I'm glad that Palin has you middlebrows all bamboozled.

You create loaded questions, and then whine when she doesn't "answer" them.

Those aren't real questions, it's just the interviewer fishing for a specific answer.

No Paleocon.  While it is a shame that both Joe Biden and McCain make verbal flubs (remember McCain's mistake about Sunis and Shiites?) but we know both men are actually smart in spite of there carelessness.

Palin doesn't pass the basics test.  Your analogy doesn't work.  You sound desperate.

I like how she says "I'm not gonna solely blame all man's activities on changes in climate"... um, huh?

And she couldn't name ONE publication she reads. What's that about?  Don't you know what you read? Do you read? Use the internet? Watch tee wee? We know you can read, Sarah, we've seen you using the teleprompter...

It's clear she isn't informed, certainly not enough for the job she wants,  but what's most disturbing is that Palin possesses zero native intelligence--she can't think on her feet, can't even FAKE a reasonable sounding answer to reasonably easy questions. She has no mental agility whatsoever. I can't believe this is happening.

I don't think you seem to understand that if you don't believe it's manmade, then there's NOTHING we can do about it
and if she believes that man has contributed a teensy little bit, then there seems to be a lack of understanding that it's actually REALLY important to identify the exact causes so you can find the exact solutions.
this is a seriously important question if we're going to do something to minimize the most catastrophic effects of global warming.

i deal with man-made global warming deniers on the daily--many of whom run this country's local governments.  it's a scary thing.  even scarier if one of them were to become Pres.

I know you're not supposed to feed trolls, so I'm proposing killing them off.

I read gristmill because I find nuggets of interest here more regularly than other places.

But jabailo and paleocon have so sullied this environment with such absolutely trivial bullshit that I feel I must ask the powers that be to block their IP addresses from this forum.

I'm all for freedom of speech and un-PC views, but I cannot tolerate wading through their mindless nonsense any longer.

Please, David, can we get rid of them? I'm already down to reading Grist only twice a week instead of daily, largely because of the mounds of crap one has to wade through in the comments section.

I guess jabailo, at least, is being paid for his verbose knee-jerks (no-one else is so constantly ready with an intellectually bankrupt, stale comeback as him). I know his purpose is to pollute this forum. Let's stop the slick before it suffocates this ocean of ideas.

Cheers

Whiskerfish

Let him post his garbage elsewhere. And yeah it is trolling. When you post provocative statements contradicted by well known facts with ZERO EVIDENCE that is trolling.

Another really basic request for the forums -- a feature I get on the most basic of them -- is an email alert to the current conversation getting updated.

This alone would be very helpful as we all lead busy lives, except Jabailo, and could use a reminder to look back at the issue.  I miss a lot of good points because time and attention march on.

On the new site, yes, you'll be able to render individual commenters invisible (to you). No more annoyance! If a jabailo leaves a comment in the forest and no one reads it, does it make a sound?

And Christopher, on the new site you'll be able to subscribe to discussion threads via RSS, so you can be notified when new comments are left.

I believe the current plan is to roll the new site out in Feb., but as I'm sure y'all know, these things are never set in stone.

grist.org

"Ms. Palin, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

I try my best to tune his nonsense out.

Victory in Pattani

Thanks for the info David.  Im sure you get a lot of feedback about these things so I appreciate the time.

 Fortunately I will know how to manually subscribe to individual threads and have them appear in a news reader application when that becomes available, but that still feels like extra steps.

If there were just a selection button (yes or no) in the text box when one responds that says "Want email updates for this thread?" it would be so elegant.

Maybe I'm behind the times, but arent RSS feeds better for semi-permanent things like the Grist Blog or Grist News.  Doesnt it take more than a few clicks to subscribe and paste the info into a news reader?  And then again to unsubscribe?

Thanks for listening

Right now, as most people use them, yeah, RSS is a more involved process. I suspect that's going to change very, very quickly -- that email and RSS are effectively going to merge.

I'll see about adding an email option, but generating and sending emails is way more resource-intensive for us than RSS. (Perhaps that will change as well.)

One way or the other, it will be an improvement!

grist.org

The problem with relying on making people invisible is:

As an example, suppose "The Bike Guy" (JBs other login) says "only a lunatic fringe thinks humans have anything to do with global warming. The consensus is its sunspots".

You either answer it, thus feeding the troll, or leave it unanswered. If somebody hears this a lot and does not hear refutations, it can start making it sound plausible. Even if people don't believe it, it contributes strongly to the feeling that it is part of the acceptable range of opinion. Why not give posters the option of deleting posts by trolls? If they abuse them, you could take those rights again. Teresa Nielsen Hayden (known as one of the great blog moderators) has long pointed out that "don't feed the trolls" is actually NOT an effective strategy. Daniel Davies has made the same point. Daniel leans more towards the engaging than the disemvowling or banning. But I think that one reason Dsquared goes for the more labor intensive path is his enjoyment of troll-baiting. At any rate, I really wish you'd rethink "don't feed the trolls" as your primary anti-troll strategy.

How does Hayden handle them?

grist.org

theoildrum.com stated that they had never taken off any comments, even thought they've had thousands.  I don't know if that's still true.  On the other hand, they have subthreads, so maybe it's easier to ignore people if they're off on a subthread

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure (i.e. I read it posted by Prof Goose, or one of the other dons of the site) that they have, at least once, purged the accounts of some notorious trolls.  And gods know, they needed to do it.  Things were getting badly out of hand there.

is someone who tells the truth to those who don't want to hear it.

Mreinbold,

All trolls everywhere are truth tellers?  Really?  Is that really what you want to say?  What a significant contribution to critical thinking.

On this subject:  the saddest thing about the trolling is that it is out of sync by about 4 or more years.  The community here at Grist is in "creative solutions" mode, but the trolls think we are still trying to prove something.

Its like gravity.  The Grist crowd is talking about parachute making and the trolls are still in their cave saying gravity can't be 100% accurately described so it doesn't exist.   So its not even in the same universe.  Its not just trolling -- its bad out of sync trolling.

Really effective and in-sync trolling would be much more fun and relevant.  Something like "man, corn ethanol rocks, screw tortilla prices!"

I love it!

I was looking for a place to engage in an intellectual debate about climate change.

This is clearly not the place.

It is a club where folks gather who share an economic interest. The link between authors and the Democrat party is stunning. Google for political contributions + author's name.  

Chalk another win for "consensus" and "diversity". Silence anyone with a difference of opinion.

A review of my posts will find plenty examples of legitimate questions and points. Mt silly posts certainly pale in comparison to the calls for exterminating humans from some.

I will find a place where other scientists meet.

"...a 90 percent chance that the US has contributed .2 degrees F of temperature increase in the last 50 years..." The IPCC Consensus in perspective