glen

Some interesting facts on military spending So, is it larger because we have one of the largest economies in the world, becasue we need it, or some other reason?

Here's a bunch of up to date abstracts from a recent conference in san francisco (last week). Search for "Global Warming" to find appropriate abstracts Knock yourself out.

Sounds like DFA is applying his own views of how he approaches music to how he percieves trask and is coming up wrong. I'm not surprised at all that trask listens to fugazi. Just look at past posts and links to music. Seems like he has pretty good taste. any of you guys ever heard of Sled Napkin?

cool story.

I prefere the 12 essentials...

Greg, is the infiltration of 'greenies' matched by infiltration of 'brownies'? If you are assuming that people are infiltrating the USFS, for example, by getting jobs there so as to sway policy, and more distubingly studies done on behalf of the USFS, doesn't that also open the door to consideration that the same could be done by non-green interests? Environmentally unfriendly forces could just as easily be doing the same thing. So, if this is case- that studies are done in a biased fashion- what is to be done about it? What science do you believe? Doesn't that just lead circularly back to believing what you want and grabbing at data and interpretations as they fit your particular ideals?

Th-Pb and U-Pb are closely related. U decays to Th on the way to decaying to Pb (with Po, Ra, Bi, Tl, At, Ac, Pa, and Fr on the way) along the U-Pb decay series. So the primary point is that the half life (ie, decay constant) of U-Pb is different than Th-Pb. Half life of U=2.8 by, while Th is 9 by. For this application, which is 'better' is dependent on the rock sample and how long it's been sitting around, and for the most part, esoteric. I mean, geez, it's not like anybody proposed using Ra to date the earth...

I usually don't wear gloves when belaying or rapping unless I'm expecting heavy loads, such as when aid climbing. The amount of sensitivity is largely dependent on the type of glove. In my opinion, it is worth coughing up the extra couple of bucks for a pair of electricians gloves as they are a lot more comfy and offer better sensitivity (more sensitivity is needed when working with wiring than belaying). I can certainly think of a few times gloves would've been nice to have around. On the other hand, it's also one more thing to carry around.

fairweather, look up some of the research by Lisa Sloan and Jim Zachos at UC Santa Cruz. They do good work and do both modelling and data collection from the geologic record.

One of my best days was just a regular day of cragging around the base of glacier point apron. Just a few standard lines, son of sam, shuttle bus, etc with a good buddy and a few beers afterwards. Just one of those days where the rock just is what it is, the climbing flows, and the day just slips away.

I guess the interesting part of missile defense is that it is largely dependent on satellite based stations. One of the key arguments about it, though rarely brodcast on CNN, NBC, etc, is that nations capable of developing ballistic missiles are also capable of developing missiles that can take out satellites (a relatively easy task, comparatively). From a strategic point of view, this makes the satellite based part of missile defense an offensive weapon as that is the only time it is likely to be useful. Just a thought. We've all heard about the difference between the effectiveness and reported effectiveness of the patriot missiles.

that's right, King of the Hill will rot your brain!

Wait, you guys haven't been already?

Let's try for a spray post that is entirely devoid of content, and cut straight to the

Of course, we could also ride the bus more often, ride bikes and, heaven forbid, walk places. But, people like their cars...

My truck got $8,000 worth of damage after being rear ended at 45mph at a trailhead in september. Considering I was 8 miles away at the time of the accident, it is fair to say the car was not being driven at the time of the accident.

starting to sound vaguely like mc carthyism...

A little thing called the Kyoto accord... As I understand it from canadian newscasts, they are implementing it and have actually found that implementing the measures at industrial facilities actually results in an increase in efficiency? Updating makes fiscal sense too. China, a major pollter due to the use of dirty coal, has made environmnetalism a major push of it's new administration and has started hiring many western scientists to just "make it happen." There are many reasons to implement reductions in pollution, most of which aren't based on "hippie idealism," although some are not easily placed into the current models of economic viability (ie, might need to think on a longer than quarterly timescale), such as quality of life. As to the perception that the west has to do the "majority" of the work, well that just isn't true. Right now, the US is lagging behind many of the other industrialized nations. As to global warming... Nobody in their right mind would say that global warming hasn't been occurring for the last 10,000 years, long before industrialization and significant proudciton of CO2 by humans. Just look at the glacial record across north america to figure that one out. The debate is about how much we have been affecting the RATE of global warming. This is an issue because of the couple decrease in ability of ecosystems to adapt to increased rates of change and direct impact due to urban and agricultural growth (example: slash and burn the rainforests). That there is an impact from humans isn't even debated anymore, other than a few hangers on, and hasn't been for a while now. Solar variability (ie, milakovich effects) are not a significant effect over short time scales, but are included in some longer time scale models. Solar wind does have an impact, but the effects tend to be of short duration as the increases in solar wind are transient in nature. Models of stochastic events (ie, asteroid impacts, massive freshwater floods into the ocean, and volcanic eruption) are generally modelled on a case-by-case basis as evidence for the particular event are independently constrained in the geologic record. Maybe more of the concepts for this type of stuff should be taught at the k12 level so that citizen joe/jane could make a more informed choice, in whichever direction they choose, when they go to the ballot box. My impression is that most people couldn't even tell you a good description of what globabl warming actually is. The coverage by most major media is biased to tidbits and disjointed factoids, that without context, probably seem contradictory even if they tell complimentary parts of the same story.

Where's Trent Lott when you need him? I'm sure he could come up with a few extra paragraphs for that little "addition" to thread....

the bod is bad for your personal rack. Maybe that's what happened to richard simmons...

Before debunking global warming, or writing off the current changes as "like what has happened before," it is usually a good idea to ask a few questions. 1. What was the mechanism of climate change? 2. What was the magnitude and rate of change associated with that event? 3. What was the impact? Answering these questions in a robust way requires difficult, difficult, tedious and, yes, expensive work. But, the bottom line is that if you look at federal dollars spent, it is a drop in the bucket compared to the $34 billion in damages in the US from the last el nino year, or if you want to get closer to home, the money spent on paleoclimate research compared to NIH, nuclear, or weapons research. As to the current episode of global warming... there is virtually unanimous agreement in the scientific community that the species Homo Sapiens is influencing global warming and that change is evidenced as an increase in the rate of global warming starting at about the industrial revolution. So, now's the time to refer back to questions 1,2, and 3. Before you write off the current global warming as being like the ones in the past, make sure you can answer 1 nad 3 for each of the observed excursions for the last 100ka. As to the relative impact of CO2 and water, I'll let someone like sayjay speak to that. Here's a poster (big file, beware!) that has a bunch of data about paleoclimate on it. Do a search on GISP if you want more data, including data you can play with at home Random poster with some data...

Yeah, Al Gore is a pretty damn easy target too. Then again, he makes fun of himself enough that it kind of takes the fun out of it for the rest of us. Any of you see the "West Wing" skit from SNL? I didn't/don't like either one of them when it really comes down to it. They're all basically anyways.

Ahh, yes, it's time for the Bush quote of the day. This seems as appropriate a place as any, so here goes: "There ought to limits to freedom" --at a Press conference at the Texas State House, May 21, 1999, referring to GWBush.com.

Limit on Ultra-conservatives: N/A- they tend to get drunk and shoot each other in 'hunting accidents' anyways...

Cool! That's actually pretty useful. It looks just fine on netscape 7 running on a mac.