As a small-time document scanner myself, I'm amazed at the size of Google's project. We've entered a period when scientific journals are largely available scanned (JSTOR is a particular blessing) and it's prudent to scan all that stuff that used to go into file cabinets or, if you're sophisticated, a compacter setup, where big bookshelves move on tracks, so you don't have to waste space on aisles.

On the other hand, the prservation of our civilization's precious paperwork now seems to depend on Adobe, which provides the PDF format.

Athletic Scholarships, Joel. It's not too late to build a 3 meter board in your backyard. And maybe a pool too.

I really like the idea of books that you can just get access os easily without having to go somewhere and buy it or pick it up. I think there will always be a place though for real books, with lovely bindings, and gold edged pages, with those little ribbons to mark your pages. Books are much more personal when they are on beautifully printed paper.

Maybe we should be moving all libraries to higher ground?

Larry King did not give too much time to naysayers. If you watched the show, you would have seen him cut to comercial before going to Richard Lindzen before he had a chance to commment and then allowing Bill Nye to talk all over him. (Finally telling him to back off late in the show) Boxer shook her head at everything Inhofe said including factual statements. Then proceeded to spout wonderful political rhetoric with substance. If anything this show slanted to the radical enviromentalists getting too much air time.

whispering to CP,(will dissccuss last yarn talk slightly later. It might seem rude to be off topic so early in the day)

Move along. Nothing to see here.

attribution to someone on the boodle, but I don't remember who.

Google is just following technology there because Project Gutenburg has been turning classic novels into e-books for years. I've found it very useful when I wanted to read a book that was already taken out of the library. However, I definitely prefer a bound book to a computer screen when I am reading.

OK, that's it. I am sorry to be posting off topic, but this is really important:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=1a66e4db-8631-467e-af9f-635f6a445f96

Umbrage, umbrage umbrage.

It's unclear to me why people are exaggerating the degree of uncertainty about Global Warming. Sure, there are those on the far right who reject anything that smacks of ecological responsibility as an endorsement of atheistic pot smoking hippy tree huggers. And the media always loves a good mud fight. But I wonder if part of it is simple fear.

Global Warming scares people. It makes them want to crawl under the covers and make pathetic whimpering noises. (Or maybe that's just me.) So it is natural that we latch onto any vestige of debate as a reason to keep on breathing.

But I think this pessimism is misguided. I accept the consensus on Global Warming, and enthusiastically support an aggressive response, but I also take some solace from history.

Sitting on my desk is a copper medallion with my name on it from 1909. It was issued to my grandfather soon after he emigrated from Italy. If he had known that the next fifty years would include two devastating world wars, a horrific outbreak of influenza, the slaughter of millions of Jews, a massive economic downturn and the development of nuclear weaponry he might have been tempted to immediately grab a large stone and jump into the cold waters of the Atlantic.

I am glad he did not because he would have missed out on marvels such as electricity, antibiotics, air travel and radio - all of which brought him great joy.

Global Warming is not the only thing that the future will hold. (Hey, maybe Yellowstone will erupt and make this all a moot point.) People, civilization and technology will advance in ways that we cannot begin to fully comprehend. Unexpected developments are the historical norm.

The point is, even if Global Warming turns out to have truly devastating consequences, well, why should this century be luckier than any other? We are a very adaptive species.

So perhaps we need to come out from under the covers, face up to the facts of Global Warming, and deal with them with confidence and maturity.

I'm going to be somewhat curmudgeonly this morning (a shock, I know) about two items:

(1) Who the hell gave Google permission to scan MY book? One of those 32 million is mine, and I never gave them permission to scan it, much less make it available for free on the Internet. I can understand that you like getting books for free, dr, but I like getting paid for what I produce. I wouldn't be surprised if Joel feels the same way about his books. The Google thing may sound like a good idea, but as far as I'm concerned (until they contact me) they are fording Napster--and can bite me.

(2) I don't think Biden said anything wrong, even given how he said it. I understand that Obama needs to make obeysance to the previous four black presidential candidates, but Biden doesn't.

C'mon--Rev. Sharpton? Yeah, he's articulate. He's also a charlatan, and was about as serious a presidential candidate as David Duke was. Let's get real. Jesse Jackson? Not a charlatan in the Sharpton class, but in the view of many just a publicity hound (I don't completely agree with that, but there are some who'll say it). But whether you like or dislike Sharpton and/or Jackson, are either of them in Obama's class? Neither has ever held an elective office, and likely never will. I liked Chisolm and Mosely-Braun, but neither was a serious presidential contender, for whatever reason.

I think the reaction to the Biden remark is "Gotcha" sensitivity run amok. There's not a scintilla of doubt in anyone's mind that Biden wasn't trying to compliment Obama. Why parse it for punctuation? Gimme a break.

32 million books. I think I took 1/4 of 'em to that used book place in the strip mall at Yonge and Finch when I left Toronto. (Got about $80 for the pile, too.)

Why give Inhofe a platform? Why not let the fringe characters remain on the fringe?

Because it's the Larry King show, that's why. You don't think King really does *serious* science, do you or more serious interviewing. King is the king of the softball question and interview.

*Going to bed to get some zzzz's. I was the only one in the American Red Cross shelter last night, with two attendants at all times, who stayed in the hallway while I slept in council chambers. So two volunteers worked a shift from roughly 7 p.m. until midnight, two other women came from midnight until 8 a.m. The American Red Cross did a great job accommodating me and I certainly did breathe more easily during the night with sunstantially less congestion and coughing and sneezing because of the closed air-circulation system. The volunteers were friendly, gracious, and hospitable.

But I was uneasy about my stay last night (and actually slept little because I was in foreign surroundings--and had forgotten my pillow and dental floss) for reasons I dare not go into. I thank the American Red Cross for their charity and their kindness.

I meet this afternoon with a state representative from Disaster Emergency Services, who said yesterday he would be happy to answer any questions that I ask.*

I must share with the Boodle this column about aquifer protection during fighting a fire (yet another issue, including global warming, about environmental protections) from today's Express-News:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/columnists/cguerra/stories/MYSA020107.01B.GUERRA.1c0bda8.html

Recent video--TCEQ hunts for more mulch piles:

http://www2.mysanantonio.com/multimedia/video/VideoPlayer/playvideo.cfm?action=view&skintop=display/dsp_top.cfm&skinbottom=display/dsp_bottom.cfm&type=nod&ids=43694&play=1&format=WMV&showpoll=No

Am I slow, or do I correctly understand that the off-shoot of global warming will be an eventual ice age-like period?

I may agree that the world will indeed "correct for man's error," but wouldn't the process be a challenge to our survival? Isn't that a primary concern?

We are not talking about a couple of years of higher natural gas and electric bills.

Secondly, isn't the point that people should be grasping when they fall back on anectdotal evidence... what it's been like in New Jersey... that the crisis is the warming at the poles.

If people don't buy this, why can't we just call Warsaw and ask?

I've been a little preoccupied the last few days, but I came across this on Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mona-gable/on-molly-ivins_b_40152.html) .

Only posting it because I know there are a few Molly Ivins fans here.

i think its fair to be skeptical of the cause of global warming. i cant independently verify it, thats for sure. its not like ive independently verified that the earth revolves around the sun either, but such a task is probably within an individual's reach if they really cared to. however, i do think it is sensible and prudent to conserve fuels and limit pollution. So I am for most of the proposals aimed at slowing/stopping/reversing global warming, whether we are causing it or not.

RDP - "So perhaps we need to come out from under the covers, face up to the facts of Global Warming, and deal with them with confidence and maturity." Well said.

Mudge - "There's not a scintilla of doubt in anyone's mind that Biden wasn't trying to compliment Obama. Why parse it for punctuation?" Well said.

We know that we're entering a period of warming. The counterpoints are it is cyclical and temporary. personally I think unless we get world population under control the cars and power plants are just a diversion.

First, as a proud Oklahoman, please accept my heartfelt apology for Senator Inhofe. Really. I'm sorry. And oh so embarrassed.

I like your turn of thought, RD. We need to accept and deal with Global Warming, knowing the potentially catastrophic consequences. However, we (in the collective) can do that. I'm all for not hiding our heads in the sand - particularly there on the coasts and tropical islands, where the sand is about to be covered in water anyway.

I have the greatest respect, in many ways, for Senator Biden. However, he'll never be president - not because of the Obama remark itself, but because it is typical of his tendency to talk too much and too colorfully. Did I say "too much"? The electorate can't take that many words. Of course, take this prediction with a grain of salt. Not only did I confidently predict Kerry would not be the Democratic nominee in the last election, I completely forgot he was running. I just couldn't think of him as a serious candidate, mostly for reasons of style.

Sky report: Snow. The air is thick and white. The Boy was genuinely offended that he still had to go to school.

We've had it all this morning, sleet, snow, now rain. Is it actually winter?

Ha!

My bad Mudge. I agree. I meant I like the ease, but we should pay. I don't have to leave home to purchase, I really like the idea of purchasing for immediate download from the comfort of my home. though in my case it might be as well for an author to hope I download.

I once copied the whole of Persuasion (Austen) to read, because it was not on the store shelves, and none of my usual used books haunts had a copy. But I felt guilty. Still do. I own 3 copies of it now, 1 brand new paperback, 1 in a 2 in one used book I found, and one in a college type paperback I found in a used store. Its my own personal collection of Persuasion. I avoid the A section because I seem to think I should have more copies. They keep coming out with new bindings. I don't have the same compulsion for any of her other books.

I feel guilty that I buy discount books and used books, and am thankful that Joel's books are not ever in the bins, so I am forced to buy new. Even then I close my eyes while buying the tradepaper backs, hoping his cut is large enough that he won't notice my sin.

So really, I would buy. It would be shooting myself in the foot to do otherwise. My apologies for my lack of clarity.

Hello Ivansmom, maybe Biden should be hiring Frank Luntz?! (re: my post from the last thread at the end)...

I just never thought that Biden was cut out to be the President. He always gave me the impression that he thought that (1) problems are very complex and (2) he understood them and can handle them.

That very well may be true, but thinking that problems are complex can make Americans feel a bit uncomfortable. Complexity has never been our forte. We are more a "nose to the grindstone" type of country.

I think Americans are so used to sound bites that when someone speaks in complete sentences or has a thought that can't be expressed in 15 seconds or less, they tune out. A lot of people just don't want to think. Kerry had a problem with this and to a lesser degree, so does Biden. At least with him you sometimes get plain unadorned words. Kerry was really hard to follow. He's one of my senators but, even tho' I voted for him, he's no Ted Kennedy.

I'm still missing Cassandra.

I'm with you, Mudge. In fact, I'm in the throes (so to speak) of a huge copyright infringement case (we be the plaintiffs, with exceptionally white hats), and I am always considerably sensitive to copyright and ownership issues. Just because the capacity exists in the current technology of the month to do this, it does *not* mean that it's right legally or even *sigh* morally.

Back to the mines. . .

When I heard about the Biden remark, I first thought he meant clean like the opposite of a "dirty" politician. Which he may have.

Saw the California proposal to ban non-fluorescent bulbs and one story indicated we could cut power use in the US by 7% by everyone switching to the new type of bulbs.

I have been promoting someone manufacturing an ebook reader that's comfortable to read (it's the darned flickering that fatigues my eyes so)and Sony's made a great recent attempt but it's somewhat lacking in functionality, though nothing major stands in the way.

Imaging getting one into the hands of every schoolkid who might use it, each with the world's great literature on it (I'm talking about loaded with 20,000 books and all of Wikipedia and Wictionary as well - or any public domain varieties one prefers).

*coming up for air*

Hey all!! *waving*

I've actually been in the middle of a lot of back-and-forth on global warming the past day or so...

My brain still hurts.

:-)

*coming up for air*

Hey all!! *waving*

I've actually been in the middle of a lot of back-and-forth on global warming the past day or so...

My brain still hurts.

:-)

Hey Scotty... I have a couple of large trash bags filled with hydro-carbons. Can I drop them off at your place?

DM, I beg of you, PLEASE don't mention trash bags... Long story.

:-)

Hey, Scotty, don't drown in there!

dr, are you in to Austen? Persuasion is my all-time favorite novel. When my daughter was in Europe three years ago, my only request when she visited Oxford was that she go to Blackwell's and buy me a copy. It's a beautiful Everyman's Library edition. Now I want all of them from that collection.

Why, Scotty N.? Did you have two elephants making love in your backyard?

Then there's the lady who went on the Atkins diet bcause she heard that carbohydrates were causing global warming.

RD, that makes sense to me! It also makes me virtuous, because I've given up carbs in an attempt to lose weight. So far so good, for me at least...

Ah, Persuasion ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghUzMDf4GoI

Now that's good. A Richard Thompson twist on his great song ably accompanied by his son, Teddy. Makes you wonder why some of us even bother to tune a guitar and play.

Hi DR,

Persuasion is one of JA's (Jane Austen! Not Joel Achenbach) better yarns.

To be on topic: I would have liked to see John Browne (Sir or Lord?) on the Larry King Live panel as an thoughtful industry voice.

Jim Hansen would have been polarizing, but his work is particularly compelling. That he, and other scientists of any stripe or field might be muzzled is an abomination.

Read anything by Bob Watson, Brit-born US scientist. I believe he is Robert T. Watson. He may be at the World Bank now, but has had many important posts, including head of the IPCC, scientist at NASA, head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (Clinton era).

Here are the scientific bodies that express concern about what looks to be an emerging climate threat based in part on human actions.
1) The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
2) National academies of science in G8 countries, and similar bodies in Brazil, China, and India
3) (US) National Academy of Sciences, strongly in 2002 and in many follow-up documents.
4)The American Meteorological Society
5) The American Geophysical Union
6) The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

I think that John Christy, climate scientist at U Alabama-Huntsville, is an interesting scientist to watch. He is a "soft" climate sceptic, who looks carefully at temperature data. He drives scientists and policymakers in both "camps" crazy. I think he is trying to look at the data and consider how data sets fit with complex models. He needs help in communicating his "uncertainty" better, but even in his scepticism he acts like a scientist: let's check the data again,
let's examine a number of sources on temp changes over time,
let's look at data against models, let's look at assumptions....

I hear that he is increasingly worried about the "uncertainty" question. If we prefer the intellectual stance of "I don't know what is going on," the question of uncertainly cuts both ways.

Watch what the insurance companies are doing in the wake of uncertainty and huge weather-related payouts.

A skeptic friend sent me this yesterday:

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

I can't say I know enough about the science to call BS, but it certainly stinks of skeptic bias.

CP's post just before mine sent me to my Concise Oxford. Interestingly (or not), I spelled skeptic in the US manner, while CP spelled in sceptic in the UK style. I blame all of you for your insidious influence.

dr, re: your 10:10. I will join you in your umbrage party.

Now, on topic: Seems to me that, regardless of whether you believe it causes global warming or not, reducing hydrocarbon emissions makes sense. Why not take steps to that end? If everyone did something to reduce their own personal energy consumption, wouldn't that be beneficial in many other ways?

Didn't I read somewhere that if every American lost 10 pounds, it would reduce hydrocarbons? (Due to less weight being carried in cars, airplanes, etc.--typically I'm remembering the What and not the Why.)

Scotty, I'll fax you the brain-pain easing remedy of your choice.

whatever google does will be within copyright law. i've heard that everything already in public domain will be available for free, but that certainly won't be true books still under copyright. it appears they'll do something like amazon does with previewing and then link to vendors who sell the books. (click on the info for publishers link.)

http://books.google.com/

Frostbitten-- the DC boodlers do a Boodle Porching Hour (BPH).
I think up in Frostbite Falls, it'd be "Brunch at Barney's with half the town".

Raysmom, now that's motivation to lose weight!

All that lard I've been making seats creak under... That has to GO. Somehow. I gave up driving and walk lots of places, but the excess poundage refuses to leave.

Maybe (shudder) I have to take up jogging.

I'm johnny-come-lately to Austen. My sister tried to get me to read her when I was a teen. Now that I have found discovered and come to really love those books, my sister takes joy in telling me I am stupid. I am forced to let her. Persuasion ranks no. 1 with me too or would, if I could seriously choose. I highly recommend Carol Shields' Austen biography.

Re. Google for a sec. I believe at one point the Google folks had a way for authors who didn't want their works scanned into the big Googlepedia; I think it was an online form of some sort.

Not sure how the wavier process is going at this point. Or if JD Salinger has filled one out yet.

bc

Thanks for the Molly Ivins link Martooni.
I've been poking around the net this morning getting various takes on Molly Ivins.
The right wing really hated her. I'm sure it delighted her.

Since the boodle may be about to embark on its post-luncheon nap, I shall now send it right into coma:

This is a major dissertation warning; feel free to skim (way) ahead.

Joel, something to think about (perhaps while sitting on a porch sipping a beverage):

Notwithstanding the specific technical issues, but just as a general "problem" or (if you prefer) "crisis," the Global Warming problem represents something new and different in human history:

It is the first time in history that mankind has faced a (serious) problem on a global scale, AND one which features:

1) a long "lead time" before it arrives;
2) can only be solved by concerted international action, quite possibly on such a large scale that entire cultures may need to be altered to "fix" it;
3) a crisis that may indeed be "fixable" (or at least mitigated, if it's too late to "stop" it);
4) has any elements about it that allow us to take "lessons learned" from any past event and try to apply them to this one.

In short, we've never done this before, we're entering Terra Incognita and there's a lot of learning curve up ahead (and that ain't good).

In a major sense, it is analogous to those scenarios where someone discovers an asteroid is heading toward earth, and will crash in, say, 25 years. Those so far have just been "sci-fi" scenarios and "what if" Hollywood movies, albeit potentially real. But global warming is the first such problem of this type mankind has actually encountered (is encountering).

GW is significantly different from WWI and WWII, insofar as those international/global events had relatively short "lead times" (and very few people -except Winston Churchill, in both cases--were prescient enough to see them coming), and weren't "stoppable" in any meaningful sense. And in fact there were sizable portions of the human race who actually wanted those events to occur, because they deliberately and willfully precipitated them.

GW has a few elements in common with the threat of nuclear holocaust from the 1950s and 1960s doomsday scenarios, insofar as potentially crippling (or destroying) life on the planet, but there are several differences: not much common agreement to "stop" it since it was entirely self-inflicted; potentially planet-destroying rather than "merely" life-altering; probably VERY short lead time (a matter of minutes, or at most hours) as opposed to years/decades for GW.

The great Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918-19 was a worldwide event, and once it got going medical people were vaguely aware of it as a looming problem and disaster, but I don't think anyone had a sense of it as destroying mankind and civilization, or even significantly altering it, as in fact it didn't. WWI went on happily in spite of it, just like it had never occurred. Also the epidemic was virtually unpreventable given the medical knowledge and availability of drugs/equipment at the time (the sole exception was the entire continent of Australia, which foresaw it coming and quarantined itself in its entirety, and so had no flu outbreaks while the rest of the world suffered something on the order of 50 million deaths). Our 20/20 hindsight on what "might" have been done don't count for squat.

About the only other comparable human event might have been the great bubonic "Black Plague" epidemics, but they had very short lead times, were totally un¬pre¬vent¬able/un¬stopp¬able, and there were no communications and diplomatic channels that could foster international communication even if anyone could to do something about it (which they couldn't). What I don't know about the era of the Black Plague is whether it was commonly believed that "all mankind" was going to be significantly affected or even potentially destroyed. From what I've read, I suspect many people did have some understanding of that, but a lot of it was religion-based "God is punishing the world" eschatological kind of thing. I suppose the only "good" thing that can be said about GW is that nobody thinks it's going to wipe out mankind or even Civilization As We Know It. It's most likely just going to be Globally Really, Really Annoying, though perhaps on an unprecedented scale. (This lack of a lethal threat may turn out to be a problem in itself. Who was it who said the treat of hanging "concentrates the mind wonderfully"?)

My overall point is that GW is a crisis or at least an event that mankind has had no previous experience dealing with, on a global scale. There is no "book" on how to cooperate internationally (let alone just in the U.S.) to work together to fix/prevent/mitigate it. It is significantly unlike all previous international events (which were mostly wars or somewhat localized natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, etc.). (The first person to suggest that the U.N. represents a viable working body that can do something gets to spend half an hour in the quiet corner, and must clap erasers after school.)

I'm not very worried about the naysayers, doubters, and various lunatic fringe people; they are a nuisance (especially the Inhofe/Sennsenbrenner religious dispensationalists, Rapturists, pre-millenialists, and their ilk) and perhaps a distraction, but there have always been (and always will be) a small proportion of any given population who won't be on the same page, in whatever way and for whatever reason. That's all "a given" -but just a sideshow. It seems to me the international scientific community is coming together pretty cooperatively and forming a near overwhelming general consensus (and there will always be some quibbling around the margins).

What worries me most are the "solutions," which (in whatever overall manifestations) seem to necessarily involve massive and overwhelming societal change, a kind of "nation-building" (read: re-building) on a global scale, and what the diet/fitness industry charlatans (pardon me; I mean to say dieting, fitness and nutrition experts) refer to as "lifestyle changes." If I thought GW could be "solved" (fixed, cured, ameliorated, mitigated, whatever) pretty much just by scientists and engineers, I think I'd be fairly optimistic. If all it took was some bright spark to invent a new kind of widget, or even lots of different kinds of widgets, I think we'd be good to go.

But I don't think that's the case at all. Although there are no doubt many such existing or soon-to-be-invented widgets, gadgets, devices and magic/black boxes that can help GW, I think the overwhelming part of the task will be societal and human, a massive (pardon the phrase, which makes me shudder) "people problem." On those, as a nation and as a world, we pretty much suck. And the scientists and engineers who tomorrow are about to unleash that massive report saying we're in deep doo-doo, are among the people LEAST likely to help us solve "people" problems. The scientists who currently are busy measuring and monitoring will continue to measure and monitor, and that's useful. And the engineers who are now or will invent widgets will continue to do so. But neither group has any experience or talent at social engineering (nor does anyone else, but that's not the point), so their input will be limited.

So if scientists and engineers can't help much, who can? This is where we run into REL problems. We're left basically with politicians (national and international "statesmen" if you want to be polite; scoundrels and mountebanks if you don't), and people previously skilled at marketing and social engineering: Madison Avenue types (speaking of scoundrels and mountebanks).

In short, I think we're in a world of hurt coming up. The only "good news" (for me anyway, though not for many of you) is I'll be dead by then. But intellectually, I've love to "come back" in 100 or 150 years just to see how all this plays out. I don't have a good feeling about it. But then again, I thought the Patriots were going to beat the Colts, so what the bleep do I know?

dr, I am such a nerd. I have Claire Tomalin's bio, along with Dierdre Le Faye's edition of the letters, plus James Edward Austen's Memoirs.

Do you know Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen mysteries? Plots can be thin but the writing is good. Overall, lots of fun. This is the first one:

http://www.amazon.com/Jane-Unpleasantness-Scargrave-Manor-Mysteries/dp/0553575937/sr=8-2/qid=1170353114/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/102-3408920-0703327?ie=UTF8&s=books

(I will admit to preordering them in hardback from Amazon. I just can't help myself!)

dr, I heard that Rochester left the seat up and that was what drove his wife crazy.

SonofCarl, wrong Jane.

;-)

Slyness is right, SoC, wrong lady. When Rochester left the seat up, it was Mary Livingston he drove crazy. And probably Jack, too.

Now that they've provided conclusive "proof" that the seat should be left as is, can they tackle the age-old how-to-hang-the-TP (over or under?) issue?

I thought Rochester just bugged Jack Benny.

Always put the lid down and that problem won't happen and you can just put the TP on the floor....but as usual I am as guilty as the next man for leaving it up.It usually happens in the morning when my brain is thinking about other things.

Mudge, good post.

The only analogy I can think of is maybe population control. Most of the developed nations have unintentionally 'solved' that problem by declining birthrates,and then you have China's policy. Everyone else seems to ignore the issue.

What I wonder about is how to significantly reduce CO2 without it having a huge regressive effect. Like it or not, the car culture has meant unprecedented freedom and mobility previously unknown to middle and lower class people. Significant action on vehicle emissions will probably erode that.

Slyness, I did know that but thought the Victorian lit link close enough to tie it in with dr's toilet seat post.

I'm all confused from watching Larry King: are we now saying that leaving the seat up causes global warming?
I'm gonna be in soooo much trouble with the Lovely Mrs. byoolin....

In the Western world, there are uncounted millions of hard copy books available within twenty-five miles of most American high school kids.

It really doesn't matter whether the computer brings those books into the next room. What's important is the will to read them, not their location in space.

Clearly the toilet seat is not settled.

It was a study done by males, based on a study done by males, so of course there is an inherent bias.

proceeds from the boodle cookbook could go towards mudge's cryonics.

Population control may or may not be part of the solution (and in fact might be a good idea whether there's GW or not), but once again, that particular problem comes down to social engineering/societal engineering and is a "people" problem. Howya gonna get entire societies to do it? To the extent that China is "suiccessful" at it, I don't think totalitarian rule makes for much of a role model. Who is going to tell India to stop having babies? Howya gonna make it stick? Who gets to decide which countries or which races/religions/ethnic groups get to have how many babies?

The only good thing about the population control problem is that we pretty know what causes it (fording), and various ways to prevent it from making babies (abstinence and/or the rhythm method).

OK, that last part was a joke. But you get the idea.

I wanted to share my views on Global warming,but instead my post for the day has to do with toilets.What is the name of this Kit?

Dumbing it down? Perhaps I should just go to work and think of something clever to say later.

Lovely post, Mudge. Very crunchable. Lots of food for thought there (I'm catching up while lunching). Along those lines, here's a bumbling and ill-formed thought. There is a significant difference in kind between global warming and previous large-scale issues. These (world wars, disease outbreaks, even the effects on populations in the aftermath of natural disasters), while they might have had an environmental or ecological component, were primarily about the effects of an event or phenomenon on a human population. Even most of the worry of nuclear war stemmed from its disastrous effect on people first, planet second. Global warming, by contrast, involves people becoming aware of and trying to avert a threat to the planet itself. Obviously, this is still people-centric in that we're talking about the human habitat. In the main, though, previous populations have not been overly concerned with the effect of their actions on the planet which housed them. This may be the first time the entire population is focusing on the condition of the orb on which we live.

Ah well. I told you it was bumbling and ill-formed.

My cryonics? Finally--a worthy cause I can get behind!

Au contraire, Ivansmom: point well taken and well expressed.

Oops! Dammit! Lapsed into *that* language. Very sorry, boodle. *smacks own wrist the ruler*

Byoolin, there is that methane issue, so...

Mudge, very interesting and I agree. Each of us is going to have to change significantly before we fix it.

For anyone not familiar with it, you may find this of interest.

http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session4/27/greatsmog52.htm

To Dolphin Michael:
Ice age:
You are referring to the possibility that warming of the oceans could cause the Gulf Stream to change course or stop. Without the Gulf Stream, northern Europe would PROBABLY be a whole lot colder than it is now (remember, Norway is as far north as Alaska, and New York City is at about the same latitude as Naples, Italy; Houstan and New Orleans are further south than Cairo).

To pete:
When you burn fuel, CO2 is released into the atmosphere. That is a fact.
And the amount of burning we do has been increasing at an incredible rate for the last 200-300 years, because of population growth and industrialization. So when you burn wood from one tree, other trees take that CO2 back and tie it up again until you burn them ("CO2 neutral").
But here's the zinger: Trees take ALL of their CO2 from the air. BUT THE CO2 IN THE FOSSIL FUELS WE BURN WERE PREVIOUSLY TIED UP IN OIL AND COAL FOR 100s OF MILLIONS OF YEARS - BUT WE LET IT BACK OUT INTO THE ATMOSPHERE.

It should be noted that in the 50's most Brits heated their homes with coal. After they arrived home, they lit a coal fire and made their problems that much the worse.

Significant improvements were made, people made big changes in how they lived, and it helped for many many years. We are at the same crossroads now. Maybe we are past it, but I hope we have the gumption they did to effect a change.

It's OBVIOUS that this "global warming" scare was dreamed up by evil LIBERAL MASTERMIND George Soros to scare everyone into buying more snorkels and bathing suits - and guess who controls the WORLD MARKET in snorkels and bathing suits?? Wake Up America! Don't allow EnviroRadicals deprive you of your right to drive trucks or wear coveralls.

Mudge was counting on being able to wear coveralls when he was cryonicked (or izzat cryonicized?).

I'm just waiting to see if his heirs are going to fight over the head like Ted Williams' did.

toilet seet issue, huh what...I thought all women were hoverers...what the heck do women need seats for

*ducking**running for cover*

Tom, thanks. that's as I remember. So what's the big deal with global warming, anyway, unless you have a problem with a situation that you can just push a big wooden stick into Paris and call it a popcycle?

It all just averages out, doesn't it? Of course, the earth will get rid of some of the greenhouse gases by getting rid of us, in the process.

Tom, I love it when people mock Gore's movie, but challenge neither the observations and "facts," nor the projected outcomes. The more people fuss, the more they really need to see the movie.

What the movie stresses is that the temps at our latitude are not nearly important to watch than those at the poles. That's where the Earth locks up it's water as ice.

Not a good combination.

The toilet sear cover must stay down in order to keep the evil vortex from escaping from the Nether World into ours. You Are Warned.

oops:SCC:seet=>seat

can I come out from under my desk yet?

In the Global Warming Boodle, DoC said, "On the other hand, the preservation of our civilization's precious paperwork now seems to depend on Adobe, which provides the PDF format."

Two Apocalyptic Topics on the table reposed, and, sorry I could not pontificate on both and be one pontificator, I chose the one less trammeled for all the difference it would make.

The movie ROLLERBALL (1975) was perfectly brutal, of course, but it had it's Kilgore Trout moments. One was the protagonist's interview with computer scientists who are busily transcribing all the world's knowledge into a single centralized database. It becomes painfully apparent that they, because of their incompetence to retrieve the stored information, are not preserving knowledge. Instead, they are destroying it.

That's what's going on with Google Books.

It's not like the repository of uncopyrighted material at Project Gutenberg, from which you may choose plain text or *html*. Instead, to download a Google Book, you must accept some obscure variant of *pdf*. Whatever it is, it crashes both of my open-source *pdf* viewers.

I predict that *pdf*, because it is so amorphous, is destined for that graveyard of digital formats, which outgrew their original elegant concept: Supercalc, MS Multiplan, LOTUS, MS Works, MS WORD 5, rtf, WP, and potentially OpenOffice. Format obsolescence is directly analogous to media obsolescence: paper tape, punch cards, mag tape, 5-1/4" diskettes, 3-1/2" diskettes, streamer tape, data CD, and potentially data DVD. Turning back to the future, we can see that transcribing information into any of these discredited formats or media and expecting it to remain indefinitely accessible was always a mistake and always will be.

... and don't get me started on digital video formats where there's no accepted standard. There are scads of Web sites like YouTube serving Adobe Flash content, but their developers don't realize or don't care that the latest Flash capability is far from universal. Especially among those of us with high-speed data connections and even running up-to-date browsers like Firefox, there are a quite few on Linux platforms to whom Flash 8 is not available and for whom Flash 9 is SNAFU. By restricting service to clients with Flash 8 compatibility, these developers are dissing a good number of potential viewers.

*CLAPCLAPCLAPCOUGHHACKCHOKEhopeityhopehope*
Interesting 'Mudge.
I was pontificating at my sister's dinner table about the great human die off I supposed happening within a few generations and how it would be good for the earth and humans in the long run. I thought I was doing quite well until I noticed the look on the face of my lovely 13 year old neice.
Having no hostages to the future may squew my thinking. I'm glad I didn't say, "Nothing personal."

College costs including tuition, room, board, books, fees, laundry machines, beer, condoms, less scholarships and financial aid:

Community College: 10k (assumes kid lives at home)
In State University: 20k (dorm or apartment)
Of of State Public University: 35k
Private Liberal Arts College: 40k
Prestigious Private College: 50k

GWU and Hopkins qualify as prestigious, George Mason, Queens College would fall under LAC. I'm willing to entertain case studies. Remember that except for community college, room, board, books, etc. are a constant. Tuition is the only real variable.

No, omni, for your own good, you'd better stay there the rest of the day.

SCC skew

To Everyone Who Thinks It Is Unpatriotic to Criticize the president, his policies, or the military:

The US is a great and special country. And why is that? Is it because American soldiers are willing to fight and die without criticizing the commander-in-chief? No, it is not.

It's because in the 1780s, a bunch of really smart and visionary people got together and - after much heated debate - wrote some really smart basic laws: They set limits to the power of the president, Congress, and the courts, and granted everyone the RIGHT to CRITICIZE everything.

What we do is not automatically GOOD AND RIGHT just because WE do it. Rather, by carefully considering all the information available and trying to DO WHAT IS RIGHT, we have a chance at BEING GOOD AND RIGHT.

The US political system is intended to keep politicians from overstepping their rightful powers, and help them make the best choices. Making the best choices is especially important when it comes to waging war. That's why sending troops to fight in a senseless war is the highest form of treason.

A president who is willing not only to ignore the advice of top generals, diplomats and allies, but also to lie about everything from the reason for invading to the financial cost does not deserve to be dog catcher, much less commander-in-chief.

Soldiers in China and Uganda fight and die without criticizing their leaders. It is in the interest of American soldiers to support a vigorous debate over every important political issue, but especially issues for which they may be sent to die in foreign countries.

PS: The further you are from your home country, the more you should question whether you are really in a position to defend it! (In WWII, 850,000 German soldiers died "defending their homeland" in Stalingrad - but wait: Stalingrad isn't IN their homeland...)

In addition to the problem of the release of hydrocarbons trapped in oil, it is also simultaneous with the deforestation of the remaining temperate land masses and the sea change (pun intended) of the ocean's species and environment. And it's all happening just as the world's human population ticks past six billion. I can see why the computer models use chaos theory. The next 10-20 years are going to be a wild ride.

I'm not worried about humankind's survival, but a world dominated by humans in which there only exist 12 large animal species, 18 small ones, and 4 genetically engineered, nutritional choices of each type of food, is not one I would care to live in.

(and R.I.P. Molly Ivins, she will indeed be terribly missed. My copy of "Bushwhacked" is well-worn and still hilarious)

I had a mildly amusing comment to post here, but I've banged my head against Moveable Type a couple of times here, so I'm going to just skip it.

Mudge, all of humanity *has* banded together in the past to try to achieve something. It was a project to build a tower to the heavens; Tower of Babel, I think it was.

Didn't end well, IIRC.

bc

I went to the link to Biden's site. In the right corner is a picture of Biden, shirt open, grinny smile. It's a good smile for a golf pro, and you don't have to raise money to do that.

I think some people said that when the Arabs, or the Muslims of the Middle East, went democratic, it would be better for Israel. Yep, pluralism is as pluralism does. Now we find that people in Islam hate each other. Biden's solution is to split them up. So, now the solution is the opposite of pluralism. Not ethnic cleansing, but ethnic freshening. An ethnic rinse.

So if it's OK for Sunni to hate Shi'a to hate Kurd, we'll still get them to love the Jews and Israel, not go off half cocked and deny Israel's existence? Even as they deny the right to exist of each other?

Progress, she ain't what she used to be.

Yellow, you don't think condom expenses aren't also a variable (I noticed you include this line item in your first graf)?

Of course, back in my day, the same line item was pretty fixed: you'd buy a single Trojan and keep it in your wallet for months, and often years, until you got "lucky" (at which point it was usually no good anyway). And "Plan B" wasn't nearly as widely practiced as today.

No, I am not going to describe Plan B.

Oh, wait, Mudge - maybe now's a good time to get started on that blue-bottomed Ark.

bc

Um...don't everybody all do it at once, but in onesies and twosies, look up at the URL. Does it end with "i see stupid people"?

Joel? Hal? Is one of you having fun at our expense?

Trust me, Mudge, no one wants to hear you describe your Plan B either.

bc

Mudge, Joel's been hiding little jokes in the URLs for awhile.

I think yesterday's was what_would_einstein_do

bc

Yeah, that's what they said back then, too, bc.

*sigh*

There is no scientific proof that man made global warming exist. That is the plain and simple truth. Just because you say so, doesn't make it so.

ALGORE is a moron, and his science fiction movie is nothing but science fiction. If you believe in An Incontinent Truth you probably also think Star Wars and Star Trek are real also.

Mudge - I agree that the planet is in for a world of hurt. The planet has always been in for a world of hurt. And I agree that in 2107 life to us may seem worse in many ways - but I don't think it is a given that this will be the case for the people of that age.

When I was a kid I loved to run around in the woods, so, at that time, if I were told that my kids would have no woods to run around in, I would feel sorry for them.

And my kids don't have many woods to run around in. But they have a Wii, so like, they don't care.

You mean...Star Wars DIDN"T really happen long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away...? *sobs*

bc, can this be true? Tell me it isn't true!Luke...Princess Leia...

Chewie...

Gone. All gone...

...Yeoman Rand...

I should stress that I mean if we could somehow magically see, today, what life will be like in 2107 we might see some things that appall us.

Clearly, the reality of life for us in 2107 will not be much fun, cause we'll be pushing up daisies.

Except, maybe, for those of us who drink red wine.

Glad I cleared that up.

...with her little miniskirt, and her tricorder-type e-steno pad...

...I'm going to need a moment here...

Look on the bright side, Mudge:

If we could somehow magically see, today, what life will be like next Thursday we might see some things that appall us.

But at least we'll always have that memory of Yeoman Rand.

Mudge - this will help soothe your pain.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Life-weekend-magazine-Giada-DeLaurentiis-Donal-Logue_W0QQitemZ300076439917QQihZ020QQcategoryZ201QQcmdZViewItem

I can't vouch for Yeoman Rand, but Tasha Yar was very, very real.

Incidentally, FWIW (and summarized here by this non-scientist), the 'ice age' theory is based on recorded temperature and CO2 levels from ice cores, such as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png

The problem with thinking that we're due for an ice age is that current C02

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html

is well above the peak levels in the last 400 million years (see the first graph).

I stand to be corrected, as I am wont to do.

Oh. My God. And it's "Buy It Now" price is only 99 cents!

*searching in pocket for leftover lunch money, frantically searching through desk drawer, looking under cushion of chair, contermplating the ethics of stealing from the office "Honor Sytem" coffee fund...*

My work here is done.

SCC thousands, not millions

in that case slyness, I'm gonna slink out the back and head home. talk to y'all tomorrow.

The URL was the original title of the kit and was my thought after watching too many cable TV news programs last night. I was just surfing from blowhard to blowhard.

I was just about to make that correction, SoC.

Dooley, I tried to find your very interesting posts on this topic the other day, but I lack Boodlepop or smartness in general.

I just threw in condoms as an example of the minor expenses that always get neglected when computing college costs. Feel free to substitute "twenty-sided dice" or "ST:TOS DVDs" as mutually exclusive substitutes for "condoms" and "R. Kelly albums".

And I think I've expressed my preference for Jadzia Dax before. Yeoman Rand always struck me as the type angling for a house with a white picket fence and a kitchen full of avocado green food replicators.

RD, fight nice.

I'm going to need to take a moment myself for a mental Silkwood shower to get rid of that image of Mudge, Yeoman Rand, and Plan B From Outer Space.

bc

RD, the reason that global warming worries me more than earlier threats, wars, etc., is that earth's population and consumption of resources are so much larger than ever before that there is less margin for error, and the consequences would be greater. A lot of people died or had their world turned upside-down in the last century's wars. But if Bangladesh is flooded, a hundred million people are affected, and that's just one country.

IIRC, last year the UN was already estimating 150 million displaced people by 2050 due to sea level rise.

I suppose that we can all agree that the Venn Diagram of: Bush Conservatives, Global Warming Naysayers, and Religious Fundamentalists has a very substantial overlap (what is the name of that triangle-y thing with arcs for sides that you get at the intersection of the three circles?)

At any rate, I've never understood why the Noah's Ark metaphor didn't have more resonance with those people. Old Noah didn't wait until the drops started falling before he built the ark and gathered the animals. He endured many years of ridicule before that when he had the ark up on cinder blocks in the front yard (which your neighborhood covenants would probably prohibit now anyway).

Let's say that global warming doesn't turn out to be of the magnitude that people are currently predicting (someone call me in 2200), but we go ahead and pursue some solutions/mitigants now. What's the downside? As far as I can tell, it's only economic. There will be a slight reduction to GDP, but I'd be hard pressed to believe that spending on recycling, wind turbines and pollution controls is going to bankrupt the world.

The upside, on the other hand, is positively enormous. Even if global warming doesn't happen you have theoretically reduced fossil fuel dependence or even created a whole new energy economy. It's a long view, but maybe you also finally eliminate insane global jihad since we become free to ignore the Middle East rather than deploy carrier groups (nuclear powered by the way, no emissions) everytime the King sneezes.

I think of myself as being reasonably smart and something of a skeptic, but for the life of me I just can't understand the political aversion to admiting that climate change is real and taking some steps to slow it.

Awal, I'm with you. I'd rather increase gasoline taxes and seek alternative energy technologies NOW, regardless of the short-term cost and moaning it would cause. I might moan at high gasoline costs (and others) but I'd get over it.

Agreed, Awal. And I'm vastly relieved to see that Exxon-Mobil squeeked by with only a $39.5 BILLION WITH A FREAKING "B" (oops, sorry, meant to use my "indoor" typeface) profit last year, the largest ever in U.S. history. In retrospect, I'm glad we all had that huge gas price increase last year, which magically tapered off before the election.

Fording b@st@rds.

Back in the day when my I was on my way to college, my Dad used to describe tuition at a PLA College as 5k a semester before toothpaste and pantyhouse. (Referring to incidentals). Ah, the naivete of parenthood, since I'm sure condoms would never have crossed his mind. Thinking of him a lot today, as the first anniversary of his death is tomorrow.

As a retired librarian, I think that Google books will save all of the books of the world from the same destruction that the great library at Alexandria faced - neglect and rot. There are some business interest here with copy right, but the vast majority of scanned items will be out of date or so little used that nobody will be hurt in the process. It is truly a wonderful thing that they do. What if Microsoft had thought to do so much good for the world? But Gates has, so I guess they are even.

James Lovelock (of Gaia fame) recently estimated that only several hundred million humans would survive global warming, and all would be living at high latitudes.

Any attempts we make today to ameliorate GW may take two centuries to have a significant effect. 50 years for any measureable effect. GW may accelerate rapidly; warmer polar climates may release massive amounts of CO2 and CH4 as buried carbon decays, clathrates are released from ocean beds, forest fires increase, and other temperature-dependent chemical processes are enhanced (a positive feedback process). Complete melting of Greenland and Antarctic glaciers would result in a 65 meter increase in ocean depth world-wide.

I'm a little sceptical of that last one, but I read it in a Science article just yesterday. Malthus and Erlich were off the mark (so far), and it may just be that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies.

--small wonder such a monster's fellowmen
miscalled are happy (e.e. cummings)

Warming is politics and people argue it like they do polities. First hing is to line up all who do not agree anc clal them names. Then complain biterly if they get published. "Why waste space on..." If you don't believe you are a denier. Ouch.

However, I just wondered if the people who saw changes in the atmosphere causing a warming trend were aware of other not atmospheric factors. So, I ask"how about the ice age cycle?" My did I ever get scolded. But nobody ever told me that we know that there is not an ice age cycle or that we know why New York had thousands of feet of ice over it just ten thousand years ago. So, I am still curious why we are ready to bet the farm and deny civil rights to a part of the population for not believing. What is so wrong about asking questions?

Art there factors that will cool the Earth that we have not taken into account. Is there a cycle for the "solar constant?" If there is, it could well be good that we are warming the planet, just as we do our house in winter. If it is in the warm cycle it could be a mistake. However, the real evidence seems to show that a five to ten degree warmer move would be better than five to ten degree cooler. If it got that much cooler we would be living on potatoes at best. Warmer give us lots of Canadian wheat.
Bottom line: There is more to say about warming and people should be allowed to ask questions without being called heretics. This is science - not religion.

Listen hear you crazy loons that profess to be experts. If it is CO2 that is the problem... the we are already screwed beyond comprehension. In India and China... there are close to 3 billion people who are coming into the industrial age in their societies. They are are starting to and will be huge consumers of carbon fuels. This growing use will far outweigh any possible cutbacks in our own carbon emmisions. Even if we cut what we do by half... there is still no way to cover the overrun in carbon that India and China produce.

So if the argument is all about the CO2 levels that mankind produces... we have already lost the battle. There is no way we can stop it unless the world shuts down and we go back to living in caves.

Warming is politics and people argue it like they do polities. First thing is to line up all who do not agree and call them names. Then complain biterly if they get published. "Why waste space on..." If you don't believe you are a denier. Ouch.

However, I just wondered if the people who saw changes in the atmosphere causing a warming trend were aware of other not atmospheric factors. So, I ask"how about the ice age cycle?" My did I ever get scolded. But nobody ever told me that we know that there is not an ice age cycle or that we know why New York had thousands of feet of ice over it just ten thousand years ago. So, I am still curious why we are ready to bet the farm and deny civil rights to a part of the population for not believing. What is so wrong about asking questions?

Art there factors that will cool the Earth that we have not taken into account. Is there a cycle for the "solar constant?" If there is, it could well be good that we are warming the planet, just as we do our house in winter. If it is in the warm cycle it could be a mistake. However, the real evidence seems to show that a five to ten degree warmer move would be better than five to ten degree cooler. If it got that much cooler we would be living on potatoes at best. Warmer give us lots of Canadian wheat.
Bottom line: There is more to say about warming and people should be allowed to ask questions without being called heretics. This is science - not religion.

CJ,
"toothpaste and pantyhose" is a great phrase. I'm not sure how many college co-eds invest in pantyhose anymore. Hopefully toothpaste is still a staple. Back in the mid-80's I knew the total cost of my OOS college was three grand a quarter. That included beer.

Sorry to inadvertently dredge up memories of your dad. Those anniversaries are tough.

Warming is politics and people argue it like they do polities. First thing is to line up all who do not agree and call them names. Then complain biterly if they get published. "Why waste space on..." If you don't believe you are a denier. Ouch.

However, I just wondered if the people who saw changes in the atmosphere causing a warming trend were aware of other not atmospheric factors. So, I ask"how about the ice age cycle?" My did I ever get scolded. But nobody ever told me that we know that there is not an ice age cycle or that we know why New York had thousands of feet of ice over it just ten thousand years ago. So, I am still curious why we are ready to bet the farm and deny civil rights to a part of the population for not believing. What is so wrong about asking questions?

Art there factors that will cool the Earth that we have not taken into account. Is there a cycle for the "solar constant?" If there is, it could well be good that we are warming the planet, just as we do our house in winter. If it is in the warm cycle it could be a mistake. However, the real evidence seems to show that a five to ten degree warmer move would be better than five to ten degree cooler. If it got that much cooler we would be living on potatoes at best. Warmer give us lots of Canadian wheat.
Bottom line: There is more to say about warming and people should be allowed to ask questions without being called heretics. This is science - not religion.

I don't think Lovelock's estimate is exactly the most airtight, peer-reviewed, dare one say plausible scenario. Weighing the relative danger of GW vs. other possible menaces to society is impossible, since we don't know precisely how the climate will behave nor what other kinds of menaces and problems we might be forced to grapple with (emerging pathogens, spread of strange slime in nitrogen-laden oceans, nuclear war, nanotech gone awry, etc.) but I do subscribe to the assumption that there are some win-win solutions that won't cripple our economy and might make life actually more pleasant. I doubt hundreds of thousands of people stuck in traffic every day during rush hour will complain if we come up with better transportation networks, for example.

Lots of new names today. Are we on the front page? I don't see anyone scrambling for the bunker. Our inherent goodwill and joivre de vie seem to be contagious.

I don't believe the doomsayers. In any contest between Mother Gaia and human ingenuity, I think ingenuity is going to win. You have to realize that we don't solve any problem until it is a crisis and the definition of crisis is very situational.

Way back near the top of this boodle, K writes:

"Google is just following technology there because Project Gutenburg has been turning classic novels into e-books for years. I've found it very useful when I wanted to read a book that was already taken out of the library. However, I definitely prefer a bound book to a computer screen when I am reading."

I like books too. I am thinking of writing a column on this -- the gracefulness of books. Nice to hold. Fun to put on the shelf and think: I read 30 entire pages of that before getting bored. And so on. I wonder if, in the future, there will be a market for high-end books with some kind of premium features. I hate paying 28 or 30 bucks for a hardback, but I might pay 40 if it came with some extra bells and whistles.

Gore himself has suggested that GW may be a great business opportunity. The economy thrives on new needs. Here's a dandy one.

Something that really alarms me is how these media climatologists are only looking at the past 200-300 years for activity. Why are they only looking that far back... because that's about as long as there have been thermometers. The earth has been through periods that were far hotter and colder than it currently is. We are talking tens of thousands of years ago. The only people that are looking that far back are those that are being cursed by the likes of Heidi from TWC. Understanding the conditions of the earth all through its history is important to see how we were warmer than before and how the ice age developed and how it slowly melted away to the point that we are at where we are now.

Most likely... there are other factors at work. Astro-physicists have said that our earth may not be an a completely constant orbit. Gravitational fields of other planets and the sun could cause our orbit to randomly fluctuate over time so that we are either closer or further away from the sun...

Unfortunately those like Larry King- (I'm still alive!), Barbara Boxer, Gore, Heidi, and others are not interested in a debate about the science. They are pushing their claims of science as facts that cannot be argued. Yes the east coast of the US had 70 degree temps from mid December through the middle of January. But is that a real reason to run around as Chicken Little? Right now the news is there is a consensus among scientists that GW is real and is man-made....
What does a consensus have to do with science?? True science is like 1+1=2. Consensus says that you have a group of people who are convinced that 1+1=3.... with no proof to back it up.

I'm not going to join the lemmings that will follow this consensus of scientists up the mountain.

'Zactly, Awal! I was trying to say it, but couldn't achieve what you did.

To follow someone previous posts... should we panic about the record snowfalls in Anchorage Alaska? Should we panic about the huge blizzards that occured in Denver? What about the damage to the usually robust citrus industry that was caused earlier this month by abnormally freezing temperatures in California?

From these events... you could suggest that a new ice age is coming. But that would be absolutely ludicrous. So why are we freaking out about the East coast of the US having abnormally high temperatures this month. Hasn't the last two weeks of weather in DC been below average?? What caused that? A shift in weather patterns.

what awal said.

front page of wapo has interesting story about former italian prime minister's wife -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/31/AR2007013102438.html

my first thought was that italians are crazy.
my second thought was i wonder what would've happened if hillary clinton had tried this.

Raysmom, a thick, tall strawberry milkshake would be fine, thank you. :-)

I hold out a faint hope that tomorrow might be something approaching "normal."

I agree, boss. I would buy fancy schmancy hardcovers in a heart beat if the freaking mine ever came in. Otherwise its going to have to be trade papaerbacks and used.

You know what the really truly sad thing about my life is? That I don't have a library card. I seem to have gotten out of the habit. I remember the first day I went to the school library in grade 1. It was in a converted science lab in the upstairs of the school, and books right to the celing. In the centre of the long narrow room there was a wide table and a chair at either end. It was a warm and glorius place.

I would hazard a guess that it would be fairly easy to draw up a list of all the major "mitigants," cures, fixes, etc., for GW that have been or shortly will be proposed. And I'll bet a few other things:

1) Few or even none of the "fixes" require any substantial new invention, widget or gizmo that doesn't already exist;

2) That there are far more substantial reasons to enact and put in motion those fixes now FOR THEIR OWN SAKES rather than for the purpose of staving off some future GW disaster. (Examples: we need to build more/better transportations sytems not to stave off GW 25 or 50 years, but because we need them NOW irrespective of GW. Countries such as China and India need population control NOW because they are overcrowded NOW, not because they need to stave of GW in the future. We need to find an alternative to fossil fuels NOW because we're running out AND they pollute NOW, not because they will stave off GW in the future. And etc.)

I say this not to be a doom-and-gloomsayer and because "it'll never work so we might as well not bother," blah-blah, but because -- if I'm basically right -- these societal and motivational issues are the kinds of problems that need to be addressed and solved, not the relatively "simpler" technological issues of which is better, geothermal, wind or nuclear power, or whatever. Starting tomorrow, we're going to spend the next ten or twenty years discussing and haggling over the wrong things. We don't need to figure out how to get better gas mileage; we need to figure out how to do societal terraforming.

Did anyone already link to this?

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/01/the_troops_also_need_to_suppor.html

Excuse me, "mercenaries"?? "obscene amenities"???

whaa??

And check out this comment posted this afternoon:

Mr. Arkin-

I am an officer in the United States Army. I have deployed to Iraq twice, and been wounded once. I have had my soldiers killed and wounded, I have killed and wounded other human beings. I have carried wounded soldiers and civilians in my arms; crying in pain. I myself am permanently physically damaged by my experience.

Through all those events, I never shed a tear. Yet I sit here today crying; reading your original article and your rebuttal to the overwhelming response.

I am proud of what I do, what my soldiers do, the freedoms we defend, and everything we stand for. I proudly defend your right to publish your article, and it actually warms my soul to see free debate and discourse about any topic, because this is the only nation in the world where such completely unbridled discussion and opinion rage on in an organized fashion. That is the United States I am proud of, the one that has given me so much.

I decry and am ashamed of my fellow warriors who have lost their thin veneer of civilization and chosen to engage in the atrocities committed in Iraq. May God have mercy on their souls.

I have chosen to shelve my right to have an opinion on the war in Iraq. I support our effort to help the Iraqi people, depose Saddam, and promote a free(er) Iraq. Are we (or can we) still doing that? I don't know anymore. I have an opinion, but it is too visceral to be truly rational anymore, so I keep it to myself.

Overall, it does not matter. My country, almost unanimously, asked me to refresh the tree with my blood in Iraq/Afghanistan 6 years ago. That was this country, by referendum. As my country comes to terms with what she has done, and possibly chooses a different path, I will soldier on. I will guide and inspire my Soldiers to do the same. But, it saddens me to see so many of my brothers and sisters killed and maimed, only to find out my country either didn't mean it or had no stomach for it.

None of these are the reasons I cry. I cry for the lack of purpose, the apparent lack of caring, the lack of compassion you displayed in your original article and in this subsequent failure to apologize to me, my fellow warriors, and all those who came before me. Here's why.

1. I am not a mercenary. You could make me work two jobs and this would still be one of them, because I am that passionate about defending you and your rights. Many in the National Guard and Reserves do just that. My country needs professional warriors to do her bidding, and he is me, and thousands like me.

2. I have the right to express my opinion within the bounds of the UCMJ, as do my Soldiers. How dare you imply that I do not, or that I should reprimand them? We already accept an abbreviated set of rights willingly. Do not attempt limit my liberties that I have already willingly limited while I defend without complaint the unabridged version you are so rightly entitled to.

3. As an officer, my needs are met. However, in the three months leading up to my first deployment and the entire 13 month adventure, my pay amounted to 173 cents an hour. My friends and I logged our hours as a joke, but $1.73 is the reality. That equates to 19-20 hour days, 7 days a week, for 16 months. That's with the relatively lavish bonuses and benefits we receive while deployed. And I am an officer. Think of our junior enlisted, and find someone else in our great country that is willing to work so hard, day and night, no weekends, under fire, threat of death over their head, for so little? Find me one and I will retract this comment graciously. Of course, even when not deployed, it takes my wife and me quite some time to get through the line at the grocery store. That's because we get in line behind one of my fellow warriors, who with shame in their eyes and faces flush with embarrassment fill out their WIC paperwork because they don't make enough to support their wife and two kids (an average sized family).

4. This response is taking an inordinate amount of time to type, because I have only one functioning hand after being wounded in Iraq. I am trying as quickly as possible to use the medical system your (and my) taxes paid for to recover, so I can go back to Iraq and continue to fight for what you don't believe in, because I believe in you and my Soldiers. Still, I count myself lucky, as I received my Purple Heart next to a 19-year old warrior with both his legs amputated above the knee. No matter how wrong the majority feels the decision was at this juncture, that Soldier gave (I use the word gave deliberately) his legs at his nation's calling. Not for money. Not because he was too stupid to get into college. Not for the great benefits. Just because you asked him to. Please don't imply that this fallen hero is not entitled to the basic medical care he receives.

5. Given the opportunity, I would fight the Germans in 1944. Oh, to have that definition of purpose, that sense of righteousness! But, that is not to be. This is the war that this country has chosen for me, my peers, and my Soldiers. With its vagueness, dirtiness, ambiguity, undefined enemy, amorphous center of gravity, and undefined purpose. The actions of our administration, the decisions higher-echelons of our military, the blunders of the CPA, (I could go on) etc. aside; it comes back to one thing. America chose this fight for me, and I will fight it with all my skill and might until she tells me to stop. The woes and throes of the majority, hawks, doves, liberals, neocons, etc. mean nothing to me or those Soldiers you quoted. What matters to us is that you told us to be there, 3000+ of our brothers and sisters have died there, and we are still there. Change that - in reality, not in the abstract - and we will gladly leave and prepare ourselves for the next challenge and opportunity to defend your freedoms.

I am a Warrior, a Soldier, a Scholar, and a Patriot. This country has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to train and educate me. I am well-versed in our government, our demographics, our history, and our Constitution. Perhaps I am an idealist. To the end of my life or capability I will defend your rights and this country. I am proud that I live in a country where a free-thinker such as you can write an article so critical of current policy. But I am deeply hurt by the insinuations and accusations listed above. I request an apology, on the behalf of all the Armed Forces, for your insensitive and boorish comments. I only wish I could communicate with your entire readership the bitter taste of betrayal that is in my mouth as easily as you communicate your speech and thoughts.

With Respect,

A United States Army Officer
"Army Strong"

(1) The solar constant is not changing significantly on human time scales. It changes by about 0.1% over the course of the solar cycle, according to my sources. The current average surface temperature of Earth, based on balancing solar input vs. IR output radiating to space, is about 292 K (Kelvin). A 1 K = 1°C temperature increase would imply a change in energy input of order (293/292)^4 -1 = 0.014 = 1.4%, 14 times greater than the solar cycle variability. I have not heard this reported.

(2) Earth is NOT varying in its orbit. What may vary is Earth's orientation. This happens on time scales of 100's of thousands to millions of years. It does not happen in a century.

(3) Earth has been colder before. It is referred to as the "snowball Earth" for very good reason. However, that was a few billion years ago, and the Sun was (would have been) measurably less luminous then.

(4) Earth has been warmer. So what? The major concern, really, is not about whether the Earth will be a survivable place in the new equilibrium. The concern is over the process of transition.

(5) There was a massive die-off of North American megafauna as climate changed after the last Ice Age period. This is definitely not mere coincidence. Earth survives. Individual species do not necessarily do so. Let me remind the naysayers that we are but one species. Obliteration of our one species would not even be noticeable as a mass extinction. On the other hand, the mass extinction of species worldwide that is presently underway and which is suspiciously well-timed to coincide with the Industrial Age, will produce noticeable results in the eventual fossil record.

(6) Of course there is no scientific proof that global warming is our fault. We have only a failure to prove that it ISN'T our fault. That's how science works. Given that there is much going on in the world that is entirely consistent with blaming us for global warming, it is an odds-on favorite.

(7) Scientists suffer from me-tooism, like other people. However, we also suffer from excessive contrarianism and the urge to prove that we are smarter than all our colleagues. If somebody pops up with definitive proof that global warming is not our fault, he/she will be loud about it. However, that won't change the fact that global warming clearly IS happening, our fault or not. It won't change the fact that we depend on fossil fuels, which puts inordinate power in the hands of a few of the world's more reckless regimes. It won't change the fact that fossil fuel use produces other polluting effects. So it seems that a prudent effort to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is good, no matter what.

(8) Every time that an unavoidable burden has been placed on industries to respond to "onerous" environmental rules that were sure to break the back of industry, they have responded by finally becoming motivated to innovate. The result has been cleaner and more efficient industry. The U.S. steel industry fought modernization. Now, Japan has the healthier steel industry, because they modernized. Same for lumber processing. Same for automobile design and manufacturing. Come on, people -- don't follow, lead!

(9) It is not correct to say that China and India necessarily will demand their turn to pollute heavily. They will demand their turn to develop. They will not sacrifice their own development because we ask them to avoid pollution. We will need to offer a better alternative. If we lead the world with the innovation of cleaner and more efficient technologies, they can either buy or pirate those technologies and develop themselves in a much cleaner fashion. Piracy may cut into our profits -- but it will improve our air.

Heidi Cullen isn't just a reporter, she has a PhD in climatology from Columbia University.

Gee, my longwindedness is pretty damned unimportant compared to the post preceding it.

Jeez, Joel, yes, those two phrases were indeed over-the-top. I kinda sorta maybe think I know what Arkin meant or was trying to say, but he did a lousy job expressing it in those two phrases. Overall, I thought he had a pretty good point, though.

But then, this is pretty much a variant of discussions we had in the 1960s, too, during Vietnam. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Oh, dagnabbit, did it again. Sorry. My bad.

SCC my previous: instead of "societal terraforming," make it "remedial societal terraforming."

re: Arkin. sticks and stones. If there really are obscene amenities they should advertise that more.

During GW 1 there were some protesters in Canada that thought they'd make their point by putting tombstones on the lawns of military families. That made my blood boil, but Arkin's article? Whatever. Free speech.

Arkin went way over the line and exposes himself for the uninformed opinion columnist that he is.

I disagree with the Bush's attitude that "L'Etat, c'est moi" and that they are competent to run the war, precisely because they continually disregard the advice of the top military minds out there in exchange for their ideology.

Arkin incorrectly implies that the generals are in charge of the war and somehow running things over the Commander in Chief's head. He also engages in innuendo that the military somehow benefits from this "arrangement" in Iraq.

He also paints those young soliders as "naive" and so forth. They are nothing of the sort. Because they disagree with him and feel that the American public should be more supportive of the troops does not make them naive.

They MAY be falling in the "sunken cost" thinking trap, but could you blame them when their sunken cost involves lots of dead comrades?

The portrayal of the living standard of our troops is extremely insulting, as "Army Strong" pointed out. Thousands of families are suffering considerably thanks to that glorious pay and standard of living provided to troops and their families.

It is a very disrespectful piece to America all around.

Because of security concerns, it is difficult for Americans to send care packages or mail to troops they do not directly know (no more "To a GI").

If they do not know a soldier directly, they can pay for and help assemble care packages for the troops.

http://operationmilitarypride.org/faq.html

I'd sign any petition calling for Arkin to be fired. I don't think there's a call for the Washington Post to fund uninformed opinions as meaningful work.

Hell, Wilbrodog could write a better column with a better grasp of the facts than that. (And he'd be asking for "doggy bags" for our noble K9s over in Iraq, too!).

arkin should apologize for calling our soldiers mercenaries. his attitude reveals a certain class condescension, aside from being insulting and inaccurate.

Thanks for that info on Heidi Cullen. I'll find out more about her and if she's a climate scientist as you say I'll correct the original post.

Joel, thanks for the link. I don't know what was worse, Arkin's column or the comments that followed. I'd hate to meet some of the commenters in the dark.

Anyway, here's my take: Our soldiers, God Love Them, do their job from a sense of duty that transends politics, personal interest, and even patriotism. They go into the field regardless of who is president or what political party is in charge. Their main job is to kill the enemy, but not to decide who the enemy is.
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That's our job. We, citizens of the U.S., have the job of determining our role among nations. Through our elected representatives, we use the power of our military to protect our interests.
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But only we decide what are interests are. And, we can change our minds. That's the beauty of a democracy. Our soldiers in Iraq are confused by the growing opposition to the war. They interpret this disquiet as criticism of the job they are doing. This is understandable, but wrong.
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Our soldiers are doing their job. They're doing it well. And we are doing our job. As citizens.

http://www.weather.com/aboutus/television/ocms/cullen.html

Trashing the troops is unforgivable. Of course they're disappointed and confused by the uproar at home. They were told to go out, risk their lives, watch their friends die, because it was necessary for safety of their country. They couldn't do it or maintain unit cohesion if they didn't believe in their cause. I'm upset because I think they've been misused, abused, and deceived.
The soldier's comments reflected maturity and an acknowledgment that policy is above their pay grade. An article putting their attitudes in context would have been interesting and instructive.
Accusing them off being disrespectful because they disagree with a journalist sitting safely at home is not.

SCC I saw the program and the soldier's comments reflected maturity and an acknowledgment that policy is above their pay grade.

Interesting time this evening. As I arrived home at around 5:00, there were a half-dozen or so police cars parked around my little cul-de-sac (about twenty townhouses arranged in a square, roughly), but no obvious activity.

Things got interesting quickly! The attention was obviously centered upon a home more-or-less directly across from mine, and officers quickly began pulling out weapons and positioning themselves behind vehicles & trees.

At about 5:30 - 5:45, two young women came out of the door and were cuffed and led away (with great haste!) to police cars nearby. I think that they were questioned for a bit, and released to stand by while further events unfolded.

At about that time, the flock of helicopters overhead grew to three or four, the SWAT team (complete with four or five dark unmarked SUV's and an armored vehicle) and a "Mobile Command Center" RV showed up. Oh, and the officers with pistols at ready were joined by a couple who were strategically placed with rifles aimed at the front door. Then the fully-clad SWAT-types started gathering at a spot not visible from the residence in question, but less than 100 feet from me!

Blessfully, it all ended peacefully a little while ago when guy who was the center of all this excitement came out to be taken into custody. The local news reports that he was a bank robbery suspect who was "familiar with the residence".

OK, it's nice for life to be interesting every now & then, but I'm glad that it wasn't MUCH more interesting. The police officers are taking down the crime scene tape, have turned out all of the flashing lights, and are generally calling it a done deal.

Arkin is guilty of what we call "grabbing a PFC at the gate." Quote worthy perhaps, a true measure of anything other than a very personal opinion of a very inexperienced person, not so much.

On soldiers using WIC/food stamps. Most service members who qualify are in the three lowest pay grades and have more than the "average" two kids per family-probably not a smart move for a young person in an entry level job. Also, those who live in military quarters do not have the value of their housing and utilities counted as income so they qualify for food stamps when those in similar circumstances who live off post do not. I am not saying anyone in the m