this procedure -- killing a viable child minutes before birth -- in the United States simply because they did not want the child and not because birth of the child would harm the mother?"

Well, we only have the statistics for the women that  participate in voluntary reporting.  There are about 1000 partial birth abortions performed per year  in America alone.  This is more Americans being killed by partial birth abortions than by the Iraqi war.  There are more than 13,000 babies killed after 4.5 month each year, and these are definitely viable.  There are 164,000 killed after 3 month each year and the viability of these is debatable but some of them definitely are.

"But when two lives are threaten, that of the mother and the unborn child, I fail to understand why anti-abortion advocates believe the mother should die."

Now you are throwing out the straw man.  Probably less than 2% of abortions involve the life of the woman.  And no one believes that it is the mother that should die.  If abortion of viable babies was only done to save mothers lives we wouldn't be having this debate in this country.

"Isn't it important to keep her alive to care for her first three children rather than allow her to die, leaving four children without a mother?"

Again you are basing your argument on only the extreme cases rather than on the norm.  I repeat, no one is advocating that women should die in the birth process.

"And rape and incest?! Do you really think it is morally superior to force a 15-year-old who was raped, perhaps by her father, give birth to and raise the child?! How could this be justified when the fertilized egg could be aborted before there is even a nervous system, a process that naturally occurs roughly 50% of the time?"

Rape an incest are indeed an unfortunate circumstance.  But when it comes to a choice of hardship on the one hand and loss of life on the other we have to pick hardship.

"How could this be justified when the fertilized egg could be aborted before there is even a nervous system, a process that naturally occurs roughly 50% of the time?""

I don't have a problem with abortion before there is any nervous system.  But the reality is that we are still doing hundreds of thousands of abortions long after there is a nervous system.

"There should be minimum wage laws, so parents can earn enough to care for the children they have and are not tempted to resort to abortion. But conservatives are not interested in this."

This is a blatant attempt to remove all responsibility for sexual behavior from those who engage in it.  It is not up to anyone to pay someone a salary that is greater than what they are worth.  Rather it is up to the individual to make themselves worth the salary that they want to be paid.  I have worked for minimum wage at the same time that I was working to educate myself and increasing my worth in the job market.  It's not that hard.  And if some employer would have had to pay me more than I was worth at that time I might not have had a job at all.

In any case the whole issue is irrelevant.  If the child is too much of a burden for the mother, there are millions of competent and financially solvent people that are willing to adopt it.On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses

Palin hysteria

What a pack of self deluding loonies we have here.  One can only laugh at the blinders that you wear.

Let's take the accusations against Palin about teaching creationism.

"In a subsequent interview with the Daily News, Palin said discussion of alternative views on the origins of life should be allowed in Alaska classrooms. "I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum," she said."

"It's OK to let kids know that there are theories out there. They gain information just by being in a discussion."

"Palin said during her 2006 gubernatorial campaign that if she were elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add creation-based alternatives to the state's required curriculum, or look for creationism advocates when she appointed board members."

"Palin's children attend public schools and Palin has made no push to have creationism taught in them."

"Neither have Palin's socially conservative personal views on issues like abortion and gay marriage been translated into policies during her 20 months as Alaska's chief executive. It reflects a hands-off attitude toward mixing government and religion by most Alaskans."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gV5jvU52RD3WBflzbmSu5l ...

Obviously Palin takes the approach that she can have opinions without pushing them down everyone's gullet - unlike the eco fascists that occupy this forum.

There is a good reason that Palin enjoys an 80% approval rating in Alaska while our Democrat congress is languishing in the teens.On The eco-rundown on Alaska guv Sarah Palin, John McCain's veep pick posted 1 year, 2 months ago 120 Responses