swansont

Are those actual quotes, or even close paraphrases? Because I've missed those kinds of exchanges. The liberal response you've given has been, from y observation, in response to a much baser statement of protest. (I especially like the protesters whose signs imply that Jesus would deport children) So, absent any evidence, I am just going to provisionally assume this is a straw man argument.

barfbag has been suspended a week for repeated thread hijacks and abusive behavior

How does me ignoring the Republican party affect whether other people pay attention to Ann Coulter? Also, Ann Coulter is a pundit, not a politician, so ignoring a political party will have no effect on this, either.

There's one in the works but no release date yet.

Recently finished The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde. Currently the last book in the Thursday Next series.

Unlike the "Coulter-approved" sports?

I am amazed that anyone gives a rat's ass what Ann Coulter thinks. She doesn't like soccer, so nobody should like soccer. I'm sure it resonates with her target audience, because older white folks in the pro-homogeneity crowd probably don't enjoy soccer. My view is that it's not worth the effort to rebut all that's factually wrong or small-minded about that screed.

A reminder that getting a down-vote to your reputation is not a rules violation, even if it seems undeserved, so it's not something the staff is going to pursue unless a rules violation is involved (such as a sockpuppet account used to game the system)

Hindsight is 20/20, and hindsight bias is a real thing. You still have not explained: is this an actual protocol that is part of their SOP, or is this just your idea of how you think their military should have responded? If the latter, on what experience do you base this? Or is this just a naive model of how you think the military works? The plane turned off its communication after leaving Malaysian airspace, and turned but did not turn back in their direction. Is that an immediate threat? Realistically, how credible would that scenario be if you had proposed it before this spring? Even with this, one can't do a cost-benefit analysis without knowing how often transponder/communication failures happen (which you haven't provided), because statistically this is still a very rare event. Just no longer unprecedented.

They were apparently flying in a commercial corridor, so how does a radar operator know it's "completely the wrong direction"? They were not in Malaysian airspace. How do you justify invading a sovereign country's airspace to "investigate"?

It was recently reported, regarding the recent part of a current discussion on global warming, that "Saying that 5000 people will die per year in the UK due to a 1 degree temperature rise is bollocks. There is no other way to say it there is no paper to refute it." It's hard to imagine that this is the only study of heat-wave related deaths in the world. It's possible that no papers exist to refute it, but that may be because the study is valid. Finding a paper that confirms your personal opinion is not guaranteed to exist, because this is science, not religion. Another example was given: "If you say you have lots of posh looking paper that says the sea is made of beer what peer reviewed paper can i site which says it's not?" There are a large number of studies that give the composition of seawater. Noting the absence of alcohol in these studies would be an excellent rebuttal to such a claim. No action will be take, because the report is utterly baseless.

cynthiafox has been banned as a sockpuppet (of stemcellbuff and montrellblundell); an advertising link has been removed and the thread locked.

I'm trying to get you to give me facts, because reasoning will only get you so far. If a plane not responding to IFF is a daily occurrence (i.e. there are a lot of false positive "foe" signals) then scrambling jets is not a reasonable response; it's expensive in terms of money and wear-and-tear on limited resources. If scrambling jets is on the table, then the question is where does the target have to be? Intercepting planes outside your airspace is not necessarily a reasonable response, and intercepting a plane in somebody else's airspace (Thailand's) certainly isn't.

Yes, that's IFF. Naval vessels are in danger of being sunk, which can happen via a missile launch from a plane. Land-based radars? Not so much. Missiles from a commercial flight? Probably not considered a risk. Not getting a response simply means it is not known that you are a friendly craft. Which raises the question of how often do the military get a non-response from IFF? If it happens on anything close to a daily basis, then I wouldn't expect anyone to scramble jets, especially a country with a relatively small air force (62 combat jets). Some of the projections I've seen indicate that the plane never re-entered Malaysian airspace. It tracked west across Thailand. Why would Malaysia scramble planes for a flight not over its territory? Hindsight is indeed 20/20.

Does the military know what the planned course of a commercial airliner is? Or is it just seeing a blip in the commercial airliner corridor? Are the military folks monitoring the transponders? Or are they just seeing a blip in the commercial airliner corridor?

Then it should be trivial to provide a link or two. I'd read reports that some Malaysian military radars were turned off. That's a somewhat different scenario than previously described; in this case it's not a UFO, is it? You imply they can tell it's the same plane. The most likely explanation for such behavior is an equipment problem. Turning around and coming back is exactly what you'd expect them to do. Why would that be a call to scramble jets? If a jet makes a turn and stays in a commercial flight corridor, as MH370 apparently did (following commercial waypoints), why would you scramble jets? Does military radar keep track of commercial transponder signals?

I'm sorry, when/where was acquisition by Malaysian military radar confirmed? Does the US, UK or other countries routinely scramble jets at every UFO sighting?

anonymousone has been suspended 3 days for refusal to comply with the rules of speculations, specifically running the other way when pressed for specific predictions and/or a model. (And for threatening to drop bombs and missiles.)

HAARPsic has been banned. AFAICT all posts violated rule 7 and/or 8. _________ jduff has left in a huff and will be gone for at least a week, so he won't have to put up with people who disagree with his opinions or can contradict his supposed facts. And we won't have to put up with him.

But the "points" (e.g. galaxies) aren't shrinking. So this is moot. You are "talking to a wall" because your idea is not equivalent to what we observe, nor the model we have to explain what we observe. Galaxies are getting further apart, but they are not changing size.

Yes, the motion is cause by the expansion of space. There is no expansion of objects. This is not scaling.

I don't think that's the issue. The model doesn't say it's an issue of scaling. As I said, it seems that your objection is to something that's not part of the model; it doesn't work the way you want it to work, but that's not an issue with the model.

I'm not seeing why this is the case within the context of the model. 3D objects do not expand or add volume, space does. Why is transportation necessary for this to happen? The model says there is no actual motion, which is a local effect only. It seems that your objection to the model is that it doesn't work in a way it never claims to work. I believe there's already a thread for that discussion.

The volume increases everywhere. So any two points have to be further apart after the volume increases, which looks exactly like they are moving apart.

Ben Banana been banned. Been berry, berry bad. Seriously: insults, foul language and a promise not to change. This was a no-brainer.