Posts by EnderX

Of course, read it knowing that the writer has a bias that becomes increasingly clear toward the end.

<sarcynicism>And the various pro-"Human-caused"-warming crowd are completely bias-free, of course.</sarcynicism>

In general, on a hot-button topic, especially one which is presented in a binary format like this (either it's true or it's untrue), everyone who is interested in it has a bias. The question simply becomes which side's evidence stands the test. Of course, if you've already hardened your mind that one side is correct, you'll tend to see only the other side as biased.

Not totally worthless, if you are a "climate" scientist, you can expect a large government grant from the EPA with this type of rhetoric.

Not the EPA, in this case, but you would appear to be correct, Facts notwithstanding, apparently.

Nobody is saying that you should accomodate everyone. I'm saying just the opposite:

Why not help make some of these places better places to be? One poster said it himself; mexico is crap.

Don't think that the rest of the world doesn't care about immigration; people are leaving our soils for greener grass and in many cases never look back. I'm sure the respective countries will be glad to help you get them to the aforementioned point.

We have enough problems dealing with welfare in our own country. What you just described is putting entire other countries on some form of international welfare role.

Seriously, if the US is trying to make the place better, then the US will be doing the work, and the other countries are likely to (note: likely to, not guaranteed to) simply let the US do so, without attempting to aid our efforts. Why should they, if the US is doing it for them?

hind

If they 'never had those bombs', then exactly what was it Saddam was using on the Kurds?

Actually, GrimJack, as I recall it the 'stone throwing' was the penalty for breaking the other laws. Ergo, if all the laws were obeyed, the stone throwing wouldn't matter. I don't recall the 'sandal tossing' bit; I'll have to reread and see.

@JoshSCH:

You may be right. MidiMagic may be wrong. I neither know enough, nor (at this point in time) care enough to determine who is correct between the two of you on my own.

However, by presenting the arguments the two of you are in this forum, I find myself agreeing with MidiMagic. He tends to present arguments bolstered by at least some evidence. Once I find the time (and inclination; again, at the moment I really don't care about the topic itself) to look into it, I can attempt to verify, either for confirmation or denial, what MidiMagic has stated. You, on the other hand, seem to revolve around direct personal insults as your main mode of debate. This is not an attack on the credibility of the person, which would indeed be valid, it is an attack on the person. Calling someone an idiot does not decrease their credibility except among those who would be willing to accept any comment tossed out by any random individual.

And I'm sorry, Josh, but your style is the one that reminds me of a nine-year old child. The type of attacks (and they are attacks) you make against MidiMagic's person sound more like the tauntings of an elementary school child than any kind of reasoned response.

If you have hard facts to bolster your statements, Josh, please provide them for us to view ourselves. Otherwise, I'm afraid that I, at least, will view your own arguments (given …

Wonder how many folks hold up a gun store with the gun they just purchased?

Loaded or unloaded?

And you'd have to be an idiot to hold up a gun store anyway...the clerk is probably armed, the customers are probably armed, etc...

rime

dime

rodavlaS lE

Hrmm, I'm not certain if Josh's response was directed towards Scru's personal pothead status or the more general usage history of all posters. I took it to refer to my comment about not knowing history based on omission - which may not have been the case :)

Considering that scru ended his post with an elipsis, and Josh began his post with one, I would myself believe he was referring specifically to scru's comment, on the grounds that Josh's own comment was written in such a way to serve as a natural link to scru's comment.

Inference and assumption are not the same thing.

Admittedly, they are related. You are assuming that the logical statements being inferred from are true. However, the inference itself is the act of deriving the logical conclusion(s) of the statements. I believe Josh was using the correct term in his post. He is making the assumption that scru has been honestly giving his opinions in his posts, and coming to a conclusion based off of that.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled argument, most likely already in progress.

adanaC

cilbupeR nacinimoD

I don't agree, I think that the pure of heart would be easily corrupted because the 'pure of heart' knows what is best for everyone and would try his/her best to dictate that everyone also be 'good'; and would try to do what is best for everyone. This would be a slippery slope to an evil dictatorship.

Exactly how are you defining the term 'pure of heart' here? The way I see it, Ravenous Wolf is more likely to be correct, although I think I can follow where you're coming from.

dahC

Great words! Also need to mention that alcohol does the same thing at a much larger scale! However, we all know that prohibition did not work well.

True, which should act as an argument against legalizing other substances. The major reason that Prohibition failed stems from the fact that alcoholic drinks, in their various forms, had become acceptable through usage over history. Assuming you could drop Andrew Volstead back in ancient Greece or Mesopotamia, and he were successful, then I'd presume wine/beer usage would be less acceptable today, and thus less likely to occur.

Are you sure the 'news bulletin' was real, Lardmeister? Variants of that 'joke' (read: insult) have been making the rounds since the Reagan administration, if not before.
The intent is (as with most liberal arguments) to portray their opponents as being excessively stupid. But would the fact that they have to keep recycling other people's insults (even jesting ones) not indicate that liberals aren't so hot on creativity, at least?

8-ball:
SIGNS POINT TO YES

Accepted, but that's why I'd expect them to leave a disease in that name as well. Blame Germany (or Japan, I guess) for the bad stuff.

Liberty...measles? I'd think they would have wanted to leave that one to Germany...

Given that it's Lardmeister saying it, and his responses elsewhere in this forum, I'm assuming he was mixing them with 'Liberty Cabbage' (aka sauerkraut).

Please define 'ultra right tabloid', Lardmeister. An interesting definition I heard for a similar term (arch-conservative) was 'anything to the right of Pravda', and I'm curious as to whether or not that's the definition you are using here.

Amazing indeed! Also amazing that there are still plenty folks who think the earth is flat.

B...but it is flat! Just take a look at any map!

[Note: The preceding was intended to serve as a purely humorous comment. It has no relation, real or implied, to my own beliefs on the issue.]

> There's also potentially severe economic affects that may have come into play by signing the Kyoto Protocol...
> or so I've heard...
Or so you've been told by those with a vested interest.
But those with a different view might regard it as an opportunity to be capitalised on.

Would that not indicate that they, too, have a vested interest in the issue? You seem to be implying that we shouldn't believe those who say it would be economically bad...why then should we regard the other side's arguments?

And exactly which opportunity are you expecting them to capitalize on? The only one I can see in the Kyoto treaty and its like is the 'chance to expand power' opportunity.

I don't know about the others, but the 'robber takes less than leaves' one was mentioned in one of the America's Dumbest Criminals books, so I'm willing to buy the authenticity of that one.

I was looking @ the USA and then the UK :)

[paranoid]Stop spying on us![/paranoid]

Is it possible the misread word was autarchy? This is a variant on the term autocracy, which simply means rule by a single individual. As such, it would fit a dictatorship nicely.

Do you like the idea of every tinpot dictator being able to threaten every nation on earth? Or are you just serving as the devil's advocate here?

Scuse, EnderX. Al Franken is highly partisan (it's his job) so one should take what he says with a grain of salt. However, he uses actual facts in his reasoning and is not in the habit of making ad hominem attacks. (That he called a book Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations is making fun of the extolled Mr. Limbaugh's tactic of making ad hominem attacks, including the famous incident in which he called Chelsea Clinton the "White House Dog").

I shall now give you that info on the people I mentioned earlier having called liberals in general "sissies" or some similar construction:
Anne Coulter: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07092/774483-53.stm nuff said
Bill O'Reilly: rant against Kerry, 11/29/04, http://mediamatters.org/items/200412010004;

Back as soon as I can find more info. Chew on those for a while!

Can't vouch for the ad homenim part, although I've noticed that many individuals seem to use such attacks and never get called on it, many of them on the political left. However, in regard to the section I bolded in your quote, I simply have one question. Did you actually even bother to visit the site Dave Sinkula linked to?

I will look over the Bill O'Reilly comment as I can find the time to do so.

Question, Lardmeister. Are you intentionally spelling Karl Rove's name incorrectly here?

The good news for 2012 is that the Koyoto Protocol will come to an end.

Agreed...very good news. Which means, of course, that the Kyotophiles will be looking for a way to either increase the duration, or else get a new, probably even more-restrictive 'agreement' in place.

The USA did not sign the protocol because it would have levied a carbondioxide tax on countries regardless of the fact that some countries like the USA are net corbondioxide consumers. The USA is a net carbondioxide consumer because of its large forests and agriculture.

How are you defining 'signed' in this case? It is my understanding that President Clinton did in fact sign something related to the treaty (not sure if it was the treaty itself or not, although I think it was), but never sent it in to Congress for ratification. If I am incorrect in this understanding, please point me to a source of correct information.

Please also note that I will be skeptical of the 'correct information' content of any clearly cyannic sites.

I predict that come the date in question, this long-dead thread will be bumped with some pithy "still here" one-liner tag.

I volunteer to be the one who does it, assuming I am still around.

You held Al Franken up as an example of a non-'nutjob'. Dave simply provided proof that your non-nutjob example is a non-viable source for information. And I'd like to request that you provide evidence, including if possible the dates of the alleged incidents, for all of your 'fox\' listings. I think I can guess what you'll pull up for Ann Coulter, so you may dispense with that one if you so choose.

It seems to me that the question or whether or not global warming is or was caused by people.

Not unless mankind was also responsible for previous incidences of global (that is, apparently world-wide) warm spells, and for the cold spells that seem to come between them.

The important questions are these:

Is global warming good or bad? So far, I've heard precious little evidence for either answer.

I'm not an expert on it, but from what I have read on the issue, historically global warming has been a good thing; warmer weather meant more time for crops to grow and ripen, increasing the viable agricultural territory. (An area that might otherwise be incapable of getting a full crop out before frosts hit, for a hypothetical example.)

And that's assuming we're really undergoing a true warming period, as opposed to simply having measurements taken across the warmer parts of the world. Cities, for example, are notorious as 'heat islands' with a warmer average temperature than the nearby countryside.

If it's good, what can we do to increase it? If it's bad, what can we do to reduce it?

Not that much either way, really. Mankind's impact on the temperature of the world is neglible.

What is the cost? Is the cost worth the benifit?

Of global warming? Unknown.
Of trying to fight global warming the way most enviros* seem to want? A fair-sized chunk of the United States' economy. The real impact of the Kyoto …

First thing:
If this is in the wrong forum, I apologize, and ask that it be redirected to the correct place. This simply seems to be the best match so far as I can tell.

Does anyone know what kind of formatting is used by Excel? I have been requested to create copies of one of our web reports in comma-separated value (csv) format for my boss to use while out in the field; he would get them on his Blackberry and view them there. However, it turns out that whatever software he's running will not allow him to use a plain .csv file, but apparently will allow him to read .xls files. Thus, in order to do what I've been requested to do, I think I'm going to need a way to make my own output (plain-text csv files) at least mimic the formatting on Excel, and would like to know some suggestions as to how this might be possible.

Or, alternately, if anyone knows of a way to get the Blackberry's program (sorry, I don't know yet what it is; I'll be trying my best to find out) to read a normal .csv file, I would appreciate hearing that as well.

Thank you for your time,
-EnderX

I stand in favor of the use of nuclear power. As stated, the other 'clean' energy sources aren't capable of holding the load. (I believe I saw something once stating that Solar, Wind, and Hydro together would be able to account for only a few percent of our current energy draw. And let us not forget that Hydro generally requires building dams across rivers[the poor fishies!], while Wind seems to be a bird-killer.)

Fossil fuels do have an admittedly negative impact at times, but within America, unless nuclear is permitted, they're really the only fuel source we have that can fill the current energy requirements. American energy policy regarding nuclear energy seems to have been shaped more by the movie 'The China Syndrome' than by anything available in the facts themselves.

And one last argument: One of the reasons I kept seeing in textbooks for the 'nuclear == BAD!' equation was that the waste would still be radioactive for long ages to come. Good! Despite all the alarmism, this means it's not going to cause the kind of problems everyone associates with radiation! Which one has the higher output-per-minute of radiation, the 1kg sample of a substance with a halflife measured in days, or the 1kg sample of a substance with a halflife measured in years? And from what I understand, the halflife values for most of the stuff that could be carried elsewhere is measured in millenia. I admit I'm no expert, but from what I've seen, …

no offense, but this just sounds like some people who are very paranoid made this up...

It can't be made up! The I Ching verifies it! They said so right on the Television!

[Note: I do not acknowledge the I Ching or any other divinatory tool as a valid source of information. And these days, I also have serious doubts about televised broadcasts as a valid source of information as well...]

I would agree with the general consensus here so far, based on what I've seen elsewhere. I would also like to note something I saw written down that seemed interesting to me.

Several years ago, (sometime in the early 90's if I recall correctly) the 'average' global temperature is supposed to have undergone a massive spike. This seems to have coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Anybody know how many temperature-reading systems were in Soviet-held territory?

So, an oligarchy is not a dictatorship. Then Sadam and his sons where not part of a dictatorship, just a respectable oligarchy.

In Saudi Arabia it's the royal family. Very nice rulers, with a massive secret police.

I never said an oligarchy is necessarily respectable, or even reputable. I simply indicated that a ruling group, rather than an individual, is an oligarchy rather than a true dictatorship. Ranking members of an oligarchy can certainly act in a dictatorial manner, even among the others of the group. If an individual has such power, then perhaps the oligarchy has become a dictatorship.

To put it to you in a manner you yourself referenced: Exactly what do you think the likely results for Saddam's sons would have been had they chosen to oppose him on something?

The "non-public arena" must be the Country Club.

From personal experience, it's any place where there's not a group of witnesses. The majority of the people I know seem to behave better when there's someone else watching them besides whoever they're debating/arguing with.

Yes. They can hold open conversational debates in a non-public arena without having to either scream invective or launch assaults. Although it is theoretically possible that liberals can do this as well, I admit that I have seen little evidence of this so far.

Both sides have a tendancy to behave during debates in public forums, so that's not as commonly seen. (Note that I am only referring to those actually attempting to discuss the issue, not to external hecklers...although most of the hecklers I've heard of were also liberal...)

Since you are still alive, you either don't have guts, balls or a wife.

Not necessarily true. It is possible, after all, that Ancient Dragon has all three but also the wisdom to know when not to allow the first two to have their moment.

In China it's a group of people.

Then it's not a dictatorship, it's an oligarchy.

I think he's going for the "it's my reality, so whatever I say is true is" line, although I could be mistaken.

If (as I assume) by 'Arnie' you mean Arnold Schwarzenegger, he's not eligible to run for President. Sorry, I agree that (from what little I've seen) he might be a good choice. Still not sure who I'm going to vote for, except definitely not for Hillary. One Clinton presidency was enough for the country to deal with.

Yes but i mean what is to define where one ends and another begins.

The large sign visible for five lightyears in each direction reading "You are now leaving universe NNN, next rest stop 530 gigaparsecs"?

[Yes, I know a physical distance wouldn't be used to measure space between universes in a multiverse.]

Technically, Lasher, I think you're defining an infinite multiverse, but you have a point.

Probably in response to a post many pages back, under the assumption that replying to that post would have placed the message under that post.