richsmith's Comments (37)

“So when you're put in jail for not buying mandated health insurance from a private insurer and not paying the subsequent fines imposed upon you, you will get free health care lavished upon you as it is lavished upon all those incarcerated in the US gulags.”

“I think we should nationalize the military, and the tax collectors, and public services. Down with capitalist efficiencies, wealth generation, and an ownership society.”

“But that's communism. It's just like Raul promotes down in Cuba.”

“No!”

“All that you wrote is well articulated and I believe also well reflects the sad state of the US culture -shallow, self centered, complacent, ill informed, and driven by emotion that is purely self gratifying rather than derived from a genuine understanding of the world, its environment, a need to preserve its health and balance for a human population, and a true empathy with that population. I find this very depressing.”

“None, because it was under cover and because most of the local yahoo law enforcement personnel of those places couldn't care less and because the NRA couldn't care less as long as the gun bazaars continue to function the way they do now.”

“The knight of the Heroic Order of the Blackwater Guard Dog being shocked. What a shock.”

“They are not fit, they are too stupid to raise their kids. The fact that they do is why the general population of the state moves with every passing year closer to the condition of the quintessential Swiftian yahoo.”

“after perusing a sampling of comments on bill's musings, i believe there may be hidden herein a ray of hope. i encountered not one "ad hominem" against bill.”

“You've obviously not been to any other country.”

“Suddeutsche Zeitung, Oslo Dagbladet, El Mundo/Madrid, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Corriere della Sera. You pick it bud.”

“Think of the people who elected them. Frightening, isn't it?”

“Bad heading. Holder should be asking thje questions, not answering them!”

“Taxing energy usage is simple. As soon as trade becomes involved, you know some middle man is going to make money from it. These trades are not going to be between buyer and seller. I have a friend who is now working carbon trading software, and his company plans on making a bunch of cash just by selling the tools. Business must be kept out of this.”

“Sara is a communist, that is she is the quintessential apparatchik. Her perception of what is hers and what she is entitled to is "what's mine is mine and what's yours (namely the state's) is ours". She's certainly entitled to a lot more than the average Joe.”

“You've got that wrong. Corruption is in the government, fraud is perpetrated by the private industry that corrupts it. I believe that is the point that Sanders is highlighting.”

“Here is a question for a question most muddled islandsox.

Where is the similarity between the practice of the Revolutionary Guard conducting all elections in Iran and the military in Honduras doing the same thing there. My answer is that it provides each organization the ability to fix the vote for their respective masters. The Revolutionary Guard is the enforcement branch of the Iranian theocratic police state, and the Honduran military has the potential of becoming the enforcement branch of a Honduran oligarchic police state. They've been there before.

What have you to gain by supporting a military coup in Honduras against an elected president and the placement by one fired commander of an Italo-Honduran as a puppet in his stead? Are you part of that small percentage of the 30% of the population that is not impoverished that is the oligarchy that runs the country and owns everything in it. Wasn't Zelaya part of that club too until he did the unforgivable and went populist and nativist?”

“Ho, nice means of circumventing the Huffpost censors. Kudos.”

“And whispers also from God. God whispered, "George, you're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, people like you, no matter what your father says."”

“There are other people one can attend to in order to reduce stress. Try listening to Eckhart Tolle. Although a lot of what he has to say is downright goofy, if one doesn't pay too much attention to the content, his deliver is soothing and reassuring. Or try the lectures of Jared Diamond. While the nature of his ideas can at times be quite profound, the self-assured, articulate, and greatly monotone delivery of the lectures tends to inspire both confidence and somnolence. It's almost guaranteed to put you to sleep. Or just listen to Terrance McKnight or David Garland on their Public Radio classic music programs. They and the music they present will leave you totally disburden of stress.”

“Why is it that so many commenters are misspelling Governor Paterson's name? It's really very sloppy.”

“Yes, If you look at the chart at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Five_Myr_Climate_Change.png

the range of temperature due to variation in the Milankovitch cycles was about 2 degrees C with a mean of about 0 degrees C lasting from about 5M yr ago to about 2M yr ago and a period of about 20 thousand years. The mean started decreasing to about -4 degrees C and the variation increased to 3 to 4 degrees at 1.4 M years ago and 8 degrees C by about 800,000 years ago. The major period had increased to about 100,000 yr where it still is. The ice buildup probably started about 800,000 yrs ago.

The point I'm trying to make is that for the last 800,000 (my original point was > 100,000), we have had major interglacial periods of 100,000 mean and temperatures of -4 degrees C and a temperature variation of 8 degrees, and probably glaciers on Greenland continuously over that period of time. Global warming will probably push us back to where we were 3 - 5 M years ago in a couple of decades.”

“Just a point here. A part of the data your are citing comes from ice core study. Your date range takes in a time frame just before the introduction of human agriculture, which was about 10,000 years ago, up to the present. In the Wiki article below, data on both Greenland and Antarctic cores are cited. The following appears in that article:

"The GRIP and GISP cores, each about 3000 m long, were drilled by European and US teams respectively on the summit of Greenland. Their usable record stretches back more than 100,000 years into the last interglacial."

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

This represents only useful samples - samples below that were compressed by the weight of the ice. My point is that the present glacial cover of Greenland existed well before 100,000 years ago, "in the last interglacial".

You can go read NASA's James Hansen to get an idea of where we are headed in the near future (although you probably regard him as a left winger). The Greenland glaciers are going to be gone within the next few decades, just as the Arctic ice cover is already in the process of disappearing. It's pretty simple. Glaciers that have been sitting on Greenland for hundreds of thousand of years will be gone.”

“I have noticed a general dearth of in-depth commentary on this abominable action being taken by Israel against Gaza (one can't seriously call the event a battle) in the Main Stream Media. Talk among the people I have come in contact with gives for the most part the impression of little knowledge of or emotional involvement with the events of the blockade and bombardment of Gaza. I get the impression that a large part of the US population is becoming weary of or disinterested in the never ending battle between Israel and its Arab neighbors and that feelings of sympathy and empathy are drying up. That does not bode well for the US playing any role in helping toward a resolution of a problem that is having a profound effect on the state of the world we live in.

Israel should take heed of the fact that the people of its only real supporter among the nations of the world are growing tired of it all.”

“I'll add an eleventh - stop drinking alcohol, that's probably harder than making friends and building self esteem. Substitute the lost calories with fruit and vegetables, and use only olive oil.”