Wrath of Dagon

I didn't say it was OK (although it is), I said it's legal. But the Supreme Court also said it's constitutional. In this case I agree, if you look at the fourth amendment, they're not searching your personal effects (like I said before, that data doesn't even belong to you). For example, it would be illegal for the phone company to listen in on your conversation, but it certainly isn't illegal for the phone company to get the phone numbers and the duration of the call.

You have me confused. The IRS targeted groups with "Patriot" "Tea Party" and such in their names for audits. Not specific people who registered republican in "battleground" states. And like I said before, the IRS targeting those groups could have just been them targeting groups they suspected were abusing the 501©(3) system to have a tax free PAC, when 501©(3) designation is designed to be a-political. And possibly individual Republican donors as well. But my point was simply that they already have all the personal info they could want about you. Also they only targeted conservative groups, as they themselves admitted, so it wasn't base on any suspicion, it was based on viewpoint. It is legal, since it was authorized by Congress, and it's not equivalent of wiretaps. They are (supposedly) not listening to conversations, but only collecting info on the phone numbers and such, they're (supposedly) not even allowed to look at it unless they have some evidence that it's relevant, at which point they can go back and check the record. Also the info doesn't belong to you, but to the phone companies and ISP's.

It's funny how concerned people are about NSA having a record of which phone numbers called which phone numbers, when the IRS already has all your private information and has shown it's willing to abuse it.

And? Doesn't matter if they make it compulsory to use Live to sell on PC- something they didn't do with GfWL. If they do that the entire reason for publishers to use steam goes out the window since they'd have to pay both MS and Valve for pretty much the same service- and the MS option would give them more cash as well. Wouldn't be particularly great for consumers, but would be great for both MS and publishers. MS can't do that on PC, it would violate all their anti-trust agreements with the government.

Metro: Last Light. Good writing.

Yeah, I'd say having the Kinect always on is a deal breaker, just the sheer arrogance of it!

Second part is already addressed, but the first part is just... Terrorists of 1776 who attacked their own country, terrorists of 1861 who attacked their own country, terrorist mujahedin in 1980, terrorist rebels in Syria now, terrorist rebels in Libya (presumably supported by terrorist west as well), the possibilities are endless. In 1776, they declared their own country and fought in uniform. If someone was simply going around killing British soldiers, it would be considered murder, and retroactively terrorism, although I guess that concept didn't exist back then.

The reason if was terrorism is these were British residents, probably living on British dole, attacking their own country. Also any combatants not fighting for a government are illegal, although I guess there's a question who makes the law.

It's a lot more complicated than that. Drone strikes tend to have **** accuracy. So even if you're gonna manage to kill the target, so do hundreds of other people in it's vicinity. If you kill some taregt in Afghanistan where dozens of families get killed too, it tends to shatter entire communities that eventually will turn to radicalisation. This news of course is being spread around the entire Muslim community on the globe, and being perceived as an attack on Islam as a whole. Of course it's easy to say "Well **** them, bomb them into pieces too", but a) not only is this kind of thinking just wrong, but b) also turns into a "national security problem" for the countries that do these attacks. So expect the rapidity of these revenge attacks soaring as cowardly drone strikes continue. At some point, we're gonna have a global Israel/Palestinian situation here. A perpetual war machine that will beget more revenge attacks which will beget even more drone strikes ad infinitum. Okay I see what you are saying, to be honest I did think that drone strikes were able to reduce casualties by being more specific but I am not an expert. I do agree with your point that any innocent killed does fuel the "anti-Western" sentiment. But here is the question, if the USA knows that there is Taliban leader in a village in western Pakistan that is directing attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan how do you suggest he gets killed? Actually the drone strikes are very precise and there's always an attempt to minimize civilian casualties. Sending special forces into hostile territory against a heavily armed suicidal enemy is not practical. You might lose some or all of the force every time it's tried, it's a hugely complex and expensive operation, and if anything civilian casualties are likely to be much higher. Yup, that worked out so well in Boston. Or that schoolshooting. Or the Batman shooting. Or the New York sniper. Or the multitude of family dramas. Or the schoolshootings. Etc. etc. It only looks like it helps the perpetrators. Or is that what you want? As horrible as this is, they had to resort to knives. Only one innocent life got lost. In gunhappy America the innocent deathtoll would probably be much higher as they would just empty their guns on everybody. Much easier killing. Actually the terrorists had a gun, it's the civilians who were unarmed and helpless. Also Boston was a bombing, bombs are already illegal.

It's also a short-term, band-aid solution...because you're still going run out of an unrenewable energy resource, and life on the planet still needs sunlight. Good enough for at least a hundred years, by then there will probably be other options. Edit: didn't understand your sunlight comment before, it wouldn't eliminate all sunlight, just a tiny fraction, like a volcanic eruption does sometimes. EU leaders back shale revolution: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/23/newsbytes-eu-leaders-back-shale-revolution-roll-back-climate-policy/

I bet the murderers belonged to some radical mosque, and for some idiotic reason Western countries refuse to deport those who incite them.

You generally have to look at both sides for a debate. I wasn't trying to prove there's a debate, just provide info for those interested. Yes, it would be much cheaper, like tens of trillions of dollars cheaper. I'm not sure what they are addressing with this point: "It also suggests that the residence time of CO2 in air is no more than a few months rather than years, because in 4 summer months nearly all of the increase of the whole year, is undone. But isotope analysis suggests 5-14 years, most likely 5 years. The IPCC says several centuries." Probably just pointing out that there us still some unanswered questions. I didn't say it's my opinion ice cores are suspect, I said not everyone agrees with their accuracy, and this is referred to elsewhere on that website, not the statements you quoted. The strongest argument for CO2 increase being man made is simply that since CO2 concentration started being directly measured reliably in 1958 there's a very strong correlation between atmospheric CO2 increase and the amount produced by man. This may appear strange given the small percentage of man made CO2 in the overall carbon cycle, but it's hard to argue against that conclusion so long as the correlation stays so strong.

We'd have to examine what other variables existed to ascertain whether or not a runaway greenhouse would occur. The first evidence I found of the previous highs for CO2, however, figure it was probably about 3 million years ago when they reached this level, and sea levels were about 30 feet higher. (source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/05/130510-earth-co2-milestone-400-ppm/ ) Now, to shift gears somewhat, isotope analysis lets us see what types of CO2 emissions are in the air, and we can see a higher concentration of CO2 that is a consequence of fossil fuel burning. I am reasonably convinced that the spike of CO2 in the atmosphere is probably influenced in large part by human activity. I do agree that runaway greenhouse is among the worst case, and probably unlikely as a result. I'm curious how much effect reforestation would have. There's a measurable decrease in CO2 every year with the spring and summer, as plants work their thing. I wonder what other sort of carbon sinks could be explored. There's actually some debate on whether the CO2 record from ice cores is correct. Here's an anti-warming web site which discusses a lot of the issues brought up here: http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/climate4.htm#is_CO2_from_fossil_fuel But as Gifted's example points out, even if there is a dangerous degree of warming, there are several geoengineering proposals to counteract it, such as injecting aerosols into upper atmosphere or making clouds more reflective.

And therein lies the problem. You say "show me the evidence for runaway feedback", you're shown- albeit with some snark- and it doesn't count because the situation ain't exactly equivalent. The situation can never be exactly equivalent, all we know is that Venus is roughly earth sized, in a 'temperate' planetary zone where it ought to be theoretically of habitable temperature yet the temperature there is enough to melt lead, and that is excellent evidence for runaway feedback. It's not any kind of evidence, because no one knows what happened on Venus. Are the sulfuric acid clouds it's covered with also result of global warming? For that matter, if the CO2/warming feedback is positive, how come earth never run away, we've had a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere in the past and it's been a whole lot warmer as well, yet earth is nothing like Venus.

Venus has 98% CO2 atmosphere, not .04%, and it's closer to the sun. roofles! Does water vapour fluctuate a lot? If not, then the comparison isn't entirely relevant. It's more of a belief of how delicate our thermal balance is, and whether or not small changes are enough to throw things out of equilibrium. It'd also depend on whether or not water vapor is as effective of a greenhouse gas too. I know cloud coverage can increase the albedo of the planet, and I don't know if CO2 has the same effects (water vapor will, at the very least, prevent the visible spectrum from reaching the surface, as clouds are white). Yes, a lot of stuff isn't known, foremost being the effects on and of cloud formation and water vapor, that's why saying "the science is settled" is a bunch of BS

There is some evidence of correlation, though it may be that higher temperatures cause higher CO2, but there's no evidence of run away positive feedback.

Disregarding your other assessment of data and evidence the greenhouse gases increase is by no means 'tiny'. That CO2 levels are highest since millions of years should clue people in to that. In millions of years? I doubt that. In any case, it's currently .04% of the atmosphere, compared to 1% for water vapor, another greenhouse gas. No way, all the UN conferences keep falling apart, because they're so ridiculous.

But it is part of climate change. Referring to the whole phenomenon as "global warming" is just so some deniers can say "HA, it's cold out side, global warming doesn't exist". Thinning of the ozone layer has been blamed of Chlorofluorocarbons, some have postulated global warming has something to do with it as well, but the connection is tenuous at best. The main tenet of global warming, which is that a tiny increase in atmospheric green house gasses will have a huge positive feedback effect on global temperatures with catastrophic results has no evidence to back it up. Since there hasn't been any warming observed for over a decade now the theory has been retconned to "climate change", as if climate change hasn't always occurred for natural reasons. Of course this doesn't preclude that human activity has "some" effect on the climate, it is quite plausible that it does, the question is how far we're willing to go in destroying our prosperity because of an unproven, theoretical threat.

Yeah, it isn't like scientists have predicted the polar ice caps melting, thinning of the ozone layer, or increasingly erratic weather patterns. They've obviously been faking it for the past 20 years to force Americans into evil socialist habits like recycling and energy conservation. Maybe if we pretend poverty isn't a problem it will go away too. Thinning of the ozone layer isn't even part of global warming, get your scare mongering right. I was recently at a local history museum and it had a cross-section of a tree with extremely thin rings from 1950-1957. They claimed it was because Texas had an extremely severe drought for 7 years. Of course I knew the cross-section was faked because no natural disaster like that happened until recently, no doubt just a bunch of deniers.

Unlimited supply doesn't mean it's cheap and easy to get to. Ok, you're right, IEA and every other energy agency in the world is wrong. A lot of US population growth is due to immigration, and is expected to become even more so in the near future. As the undeveloped countries develop, their birth rates also drop dramatically. In fact I recently read that in the countries supplying the bulk of immigrants to the US the birth rate is becoming similar to the US. Well, the poverty rate in the world has dropped dramatically, far more than was predicted by UN agencies and such. Except that unlike QM, GW hasn't actually predicted anything and is constantly being retconned to try to make it agree with observations. The whole thing is nothing but a bunch of garbage in, garbage out computer models.

You don't seem to understand what shale oil and gas mean. Shale is the source rock for oil. Before we could only get oil that seeped out of shale over millions of years and then got trapped in some other structure. Now we can actually go to the source and get it directly from there. There are vast, almost unlimited amounts of shale oil and gas all over the world. That is why the outdated curve you linked turned in the other direction, and US is now expected to be energy independent in just a few years, something I never thought would happen. As far as nuclear power I'm for it too, but unfortunately I just read an article I can't find anymore that says that nuclear energy is just way too expensive compared to the cheap natural gas, so the prospects for it are once again grim. Whatever happened to all those modular designs that were supposed to revolutionize it? As far as population growth, industrialized countries actually have a problem with shrinking population, not overpopulation. If anything Westerners should have more children, not fewer. More generally, you simply can not project in a straight line like that professor was doing. There are technological breakthroughs and cultural paradigm shifts which completely change the equations every few decades.

What's your source on this?, doesn't sound right, you are talking about hydraulic fracturing? Actually gas prices are quite low right now, mostly because of fracking. Edit: Btw, the peak oil theory in your video has long been discredited, because it doesn't take shale oil into account. Also US is using less oil, not more, there's no doubling like that guy is saying.

Nonsense, we can print our own money just fine. Btw, this has been the coldest spring on record. I know, I know, it's weather when it's unusually cold, it's only climate when it's unusually hot or a natural disaster happens.

A bit OT, but interesting. WW2's strangest battle: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/12/world-war-ii-s-strangest-battle-when-americans-and-germans-fought-together.html

To me, creativity is a more important aspect of quality than polish. OK, so Kotick is more honest than EA, but that's the attitude of most publishing executives, who don't play games or understand games, as a recent article linked on the forum pointed out, it's a dry goods business to them.