If Noah’s Ark has been sitting on a mountain somewhere in the Middle East for a few millennia, a few more months of waiting are a small price to pay, at least for Randall Price.
Resources are tight everywhere, but these idiots are spending theirs looking for evidence of a bronze-age flood myth. There's no hope for some people. I hear that, when they're done in Turkey, they're off to Scandinavia to look for Valhalla.
On Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — who is believed to be linked to al Qaeda — attempted to ignite an explosive device made of pentaerythritol on a plane as it neared Detroit, and promptly had his ass kicked for him by fellow passengers.
Quick! The horse has bolted, we must shut the stable door!
There's been an unsuccessful attack on an aeroplane; let's make everyone's lives just a little less pleasant by further restricting their rights and activities when they fly. Thanks, guys. Next time, how about not letting the terrorist on the flight in the first place?
Oh yes. Got to get this, I think. Anyone else?
Rumours of an announcement at the end of January regarding Apple's Tablet abound today, helped along by CultOfMac's multiple posts on the subject. Nothing from Apple, of course, so it's all speculation, but it looks like reasonable, sensible, realistic speculation rather than fanciful, bizarre, other-worldly speculation. Or possibly not.
Dr Williams told the Telegraph: "The trouble with a lot of government initiatives about faith is that they assume it is a problem, it's an eccentricity, it's practised by oddities, foreigners and minorities."
The problem with a lot of religious people is that they assume "faith" is the solution whereas, in actual fact, the blind acceptance of unproven hypotheses (or "faith", as Dr Williams calls it) is a source of considerable conflict and suffering.
There are an awful lot of people arguing against climate change, and they make a lot of apparently sound arguments. They're bound to take the recent email leaks from the Climate Research Unit of UEA as evidence that the scientists are just making stuff up to justify their grants (the Saudis have already made comments to this end - link) but it's all rubbish. Global warming science may have it's critics and detractors, but the basic science is sound.
What are the arguments advanced by sceptics? You can find a list of them here along with the counter-arguments. If you're still not convinced that global warming is real and man-made, more evidence will follow.
So far we've had one international source (the IPCC) and one UK resource (the Science Museum). Now it is time for a US resource, and they don't get much bigger or more impressive than NASA. There website contains a lot of information, well presented. It's worth a look.
If you haven't yet been convinced, even after reviewing data from all these sources, I'll be back later (or tomorrow) with more information (although, to be honest, it probably won't be new, it'll just be presented differently) and new places to find it. Sooner or later we should be able to find a source that appeals.
If you'd like a taste of the evidence, here's a chunk from NASA (source page):
Certain facts about Earths climate are not in dispute:
- The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century. Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many JPL-designed instruments, such as AIRS. Increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response.
- Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in solar output, in the Earth’s orbit, and in greenhouse gas levels. They also show that in the past, large changes in climate have happened very quickly, geologically-speaking: in tens of years, not in millions or even thousands.
There's a load more like that, and it gets progressively more depressing the more you dig into it. Have fun.
Ok, so if you haven't yet managed to sift through the mountains of evidence from the IPCC site (see yesterday's post), you can find a rather less technical explanation of the evidence for climate change here at the website of the Science Museum (London). If you think that climate change is a conspiracy consisting of scientists paid to lie to support a secret Government agenda to force us to comply with their Machiavellian plans, ask yourself why so many scientists would falsify data, concoct nonsense theories and risk ridicule and disgrace (when the conspiracy was eventually, and unavoidably, exposed) rather than simply getting on with their lives and doing some real research. Here's a hint; it isn't a conspiracy.