catbirdseat

I was really busy when that was going on so got hopelessly behind. I scanned it and was appalled by the number of apologists for muslim mayhem. Sure they have a right to be offended. No they have no right to commit crimes just because they are upset. I don't go smash people's stuff every time I get mad!

Oh, really? Where did you say that?

We won't hold her against the Danes.

Our friends in Denmark are getting the shaft for upholding the same principles we hold dear, including free speech. I think we should show our support by buying Danish products.

Theories that are as widely accepted as the Big Bang Theory, don't generally require the term "theory" be used in conjunction with it. The same applies to evolution.

No question. Call in sick and go climbing. Do you want to risk hating yourself for the next month because you didn't take the opportunity?

You are an optimist, my friend.

Does your opinion have anything to do with the dearth of hotties in this year's offerings?

Mike, I take back all the lousy, rotten things I said about you. You're all right. Happy birthday!

You know if trask were here, he'd be having a field day with this thread.

If she had spit on me I would have given her just what she wanted- equality with men- and a punch in the nose. Can't have it both ways.

Teammates ==> Climbing Parter

Trask said he was going to watch the game on a 160 foot long super yacht.

Hey, I read Ender's Game and I'd love to read the two sequels too. I just read The Medieval Machine. It really changed the way I regard the middle ages.

I just finished reading a book about the Middle Ages. The parallels between the early twelvth century and the present are striking. I'll attempt to list some of them. At that time, Europe was faced with several famines resulting from successive crop failures, because of extremes of weather, in this case, wetter and colder. We aren't having famine, but we are having destructive hurricanes, resulting from Global Warming. The tenth and eleventh centuries were a period of intense innovation. It was an "pre-industrial revolution". After this time there was a decrease in manufacturing and a resistence to innovation. There was a huge cloth manufacturing complex in Flanders employing many thousands of people. These people were thrown out of work by the English cutting off their wool supply. We are seeing the same as we export manufacturing jobs to China. Why innovate if you can make so much money by cutting costs? The Black Death arrived in 1347 and resulted in a huge decrease in population. We now worry about possible pandemic flu and SARS, not to mention AIDS. The Hundred Years War was a period of constant warfare between France and England. We seem to be entering a prolonged period of war with Muslim World. Humanist thought and rationalism lead by such people as Roger Bacon gave way to mysticism. The Church condemnation of the 219 doctrines brought to an end the attmpt to marry faith and reason. We are now facing similar retrenchment in the form of Intelligent Design and attempts by the church to ban abortion and research on embryonic stem cells. Defecit spending by government was something we also have in common with 14th Century France. I must admit I am not much of a scholar of history, but these things seemed obvious to me.

In some areas, overuse of colloquialisms by native speakers is regarded as a sign of substandard ability with the language. I recommend that you walk around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

I hadn't even heard of Japanese knotweed. Hmmm.

Space blankets work by two mechanisms. First they are impervious and block the wind. Second they reflect infrared radiation. They have almost no insulating value. The mylar has little tendency to absorb water, but water vapor could condense as droplets on its surface. Water is a great absorber of infrared light, so it's conceivable that it's ability to reflect might be diminished by a condensed water layer.

Writing is boring if it contains information.

Coal can be anything from anthracite, which is mostly carbon to bituminous coal, which contains a great deal of hydrogen and "heteroatoms" such as O, N, S, etc. If all coal were anthracite, we wouldn't have quite the problems with sulfur and mercury. Indeed, as you say, natural gas burns cleanly without particulates and heavy metals, etc., but to make it from coal, you do need hydrogen from somewhere, and the carbon has to go somewhere. Natural gas from the ground already has four hydrogen atoms for every carbon. If you start from coal you generally have to get your hydrogen from water, but that hydrogen is in a "low energy" state. The upshot is that whether you burn coal or methane made from coal, you end up producing about the same quantity of CO2 per unit of coal. If you don't have some way of trapping it, CO2 goes into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. So it may well be that there are environmental and perhaps even economic reason for coal gasification, but it not the solution to global warming, in case anyone thought that was the case.

Seen for sale at Lowe's Hardware, Scotch Broom (labelled Sweet Broom, same thing).

What trees?

2C +2H2O --> 2CO + 2H2 (coal gas) -?-> CO2 + CH4 Now, what to do with the CO2?

Smashing!

I try to give you people fire and look at what I get for my troubles- a bird that comes and pecks out my liver for the rest of eternity. A lot of thanks I get. Grrrrr.