Have I said any such things? I certainly don't recall saying any of that.
You must note, however, that the overreaction you get from some people likely stems from attempts to shame them using exaggeration, hyperbole, and even outright lies, which tend to make enemies to your cause rather than converts. I've never met a vegan that didn't operate that way to some degree. Perhaps those people are just giving back the same level of honest discussion and discourse they received. There's apparently something about veganism that makes it's practitioners think their movement is more important that fact and truth, like the "Dr." (and his followers) who claimed eating any amount of any red meat is just as carcinogenic as smoking a pack a day of cigarettes, citing WHO studies that said nothing of the sort. Many have said "If you agree with my goal, stopping animal suffering, why would you contradict my claims, even though I privately agree they're exaggeration and fantasy?". Ends don't justify means imo, and nothing justifies lying.

I don't need a degree in nutrition or to be a dietitian to understand the basics covered in multiple health classes I've passed and multiple scientific studies I've read. Is meat healthy? Yes....if it's raised and prepared properly and eaten in moderation. Is meat unhealthy? Yes...when eaten excessively or prepared unsafely.
Is veganism healthy? Yes....when practiced properly with a balanced diet that has all the nutrients humans need. Is veganism unhealthy? Yes...it is the way it's practiced by most vegans who don't have a grasp on what proper nutrition is. It's definitely harder to have a balanced healthy diet without any animal products, but isn't impossible.

Once again, I feel you are being fast and loose with fact by implying any of those statements have come from me. The only people I expect to die 6 times in a row are the ones in my dungeon that I'm keeping alive to prolong their torture....and they know what they did to deserve it. ;-)

Not sure that I'd call it trivial, but from what one can gather, using the panel of known colors as a calibrant for correction during processing does seem like an obvious approach. I'm assuming that the newsworthiness of this is in the trick or complexity of the post-processing - removing scatter, haze, correcting the full color spectrum with multiple calibration points - it won't be a simple linear correction. I ain't no expert, but have spent oodles of time trying to color correct videos and stills from our scuba trips, and the *automatic* color correction in current software is still pretty poor IMO, relying often on a single color as the calibrant (so, a "pure" white region in the photo, a "pure" black region in the photo etc.). Manual adjustment of the photo color balance for UW vids and photos is on my list of "What Hell must be like".

@newtboy,
"Actually, I'm selling their audience short. When real scientists present the real data dispassionately, I think the average person gets quickly confused and tunes out."

I'd argue bored maybe more often than confused. Although if we want to say that most of the problems society faces have their root causes in human nature, I think we can agree.

"I had read the published summaries of the recent U.N. report saying we had 12 years to be carbon neutral to stay below 1.5degree rise, they were far from clear that this was only a 50% chance of achieving that minimal temperature rise"

Here is where I see healthy skepticism distinguishing itself from covering eyes, ears and yelling not listening.

Our understanding of the global climate system is NOT sufficient to make that kind of high confidence claim about specific future outcomes. As you read past the head line and into the supporting papers you find that is the truth underneath. The final summary line you are citing sits atop multiple layers of assumptions and unspecified uncertainties that culminate in a very ephemeral 50% likelyhood disclaimer. It is stating that if all of the cumulative errors and unknowns all more or less don't matter. then we have models that suggest this liklyhood of an outcome...

This however sits atop the following challenges that scientists from different fields and specialities are focusing on improving.
1.Direct measurements of the global energy imbalance and corroboration with Ocean heat content. Currently, the uncertainties in our direct measurements are greater than the actual energy imbalance caused by the CO2 we've emitted. The CERES team measuring this has this plain as day in all their results.
2.Climate models can't get global energy to balance because the unknown or poorly modeled processes in them have a greater impact on the energy imbalance than human CO2. We literally hand tune the poorly known factors to just balance out the energy correctly, regardless of whether that models the given process better or not because the greater run of the model is worthless without a decent energy imbalance. This sits atop the unknowns regarding the actual measured imbalance to hope to simulate. 100% of the modelling teams that discuss their tuning processes again all agree on this.
3. Meta-analysis like you cited usually sit atop both the above, and attempt to rely on the models to get a given 2100 temperature profile, and then make their predictions off of that.

The theme here, is cumulative error and an underlying assumption of 'all other things being equal' for all the cumulative unknowns and errors. You can NOT just come in from all of that, present the absolute worst possible case scenario you can squeeze into and then declare that as the gold standard scientific results which must dictate policy...

Edit:that's very nearly the definition of cherry picking the results you want.

Maybe there is a lesson for the artist also.

After the completion of the ceremony, the monks destroy the mandala because of the underlying message, “nothing is permanent.” According to Buddhism, everything is always moving to balance and enlightenment.

I'd have trouble with my balance SITTING on that thing.

They used to have poll tests. They were very effective at disenfranchising minority voters. I'm sure Trump and all the other racists in the GOP would LOVE to bring something like that back, especially since they're experts at twisting things like that to their own ends.

Yeah, it's probably a good idea, but it's really hard to stop people from twisting it to their own agenda, which is why it's illegal in the US.

Now, what I'm all for is balancing the vote to better represent population, so voters in the midwest don't have 10x the voting power of someone in Manhattan. And while we're at it, can we get some balance between generations? There's no way an average 80-90 year-old is as competent to decide the future direction of a country as an average 30-40 year-old, and the younger person has an eye on the future.

Trump knows his base is too dumb to understand this, and will stick by him as long as he calls them "good people", because they're tired of being called scumbag racist morons.
Sadly, they are scumbag racist morons, but most are too dumb to realize it.

Instead of a poll tax, we need a poll test. If you cannot explain checks and balances, no vote for you.
If you can't understand that a huge deficit increases the debt, no vote for you.
If you can't grasp the fact that corporate welfare is socialism, no vote for you.
Republicans would get less than 5% of the vote under this plan.

Aww, is the little snowflake @bobknight33 afraid of some paper?

His ego is crushed. Must be why he's so angry all the time.

Seriously? The President is on the verge of ditching the Constitution entirely and overturning all the checks and balances that are supposed to keep the country from turning into a Dictatorship and you're worried about this shit?

Way to have priorities man. You'd burn your house to the ground just to spite the immigrant family who moved in up the street.

Eh, I agree in theory but think that in practice it's a rather pointless endeavor. The type of person who is self-centered and entitled enough to make the "it's someone else's job to clean up my shit" argument is not the type of person who, in my experience, is remotely likely to change. Narcissism precludes negative judgments on one's self. Plus most of the time calmly explaining anything to a person who already feels you've wronged them is not going to result in the outcome you'd like. You might say that some of the time it'll have a positive impact, but I think on balance the amount of strife I'd put myself through for that rare "win" isn't nearly worth it.

I do feel this approach might work if there's a friend or family member with the offender, but even then at best it's a dice roll. Maybe the other party will point out that the asshat was in fact in the wrong, and that may alter their behavior in the future just to avoid an argument. However, if the 3rd party spends a lot of time around the entitled asshole in question then there's a good chance they either behave similarly themselves, or are well aware of the asshattery and know it's pointless to fight them on it. So... yeah. Maybe a semi-public shaming? Don't think filming would ever help things stay cool though.

Nothing will come of any of this.
Due to partisan politics, he won't even be slapped on the wrist for any of his crimes.

Checks and balances depend on all elected officials, regardless of affiliation, to place the wellbeing of our country above their own self-interest. This is clearly not the case today.

It turns out that the only thing necessary for the USA to degrade into a dictatorship under a tyrant is for a single party to endorse it.

"if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state."

They didn't state as much, aka they don't feel that obstruction of justice didn't occur.

"Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President’s conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not impermissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law."

Or, in other words, the justice department doesn't have the legal authority to pursue charges against a sitting president; that job lies constitutionally with congress.

@bobknight33

Bob, understand something, please,

I'm not opposed to changing my mind, but when I read "The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

And he says "SEE! Total exoneration!!!" It's not bias to call a spade a spade, saying the report SAYS what it SAYS is not Anti-Trump. >>>>>>It's pro-facts.<<<<<<<
Stop the bullshit that the report found nothing. That is simply not true.

And on obstruction, he all but said that he would if he could, but the law didn't permit him to make a call because he's an agent of the justice department.


"Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President’s conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not impermissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law."

Nice dancing, virtually none of it's useful in a fight though. She's also off balance a lot of the time even without doing spins or flips.

Why not just draw a line on the ground and have them balance on it?

It's a "danger" act. Remove the danger, it's nothing. Train without danger, you aren't really training.
That said, the high wire was pretty low compared to performance heights. I've seen them do that live at what seemed to be twice as high or more.

still kind of in shock over this. If you'd asked me Friday, I'd have said that our gun laws were actually pretty sensible and struck a good balance between public safety and the rights of individuals.

I don't know what I think anymore. I'm just sickened that this would happen here.