WIP

Getting called a clown by someone who thinks being accused of rape is worse than a woman having to go through rape, is meaningless.

Yes, I heard that one. Typical that the same ones who are complaining about others living off the government are the first ones at the trough.

They should have put the boots to him. The banksters don't allow Occupy or any other demonstrators to get to them through their lines of security, why would an Occupy crowd put up with an enemy propagandist, even for a second?

Since I, like most men, have never had to experience rape, I don't have a testimonial or personal story to tell on the subject; but there are others who do. This would be a good place to start if you want to educate yourself a little on the subject: Dancing In The Darkness: Survivor's stories

Does the devastation of being imprisoned compare to having to endure rape? Unless you get raped in prison NO! Does losing your job, family and friends compare? Can't you figure out which is worse? If you can't, go buy a clue! I'd like to know why you consider these crimes equivalent? Is murder and being accused of murder also equivalent in your world?

Actually, I see as little of Ezra Levant and his theories as I can avoid! Whenever I find a copy of the Toronto Sun lying around at work, I pull out the sports pages and the page 3 girl/and the back section bikini pic, and throw away the rest! That's about all anyone else wants to read from them also. And I have Sun News channel blocked so I don't have to look at Levant & co. even by accident. It's not that I'm avoiding conflicting ideas, but there are limits to how much I can put up with destructive propaganda.

Interesting contribution....I'm surprised....but I did notice from my searches that there are a couple of evangelical sites seizing on this dispute re: Neanderthal DNA as some sort of proof against modern theories of human origins....somehow if it can be proven that Neanderthal shared DNA with modern humans comes from a common ancestor rather than later admixture, this proves we are descendents of Noah! Good luck publishing that one in scientific journals. As usual, I noticed that the Beeb has once again given us a very brief and very sketchy report on a new published study in PNAS. They are becoming one of the worst sources now for learning about new scientific discoveries....they're still a public broadcaster right? Isn't science education still important over there? Anyway, looking around at some of the other news sites that commented on the findings, they provide a little more detail, but not exactly what I was looking for: I wanted something from this biologist, Anders Ericksson, showing specific comments relating to the HLA groups that other scientists believed provided the Cro Magnons with the improved resistance to disease to survive and thrive in Europe. Apparently an earlier Cro Magnon group either died out or migrated out of Europe for unknown reasons. The backstory to this drama meshes with the tragic story behind government charges against Aaron Schwartz; and here's how: one of his big criticisms and major concerns was regarding how these science journals get their university studies sent to them free of charge. A journal's only costs are the panel of referees who weigh the merits of each study applying to be published. They take all of the research and charge high fees for those who want access to it. So, in this specific case, we have PNAS locking up everything aside from a brief abstract providing no details. So an outsider who does not have the PNAS subscription, even educated science bloggers, are as much in the dark as anyone else wondering who's right about how the similarities between Neanderthal and modern human DNA got there. As for "proving" no neanderthal/human mixing, this is one vs. pretty much everyone else in the field from a quick glance of what's been published so far. So, you are cherrypicking that one study and claiming it is proof against everyone else, because it more closely matches your predispositions...but not completely, if you chose to think about it a little more deeply! A new challenge (and remember this story of whether or not we mixed with neanderthals has been going on for years) from the other side is mentioned by this anthropologist regarding a comparison of specific HLA genes:August 16, 2012 Neandertal STAT2 haplotype in Eurasians and August 13, 2012 The date of Neandertal admixture: 47-65kya contend that the admixture could not be the product of genes held in common. I can't say who's right, especially trying to wade into technical gene research articles; but if we are going by consensus of expert opinion, the odds have shifted decidedly in favour of the argument that modern humans have at least some share ancestry from neanderthals. And then there's the Denisovans! It seems that trying to explain away the genetic characteristics found in common with Melanasians and other south eastern Asians are even harder to explain away. The story of human origins gets more complicated by the day.

Not what I said, but the South African whites - both the Afrikaanders and the less fanatical English who briefly ran things, sowed the seeds of their misfortune long, long ago, when, they created the Apartheid system rather than extending equal rights to blacks and coloureds (the fact that South Africa had over a million mixed white/black people should tell you something about hypocrisy of the Apartheid Era when, supposedly, there was no race-mixing allowed.....apparently rape was permitted though!) The Afrikaanders had their own bullshit story about how providence led the 17th century Dutch migrants there after religious persecution at home, and their nation had God's blessing.....haven't we heard that one before? And because God told them to create their own white homeland, God could not permit them to extend equal rights and allow mixing with blacks....which happened anyway, legitimate or not. So, the white "tribe" created a bunch of separate, unviable little Bantustans so each black tribe could go back to their own "nation" at night, after working all day for meagre wages in the white nation (except for black farm workers who were provided separate quarters). And they couldn't understand why blacks weren't overjoyed about this arrangement! When the system was collapsing, that's when we heard talk again about reviving the Orange Free State as a white homeland. If they were so adamant about having their white nation, why didn't they set it up to begin with, rather than hogging the whole thing and all its resources and marginalizing the majority population? For the record, not all the stories about being white in present day South Africa paint the picture you guys portray -- a bunch of dark savages preying on white women and killing white men, but I used the world "blowback" for a reason. Because the policies of wars of opportunity and aggression you seem to be so enthusiastic about, will eventually result in some sort of blowback against the U.S., Canada and who knows who else! As for Israel...I don't know what to advise anyone living there today, since if I use the example of an animal control officer who has just seized the jaws of an alligator - he can't let go of the alligator once he's grabbed hold of it, and if he doesn't have the backup to get the alligator into a cage, he's stuck holding on for as long as he can. Don't know how far the analogy fits, but it's safe to say that in both cases, a little forward thinking is advised before plunging ahead.

Yep, nothing wrong with Ezra Levant that a nice hard throat strike to that fat neck couldn't fix! The Sun "journalists" and the goon squad in the Post's Full Comments section sure can let it all hang out.....as long as they are attacking the enemies of their corporate paymasters! Neither one of these "news organizations" really practices journalism (i.e. all of the fawning over the bloated Toronto mayor being acquitted failed to mention that it was for reasons of legal technicality and nothing more), and these "brave" journalists at the Sun and the Post are never going to attack the oil industry, Israel, corporate power, banking fraud, the environmental destruction caused by tar sands development etc. .....but they can attack: the poor, racial minorities, environmentalists, natives, muslims.....pretty much anyone and everyone who doesn't serve the interests of their corporate masters. And that's the price you have to pay when your "news" organizations are nothing more than corporate funded propaganda tools that would go out of business if they had to earn their way through subscriptions and ad revenue. Typical that all of the propagandists for "free enterprise" never seem to practice what they preach, and earn their way from government largess and special tax and regulation rules.

Well, I wouldn't mind a clarification of what it means to be "one" species. Because recent genomic and Y-chromosome DNA research indicates that some populations have fairly large contributions (up to 5%) DNA from our cousins - the Neanderthals, as well as up to the same % from a subspecies of Neanderthal called the Denosovans, which no one even knew existed until about a year ago, when DNA analysis of a bone and tooth found in a Siberian cave showed that they belonged to a third modern human sub-species, distinct from us and Neanderthals. So, now we know that all non-African populations have some Neanderthal DNA, while populations that migrated through central and southeastern Asia have a mixture with the Denosovan line . The natives of Papua, New Guinea have 5% Denosovan DNA. These findings complicate the migration picture that was already looking somewhat convoluted. It is more likely that that there have been many migrations, rather than one or two; and mixing with two human sub-species really complicates the picture even further. And, needless to say, a strict, literal interpretation of Genesis cannot account for the dates of these migrations or even the existence of two human subspecies that were distinct from Homo Sapiens. The new findings on the Neanderthals and this new enigmatic Denosovans, and DNA evidence that the migration out of Africa into Central Asia, which led to Indo-European, Chinese and Native American populations separated about 40,000 years ago, doesn't fit the narrative that the sons of a man named Noah - who lived 4000 years ago, gave rise to all of the races we know today. So much for Shem, Japheth and Ham! The real history of the human race is a lot more compelling than the crazy white supremacist theory that the Texas school boards are going to force onto their children.

Does the term "blowback" mean anything to you?

And how many clowns like you are making a phony equivalency between rape and being accused of rape?

Since there are some here implying equivalency of rape and rape-accusations, I'm thinking once again that this board is too much of a sausagefest to have an informed, sensible discussion on issues that primarily affect women! Maybe if there was more female participation on these forums, there would be a lot more sensible discussion on these and all sorts of issues.

You got the tail wagging the dog again! Take a look at who the administrators are for the central banks. Find one who is not an insider from one of the major national or international banks! The Bank of Canada is set up as a crown corporation; so technically it's a government office that's hands-off from the government of the day. But, the activities of our central bank and the cabal of major banks in the U.S. that make up their federal reserve system act in an identical pattern of doing what's best for the banks...not the people! The Wall Street banks do more than "lobby the government;" they have their people in and out of the NY Federal Reserve (Jamie Dimond for example!) Ben Bernanke and Tim Geitner are among the banking insiders who have taken the wheel right in the political structure to gerryrig the government policymaking on finance and budgets. And that gives you this figleaf argument to complain about what the government is doing! Take a closer look.....the bankers own both political parties when it comes to setting banking regulation and responsibilities, just as the oil and other energy companies owned the M.M.S. to the point where that department stopped doing any investigative and regulatory work entirely. The BP fraud revealed that an MMS stocked with former oil company executives (who usually go back to the boardroom after a few years of "public service"). Same corrupt system where corporations run the government functions that count....most of them couldn't give a shit about gay rights and marriage and such...so they'll leave that one, but when it comes to the money, they have their fingerprints all over every policy decision made by either Democrats or Republicans. That's what you're calling a "complete story?" Sure are a lot of details missing....such as how Alan Greenspan made sure the whole investment derivatives markets (bets on existing investments) went unregulated, leading to what's estimated to be a multi-trillion dollar ponzi scheme that will eventually bring the whole international banking system crashing down on regular investors....like those expecting a return on their pension funds. A.I.G. created an insurance policy for derivatives (credit default swaps), made sure that Greenspan lobbied for them not to be regulated as insurance products, and then when real estate markets started crashing...what do you know, AIG runs to the Bush Admin. guy - Henry Paulson, and tells him 'we don't have the reserves to cover all of the CDS contracts out there, and we will declare bankruptcy and let the hedge funds and major national and international banks come crashing down too.' And that was the start of the bailout. Why was there a real estate bubble that the U.S. allowed to bankrupt homeowners rather than the banks? Because another secret derivative investment was created - Collateralized Debt Obligations - so that mortgages created by banks could be bundled up and resold to third party investors, and set up in a phony risk categorization scheme to instill confidence from gullible institutional investors -- the creation of tranches or three levels of risk, with corresponding rates of return based on risk. The buyers didn't know that the CDO's were frauds right from the ground up, and this bundling scheme made it possible for mortgage companies to write liar loans to potential buyers even if they didn't have jobs or credit ratings. Notice that they first changed the bankruptcy rules for average Americans a few years previously, so that (unlike wealthy investors and corporations), the bankrupt mortgage-holder can never escape their debts and will be paying a "debt" on money to a banking system that created the damned money out of thin air in the first place! If this sort of system seems fair and justifiable to you, give your head a shake!

Not likely that it's going to happen! Nothing that really catches my attention presents itself as a moneymaking opportunity. The only reason that's a problem today is that we live at a time when competitive capitalism and media have monetized almost every aspect of life. No, that is patently false, and I suspect you didn't really think that through before you wrote it down. Most of the world's governments are totalitarian - with entrenched ruling classes either ruling without any democratic process or completely subverting the democratic process and making it a meaningless exercise - like in the United States right now. All it takes is a relatively small portion of the population to see their interests tied with the dictatorship and they can rule the majority for years or decades! The despots and oligarchs use religious, racial and national identity politics to enlist a dedicated minority who may not even receive any economic benefit from the dictatorship....again we have the U.S. example, where so called tea party republicans, formerly referred to as the social conservative wing of the Republican Party, vote against their own economic interests for religious, racial and patriotic reasons. And, we have the growing alter ego of Republican fascism as their strategies at local levels across the U.S. to suppress minority votes and gerrymander districts to rule without a popular majority (remember the Repubs only rule the House because of gerrymandering -- if districts were equally divided by population they would have lost the House), and they are pushing further, because the Republican Party has decided that their future lies with white conservatives, and they are doing their damnedest to marginalize the groups who they do not want to have to offer any incentives to support them: racial minorities, immigrants, younger women, college students etc.. If a political party seeks to exclude entire groups from the democratic process, then they have no claim on democracy at all. My recollections of when the Francisco Franco Dictatorship finally came to an end in Spain as he lay dying in a hospital were that when King Juan Carlos...whom Franco expected would consider his future tied to Franco's Falangist Nazi Party and maintain the status quo after his death, surprised onlookers in Spain, the U.S. and Europe, by dissolving the legislature and calling for free and fair democratic elections. When an election finally occurred for the first time since the early 1930's, Franco's party received less than 8% of the popular vote! And yet for decades, through a system of reward, tyranny, torture and the threat of reprisal, Franco's Falangists were able to rule every aspect of Spain's political and economic life. The real, unvarnished truth is that a populist movement has to be united, and stay united through the attacks and attempts to create wedges within the movement by fascists and neofascists who have their interests tied with those who are in positions of political and economic power. And, the popular uprising rarely accomplishes its task through solely peaceful means, as in the case of Spain where a benevolent dictator (The King) passed up the opportunity to become the next dictator and turn power over to the people. That sort of thing rarely happens because leaders are usually social manipulators and narcissists who are addicted to power. By the time the populist movement overthrows a dictatorship, its ranks are usually filled with the Stalins and Maos and Pol Pots, who, if they ever were populists, decided to act and govern in a similar manner as the dictator they replaced. So, I'm skeptical about the odds of success of peaceful populist movements in general....which is one of the reasons why I couldn't get too excited about the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt etc.. Two years later it's back to square one again! My familiarity with this subject comes almost exclusively from the years that I had long commutes home from 2nd shifts and had nothing to listen to on the radio besides the Art Bell Show. Before Ipods and podcasting was invented, I used to take out stacks of audio books on cassette to play so I wouldn't have to torture myself listening to a.m. talk radio. Anyway, whenever Art Bell would have a conspiracy theorist going on about the UN and the Bilderbergers and David Rockefeller for some reason I forget... and would yammer on about how they were going to force nations to stop burning oil and coal and force birth control on women to bring populations down, I would think to myself that 'I'm on their side.' That's the kind of new world order that would actually be trying to save the world, rather than destroy it! But, like I said, if they were the puppetmasters behind world government as imbeciles like Alex Jones believes, then why is the only world government with effective power the government of big money and banks? Time after time we are told that the it is impossible to bring world peace and enforce anything more than weak environmental policies internationally, and here we have the economic world order putting more teeth in every new trade agreement that comes along, where presently - even before the ratification of TPT, a nation like El Salvador has to part with money that is needed to provide services to the poor and spend that money in international courts to defend itself from a Canadian mining company, demanding that they follow through and allow development on an environmentally risky mine in a nation that never allowed mining previously, until a corrupt president who was no doubt influenced by bribes, signed off on the mining deal. These sorts of schemes enforced by the international banking system and corrupt government officials worldwide, seem to be the only sort of world government that makes its presence known! And they are not working to save the planet! These mining corporations, oil corporations, and other resource developers of high yield natural resources, have shown themselves to be psychopaths by their own actions -- time after time ignoring risks and warnings of potential dangers to push ahead in the interest of money. That, and the fact that ramped up resource extraction to feed increasing economic demands is already showing that it is close to the limits of resource recovery, and yet they keep pushing harder...to use more energy, demand more water for extraction and leave toxic waste dumps after the mines, coal fields and tar sands are exhausted past the point where they are profitable. This short term, greed-driven organization is what rules us today. It would be nice to think that they are planning for the long term and have thought out all of the environmental and population issues to save the planet, like rightwingers fear that they will be forced in to....something like a child being forced to eat his broccoli....but the truth is that the psychopaths rule our world, and they have no thoughts or concerns for the future beyond their own immediate needs. And that's most of why the world is heading over a cliff today. There are right wing anarchists and left wing anarchists, and both have no alternative plan for how a society can rule itself without some overarching government system. The question is how much say the individual and minorities marginalized by majority populations, have in how they are governed. The economic system has already centralized power in case you weren't aware of it. That's what the whole bullshit strategy behind 'free trade' agreements was all about. They have centralized the power that makes it possible for banks and corporations to move freely across national borders while paying minimal taxes; why would they want to bother taking down the facade of nationalism? Which keeps some people bedazzled because of its emotional connection to our innate responses to tribal identity....just like sports teams. No, once again you are the pawn! Any billionaires who might have real concern about the future...and I guess there are some of them who aren't oblivious to the fact that their children and grandchildren - though privileged, will inherit the same world as everyone else's children. But, the billionaires who are legitimately concerned about environmental and population concerns, are shouted down by the money of the majority of billionaires who have no such concerns. And, as many of them see how well religion works to keep many of the masses subdued, they will support the dangerous reactionaries like the evangelicals and the leaders of the Catholic Church, who want no end to babymaking....just in case women do something sinful....like start enjoying sex! Governments come and go! And they are funded by banks and corporations who pull all the strings. The only thing growing in most government today is military expenditures. And the reason is because some militaries (primarily the U.S.) is needed to provide the guns necessary to maintain gunboat diplomacy. And military contractors are the great beneficiaries of government spending...not some indolent welfare recipients of your imagination. The big welfare recipients running Lockheed, Haliburton, Northrop, the new mercenary contractors etc. are always able to find an enemy like Iran, to justify another war or at least ramp up military spending on new missiles and other war toys. And until the entire government goes broke, I would say that their primary responsiblity should be to ensure that the least among us do not fall through the cracks. Did it ever occur to you that many of the homeless and the people who have lost jobs and become essentially unemployable are mentally ill and will not be able to respond to your so called 'tough love' approach that believers in the meritocracy prescribe for those on the margins? They will respond of course...but usually that's by becoming sick and dying an early death. But, the wealthy and upper middle classes these days do not see those people or put a face on them. They are merely statistics. Well this is a hallmark moment! Maybe I should stop here, but I'll add that I am aware of the problems that happen - like the free rider problem from game theory - when people contributing do not know those who are receiving and vice versa. According to the evidence from anthropology, we have spent the bulk of human history in small hunter/gatherer bands practicing a lifestyle that was essentially small scale socialism....where tribe members had no personal property because it was usually too impractical...especially during the long history of the Pleistocene Era, when weather changes were frequent and dramatic, and made travel a frequent necessity. We have been struggling ever since the first city states to find ways of uniting people who have no bonds of kinship...that's the whole reason for inventing religions and nationalism. In tribal societies, religious beliefs are interwoven with daily life and cannot be separated into a separate box of doctrines and rituals to practice separately. As a sidenote, I am waiting to learn more about some recent work done at the site of Mohenjo Daro -- the Indus Valley city state that existed along with some other, smaller Harappan city states along the Indus River. The Sumerian city states, ruled by despotic rulers, male-dominated, patriarchal, and constantly at war with each, are considered the norm for human civilization. And yet, at the less studied and less understood city states like Mohenjo Daro, we have a prosperous trading city that existed for many centuries, where there are less indications of patriarchy, no evidence of a slave or servant class, there are no temples or palaces - instead every house in the city is exactly the same size and follows similar floor plan....giving the appearance of an equal...gasp...socialist society where socialism some how worked on a large scale. Since so little has been understood of the available writings from the early period at Mohenjo Daro, we don't know how they maintained an equal society for so long. The only indications of hierachy and social status is that some people wore more expensive and elaborate jewelry and ornamentation than others. So, how did they do it? How did they maintain an equal society for so long when we have been told for ages that the natural human state is to compete with others and set up social hierachies of winners and losers? Well, we would all like to know the answer to that question because Sumer set the course for our culture, our religion and our political and economic theories; not the Harappans and their cities like Mohenjo Daro. But, Mohenjo Daro at least shows that living modestly and equally and refraining from war and overexploitation of area resources is possible. It would just take a lot of unlearning of wrong thinking and some new learning to accomplish that goal at this 11th hour period of our history.

I don't want to think about it, but according to some Biblical and Talmudic scholars, there is more to the story than what was put down on paper. It is likely that some sort of twisted, sexual misconduct occurred that could not be mentioned specifically, but would have been understood by those who lived during the time the book was written.

What I want explained is why that has to be our fight too? It's one thing if Israelis want to build settlements in occupied territory and spend eternity defending them, but why does the U.S. and now Canada also (thanks Harper) has to be a part of it.

I am more inclined to believe that the feeling of oneness with the universe that can come through meditation or other mental concentration exercises, or the use of drugs, or even as a result of exhaustion and dehydration happens to us because our brain function has to continuously generate body maps to tell us where we are in space and where our bodies leave off and the rest of the world begins. This ABC 20/20 excerpt about the studies conducted by Andrew Newberg provides a brief explanation. To me, this universe appears to be too chaotic and empty to be the product of design and purpose of a planned creation, and I'm skeptical of pantheism for the same reason. I could go along with a simpler form of pantheism called panpsychism - which doesn't contend that the universe is one big conscious mind, but that the particles or substance of this universe have conscious properties....which when combined in a highly organized system (like the brain) result in a thinking, self-conscious being. I don't know if Australian philosopher - David Chalmers created this theory of panpsychism, but he is the name most associated with it. His reasons for proposing that matter has conscious properties is because he believes that materialistic theories of mind -- whether reductionist or based on the principle of emergence, do not explain qualia - the subjective conscious experience. He created a thought problem called the Philosopher's Zombie as an example of how an entire world could be created of seemingly intelligent creatures with no conscious experience. I don't know whether panpsychism would be needed to explain consciousness....for one thing, neuroscientists and philosophers of mind are still arguing about what consciousness is, before getting to ideas of how it might work. But, all that aside; even though I'm a skeptic, I'm not all that enthusiastic about pushing skepticism against beliefs that would probably range from innocuous to potentially beneficial. The theme of the OP is that religion is declining in the age of the internet and the increase and easier access to information that challenges religious beliefs. In some situations that's a good thing...we can think of the obvious ones, where religious leaders and their dogmas are promoting superstition, misogyny, intolerance of outsiders etc.. But, the promoters of a world without religion are all tied to the notion that science and technology will pave the way to a better and brighter world. And a lot of the same people who call themselves rationalists are completely irrational about humanity's odds of dealing with big problems that are getting worse by the day, and lead us to that glorious future promised in the first Star Trek series! So, if we're headed for hard times, being a skeptic might not be a whole lot of help for most people.

I didn't say they were still living in the same place. They moved to that rather remote suburb for many of the same reasons that a lot of people decide to buy a home in the burbs....including me about 25 years ago....for them, having a brand new house that was affordable and near a picturesque, natural location, made up for the long drives....at least for awhile!

Odds are that if these guys are politically active - they're Republicans, because this is the kind of religion that has spawned the modern Republican Party's social policies: Christian radio hosts: Feminists are ‘selfish, narcissistic, family-destroying whores’ “Now remember, the goal is that these women have to be independent,” Swanson said on a show devoted to the idea that rising college costs were contributing to an alleged spike in prostitution. “The goal is lots and lots of birth control. The goal is lots and lots and lots of fornication. The goal is abortion. The day-after pill will help. And it will help a lot. Remember, the goal is to get that girl a job because she needs no stinkin’ husband, she’s got the fascist corporation and government-mandated insurance programs and socialist welfare that will take care of her womb to tomb. Who needs a cotton-pickin’ husband? Who needs a family? That’s pretty much the worldview that’s dominating, my friends. That’s what the college is all about.” “Because her feminist professors have told her her husband will abuse her, she will be like a slave to him,” Buehner agreed. “Instead she will just go to the slave market and sell herself, at least sell her body, to the highest bidder. See, that’s much, much better!” “Right, you have the good-looking ones,” Buehner explained. “The other ones are those who we should say are, um, attractive-deficient. … These are the kinds that will look for careers mostly likely in academia. … They can get jobs in the government bureaucracy, they can work as an FDA administrator, or you can actually run the EPA if you want, or academia. Academia’s actually the best place because you can be angry, ugly and you can also get tenure. It’s great, it’s the big trifecta.” “You mean there will be angrier angry feminists,” Buehner shot back. “I believe history will go back to this period of time and will look at feminism and say there was a time in which women lost the love of their children. They no longer cared about having children, they no longer loved their children, they no longer loved their husbands, where for all of history women very much cared about protecting the family. Now they only cared about themselves. They were riled up into a froth about how they were victims of society, patriarchal society, and they decided to become selfish, narcissistic, family-destroying whores.”

Don't have time for a full response, but can't help noticing that you didn't mention any of the other symptoms of climate change...any reason for overlooking them? If I'm wrong about air temps, it doesn't mean dick because the temperature increases in the polar regions...where increases are having the most damaging effects - by triggering positive feedback releases of carbon are much greater than 1 C and undeniable even by deniers! Globally, most of the heat energy is absorbed by the world's oceans (90 %), and that energy is eventually going to make itself known to us, since the best estimates are that 1 C of heat energy are already in the pipeline and coming our way in the coming decades regardless of what we do right now.

Yes, it's apartheid pure and simple! All you have to do is look at the maps and you can see that Israel has made it effectively impossible for an independent Palestinian state to function. So, what do they do with all of the Palestinians? Remember that South Africa was almost 80% non-white, and they were still able to function as a state until international pressure on the U.S., England and Israel, forced them to drop their support of the Apartheid Government. As long as Israel has the U.S. in their hip pocket and afraid to criticize any of their policies, it won't matter how big the occupied population becomes.

Don't look now, but Newtown residents...the people who have been the most affected by the lack of sane and effective gun control in the U.S. were leading the gun control march on Washington yesterday. About 100 residents from Newtown, where a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six teachers, traveled to Washington together, organizers said. Participant Kara Baekey from nearby Norwalk, Conn., said that when she heard about the Newtown shooting, she immediately thought of her two young children. She said she decided she must take action, and that’s why she traveled to Washington for the march. “I wanted to make sure this never happens at my kids’ school or any other school,” Baekey said. “It just can’t happen again.”

No the optimists aren't right, and you were...if you are not still...denying anthropogenic climate change completely, even as we have seen the rates of CO2, CH4 increase accelerating in the last decade beyond the worst projections of the IPCC reports. Whether it's greenhouse gas increases, ocean temperature increases, melting sea ice, ocean acidification, global air temperature increases etc. etc., the so called "climate change skeptics" have been wrong on one issue after another whenever they have had the courage to go past picking at the majority opinion and make predictions of their own. And they function for the same reason that idiots like Tom Friedman, Judith Miller and David Brooks still have careers as "moderate" political pundits -- because the media establishment has collective amnesia and never goes back to point out when these clowns have been dead wrong in their news analysis. Same goes with the skeptics! Every media conglomerate's favourite climate change skeptic now - Bjorn Lomborg, has a new column out in the Wall Street Journal, blathering on about how we can adapt to the unadaptable. And it's taken seriously by the WSJ editors, because it fits their needs and it's what they want to hear! Nobody at the Journal goes back 10 or 12 years to when Lomborg was declaring that even the minimum predictions of the IPCC were overstated and would not be as high as their minimum forecasts. And, I suspect that these days, Lomborg avoids any interviews where he will be confronted by what he has said or written in the past.....just like Friedman, Miller and Brooks!