Morning Must Reads: March 12

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/20007/New-Study-claiming-global-temps-highest-in-4000-years-contradicted-by-previous-studies--Media-touted-study-based-on-reconstructed-data-from-only-73-data-sites

Because, of course, the validity of an argument is the same as how much people want to read about it.

paulejb

@forgottenlord @paulejb

"New Study claiming global temps highest in 4000 years, contradicted by previous studies -- Media touted study based on 'reconstructed data' from only 73 data sites"

It's not the science that can't be trusted. It's the scientists with a leftist agenda.

forgottenlord

1 Like

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/were-screwed-11-000-years-worth-of-climate-data-prove-it/273870/

Again, repeatability is what's important. The Hockey Stick graph that was so heavily criticized when it first came out has since been repeated with numerous different methodologies including an agency who were conducting a study with the expressed intent of disproving global warming.

MementoMori

3 Like

@paulejb Shorter paulie, "Me no like those stupid scientists and their stupid studies. Me believe oil companies and fake British lords!"

We're Screwed: 11,000 Years' Worth of Climate Data Prove It

(You can skip it, paulie. It has charts and data and all sorts of stuff rightwing extremists like yourself don't like)

paulejb

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/climate-change-a-consensus-among-scientists/

It's not the science, Mori. It's the scientists with an agenda that can't be trusted.

What is your explanation of the NY Times and the WaPo getting out of the global warming hoax business?

MementoMori

1 Like

@paulejb @MementoMori "It's not the science, Mori. It's the scientists with an agenda that can't be trusted."

Which, when I last checked, was the vast majority of scientists. Which means the 'scientific consensus' can't be trusted either. That aligns you with the creationists and other groups who put their ideology before the facts.

So, let's just call you a "low information ideologue". Because that's exactly where you've landed.

mantisdragon91

1 Like

@paulejb @MementoMori What global hoax business. If you don't think we are altering the environment don't come on here crying next time a storm like Sandy strands you in your government provided housing.

MementoMori

2 Like

@paulejb From the link:

"Today's study should help debunk the common climate change denial argument that recent warming is simply part of a long-term natural trend. Indeed, Marcott says, the earth should be nearing the bottom of a several-thousand year cool-off (the end-point of the rainbow arc in (B) above), if natural factors like solar variability were the sole driving factors. Instead, temperatures are rising rapidly."

I'm guessing the fanatics won't ever be convinced. They'll be hip-deep in water and still claiming it's 'a hoax'. Y'know, because scientists are liberals! Or something...

MementoMori

1 Like

@paulejb @MementoMori Well, if you can't trust some random guy on the internet who can you trust? Certainly not the vast majority of scientists.

And that egghead Galileo with all his "ooo, the Earth is round: mumbo jumbo? Only liberals and heretics believe in all that 'science' stuff, amirite?

(And paulie calls everyone else "low information"? Ignoring science in favor of ideology is pretty much the definition of "low information".)

mantisdragon91

1 Like

@paulejb @MementoMori Really Troll so we had no factories burning coal back then?

paulejb

Another Hockey Stick Smoking Gun

"The only problem is – nothing humans did 150 years ago could have caused this. CO2 didn’t start rapidly rising until much later. Phil Jones has attributed the 1860-1880 and 1910-1940 warming to natural causes, like the sun."

paulejb

“This is a joke. We’re wasting the president’s time and ours,” complained a senior White House official who was promised anonymity so he could speak frankly. “I hope you all (in the media) are happy because we’re doing it for you.”

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/humility-or-cynicism-whatever-is-driving-obama-is-better-than-nothing-20130312

The entire Obama regime has been a joke for four years.

mantisdragon91

2 Like

@paulejb The Joke wiped the floor with your party last fall.

paulejb

The origin of the low information voter.

"Malice or Incompetence?"

"Recently I came across a news article estimating that 80% of NYC graduates cannot read and write and are functionally illiterate."

http://accordingtohoyt.com/2013/03/11/malice-or-incompetence/

Someone once said that if the public education results in the USA were inflicted by a foreign power it would be an act of war.

forgottenlord

2 Like

http://communitycollegespotlight.org/content/cc-remediation-rate-hits-80-in-nyc_12549/

So one guy uses hearsay from another guy to claim that the New York school system is failing its students and you run that as proof? The best part: you couldn't even come up with a study proving a point, you just went straight to a number someone admitted to effectively pulling out of his a**

paulejb

@forgottenlord @paulejb

It's just a google away, forgotten.

"CC remediation rate hits 80% in NYC"

"A stunning 79.3 percent of city public-school grads who went to CUNY’s six two-year colleges arrived without having mastered the basics, up from 71.4 percent in 2007."

And that's the ones who graduated.

forgottenlord

I will accept the argument that the stat of 80% of graduating students don't have high-school level math skills and that this is a problem. Will you accept that this is not the same as 80% of graduating students are illiterate?

paulejb

@forgottenlord @paulejb

I repeat, the deficiencies are among the graduates. Who knows how bad the drop outs fare?

forgottenlord

1 Like

First of all, if you actually read that article, it said that their main problem was Math Skills.

Second, even if it wasn't math skills but English skills, it would still be comparing them to a Grade 12 baseline - far away from the level used for determining illiteracy - a Grade 4 level. Most Newspapers are written at a Grade 8 level (New York Times and Washington Post target Grade 12 while tabloids tend to target Grade 4 level) so matching a High School Level for English is not a requirement to survive in life.

So either way, it's still a garbage stat

MementoMori

3 Like

@paulejb 'Methinks paulie doth protest too much.'

Hit a nerve, did I, paulie? Good. I like watching you flail.

paulejb

Not at all, Mori. This finding made it all worthwhile.

"Moderates and liberals who watched only Fox did worse than conservatives who watched it."

paulejb

It's what your poll showed, Mori. Are you now disputing your own sources?

MementoMori

2 Like

@paulejb @MementoMori What 'liberal' watches only Fox? Is the channel stuck?

Keep trying, paulie. It's cute.

forgottenlord

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/12/joe-walsh-americans-stupid-lazy_n_2861750.html

I believe that. Conservatives who only watch Fox are more likely to be politically active than Liberals and Moderates. Therefore, they're more likely to actually become informed through secondary sources.

outsider2011

6 Like

During a nearly two-hour talk Sunday, long-time Tea Party favorite former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh made, surprise!, an incendiary remark that Americans have grown "stupid," "lazy" and "easily manipulated" when it comes to politics.

And yet, the couldn't manipulate them into voting for him again..

Paulie? This is why your side won't win again until the party gets rid of the nut jobs.

paulejb

@outsider2011

It would appear that Joe Walsh is on the same page as Obama as I observed in 2011.

http://thesenewtimes.com/why-doesnt-barack-obama-like-us/

La_Randy

1 Like

@paulejb @outsider2011 This article written in March 2012? By an idiot at that.

SirDonQuixotic

1 Like

@paulejb @outsider2011

Advertising your own website is also against the rules. Flagged.

paulejb

@DonQuixotic @paulejb @outsider2011

Giggle!

mantisdragon91

4 Like

@outsider2011 Did he pay his child support yet? For a family values guy he sure stuck it to his wife and kid.

outsider2011

3 Like

One of the ways to differentiate liberals and conservatives today is to consider their respective caricatured sci-fi visions of the future. In cartoon terms, the liberal caricature is a “we’re in this all together” utopia of communitarian kumbaya, while the conservative caricature is basically Back to the Future II – a Biff Tannen-dominated dystopia of moral and economic decay whose only unifying ethos is thinking of – and violently protecting – oneself. Thus, liberals generally support stuff like universal social insurance and the social safety net, while conservatives tend to get fired up against gun control, taxes and a social safety net, and for massive military budgets.

At the rank-and-file voter level, this is, of course, a cartoon version of ideologies – many self-described liberals are hardly dreaming of turning America into a giant kibbutz while many self-described conservatives just want the government out of their face. However, at the elected official level in Washington, the conservative cartoon in particular is no comedic caricature – as Rep. Paul Ryan’s new House Republican budget shows, it is an actual worldview, with specific legislative proposals in tow.

Here are the four big takeaways from that budget, and how they illustrate the Republicans’ larger world view.

1. A re-commitment to the Military State

2. Austerity for Most, Corporate Welfare for A Few

3. Strengthening the Health Insurance Industry Cartel

4. Tax Cuts for the Rich, Tax Increases for Most Others

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/12/how_republicans_think/

paulejb

@outsider2011

"1. A re-commitment to the Military State"

roknsteve 24 minutes ago

"I think the stuff is going to hit the fan between North and South Korea."

You boys don't seem to be on the same page.

outsider2011

2 Like

@paulejb @outsider2011

Those two things have nothing in common.

But thanks for showing that you didn't bother reading the article

1. A recommitment to the Military State: One of the few good things to come out of the sequestration fight has been a long-overdue debate over Pentagon profligacy in specific and American militarism in general. Indeed, even though the sequestration cuts are so small they still leave the Pentagon budget bigger in real dollars than it was during most of the height of the Cold War, the prospect of any cuts at all seemed to hold out the possibility of a larger reevaluation of the centrality of the Pentagon in national life. That possibility seemed especially real considering the fact that the allegedly deficit-focused GOP had recently been shamed into supporting some of those cuts.

Now that the Ryan budget is upon us, though, that possibility seems less likely. As the Christian Science Monitor reports, he proposes to uses massive cuts to social programs “to pay for $500 billion in additional defense spending over the next 10 years.” In other words, at a time when the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are scheduled to conclude and the sluggish economy necessitates a stronger social safety net, the GOP’s dystopian vision has prompted it to propose making the social safety net weaker in order to spend even more money on the military.

forgottenlord

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/12/mccaskill-explains-aggressive-pat-down/

I am not convinced, other than bomber drop or suicide bomber, that North Korea has any sort of delivery mechanism it could use to hit South Korea let alone the US.

mantisdragon91

2 Like

@paulejb @outsider2011 How will they deliver the nukes to the US? Carrier pigeon?

outsider2011

2 Like

@paulejb @outsider2011 I agree , but that doesn't meant there can't be defense cuts.

Still more military budget than during the cold war, against an enemy with a lot more nukes.

Besides, who are you saving if you take away the social net, and the poor (anyone in the 99 percent) starve, or die from lack of medical care?

paulejb

@outsider2011 @paulejb

A new Korean conflict would quickly go nuclear as the Norks would be forced to use it before they lose it. We can only pray that the US has missile defenses deployed.

mantisdragon91

3 Like

@paulejb @outsider2011 We have more than enough to deal with North Korea. Seeing as we spend more on defense than the next 10 nations combined we'd better.

sacredh

1 Like

More explanation:

A close friend flys frequently. He said he was agressively patted down before. He said in any other setting, it would be sexual assault.

Ivy_B

@sacredh Sacred, I missed this while scrolling through paulejb comments - see below for current one from me.

paulejb

1 Like

TSA - Thousands Standing Around.

TSA - Twisted Sexual Abusers

TSA - Trivial, Superfluous Actors

sacredh

paulejb, I've been through the scanner but never patted down. I'm not really comfortable with my doctor moving my junk around let alone some guy I don't know that makes $10 an hour.

paulejb

"Get your freak on, girl!"

"Sex Toy in Luggage Elicited 'Wildly Inappropriate' Note From TSA Agent, Traveler Says"

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/24/sexy-toy-discovery-leads-to-note-from-tsa-screener-woman-claims/#ixzz2NMPzPMCD

sacredh

1 Like

This is why I'm not a good candidate for deciding such things. The last time my doctor checked my prostate I started singing "Some Enchanted Evening". True story.

forgottenlord

1 Like

Go ahead, suggest tipping a TSA agent for a happy ending to her face :P

sacredh

Lol. I know it won't happen, but I wouldn't mind it so much if they gave us the choice of a male or female patdown. I wouldn't mind a woman doing it. Hell, I might tip her if the pat down had a happy ending.

paulejb

2 Like