>> ^quantumushroom:
19) 31,000 scientist have signed a petition against AGW!


"So what does it take to be included among the 31,000 "experts" on the petition? Well, according to the OISM criteria, any undergraduate science degree will do just fine.

OISM also wants to let you know that 9,021 of the signers hold PhDs. They don't specify what the doctorates are in, but they repeat that figure quite a bit, as if it means something. Since the group was nice enough to list all 31,000 signers, including the dead people, let's take a look at the qualifications of three randomly-selected "climate experts."

• W. Kline Bolton, M.D. is a professor of medicine and Nephrology Division Chief at the University of Virginia. Nephrology deals with the study of the function and diseases of the kidney.
  
• Zhonggang Zeng is one of the 9,000 with a PhD. He is a professor of mathematics at Northeastern Illinois University. His most recent publication is entitled "Computing multiple roots of inexact polynomials."
  
• Hub Hougland is a dentist in Muncie, Indiana. He was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame last year.
  

I think once someone hits 500 star points, they should be removed from daily Sift activity and placed in the Sift Hall of Fame, where famous Sifters go to die. Then once a year, on Yom Kippur, we all take a field trip (if our parents sign the permission slips) to see the old-timers in all their glory. After returning home, we can lock the probies in dungeons made of cat fart videos, and not let them leave until they promise to submit a thoughtful, inspiring video of the quality that is expected on the Sift. Anything less, and they will be subjected to waterboarding until they realize the error of their ways. Once they submit a video of the highest quality, they will be allowed out of the dungeon in order to vote on a few videos per day. But only a few. That way they don't get a big head and try to become a Bronze Crown overnight! We must control the population through sifting sterilization and enhanced interrogation techniques. After all, I imagine these probies know of other probies who are lurking around, waiting to find a Bill O'Reilly video to vote up. Oh, the humanity!

Is this vid dead? I'm not sure, I can't play it, but if it is dead here's the YouTube version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7sT1HRV2qU

In reply to this comment by LadyBug:
"In 2004 George Harrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "While my Guitar Gently Weeps" was played in tribute by fellow inductee Prince, along with Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Dhani Harrison."

(source)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_tar_incident

From Wikipedia:

"In Major League Baseball lore, the Pine Tar Incident (also known as the Pine Tar Game) refers to a controversial incident that took place in an American League game played between the Kansas City Royals and New York Yankees on July 24, 1983.

Playing at New York's Yankee Stadium, the Royals were trailing 4-3 with two outs in the top of the ninth and U. L. Washington on first base. In the on deck circle, George Brett was heard remarking to a teammate, "Watch this baby fly" as he shook his bat. He then came to the plate and connected off Yankee reliever Rich "Goose" Gossage for a two-run home run and a 5-4 lead.

As Brett crossed the plate, New York manager Billy Martin approached home plate umpire Tim McClelland and requested that Brett's bat be examined. Earlier in the season, Martin and other members of the Yankees (most notably, third baseman Graig Nettles who, as a member of the Minnesota Twins, recalled a similar incident involving Thurman Munson) had noticed the amount of pine tar used by Brett, but Martin had chosen not to say anything until the home run. According to Nettles' autobiography, "Balls," Nettles claims that he actually informed Martin of the pine tar rule, as Nettles had previously undergone the same scrutiny with his own bat while with the Minnesota Twins.

With Brett watching from the dugout, McClelland and the rest of the umpiring crew inspected the bat. Measuring the bat against the width of home plate (which is 17 inches), they determined that the amount of pine tar on the bat's handle exceeded that allowed by Rule 1.10(b) of the Major League Baseball rule book, which read that 'a bat may not be covered by such a substance more than 18 inches from the tip of the handle.'

McClelland signaled that Brett's home run was nullified and the game over. An enraged Brett stormed out of the dugout to confront McClelland, and had to be physically restrained by Kansas City manager Dick Howser and his teammates. (As one commentator stated, 'Brett has become the first player in history to hit a game-losing home run.') Despite the furious protests of Brett and Howser, McClelland's ruling stood. The Royals protested the game ('TAR WARS!' blared a New York Post headline), and their protest was upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail. MacPhail (who coincidentally had once been the Yankees' chief executive) ruled that while the bat was illegal, it didn't violate the 'spirit of the rules.' He added that the bat was not 'altered to improve the distance factor,' and that the rules only provided for removal of the bat from the game, not calling the batter out. Baseball writer Bill James concurred, saying that, unlike other sports, 'in baseball, when you hit a double, that's a double.'

MacPhail ordered the game resumed with two out in the top of the ninth inning with the Royals up 5-4. He also ruled that Brett was to be ejected for his outburst.

On August 18 (a scheduled off day for both teams), the game was resumed from the point of Brett's home run, with about 1,200 fans in attendance. Martin symbolically protested the continuation of the game by putting pitcher Ron Guidry in center field and first baseman Don Mattingly at second base. Mattingly, a lefty, became the majors' first southpaw second baseman since Oakland's Gonzalo Marques [1] a decade earlier; there has been one only lefty middle infielder in a big-league game since (Thad Bosley, in 1987).[2]

Before the first pitch to Hal McRae (who followed Brett in the lineup), Martin challenged Brett's home run on the grounds that Brett had not touched all the bases, and maintained that there was no way for the umpires (a different crew than the one who worked July 24) to dispute this. But umpire Davey Phillips was ready for Martin, producing an affidavit signed by the July 24 umpires stating that Brett had indeed touched all the bases. An irate Martin continued to argue with the umpires and was ejected from the game. Yankees reliever George Frazier struck McRae out to finally end the top of the ninth, twenty-five days after it had begun. Dan Quisenberry then got New York out 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth to preserve the Royals' 5-4 win.

The bat is currently on display in the Baseball Hall of Fame, where it has been since 1987. During a broadcast of Mike & Mike in the Morning, ESPN analyst Tim Kurkjian stated that Brett used the bat for a few games after the incident until being cautioned that the bat would be useless if broken. Brett sold the bat to a collector for $25,000, had second thoughts, repurchased the bat for the exact same amount from the collector and then donated the bat to the Hall of Fame.


The winning pitcher for the Royals was reliever Mike Armstrong, who went 10-7 that year in 58 appearances, notching career highs in wins and games. In a 2006 interview, Armstrong said a angry Yankees fan threw a brick from an overpass at Kansas City's bus cracking the windshield as the Royals were leaving for the airport after the make up game. 'It was wild to go back to New York and play these four outs in a totally empty stadium' Armstrong said. 'I'm dressed in the uniform, and nobody's there'. Mike was still pitching baseball as recently as 2006 at age 52 in the Athens Area Men's Baseball league in Athens Ga, where he still has a fastball in the mid 80's."

Basically, this was a totally unprecedented event, in that (a) a super-old, completely outdated rule was dug up by an opposing manager, (b) it was upheld by the umpire, (c) the ruling was overturned and the game was resumed later on in the year. This has become the most famous event in George Brett's career, something he doesn't mind at all, considering that before this, he was most famous for suffering with hemorrhoids during the playoffs.

In reply to this comment by thepinky:

Taxpayers (including single mothers) pay for government waste, pointless wars, and yes, the occasional freeloader. We pay for the National Wildlife Turkey Federation in South Carolina, for transit centers for minor league baseball teams, for halls of fame and a million other ridiculous things. Wouldn't t be better to fund those sorts of things at a more local level instead of wasting so much money on overhead?

So, basically you think that the idea of taxes and providing a good social network should be thrown out because the current government isn't doing it right? No government is going to get it 100% correct, but the idea is sound, and the public has to vote in, and then lobby, governments to use the money in their best interest. You can't leave it all up to local areas to handle, because that means the small cities/towns will never have much money and slowly die, while the large cities get more and more money as everyone has to move to them as they're the only places with amenities because no-one was there to spread the country's wealth around to all the areas that need it. You need to have everyone pitching in, and then people that have been voted in, supposedly because the voters thought they were the best people to handle it, fairly divvy up the proceeds.

The problem with not having taxes, and having everyone supposedly giving money to where they think the money should go is that it never works... even the most good hearted of people will have times when they go "I just can't afford to give $x to Y, I need that money now for a, b and c"... but if you already have that money taken out of their wage, then they seem to get by just fine without it, and the money can be put to good use.

And that's assuming that everyone is good hearted in the first place... which is not the case, and the wanting to give money to others seems to decrease with one's wealth usually, such that the majority of the rich would keep all their money for themselves.

It would never, ever, in a million years, work.

Yes governments need to handle the money better... for one thing stop spending so darn much on the military, spend more on renewable electricity generation and electric cars (I mean, come on, we could ALREADY be powering ourselves via renewables and driving electric cars... humph)... but just because they're not doing things right now, doesn't mean the answer is to stop taxes altogether.


I don't care about Joe Shmoe's birth control. It is not a neccesity. I don't care how good his sex is. I intend to use birth control pills. I never had my teeth straightened. I still have my wisdom teeth. I'm not complaining about my quality of life. A vasectomy is a luxury, plain and simple.
Hmmm, so you plan to use the pill after you've had kids, all the way until menopause? I think you may wish to look into the health issues with that. The pill does some pretty bad things to a woman, and the longer you use it, the worse it gets. here, here and many other places besides.

And thinking of a vasectomy as a luxury is dead wrong. Having the state pay for it SAVES the country money. You avoid many, many unplanned pregnancies that lead to more social welfare and other problems. By the cheap, safe, effective vasectomy, you eliminate a whole host of costs associated with extra, unplanned/unwanted kids.

Also, not having your wisdom teeth out... come on... for many people (like myself), they were causing excruciating pain and problems in my mouth... you think it's a luxury to have that pain stopped do you? You're falling into the trap again of 'well, I didn't use X service, why should I fund it?'... well, I'm sure you have used many services I would never use, why should I fund them? It's a case of "We all chip in so that everyone can afford the things they need".

You don't have to explain all of that to me. I understand and agree with it. I know that the majority of people benefitting from social programs are wonderful, deserving people. I'm not rich, either. I know what it's like to earn nothing and survive on it. Even then I was not happy with taxes because my taxes weren't going where I wanted them to go. Were you listening to what I was saying? I would be happy to share my money with whoever needs it, and I do! If everything was all fuzzy wuzzy like you said; taxes going to poor little elderly folks, single mothers, disabled people, etc., it would be great! I would love and adore taxes if that were true. I would love taxes if they simply funded transportation and education and medicare and welfare and all of those good things, but I know that this isn't the case. Taxpayers (including single mothers) pay for government waste, pointless wars, and yes, the occasional freeloader. We pay for the National Wildlife Turkey Federation in South Carolina, for transit centers for minor league baseball teams, for halls of fame and a million other ridiculous things. Wouldn't t be better to fund those sorts of things at a more local level instead of wasting so much money on overhead? I just found an IRS study that says that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) provides about $31 billion in refundable tax credits to 19 million low-income families. Great! However, the IRS estimates that $8.5 billion to $9.9 billion of this amount, nearly one-third, is wasted in overpayments each year. Ick.

My siblings and other family members have had to make use of "those services," and I very much appreciate their existence. I don't believe in the idea that people on Welfare are lazy drunks. I agree with Karl Marx about a lot of things. But Welfare IS abused and it needs to be a system where we encourage self-reliance and help people break the cycle of poverty instead of perpetuating it. And I think by "a couple of bad eggs" you mean tens of thousands.

I don't care about Joe Shmoe's birth control. It is not a neccesity. I don't care how good his sex is. I intend to use birth control pills. I never had my teeth straightened. I still have my wisdom teeth. I'm not complaining about my quality of life. A vasectomy is a luxury, plain and simple.

Ok, so upvote because it's kinda interesting, but man, this is one long ego stroke for them.. 'man we're good', 'our games should be in the hall of fame', 'everyone bow down to our geeky greatness'.

I couldn't keep watching past the 2nd vid, it was too little content and too much self congratulation.

>> ^mauz15:
>> ^Aemaeth:
>> ^mauz15:
If I wanted to watch all the Daily Show videos, I simply go to their website. Same train of thought here; if I wanted to watch every single video of Zero punctuation I go to their site.
37 videosift posts of Zero punctuation is a bore.

So we should stop sifting videos that are part of an ongoing series, regardless of quality? The point of VS is to collect all the best videos the net has to offer into one place. If Yahtzee's reviews become LESS THAN quality, I'll stop voting for them, but in the mean time they should be in video hall of fame called VideoSift, IMO.

Thing is, there comes a point where it becomes not posting for quality but posting because of the ongoing wave of posts, regardless of the quality of them. And then it's not only the good Zero punctuation videos being posted but every single one of them. Or are you seriously telling me all 37 videos are of quality? this one was average in my opinion.
I've seen this too many times already with the daily show videos, the TED talks, the Scientology videos, I could go on.


Are you then saying that people are posting just for the sake of posting something they know will do well?

Check the amount of probationary members with non-promoted posts vs. the amount of probationary members with promoted videos.. (ie. someone without any stars by their name)

A lot of the videos that get on to the sift, imo, get there because of who posted them, not what they contain.

Prime example is of the "improv everywhere" videos which, when i was probationary, i couldn't get sifted. I gave up, 3 weeks later there were 3 on and one was in the "most popular" list.

I have to declare this one non-cheesy. Great songwriting, instrumentation, and vocals. Cheesiness set in with their "Diamond Girl" era. Jim Seals (guitar and lead vocal), was not as cheesy as his brother, Dan Seals of "England Dan and John Ford Coley" Their youngest brother, Troy Seals was recently voted into the Nashville Country Songwriters hall of fame. It was a pretty musical family.

>> ^Aemaeth:
>> ^mauz15:
If I wanted to watch all the Daily Show videos, I simply go to their website. Same train of thought here; if I wanted to watch every single video of Zero punctuation I go to their site.
37 videosift posts of Zero punctuation is a bore.

So we should stop sifting videos that are part of an ongoing series, regardless of quality? The point of VS is to collect all the best videos the net has to offer into one place. If Yahtzee's reviews become LESS THAN quality, I'll stop voting for them, but in the mean time they should be in video hall of fame called VideoSift, IMO.


Thing is, there comes a point where it becomes not posting for quality but posting because of the ongoing wave of posts, regardless of the quality of them. And then it's not only the good Zero punctuation videos being posted but every single one of them. Or are you seriously telling me all 37 videos are of quality? this one was average in my opinion.

I've seen this too many times already with the daily show videos, the TED talks, the Scientology videos, I could go on.

>> ^mauz15:
If I wanted to watch all the Daily Show videos, I simply go to their website. Same train of thought here; if I wanted to watch every single video of Zero punctuation I go to their site.
37 videosift posts of Zero punctuation is a bore.


So we should stop sifting videos that are part of an ongoing series, regardless of quality? The point of VS is to collect all the best videos the net has to offer into one place. If Yahtzee's reviews become LESS THAN quality, I'll stop voting for them, but in the mean time they should be in video hall of fame called VideoSift, IMO.

There is too many people to reset, and too little time huh , BillOreilly???
My favorite president was William Henry Harrison....am hoping the next one breaks his record.
That Grover guy had a muppet first name AND was named after the city with the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame....

*promote. Gunther never got the attention he so rightly deserves in the sifting hall of fame.

Obligatory Asian lipsync version: http://www.videosift.com/video/My-Ding-Ding-Dong-404-min

>> ^my15minutes:
oh, and i noticed one little detail that his sister should've left out, if her brother's going for the douchebag hall of fame. tsk tsk tsk.
"Hometown: Imler where i've lived my whole life"
there's only one town in the US, that comes up in a GoogleMaps search.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Imler,+PA&ie=UTF8&ll=40.229218,-78.508301&spn=4.814
134,6.536865&z=7&iwloc=addr&om=0
Imler, Pennsylvania.
a tiny, tiny little town. i'd be surprised if their phone book were thicker than a comic.
can't be all that many McDonald's there, now can there, dag?


>> ^MarineGunrock:
There's only nine. And of those, only three are married couples that are of the age to have young (early 20s) kids.


Wow, look at you guys. The Sift overlord just says "unless someone's Google-fu is better than mine." and you go RIGHT to it. You would do anything for them wouldn't you? He didn't even have to ask, and you went out of your way. I'm not sure if thats sad, or we should all be patting you on the back for a job well done. Nah, I'll just go ahead and say its sad.

oh, and i noticed one little detail that his sister should've left out, if her brother's going for the douchebag hall of fame. tsk tsk tsk.

"Hometown: Imler where i've lived my whole life"

there's only one town in the US, that comes up in a GoogleMaps search.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Imler,+PA&ie=UTF8&ll=40.229218,-78.508301&spn=4.814134,6.536865&z=7&iwloc=addr&om=0

Imler, Pennsylvania.

a tiny, tiny little town. i'd be surprised if their phone book were thicker than a comic.
can't be all that many McDonald's there, now can there, dag?