Wiki:

Shark finning refers to the removal and retention of shark fins. The rest of the body is generally discarded in the ocean; however, some countries have banned this practice and require the whole body to be brought back to port before removing the fins. Sharks without their fins are often still alive; unable to move normally, they die of suffocation or are eaten by other predators. Shark finning at sea enables fishing vessels to increase profitability and increase the number of sharks harvested, as they only have to store and transport the fins, by far the most profitable part of the shark

They should knock them in the head and eat them before the ditch dries up and they are left to suffocate. It's the humane (and delicious) thing to do!

>> ^Auger8:

Wouldn't the dry ice they're using bring the water temp. down so fast it would throw the fish into hypothermia or shock?


Not to mention raise the CO2 level to suffocate the fish.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^Fletch:
My last day ever in a church was the day I was confirmed. My mom made me a deal that if I completed the classes and shit I could decide on my own whether to go back. I didn't believe in magic then, and I don't believe in it now. Did it for mom.

Lol, for me, I never realised I had a choice to not be catholic. Growing up in Ireland, you had normal people (i.e. catholics), those dirty protestant kids and that was it. Oh I was vaguely aware that there were other weird "foreign" religions, but it had zero impact on my daily life.
When I made my first communion and confirmation, I felt bad for the protestant kids who didn't get heaps of money from relatives and friends for completing a solemn religious ritual.


I think she thought I would eventually come around if I stuck with it. Her father was a preacher (7 daughters!), and it was kind of important to her, so I at least finished the whole confirmation process for her. Church was always such a tortuous, boring, monotonous affair. I still hate Sundays because I can't shake the memory of blue-haired elderly women with suffocating amounts of cheap perfume on. The lutefisk and lefsa feeds were always awesome though.

>> ^dannym3141:

Am i right in thinking that dragging a shark backwards can drown it?


I think "drown" is probably the wrong term technically. They extract oxygen from water, so it's impossible for them to drown (i.e. for their (non-existent) lungs to fill with water). But many shark species' gills function in a way such that they have to be moving forward in order for their gills to extract the oxygen. So I suppose dragging a shark backwards technically would be suffocating it (i.e. it's not getting enough oxygen to "breathe").

However, apparently science textbooks claim that if sharks don't move forward they "drown".

*shrug*

Source: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/zoology/marine-life/shark-drown.htm

I love Craig Ferguson. Seems like a very good man.

The Colorado thing was terrible. Dude opened fire on a large number of people in an enclosed theater, suffocated them with tear gas, and killed as many as he could. That is very terrible thing.

I wish we could actually discuss the issues, instead of instantly condemning them. The immediate reaction by any media representative is "I can't understand why this happened". I don't feel like you can say that while living in a country that continues multiple wars on many innocents around it, or lets extremely, albeit nonviolent, dangerous criminals walk off scot-free with half the countries money, or has nearly-daily events like this occur in the same week.

It's just stupid to think people have no reason to go insane while living here. It's wrong to take out that insanity on innocent people, but you can't say you don't understand why it exists while wearing your horse-blinders during so many other atrocities.

Suffocatingly-nest.

Personally I'd suspect the hell out of that air filtration system....that it's picking up something at the higher altitudes that it's not able to deal with and creates the wrong mixture and pumps it to the pilots or flat out doesn't filter for whatever it's picking up.

If you've ever driven a vehicle with a leaky exhaust, you'll notice you feel fine for a long time and then suddenly you just kind of wake up and go...something is wrong. Roll down the window and feel almost instantly better and more clear headed even when it's crazy hot or cold out because the air is not contaminated.

I can already picture dozens of pigeons packed tightly inside his jacket suffocating to death... And he's got them dyed pink and blue. That shit is wrong yo.

>> ^criticalthud:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^criticalthud:
just out of curiosity, in the midst of global warming doubters promoting the theory that the earth is warming through solar/cosmic/natural means... has there been much consideration into the idea that the earth is currently in a cooling phase -- enormously offset by what we're doing to it?
second,
one large concern i have with global warming is "system adaption" - that being that it generally takes the ecosystem a bit of time to adjust to whatever is happening to it (ie: glaciers don't melt immediately). Meaning that the damage we caused 10 years ago is being felt now. Meaning also that even if we were to cease mucking about right now, we could expect continued and possibly even escalating ecosystem problems in the years to come.
so, is it time to panic? dunno. could be.

Which is why it's so important to understand things better. Rapidly cutting CO2 emissions before we have the replacement technology in place would be costly, not just financially but world history shows big financial impacts generally spill over into violent impacts. Battery technology is getting very close to making electric cars that are superior in every way to their gas guzzling brethren. I truly do believe that the enormous CO2 contribution made by burning gasoline is rapidly on it's way out for purely economic rather than environmental reasons. Another reason I don't feel the need for panic.
As I stated above, I am NOT being a skeptic in declaring that H2O dominates the greenhouse effect. It is the uncontested scientific fact.
I am NOT being a skeptic in declaring that H2O's role in climate models and forcing/feedbacks is very poorly understood. It is an uncontested scientific fact, some models even disagree on whether to assign it as a positive or negative feedback.
Think about those two for a good long while before thinking everything Al Gore said should trump peer reviewed science.

you seem to mistake me as someone who is arguing with you. i'm really only interested in insights.
I'm certainly not a climatologist. I work with spines. But in answer to your proposition that it would be chaotic if we cut back, I think the strength of the human species is in their ability to adapt, and as far as i'm concerned, the ballooning world population combined with a worldwide contracture in resources makes this inevitable (not to mention the growing climate change issue) - but it's up to us on how painful we want it to be.
Our entire economic system and our culture of consumerism needs to be revised. We are mindless automatons, with little awareness to our impact on the earth as a species. Our daily lives are almost entirely self-centered.
Secondly, as to "the" question of human contribution, I would offer the microcosm of the forest fire, in which carbon is suddenly released into the atmosphere. The overall effect is, clearly, very warming, almost suffocating. On a grander scale, the species is continually burning and releasing carbon into the atmoshphere all over the planet. How that would fail to warm the planet escapes me. but, like i said, it's not my field. peace out.


Sorry if my tone comes off as combative, it's not really my intent so please don't take my vehemence on issues personally. Maybe I'm just getting older but I'm of the mindset that the fastest way to know where I'm right and wrong is to be forward and assertive with how I understand things and allow the opportunity to be corrected where I'm wrong.

My thoughts on the human contribution are tempered by a few things. From the very top, that CO2's contribution is small compared to H2O(I count this an uncontested fact). Annual CO2 emissions are small(5%) compared to natural CO2 emissions(I again count this an uncontested fact). The experts do insist that the human CO2 emissions are building up and still driving the natural CO2 levels significantly higher each year. We don't understand the natural CO2 emission and absorption processes very well, so poorly in fact our margins of error on them are larger than the human contribution. There is evidence that CO2 levels are rising in the last 100 years, and there is a correlation there to human emissions. What we don't have strong evidence for yet is what impact that has on climate. We DO know it is warming effect, but the magnitude of it is still poorly understood. As I've outlined above the understanding of temperature trends over the last 2k years is still a work in progress with large margins of error(even systematic ones that are being worked out). The computer models we have by definition are no more reliable than that data, which places us without a strong correlation or confidence in what magnitude of change the CO2 will have when all other variables are considered.

As a side point, if you look at the IPCC or listen to certain climatologists, you may hear it sounding like they disagree and believe my last statement is disproven. What they have studied is the impact CO2 increases should have overall with the assumption of all other variables being equal. It's a useful figure to have, and the confidence in it is better than my last statement described. That is because I was talking about something different, I stated that CO2's impact, with all other variables being considered NOT equal, is still poorly known and has very low confidence levels. In the real world the impact of one climate variable impacts the role of all the others, and often significantly. The IPCC and a select few climatologists talk about CO2 projections that ignore that interaction as a base assumption and somewhere along the line between them and the public or them and Al Gore, that base assumption gets dropped off. That base assumption is central and vital, and it's why as our climate models improve we will see predictions for CO2 that fall outside the error margins of the IPCC models with that assumption. That doesn't invalidate the IPCC's work, it is an advancement of it and improvement upon it. Remembering the base assumptions is vital for the public to maintain faith in the integrity and reliability of scientific research. People need to know WHY the predictions they were told by the IPCC a few years back have changed so much and yet the IPCC insists they weren't wrong. The truth is simply that they were misunderstood.

As yet another rabbit warren, there is an even smaller set of people within the climate community who actively encourage that misunderstanding. They do it firmly believing that the impact of CO2 with all else ignored is still indicative of CO2 with all else considered. Which is even a reasonable and normal expectation. The trouble is it falsely communicates the level confidence and margin of error of current known facts. I can't abide that kind of thinking, it's what is supposed to differentiate scientists from priests and politicians, they are supposed to refuse to make that kind of compromise when presenting what they do and do not know is demonstrably true.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^criticalthud:
just out of curiosity, in the midst of global warming doubters promoting the theory that the earth is warming through solar/cosmic/natural means... has there been much consideration into the idea that the earth is currently in a cooling phase -- enormously offset by what we're doing to it?
second,
one large concern i have with global warming is "system adaption" - that being that it generally takes the ecosystem a bit of time to adjust to whatever is happening to it (ie: glaciers don't melt immediately). Meaning that the damage we caused 10 years ago is being felt now. Meaning also that even if we were to cease mucking about right now, we could expect continued and possibly even escalating ecosystem problems in the years to come.
so, is it time to panic? dunno. could be.

Which is why it's so important to understand things better. Rapidly cutting CO2 emissions before we have the replacement technology in place would be costly, not just financially but world history shows big financial impacts generally spill over into violent impacts. Battery technology is getting very close to making electric cars that are superior in every way to their gas guzzling brethren. I truly do believe that the enormous CO2 contribution made by burning gasoline is rapidly on it's way out for purely economic rather than environmental reasons. Another reason I don't feel the need for panic.
As I stated above, I am NOT being a skeptic in declaring that H2O dominates the greenhouse effect. It is the uncontested scientific fact.
I am NOT being a skeptic in declaring that H2O's role in climate models and forcing/feedbacks is very poorly understood. It is an uncontested scientific fact, some models even disagree on whether to assign it as a positive or negative feedback.
Think about those two for a good long while before thinking everything Al Gore said should trump peer reviewed science.


you seem to mistake me as someone who is arguing with you. i'm really only interested in insights.

I'm certainly not a climatologist. I work with spines. But in answer to your proposition that it would be chaotic if we cut back, I think the strength of the human species is in their ability to adapt, and as far as i'm concerned, the ballooning world population combined with a worldwide contracture in resources makes this inevitable (not to mention the growing climate change issue) - but it's up to us on how painful we want it to be.
Our entire economic system and our culture of consumerism needs to be revised. We are mindless automatons, with little awareness to our impact on the earth as a species. Our daily lives are almost entirely self-centered.

Secondly, as to "the" question of human contribution, I would offer the microcosm of the forest fire, in which carbon is suddenly released into the atmosphere. The overall effect is, clearly, very warming, almost suffocating. On a grander scale, the species is continually burning and releasing carbon into the atmoshphere all over the planet. How that would fail to warm the planet escapes me. but, like i said, it's not my field. peace out.

The wings part annoys me. I'm calling "Balloon Boy".

...in a spiritual form would you need wings? to fly? because there's gravity? what do you walk on? do you have physical mass? what do you fly on - air? would you suffocate? where would you fly to? is there up and down? Why are his wings smaller, because he's young? but everyone in heaven is young, are all wings graduated by growth of age? can you flap them? extend them? or are they vestigial what type / genus of wings are they? dove wings? eagle wings? bat wings? (don't even get me started on how spiritual wings could become vestigial in spirit form without evolution)

>> ^carneval:

>> ^Oxen_Morale:
OK so why is it very dangerous?

If it's heavier than air and you inhale a lot of it, you have to do a lot work to displace it; if you don't know that fact, you could suffocate. If you do know that and account for it it's not as unsafe.


Also, it displaces oxygen. If a canister of SF6 is leaking, and you don't know it, it could displace enough O2 in the room that you could pass out and die.

>> ^Oxen_Morale:

OK so why is it very dangerous?


If it's heavier than air and you inhale a lot of it, you have to do a lot work to displace it; if you don't know that fact, you could suffocate. If you do know that and account for it it's not as unsafe.

>> ^shinyblurry:

It'd be even cooler if he wasn't suffocating for their amusement.


Even human babies can hold their breath for awhile, it's fine out of water for a bit.

>> ^shinyblurry:

It'd be even cooler if he wasn't suffocating for their amusement.


It's all part of God's plan.