Y2HH

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 1, 2009 -> 10:56 AM) PHILOSOPHY DERAIL I think it goes deeper than that. It goes to an epistemological level. A study says "this is so" or an expert says "this is so", therefore it is so. But, as you know, that's not how scientific knowledge operates. Relativity isn't correct because Einstein said so but because his data and methods said so. The weight of his statements comes from the evidence, not from his name. However, I don't think that's how a lot of people operate--reliance on some authority to dictate what is true makes it true, so they don't even see the problem of saying "Study X says Y is so" without at least providing the study. The study said it, they agree with the conclusions (a priori, of course), therefore its fact. This view is just my own poorly thought out philosophy. /PHILOSOPHY DERAIL That's not poorly thought out at all, IMO.

IE8, Safari4 and Google Crome are all exceptional browsers -- they all do their job, and they do it well. Firefox 3.5 is a good upgraded from 3.0.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (I put that many x's because of the insane amount of patches.) The thing that sets Firefox aside from every other browser is simple -- extensions. I recommend everyone use Firefox at the moment simply because of NoScript -- this is an absolute MUST extension. It's downright scary the amount of scripts and other websites your browser hits for every website you touch...noscript prevents all of this nonsense. If you aren't running noscript, I'd recommend it first and foremost...it's as important as keeping your OS (whatever that may be) up to date with patches. Viruses/Trojans and the like are spreading through the web now, noscript is your best first defense against these types of things...and a lot of legit websites are unknowingly posting these from 3rd party ads and they have no idea they're doing it. Get Firefox, and get Noscript...and get it now.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 1, 2009 -> 07:17 AM) I'll start with my diet. I eliminated red meats, fried foods and fast foods. All the typical fattening junk food (I used to scarf entire bags of Doritos). I cut out pop, kool-aid (I used to drink a s***load of kool-aid), chocolate milk. I started off with meal-replacement protein shakes (Whey protein). 1 for breakfast and lunch every day. Instead of snacking on fattening, high calorie junk like the aforementioned Doritos, I went with stuff like fruit, raisins, fiber one bars (rex gets the credit for that. I had never heard of them until he told me about them), whole grain cereals and whole grain crackers. For dinner I typically go with any combination of baked or broiled chicken, turkey, fish or tuna. I eat a huge salad loaded with just about every veggie you can think of with dinner every night. I also try to include one other veggie like green beans or broccoli. Only kinda bread I eat is whole-wheat or whole-grain. I have a sweet tooth like everybody else. So instead of eating two or three pieces of chocolate cake like i used to, I go with the weightwatchers versions of cookies, brownies or muffins (and even with these you have to be careful. eat too many at once and you defeat the purpose). I drink a TON of water every day. No exaggeration. I think I take in more water than most sea animals. I limit myself to one gatorade or powerade a day. They're obviously much better for you than pop. But they still have quite a bit of sugar in them. Instead of regular orange juice and i drink only the non-concentrated kind. only kinda milk I drink now is skim milk. Now I'll start with my workouts. I started out walking EVERYWHERE. Anywhere that was within an hour walk was fair game. i then went with some light running. basically 20 minutes a night around my neighborhood (i also did 200 jumping jacks and 15 minutes of intense stretching before running). Once my body started to get used to this, i really went for the kill. I signed up with bally total fitness. 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. Nothing but high-intensity cardio. Treadmill, stairmaster, precor, elliptical, stationary bike, jump rope, swimming. I did this for about 3 months straight before i had to take a break. I think I wore myself out. I still go to the gym just about every day but not for as long. When the weather started to get good I started running outdoors again. 90 minutes a day. I also spend about an hour a day doing nothing but sit-ups (standard and scissor) and push-ups. I've been doing this for about 3 months now. I also take supplements. They help me a lot. Right now I'm taking Men's Mega sport. I take 2-4 a day. Big ass energy boost. Another one that's really worked for me is Xenadrine RFA-X. I feel like beating the s*** outta somebody after taking it. You can get either of these at any GNC. That's basically it. Everybody has their own routine/program that works best for them. The key is consistency. I knew if this was going to happen I had to be committed every single day. If you have any questions feel free to ask. 6 hours a day in the gym? Heh. That's just not reality for most.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 01:04 PM) In an economic downturn like this one, going over budget is exactly what governments are supposed to do. To a point -- but the fact is, they were over budget long before this downturn.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:52 PM) Quite simply, you're wrong. The science is politically charged...because the natural conclusions of that science are going to cost a lot of very powerful people a lot of money. Basically that is the only reason there is "Debate" on this. The science about whether greenhouse gas emissions are driving a warming trend that will be bad for man is in, and has been for years. The Scientific community really has moved on to looking at things like mitigation and what the impacts of the changing climate on parts of the earth will be (did you know that melting ice caps will cause a decrease in volcanism at the mid-oceanic ridges?) And really, you're also wrong on how the government works. People are allowed to have legitimate disagreements on the best way to make policy going forwards, and people are going to disagree on bills. Were the Bush Tax cuts bad because Bush had to whip hard to get them through, and then did so in reconciliation where the Dems couldn't filibuster? Was the Patriot Act good because it was 99-1 in favor of it? I didn't agree with how Bush did it either. I think that's a separate issue and a big problem on this countries political landscape. This isn't about being wrong or right -- my opinions on how the government does things are not even valid in terms of right or wrong. So please, stop calling someones opinions wrong because they don't agree with your own. And again, quite simply, I'm not wrong. I think I made my case perfectly clear as to why I have issues with this thing. You obviously don't agree, and that's fine, but it doesn't make you wrong, either. It seems that with you, if people don't agree with everything you say, they're wrong. I'm not wrong, I just see it differently than you do, and I don't need your permission to do so.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:33 PM) Alaska is good, but that's because they get tons of money from leasing their oil land. There's a couple of others that have balanced budgets right now. And this is my problem right now, especially related to political landscapes across the country. The fact that only a few of our states are in black ink or balanced annoys the holy hell out of me. It's not like everything and anything isn't taxed on top of being taxed, yet they're still unable to operate without deficit spending? It's ridiculous. If you go over budget you should be forced out, because it means you cannot do your job.

Let me clarify, because it's been lost in translation. I don't care to prove it right or wrong, I'm not an expert in the field and I have no agenda on either side of the discussion. I'd like them to continue researching it, study it over a span of years and come up with some well thought (and politically disconnected) recommendations based on data from BOTH sides, and I'd like it done objectively, as all scientific research should be done. I see a lot of hidden agenda on this specific subject, and I'd like them to toss that, and rather than studying it from one side or the other, to study it from the middle. My big issue/problem with this is that the government is shoving things like this climate bill through without knowing one way or the other. As it stands, they're guessing, based on politically charged science. The fact that debate still exists is what I have a problem with -- meanwhile we're taking drastic steps that may or may do absolutely nothing, and at what cost to the country, to the people, and to business? That's my issue with this. I know I tend to come of as bullheaded when it comes to things like this, but politics really annoys me...I try to be objective, but when I see things like this happening, I have a problem with it. I've always been a devils advocate of sorts. If the bill was really that solid, then Obama and his administration shouldn't have had to make phone calls and convince people to vote for it -- well written bills based on fact should need no push to get it signed...it should just happen.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 11:59 AM) ? California doesn't have a state-wide or public health insurance option. There have been proposals but nothing has ever passed. California's on the same system as anywhere else, except California also keeps stabbing the eyes out of its budget . I doubt there is a single state that isn't over budget across the board. I know IL is in a pretty big hole, too.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:28 PM) Doesn't matter. All science is equal. Still up for debate You're right, it still is up for debate. And although I'm not convinced, it doesn't mean that someday I won't look back and say wow, I was off the mark on that. I have no problem switching sides in the future -- I just think a lot more needs to be put into it before we start shoving bills like this through.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:24 PM) After going through the list of citations to that list...there are exactly 2 papers that have appeared in scientific journals on there - the rest are press accounts. And frankly, both of them are pretty much garbage. One is by Jan Vezier, who has a weird theory which is getting funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars (yeah, clearly all the funding out there goes to support the consensus) that Cosmic Ray abundances somehow affect the climate. He gave a talk here a couple years ago...it was terrible. The worst part of it was, he put up a graph saying "That's the temperature record I'm fitting", and the actual group of climatologists and geologists in the audience had no idea where it came from. After some checking, it turned out that it was a climate record for about 1/3 of the earth, and he was using it because it showed a cooling trend where no other proxy shows a cooling trend; he was basically trying to make his data look better without actually doing anything. It was quite literally cheating. The other paper does a terrifically simplified version of the physics behind the interaction of CO2 with the atmosphere. It's just really bad, there are a hundred ways to do it better. Of course, part of that may be because the authors are petroleum geologists, but I"ll leave that to you to decide. Again, ignore the two because you think they're garbage. Because people who do research on global warming aren't getting funded, either, right? There is a lot of money in global warming, and so a lot of science will be there, for most of them, prooving it wrong cuts off their source of money, another catch 22. I'm positive there are more than 2 papers or even a dozen out there with counter theory to global warming. Doesn't make either of them right yet, still need to do a lot more.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:23 PM) Some > zero. Let me add that, while I don't know the specifics of this bill, I don't like the way its being shoved through the Congress. Its being voted on fresh off the printers with hundreds of pages of amendments. It has the potential to be a complete disaster. This is no weight on the actual science, however. The actual science remains in question even if you deny it does. I'll give you this -- they're studying it, but I think it's going to take more than a few decades of study to understand something as big as this, especially considering the sheer age of the earth, understanding changes over the span in which it's existed will require more than a few years of research, even more than a few decades. If in 10 or 20 years they're still on this, maybe then I'll change my mind as they'll have put enough into it to listen to both sides of the debate (and there IS a debate going on in scientific circles), but until then, it's infant science. And the bill was something like 1300 pages -- ridiculous.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:19 PM) My forehead is going to start hurting. NSS already pointed out why that list isn't what you think it is. Have you ever actually read a single scientific piece of literature on this topic, or are you basing your conclusions entirely on politics and polemics? I have, and I don't think it adds up -- I remain unconvinced. I think it's natural, not man made. Until I see reason to believe otherwise, I will not believe otherwise.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:20 PM) Because you don't know what you're talking about and have demonstrated that you don't understand the basic underlying science before declaring it a "myth". And you're the expert because you read a few papers? heh. Whatever dude.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:16 PM) massive :facepalm: All of science is theory. You have just effectively admitted that you don't understand scientific research. I'll paste this from another discussion I had elsewhere: Fundamental misunderstanding of science. Theory in the scientific sense is not the same as in the common usage. It doesn't mean "guess" or idea; that's a hypothesis. Theories are the most powerful parts of science. There isn't a hypothesis->theory->law hierarchy. Theories never become laws. In fact, theories explain more than laws do. Laws are simply statements of observations without explanations; f=ma, or pv=nrt. Useful, sure, but it doesn't actually explain why or how those things happen. Theories, on the other hand, do have explanatory power -- they make distinct, falsifiable predictions and explanations of natural phenomenon. If these predictions hold true, the theory is strengthened. If they fail, the theory is discarded or modified. Relativity is "just a theory," even though the math works out quite well and its effects have been measured and observed. Hell, your GPS system wouldn't work without compensating for it. Atomic theory is "just a theory," but we still have atomic bombs and nuclear power plants just the same. It won't ever be "elevated" to atomic law because there isn't a hierarchy like that. Same for the germ theory of disease, gravitation, quantum mechanics, information, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scien..._global_warming Ignore it more. Sorry I don't agree with you on the global warming myth, you've done nothing to convince me...nor anyone else here that opposes you. This comes down to yet another case that those that agree with you need no explanation, and for those that do not agree (me) no explanation will do. Why don't we just leave it at that? Feel free to keep beating your head against the wall, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scien..._global_warming Plenty of references cited -- I know, though, you'll just ignore them all.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:10 PM) http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=climat...amp;btnG=Search Can you tell me which ones? You're comparing thousands of papers to dozens. Also, nothing in science is "proven fact." You'll never find a statement like "this proves" in a scientific paper. It's "the data shows" or "our findings suggest". Proof is left to the mathematicians. So then you admit it's all theory. Thanks.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:03 PM) Documentaries are not science. Papers that don't stand up to review are not good science. I can say the same. There are papers on both sides right now. It's still not prooven fact. I can keep repeating this if you didn't yet understand it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:01 PM) I have a feeling that those who spend their entire lives studying the issue are aware of natural trends. It's this sort of completely empty criticism that swayed me. I guess that works on both sides, then, doesn't it?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 12:00 PM) TGGWS actually did fabricate data. Two of the contributing scientists had serious problems with the final product. It's a propaganda film. I lend it no more weight than Inconvenient Truth. Peer-reviewed science, please. But it does in fact exist -- and shows that there IS opposing science. Everyone here is claiming opposing science doesn't -- but it does.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 11:57 AM) Oh, and I have a great answer to this. Global warming isn't actually as accurate of a word to describe what is happening as climate change (Hell, Anthropogenic (human-caused) Climate change is even more accurate). Why? Because not all of the globe gets warmer with increasing CO2 emissions. 80% of the world gets warmer, the poles warm up extremely, but there are zones that certainly get colder. Europe is a prime example - if you warm the north atlantic you weaken the gulf stream, less energy is brought north, and Northern Europe on the whole cools off somewhat. It's also worth noting that the temperature is not the only thing that changes; the general weather patterns also change. Some areas that are already hot simply dry out more (The Western U.S.) Some areas get hit with more intense storms. Some areas wind up with more snow. Etc. The answer is because it was bulls***. The world goes through warming and cooling periods, over and over again, it did it before man was here, and it will do it after man is here, too.

So everything posted against your "science" is bulls***, but everything you post is 100% spot on, exact science? Seriously. I bet you also dismissed the video called the great global warming swindle, too...just because it doesn't agree with everything you think/say? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=288952680655100870 Oh, and those ARE real scientists even if you wish to deny that fact. It's a video worth watching for anyone on either side of the "scientific debate". As the video begins -- we live in an age of reason -- so be reasonable and stop being asshats about it just because it doesn't go along with your liberal agendas.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 27, 2009 -> 09:28 AM) So, about the bill itself, a few points for discussion... 1. CBO and EPA say this will cost households on average $100 or $200 a year, somewhere in that range. Spread that out over 80 million households, that is $8B to $16B, and is effectively a tax increase. That's an increase in cost that will be put directly on families, and that seems less than ideal. However... why is it that some people are OK with spending 100 times that amount of money fighting wars in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries, but they aren't OK with this amount of money spent on getting us out of their grip and-oh-by-the-way maybe making all our lives healthier? Seems like screwed up priorities to me. 2. GOP'ers are claiming the real costs will be much higher when you factor in passed-down costs. Probably true. But then, the CBO and EPA numbers also don't reflect the creation and sustaining of a lot of high-paying jobs that this will result in, with money going to that instead of out the door for oil. So, you need to really look at both sets of indirect cost/benefit pieces, not just the one that fits your views. Unless the CBO guarantees to pay any additional costs on top of their estimations, I call bunk. Notice there is no such guarantee, because they don't actually care one way or the other. Even Warren Buffett is saying it's going to be a tax passed right onto the consumer -- to think for one second the utilities are just going to suck it up and pay it is laughable. When it comes to money, I tend to trust Buffett more than the government -- he actually makes profits more often than swimming in red. As for the "science" of climate change -- regardless of what you think, there IS valid science on both sides. To simply ignore one side just because it doesn't agree with you is ignorant. Again, there *is* counter science. This is another case of "our science is prooven, 100% real, your science is fake trash!". Yea, ok, because that's how it works. In the 1970's, the science of global cooling was "90%" prooven fact, too. Funny how that changed the second the money started flowing toward warming. It's bulls***, it's about money, it's always about money.

Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) CEO Warren Buffett agreed that it's important to "move on carbon emissions" but had this to say about cap-and-trade: I think if you get into the way it was written, it's a huge tax and there's no sense calling it anything else. I mean, it is a tax. And it's a fairly regressive tax. If we buy permits, essentially, at our utilities, that goes right into the bills of the utility customers, and an awful lot of people in Iowa, in Oregon, and Utah, and places where we are, very poor people are going to pay a lot more money for electricity. So I think that can be improved.

And sorry, but these topics infuriate me. If global warming was such reality, why'd they slyly change it from global warming to climate change? The answer is because the more they studied it the more they realized it was a load of crap. But climate change...that cannot be wrong. Ever. Why? Because, the climate has changed forever...and will continue to change forever. The people who thought this up are all getting rich...off of you. The only regret I have is that I wasn't the one that thought of it. I can promise you a better world long after you're dead -- so either way you never even know if my promise came through or not -- and I get to be rich while you're alive! Sounds like a perfect plan...and very "convenient". Just ask you're God, Al Gore how his finances are doing since the Global Warming sham he started. He went from being wroth 1M$ to 100M$ in less than a decade...all based on the "science" that apprantly, 90% of the world scientists agree with -- except those that don't, we just don't count them...or we call them 10% so they seem like such a minority they can be dismissed as loons. Meh.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 26, 2009 -> 11:16 PM) Eh, no, its because there's been a "debate" in scientific journals for decades. That's where science gets hashed out, not on the floor of the Senate. And the overwhelming majority of the conclusions of the papers published in the journals is "Climate Change is real, and we play a part in it." The legit and very serious argument has been had between scientists. Most (something like slightly over 90% of actively publishing scientists on all topics) are convinced that there's at least some human aspect to global warming. Watch, someone will try to assert that there's somehow an equal amount of evidence on both "sides" even though this doesn't come close to reflecting reality. Oh, wait... That's seeming to change by the day. Funny the Aussies are starting to sway away from the "science of global warming" all of a sudden -- but I'm sure you'll have some geo-political excuse as to why. You can probably also explain why the warming has flatlined since 2000...oh wait, you can't. Just stop. Just because you say "90%" of the science agrees with global warming, 1) doesn't mean it does, and 2) means there is money in it...and scientists wanna be paid, too. When the science says 99.9% of scientists agree with it, the other .1% being wackjobs, then maybe you can stand up on that pedistal and crow about being right, but right now...it's not 90%, as there is no "hard percentage" that agrees or disagrees...what I do know is there are a lot of scientists that don't agree...and the facts don't add up. What facts? The f***ing fact that the earth has gone through warming and cooling periods long before man existed. Stop refuting that FACT, and then maybe we can have a discussion.