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| 2007/3/5-7 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:45873 Activity:high |
3/4 Dem polls: Rep polls:
H Clinton: 20% Romney: 20%
Edwards: 15% Guiliani: 14%
Obama: 11%
Gore (not runnig): 10%
My prediction for 2008: Romney will win because he's not a woman
and not black. In addition he's pro-life. -Southern Voter
\_ My prediction: Edwards will beat Guiliani after wining most of
The South. -SF Voter
\_ Mr.Let's_Make_C-sections_Common? Have you even seen his
video of him applying make-up on himself?
\_ Yes, most Americans are pro-choice. Do you honestly think
that a Yankee is going to sweep the South, especially vs.
a genuine Good Ole' Boy? If the Dumbocrats nominate Hillary,
Romney could win, granted.
\_ "Yeeehup, thair aint no wayz no howz weze gunna votes fer
enywun butt ar owns!" So what you're saying is you think
a majority of voting Southerners are stupid hicks who won't
vote for anyone who isn't also a "Good Ole' Boy". Why do
you think that?
\_ Are you "Southern Voter"? Have you actually lived in
The South? I have. I certainly do not believe that
a majority of Southerners are hicks. I think that
enough swing voters (about 5% in most states) are
strongly enough biased against Yankees that this
will change a close race. Why do you believe otherwise,
other than your wish that your candidate would be
elected?
\_ See? Doesn't that feel better providing some
substance to back your statements? And none of these
people are "my candidate". It is ridiculous that
we're even talking about the elections this early.
\_ What happened to your troll? Delete it?
\_ No, not rediculous at all. The CA primaries are
\_ No, not ridiculous at all. The CA primaries are
in Feb, so the parties will have already made
their choices in less than a year.
\_ A year? Ridiculous. It shouldn't take a year
of endless Obama vs. Hillary vs. Rudy vs.
McCain vs. Whoever to pick primary candidates.
Especially this sort of high intensity daily
campaign noise we're getting today. I'm tuning
out until something more interesting happens
than "Hillary Adopts Southern Accent! Obama
Counters With Own Accent! Rudy Sticks To NY
Accent! McCain Finds New Accent Coach!" This
is all bullshit and has nothing to do with
anything important. Or shouldn't, anyway.
\_ Whether it "should" or not, I don't really
have a strong opinion one way or another.
The fact is, if you want to have some kind
of influence over the nomination process,
you need to get started on it now. If you
don't care who the next President of the
United States is, why bother even talking
about in the motd?
\_ So because I think it's too early and
the current "campaigns" are all bullshit
you think I don't care about who the
next President is? I care a lot. That
is why I think the current reporting and
noise is just that, noise. There is no
substance to anything currently going on.
\_ You are wrong about that. Last week
I was in a smallish room full of
Bay Area Democratic fund raisers and
we listened to Senator Edwards present
his case as to why we should support
him. Next week we listen to Senator
Obama and the week after that Senator
Clinton. In early April we will
caucus and give an endorsement and
at that point probably most or all
of us will give the legal maximum
donation to their chosen candidate.
Multiply this by 50 times and you
have a big chunk of the party
fundraising already completed by
mid-April. Anyone that hasn't been
able to raise $10M by May will be
finished and will have to drop out.
That is just how the system works.
I imagine something similar is
going on in the Republican Party.
If you are just talking about how
your personal vote is going to go,
fine, but all the campaigns are trying
to grab money, organizational skills
and experienced campaigners to their
side right now and the ones that
are the most successful will have
the inside track when the "real"
campaign starts.
\- just to add on: a lot of pols
emphasize the role of early money
e.g. EMILY's list stands for:
Early Money Is Like Yeast etc.
\_ Romney will not win. He's Mormon. Except for Kennedy, no
non-WASP has ever won.
\_ That's what they said about Kennedy. Until he won. "No Catholic
has ever been elected President. The voters just aren't ready
for a Catholic President." So other than being Mormon, which is
not important, why couldn't Romney win?
\_ Because he's on record up until a couple of years ago as being
pro-gay, pro-choice, etc. "The base" won't go for it.
\_ "The base" would eat rusty nails before they watched
Hillary get elected and stayed home on voting day.
\_ I'm saying Romney will implode in the primaries.
\_ You think he'll "AAARRRR!!!" on camera or rape a goat
during a taped interview or what?
\_ My prediction: the primaries and then the election are so insanely
far away that none of this means anything. Any of these people
could easily implode in an "AAAAARRRRRR!!!!" moment or just have a
series of bad days they never recover from or do a really horrible
interview or just the world around us will change in such a way
that their current speechifying will be ridiculously wrong for the
future when we are voting but will be rubbed in their face.
Anything can happen and often does.
\_ We are BUSHCO. Cancel your election and surrender your votes.
Resistence is Futile. -dcheney |
| 2007/3/5 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:45874 Activity:high 90%like:45877 |
3/5 Global Warming skeptics grow
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/environment/story.html?id=c6a32614-f906-4597-993d-f181196a6d71&k=0
\_ According to Lawrence Solomon, who is funded by the big
power interests. -tom
\_ Aw, the little wingnuts are hitting puberty?
\_ The latest entry is Jasper Kirby--not typically considered a
wingnut.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/archives/story.html?id=975f250d-ca5d-4f40-b687-a1672ed1f684 |
| 2007/3/5-7 [Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia, Politics/Domestic/911] UID:45875 Activity:moderate |
3/5 "Look, Al Qaeda, they could bring a nuke into this country and kill
a hundred thousand people with a well-placed nuke somewhere, OK? We
would recover from that. It would be a terrible tragedy but the
teachers unions in this country can destroy a generation...Well,
they are destroying a generation. They are MUCH more dangerous. You
know, we worry about Al Qaeda, and we should, but at the same
time, let's not let the teachers unions escape."
--FOX NEWS Quote of the week
\_ Quoting who?
\_ Fox News: still fighting the godless commies even after the USSR
collapsed.
\_ It's a totally useless quote without knowing who was quoted and
the context.
\_ It's Neil Boortz, which you could have found with a google.
http://www.newshounds.us/2007/02/20/the_fox_news_war_on_america_teachers_unions_more_dangerous_than_al_qaeda.php
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yojzaw (newshounds.us)
\_ It's the motd. If the OP wasn't trolling they would have
simply said so since they obviously had it in front of
them. |
| 2007/3/5-7 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:45876 Activity:kinda low |
3/5 Lancet Article re 650K Iraqi deaths may be inaccurate:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1469636.ece
\_ Still waiting for someone else to do an actual scientific study
that indicates otherwise. So far, all we have seen are politically
based claims that the numbers "just can't be."
\_ So, I can make any claim I want, and I don't have to prove it,
nor show how my methods work, and I can be in contradiction to
other established authorities, but my claim has to be refuted
by an actual scientific study rather than just dismissed? Would
you put your faith in my new revolutionary diamond manufacturing
plant and invest in it without some kind of proof? Why're you
so eager to believe in this guy? [reformatted - formatd]
\_ Making any claim they want and not having to prove it
works for Intelligent Design and Global Warming.
\_ Are you claiming, yet again, that the Lancet study "didn't
show their work"? Or did you misparse the previous poster,
and are also speaking against J. Random Economist's claims
about the Lancet's study?
\_ Your claims are false. The study was peer reviewed by a
respected medical editorial board, probably the most respected
editorial board in medicine. The critics have been anonymous
cranks (like yourself) and politically motivated bloggers
with no knowledge of how the scientific process works. It
is revealing who you side with. Granted, Dr. Spagat is an
expert and he disputes some of the techniques used. This sort
of thing is how good science is done. One disagreement by
a stastician does not invalidate the whole study. The Lancet
study is actually one of the most carefully reviewed studies
in the history of medicine. So yes, until there is some
hard science disputing their findings, I am going to continue
to be skeptical of politically motivated critics. Why are you
so determined to dispute their findings?
so determined to dispute their findings? -!dans
\_ My issue with the 650k is that it is the top end number and
gets quoted as a factual known-good this-is-it number. The
original paper published a range of X to Y but we only hear
Y. The truth is likely in the middle. IIRC the earlier
study they did was ~8000 bottom end to 100k top end and
we heard only the 100k. Yet official number at the time
were already higher than their bottom end number. So how
can the high end number be any more trust worthy? The
truth is much more likely much lower than the oft quoted
650k. This is not to say 200k or whatever deaths are good,
but it makes me question the motives of anyone quoting the
650k as fact and not merely the top end of a statistical
range. --someone else
\_ Saying "The HMM aggregate of the range from 650k
to 300k" is too much for a news article.
\_ You are misinformed. Go read the study and return.
\_ The study estimates between 393K and 943K deaths. -tom
\- just out of curioisity to the critics of the
study: do you have any "guesses" about what
you think the casualty numbers might be?
also, say it is 2x to high ... and the number is
say 300k, does that affect your thinking about
how things have unfolded? obviously there is a
difference between say 50k dealth in vietnam and
<3.8k in iraq, but I'm not sure what the different
policy consequences are between 300k and 650k.
[in no way to make light of the very large difference
in cost to iraqi people ... but again the social
aftermath of ww2 was very diff in the us vs.
russia, germany, france etc]
\_ Actually, the original study had a 95% confidence
interval from 8k to 192k IIRC, making 100k the center of
the peak. -emarkp
\_ I recall 8 to 100 but I'll go look it up. Thanks for
the correction. |
| 2007/3/5-7 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:45877 Activity:kinda low 90%like:45874 |
3/5 Global Warming skeptics grow
http://preview.tinyurl.com/22vodw (canada.com)
\_ Aw, the little wingnuts are hitting puberty?
\_ The latest entry is Jasper Kirby--not typically considered a
wingnut.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/archives/story.html?id=975f250d-ca5d-4f40-b687-a1672ed1f684
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ystlm3 (canada.com)
\_ If you've got nothing to say, personal attack is the way to go.
\_ The Mercury News ran an editorial on this today:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yu7dwl (mercurynews.com)
\_ "Is it worth destroying our economy and lifestyle based on an
unproven theory which does not correlate with historical
observations?" Are we trying to "destroy" our economy?
\_ The truth is that Global Warming is becoming the consensus
scientific opinion, not that they "grow." Unless you mean
scientific opinion, not that "skeptics grow." Unless you mean
critics amongst the "Fox News" viewer crowd, perhaps.
\_ I thought it already was the consensus opinion. That's what I've
read for years. Except for all those scientists who don't agree
but every single one of them is obviously an oil company shill
divying part of Exxon's $16m/5 years which isn't too smart
considering the billions paid to affirm human caused GW.
\_ No, there are still plenty of good scientists who remain
skeptical of the idea of anthropogenic global warming.
\_ Well, let's pull their tenure and cancel their grants and
make sure their papers and books aren't published. |
| 2007/3/5 [Reference/Military] UID:45878 Activity:nil 66%like:45882 |
3/5 UK's Jedi's oppose ban on carrying imitation samurai swords:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/05/jedi_speak_out_on_uk_sword_law |
| 2007/3/5-7 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:45879 Activity:kinda low 90%like:45867 |
3/4 So much for the peak oil myth
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/business/05oil1.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2yovom (nytimes.com)
\_ I am NostraMotd. Oil price will peak in 2010. World War III
will happen in 2012 in a blink of an eye. -nostramotd
\_ So you went into a trance and your assistant recorded your
ramblings a la Casey or you hid in your attic scribbling little
rhyming poems with insufficient detail to ever be sure that any
of your predictions actually came true? Or did this come out of
the hidden messages in the Bible? Nostradamus didn't need no
stinkin' URLs!
\_ Yeah, I'm sure when gas price reachs $10/gal, much more oil will
become financially feasible to be extracted. No worries.
\_ It is certainly true that the amount of oil in the ground is
much larger than what we're currently able to extract. The
problem is, at some point it's not possible to ramp up new
production quickly enough to keep up with ever-increasing
demand. We won't run out of oil, but supplies will be
increasingly constrained. The only question is when that
will happen. -tom
\_ Refineries are easy but yes getting a new field started takes
several years. The fun part of all this is when you have an
.org like OPEC where members are allowed to sell a certain
amount based on their _claimed_ reserves. So by lying and
claiming higher reserves they can sell more. Their actual
honest estimates of their reserves are secret and likely
much lower than their public claims. Thus, unless new fields
are started sooner than the Saudis and friends would have us
believe we need them, then yes we'll be hosed.
\_ It's not only a question of how long it takes to start a
new field now; it's also that, as we start getting into
fields which require more effort/energy to extract
(like the Canadian oil sands), it will take even longer to
ramp up new fields. -tom
\_ The Canadian oil sands turn gold into lead. Clean
burning natural gas and freshwater are used to
create synthetic oil, sludge and greenhouse gases
on an insane scale.
\_ What is the process used to extract from oil
sands?
\_ In short, natural gas is burned in
conjunction with water to cook the oil.
It has produced a giant waste pool and
it creates as much greenhouse gases as
1/3 the california automobile fleet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands
\_ Either way, OPEC is not a pro-Western friendly .org and
won't provide honest estimates of usable reserves so it
doesn't matter much if the world falls 5 years short of
getting new production online or 7 or 9 or 12.
\_ It's nice to know that our supply of greenhouse-gas-producing
petrolium is ever growing.
\_ its not that the supply is growing -- it isn't -- it is that as
the price goes up, we can use more efficient means to extract
all of it, and go beyond the easy-to-pump oil. It is still a
limited resource that will eventually run out.
\_ Then why did the production of oil in the United States
peak back in 1970, and go down every year since
then, while prices have gone up and down and extraction
technology has greatly improved? I mean, it goes down
every year like clockwork (there was a tiny blip around
1986 due to Alaska but that's it). Note that there are
more oil wells operating in the United States than the
rest of the world COMBINED (500,000 pumping out of
2,000,000 drilled). Oil production is no longer an
economic problem, it is a problem with physics and geology.
\_ You may have noticed that the US gets a large percent of
oil from outside the US. Even if the US never had a drop
of native oil (like Japan, France, etc), then we'd just
be using nukes for power and likely have more advanced
electric cars.
\_ We don't burn oil to generate power (except in a
few places like Hawaii) very much, it provides a
tiny sliver of our electrical production.
\_ We need oil to run cars. If everything was
nuclear and electric the need for oil would
drop dramatically.
\_ Because it's still cheaper to get oil elsewhere. If
prices get high enough, then US oil production will
climb. In real terms, I would bet oil prices are
not at record highs. In fact, I remember just a few
years back I was buying gas for $1/gallon, which is
probably less than any time over the last 30 years
when adjusting for inflation. It is not that cheap
at the moment, but not much has changed over the
last 5 years except for politics.
\_ No it's because there are no new finds in the United
States, wells are running dry. Oh wait, are you
one of those people who thinks our massive twin
deficits are proof of the vitality of our markets,
because "everyone wants to invest in America?". In
that case there is no point trying to use logic.
Oil prices WERE the highest ever during the 1970s
crisis, yet oil production dropped. And it
continues to drop. You can't drill 200,000 new
wells overnight, and besides there are no new
giant oil fields being discovered to drill anyhow.
http://wolf.readinglitho.co.uk/chartimages/d/d2oilprodusa.gif
\_ What incentive is there to explore and drill
when oil is easily obtained elsewhere and
prices have done nothing but fall since 197x? |
| 2007/3/5 [Computer/SW/Unix] UID:45880 Activity:nil |
3/5 Root, kindly reinstate finger motd@csua?
\_ Have you tried emailing them? |
| 2007/3/5-7 [Uncategorized] UID:45881 Activity:nil |
3/5 Tired of burning your fingers? Try mixing your chemicals virtually:
http://cameochemicals.noaa.gov
(I can't decide if this is just cool or a great honeypot for DHS.)
\_ There was a similar program for the Apple II about 22-23 years ago. |
| 2007/3/5-7 [Reference/Military] UID:45882 Activity:nil 66%like:45878 |
3/5 UK's Jedi's oppose sword ban:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/05/jedi_speak_out_on_uk_sword_law
\_ Maybe we can get them an exemption for religious purposes.
\_ let the brits beat each other up with their fists like
civilized folks
\_ "We face each other as God intended. Sportsmanlike.
No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone." |
| 2007/3/5-7 [Politics/Domestic] UID:45883 Activity:high |
3/4 http://www.conservapedia.com \_ "Modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood." http://www.conservapedia.com/Kangaroo \_ I still can't figure out if that site is for real. My liberal friends say "IT IS FOR REAL, IT IS FUNDED BY THE EAGLE FORUM." But it's so dumb, and appears to be run off some dude's DSL line. \_ Well we know automatically that all conservatives are Xtians and fundamentally stupid. Therefore it must be real. I saw it on the intarweeb. \- intartube |
| 2007/3/5-7 [Science/GlobalWarming, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:45884 Activity:nil |
3/5 Saudi oil production drops 8% in 2006
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2325 |
| 5/16 |