mistermack

That's just stating the obvious. If you declare that something's wrong you are not being skeptical, you're being as unskeptical as people who say that it's right. Especially something as fuzzy and nebulous as climate science. All you get from climate science when you ask for the evidence is "we made this model". A skeptic doesn't declare the model right or wrong. They question the evidence, the method and the conclusions. That questioning is what's missing in CS. There might be some very good work done, but the bad stuff, the over the top conclusions are not questioned.

Wood can get preserved for a very long time in a bog. Under the right conditions, the oxygen gets completely removed, so the wood eating bacteria can't operate. My parents came from the west of Ireland, and used to cut peat for the fire. Tree stumps were constantly turning up as you cut away the peat, and they were in amazing condition. They were called bog-oak locally, although they were often pine. The wood was rock hard, very difficult to cut it with a chainsaw or an axe. And there are the bog-bodies that turn up, beautifully preserved, varying up to 10,000 years old. This one is a mere 2,500 years old :

I don't think this is all that new. I'm sure I remember a few buskers having a very rough and ready version of this back in my busking days around 1970. Out in the open air on the street, you can hardly hear an accoustic unless you have some heavy strings, a big jumbo or preferably a 12 string, and a rock hard plectrum. I used to play slide guitar on a Hofner Verithin electic, plugged in to a Grundig Yacht Boy radio that had an input in the back. It sounded flashy, and loud, and your fingers didn't get sore using the slide. I was awful, but I made money.

That's because they've been driven out, not because there is any more certainty. Not just people being driven out, but new skeptics being deterred from entering the field. All of the people joining the climate industry now are already convinced activists. What would be your choices, if you were skeptical, and thinking of a career? No skeptic in their right mind would go into climate science. To interpret the consensus of opinion in climate science as some sort of validation is just stupid. The consensus is self perpetuating. It's nothing to do with evidence. It's a bit like the consensus for the existence of god among Catholic priests. Not exactly suprising.

Portraying Russia as a bully, keen on attacking it's neighbours, shows incredible ignorance of history. Russia saved Europe from the Nazis. There was a history in lots of Europe of enthusiastic cooperation with the Nazis. Ukraine had a lot of it's own Nazis. Some of the European Nazis were worse than the German ones. Once the WW2 was over, Churchill was urging the Americans to continue the war by attacking Russia, the country that save his bacon. It's with that sort of history that the Russians understandably have a real distrust of the West. Stalin made that mistake, of trusting Hitler, and they learned a bitter lesson. Since the war, rather than attacking their neighbours, the Russians have cut loads of countries loose, and what did they all do? Joined up to a military alliance whose only reason for existence is to fight Russia. Russia has only taken action against neighbours when the ethnic Russian people in those countries were being attacked, as in Georgia and Ukraine. Describing it as bullying is really just buying into the story you are fed by the western media. It's beyond dumb not to question it, just because the BBC reports it. If you have a minority of any sort, they should be treated identically to everyone else. That didn't happen in Georgia, and Russia took action. There's no way Russia would have bothered, without the opressive treatment of the ethnic Russians. They could have easily taken all of Georgia if they wanted. So they obviously didn't want. Ukraine has an awful lot of ethnic Russians. Elections were very close between Russian leaning parties, and West leaning. Pretty much fifty fifty, till the current gang took over. Now, the elections get bent in their favour, just as they were probably bent the other way previously. Like I said, the politics of Ukraine is rotten. To portray Ukraine as democratic is laughable. Ironically, the Russians have shot themselves in the foot election-wise, becuse Crimea was more than 90% russian leaning, and so are the disputed areas on the Russian border. So now, those areas don't vote in elections, swaying the Ukraine electoral balance towards the West.

Like somebody said earlier, I think Putin is just holding back for the winter olympics, to be nice to China. He really doesn't have much to lose, invading Ukraine. Russia already has sanctions imposed, and to go much further would severely damage the European energy market. Sanctions or Russia in the past have given a boost to some home industries, and damaged foreign ones, as well as hurting Russia. I don't know why they don't make concessions on Ukraine. Ukraine would be a ticking time bomb, if it ever joined NATO, so giving Russia an assurance wouldn't actually cost anybody anything, it would be better all round. It's all about maintaining face. The west doesn't want to do a deal under duress, they would lose face. Kennedy did a secret deal with the Russians over the Cuban Missile Crisis. He made concessions, but he did it secretly, so he didn't lose face. In fact, the world media bought it, and the headlines were that Kennedy stared out Kruschev. In reality, he caved in. I personally admire him for caving in, I might not be here, if he hadn't. And the world was a better place for it all. Cuba and Turkey ended up with no nukes, which was better for everybody. In WW2, the US had a strategy of squeezing Japan, just like they are trying to squeeze Russia. Then they looked on in amazement, when the Japs blasted Pearl Harbour. They don't seem to have learned anything.

The meteorite impact evidence isn't surprising, as how else could a chunk of Mars end up on Earth? Even if it's not evidence of the impact that sent it on it's way to Earth, it's probably coming from an early time of heavy meteorite bombardment.

Buy it in a box. It doesn't go off and you can pour what you want.

It is settled, because anybody who questions that fact will never find work again in the climate field. In the real world, science is never settled. It's long-standing, or the latest position, but climate science, the least proved, is the only one that's "settled".

1) Steal a car 2) Take it to petrol station and fill tank 3) Drive away without paying. It works for me. I'm very forgetful.

The reason that the rice poisoning stands apart for me, is that you can get poisoned by it, even if you follow the usual rules. Most people would assume that boiling something like rice or pasta would render it safe for a reasonable period, and not actually activate the pathogen within the food. So it has the potential to catch out people who are otherwise pretty careful about food poisoning. I don't think it's particularly common. I have many times eaten leftover rice that's been kept at room temperature. I don't remember ever getting ill from it, but then, if I did, I probably wouldn't have made the connection. I've eaten undercooked chicken on occasions as well, and not got sick. It's probably the luck of the draw. It pays to know the hazards though, to tip the odds in your favour. You would think that the practice of hanging game until it's "high" would be risky, but apparently it's not too bad, if you cook it thoroughly. Our ancestors are supposed to have made a living scavenging kills off predators millions of years ago. They would have eaten some pretty high meat. Maybe the invention of cooking on a fire was more to do with making food safe, rather than more digestible. I watched one of those survivalist tv programs the other day, and the guy found a dead sheep carcase, that was stinking pretty badly, and he cut out the best bits, and cooked and ate some of it, and smoked and dried the rest to eat as biltong. He didn't get sick.

Yes, it's a bacillus, I was going from memory. Pretty nasty though. It's rare for a food pathogen to survive cooking in that way. I always assumed that rice would be sterile once cooked, till I heard about those spores. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-46573273 https://www.sciencealert.com/5-day-old-pasta-or-rice-can-be-deadly-here-s-how I was remembering a case in the UK where several people died after eating rice at a wedding, but I couldn't find it on google. It was about ten years ago I think. Fermentation can have it's dangers too. There's another bug, Burkholderia cocovenenans, that can produce toxins during fermentation and can kill a lot of people in one go : https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2020/10/nine-dead-in-china-from-contaminated-corn-noodles/

Yes, a car battery voltage is standardised at 12v, but the current depends on the resistance. ( I = v/r ) If the resistance r becomes too low, for example if there is a short circuit, the current will rise very high, and could potentially cause a fire. So a fuse is put in the circuit that is designed to melt at the nominal amperage, as in 80A or 20A. That breaks the circuit and avoids the fire risk. The same principle applies in house wiring, but with a different voltage.

I remember it rather differently. Rice in the field gets a wild mould growing on it, (can't give the name without looking it up). The spores get dried with the rice, and are actually activated by the cooking, rather than sterilised, so that once you have boiled your rice, the clock is ticking. If it's left at room temperature, or kept warm even, it quickly grows and produces a pretty deadly toxin. It can be killed with prolonged boiling, or shorter cooking in a pressure cooker, which raises the temperature. There have been cases where several people have died as a result of rice poisoning, at functions like wedding receptions etc, where the rice was kept too long in warm conditions.

Just like exchemist says, it depends on the item. Certain foods can be dangerous, and others are no problem. I can't imagine your teabag ever being a hazard, unless you leave it long enough to go mouldy. I would do a search on what are the most dangerous foods, and learn how to avoid those particular hazards, there is no general rule. Sometimes it's a combination of things that causes food poisoning. Handling raw chicken, followed by handling raw beef, for example, is highly dangerous, because the chicken has salmonella, and the beef is an excellent growth medium, and is often eaten rare. Thorough cooking of the beef would have destroyed the live salmonella, so it's the combination of things that leads to danger. One to two hours would be risky under those circumstances. Obviously, chicken itself is hazardous for salmonella, but most people make sure that it's cooked thoroughly as it's not pleasant cooked rare. One thing to be very wary of is rice. Eat rice straight away, and throw away any left over, it can be very dangerous. You can make it safe by cooking it for a long time, or pressure cooking it. Or freezing it directly after you cook it. But it should never be left at room temperature, it's even risky keeping it in a fridge.

I don't like the way that the Uknainian problem is reported. There are two sides to it, but none of our media even adresses the Russian side. Russia gave up control of Ukraine voluntarily. It was part of the USSR. Would the USA do the same for Alaska, or Hawaii? Not a chance. But instead of getting credit for that, they get villified. Crimea was historically part of Russia, till a rather drunk Nikita Krushchev (a Ukranian) signed it over to Ukraine on his birthday. (from memory) When Ukraine was given independence, the understanding was free access to Crimea for Russia. When it became obvious that the West was doing all it could to gain control of Ukraine, and hence severely damage the Russian Black See fleet, Putin did the obvious, and took Crimea back. In hindsight, Russia should have retained Crimea, when Ukraine was cut loose. In even better hindsight, Ukraine should have been made to sign up to neutrality agreements as a price for independence, but that was done by Boris Yeltzin who was drunk most of the time. The west has been interfering in Ukrainian politics from the word go, with money and encouragement for anti-russian factions, all with the intention of denying Russia a base on Crimea for the Black Sea Fleet. When Putin put an end to that, it caused major rage in the US and CIA, they didn't like being thwarted. In view of all that, it's hardly surprising that Putin would object to Ukraine joining NATO. NATO is just an anti-russian military alliance, it has no other purpose. Why would Putin just roll over and accept all that? The politics of Ukraine is just about the most rotten in all Europe, they've never run a free and fair election. Both sides are as bad as each other. The idea of Ukraine being a member of Nato is pretty much an invitation to world war 3. If everyone could forget their egoes, the best way to progress would be for NATO to agree to Ukraine not being eligible to becoming a member, and for the West to stop trying to squeeze the pips out of Russia. The Russians lost nearly thirty million people in WW2. They have a right to be paranoid. What if Russia and China formed their own version of NATO ? Where one committed to fight alongside the other, in any conflict? That would be a nightmare, but it's not exactly impossible if we keep pushing.

I don't think you can discuss such drastic cosmetic surgery properly, without the psychological element. Any responsible doctor would go deeply into that, before operating. ( even in America, but you can always find a money oriented surgeon somewhere )

I had a friend who's dick was exactly twelve inches long, although he never used it, as a rule.

I have no problem with empire, if you are moving into an empty space. A dead rock in the void counts as that as far as I'm concerned. I've very concerned about extinctions here on earth, but I don't extend that concern to bacteria. And certainly not to bacteria-like basic forms of life on another planet. That's bordering on the plain silly in my opinion. Apart from the fact that it would be virtually impossible to wipe out primitive life living in rocks, it would probably take billions of years to accomplish, and you could easily preserve some if you wanted, at practically no cost. As far as it not being scientific, that's rubbish. Science is about learning, and there's a lot to learn about how life adapts to a new home. And the practical gain for me, is knowing that life has two chances of survival, not just one. Even though that's of no benefit to me personally, it's something that I would like to know, and I would therefore vote for it, if given the choice.

Mine. Life in rocks is not going to evolve much. Pace of life down there is not going to be very rapid. What's the benefit from leaving alien rock bacteria simmering for another four billion years? What can we learn from that? Nil. The human species won't last billions, or even hundreds of millions of years. We are about 200,000 years old as a species. What's the point of worrying about what might evolve over the next couple of billion?

But Joigus, isn't that being a bit over the top? It would probably take another four billion years for that kind of life to amount to much. And it's not likely to get wiped out, if it's km down in the rocks. Under those circumstances, I think I would still give the old reverse panspermia a go.

"hey Rabbi, how much would it be to circumcise my boy?" . . . . "Roughly fifty dollars". "OK, forget it. It's bound to be even more, to do it gently" Sounds like a bit of a rip-off to me.

How do you make a Zapatos laugh on a Monday ???

One of the few advantages of not being Jewish is that you are allowed to be a complete prick !

I was told that joke by a jewish friend. (about 50 years ago) He thought it was funny.