bb.king

I thought I'd wade in here with a few thoughts, just to discuss a few points people have made (WARNING: very long post). First off, I have a doctorate degree in Earth Sciences, have worked as an active researcher for a number of years, and have published a number of papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. I'm NOT a climate scientist, so I don't have any credentials/expertise in that field. What I do have is an extensive background in Earth Science and I know how the scientific process works from a research perspective. I also have friends/colleagues who are climate scientists and actively involved in leading research in the field. If you really want to understand the topic of climate change you need to go to the original source which is peer-reviewed scientific publications - not blogs, magazine articles, CNN, etc. The problem is that most people don't have access to the publications, and they're highly technical and require an appropriate background to really understand them.
 
As far as the debate goes there are two very important things where the debate is pretty much over among people with the credentials necessary to really understand the topic. First, since the beginning of the industrial revolution humans have pumped unprecedented amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and CO2 is very efficient at trapping heat. No debate there. Second, there is almost no debate about whether Earth's climate is getting warmer. The real debate is over what the connection is between human produced CO2 and warming, and whether there are other significant natural factors that also come in to play. Given the first two points, there really is no debate that humans have had a significant effect on global warming. The question is what the contribution is of natural causes, what steps (if any) can be taken to mitigate the effects, and what the cost-benefit is (i.e. is it worth taking any steps).
 
One topic that has been brought up in this thread is that the Earth naturally goes through variations in climate. True. In fact, the Earth's average temperature throughout its geologic history has actually been several degrees warmer than it currently is, and this is not even including the first few hundred million years when Earth was essentially a ball of molten rock. A well known example is the 135 million years when dinosaurs ruled the Earth - the average temperature was at about 5 degrees warmer. In fact, we are currently in a cool period in Earth's history with alternating cycles of ice ages and warmer periods (our current state). Why the ice ages first started is still unclear - one theory is that the rapid rise of the Himalaya's disruputed global climate patterns and changed the climate. That doesn't change the fact that human society is optimised for our current climate state, and any significant changes in climate would have significant effects on human society. Human society would likely adapt, but the time-scale to adapt will be on the order of decades, not centuries.
 
It's been mentioned in this thread that increasing output from the Sun is the cause for warming. Variations in output from the Sun of even a few percent can have a significant impact; however, actually measuring the variations accurately is surprisingly difficult. It's only been possible to get accurate measurements since we've been able to launch satellites which has only been in the last few decades. It's not really possible to establish any type of long-term pattern in solar output in that amount of time. So people who state that increasing solar output is the cause of warming, and basically state it as fact, really have little data to base it on.
 
Another topic that has been mentioned is how climate scientists flip-flop - how 40 years ago we were told we were entering an ice age and now it's the opposite. During the mid-20th century there was a global cooling - I certainly remember some pretty brutal Winnipeg winters in the 70's, and those were by Winnipeg standards. However, the idea that we were entering an ice age was pretty much a media creation - there are no scientific publications where any climate scientist claimed that. As I mentioned above, we are in a current warm period between ice ages, and it's highly likely that in a few thousand years the Earth will enter another ice age. But it's not imminent and no climate researcher ever said it was.
 
Someone in this tread said that the people mostly concerned with climate change are left-wing liberals. The many scientists I know run the full range of left-wing liberal to right-wing conservative (including climate scientists), so to catagorise everyone concerned with climate change as left-wing liberal is wrong. Just published in the Washington Post is an article about ExxonMobil executives who believe that climate change is real and a serious problem. I'm going to go on a limb and say that most of those executives are probably right-wing conservatives. And this is a multi-billion dollar company whose business relies on pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/even-exxonmobil-says-climate-change-is-real-so-why-wont-the-gop/2015/12/06/913e4b12-9aa6-11e5-b499-76cbec161973_story.html?utm_source=hootsuite
 
On a positive note, the first helium-plasma fusion device has commenced operation in Germany. This could be a crucial step towards finally achieving the holy grail of nuclear fusion, which has always been 50 years away from being 50 years away. The next step is to do it with hydrogen-plasma. A controlled hydrogen nuclear fusion reactor would essentially solve all of Earth's energy and emission problems.

Well Elimimian isn't Canadian, so that doesn't help anything.  Now people would just be bitching about how Derek Jones keeps getting beat on the corner.
Singleton isn't on our team.  He's obviously better than Hurl, but so what?    As in, why aren't people spending countless hours complaining about Feoli-Gudino not being as good as Sinopoli?  That would be an identical situation, but it never happens.  What kind of impact would Sinopoli have on our team?  The same.  We'd be better.  If we replaced all our non-all-star players with the CFL all-star team, we'd be better.
I completely agree that we don't have all the best players in the league on our team.

lol, dude you're crazy.

Can you clarify this statement please? I don't understand the point you are trying to make here. Racism exists, it's not a " ridiculous liberal outrage du jour." 
You should really clarify your statements, otherwise it looks like you are saying that racism is a liberal fabrication and doesn't really exist. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not saying that, but you should just clarify.

FIRST YEAR PLAYERS NOT PLAYING IS A SIGN OF A TEAM THAT FINALLY HAS DEPTH AND ISN'T THROWING THEIR DRAFT PICKS TO THE WOLVES!!!

Interesting article... 
We may have to start a new thread again.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/17/us/neil-degrasse-tyson-on-climate-change-cnntv/index.html
 
 

Wrestling isn't popular enough for a start up to risk blowing money...  MMA isn't even worth spending a tonne of money on starting a promotion  as it's popularity is declining. 
What they need to do is mix a bit of scripted wrestling with a bit of real MMA fighting and add a dash of prizes to be won and we can get the next best thing........
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Well, that settles it. I want to thank bbking for that he info, and for all the great music and for showing me all I have to do is send stuff to Rich...and he'll figure out what to do with it. ?

*Mettle
/Thread

that is awesome -- thank you very much!

I thought that too, but then found that option near the bottom, above the Twitter feed. It would be nice if it was at the top.

I don't think you're going to convince anyone that your crazy thoughts are correct when in fact there has been clear improvement over the course of Mike O'Sheas tenure here. yes it started out bad and was still bad a year later, but then last year they got to 11-7 and lost a close one in the playoffs, this year they also started off the season with a winning record yet here you are acting like they're a terrible terrible football team, and why? Because they lost a close game to BC? Because they lost to Calgary? I mean come on, you really need to pull your head out of your ass because it's so far up there you can't even see what's right in front of you. 
 

What a load of crap.

Fun Fact of the day, since taking over one year ago, Winnipeg is 13-5 with Nichols as the starting QB.

When YouTube first came out I was disturbed by the base level of stupidity exhibited in the comments section and thought to myself, "this must be the voice of the young".  I was wrong, today that's become the norm and one of those early posters has even gone on to become POTUS.

Great moment! It's unfortunate that he had to set the record wearing that god-awful uniform and logo the Bombers had at the time. It would have looked much sweeter with the current uniform/logo.

i remember this moment like it was 10 years ago... that standing O and Stegall Chant for like 5 mins solid was awesome.  Hope the bombers give us something huge to cheer about tonight!

The team is further ahead of where they were last year at this same point in the season so why all the doom and gloom? The secondary is going to get healthier, the linebackers are going to get healthier, why all the hand wringing over a loss to BC and Calgary? Oh right, cause some people just like to get caught up in the negativity. 

You don't expect me to read this do you?

You people who only show up after a loss are always a lot of fun...thanks for coming....try the veal, tip your waitress before you go....

At this point, in trying to get any kind of a "win" the Republican "leadership"  Trump, Pence, O'Connell along with the ole Tea baggers like Rand Paul.....are pretty busy at work.  
Belittling, threatening and attacking any reasonable, moderate, logical, and practical Republicans, who could be fiscally conservative and socially liberal.  In short, the people that could actual help the party create legislation that makes some form of sense.  As opposed to the crap sandwich of a repressive agenda, that is the current Republican party line.
Some Republicans used to understand the value and benefits of science, immigration, the environment, and education.  
Unfortunately, any potential reasonable internal debate has been drowned out by cheap slogans and bellowing of alternative facts.  Meanwhile regulatory bodies, key Federal departments, and consumer protections are being gutted.  Healthcare and social services for millions of Americans also hangs in the balance.
I am old enough to remember a time when racists, gun nuts, religious cranks and extreme alt right types were the fringe, rather than the voice and agenda of the Republican Party. 
The cherry on top, is having a President who is patently morally, intellectually, and temperamentally unfit to hold that office.  
Sad.

I love this:
 
 
 
 
 
 

never had to rake a green but I keep thinking of Mars Sandhills in that they built the entire, or the majority of the course overtop of sand. It's great to reduce water on the course but I seem to remember it slowing down the ball in the fairways and causing some issues on the green.
That cloud of gnats and black flies sounds like what I was dealing with for the first 5 holes. No amount of bug spray seemed to keep them at bay,  I was certain they were Horseflies but they didn't bite so probably just some juiced up reg flies