ComradeKayAdams

LOL…Chase Fraser is such a showman! Many of the coolest and most creative lacrosse goals that I’ve ever seen came from him. That one-bounce goal of his last night was super fun, too. A lot of the NLL’s problems come down to really poor marketing. It’s not so much that people are rejecting the pro lacrosse product as it is that people don’t even know of the league’s existence.

I don’t still live in WNY, but I follow the Bandits as closely as I do the Sabres and only slightly less intensely as I do the Bills. By any objective measure, as of last night the Bandits are now considered the greatest franchise in professional lacrosse history! That alone is worthy of our respect, regardless of how one might feel about this sport in relation to football or hockey. Point of clarification: the top pro indoor league of lacrosse is considered to be completely on par with the top pro outdoor league. This isn’t the case for gridiron football or soccer, but it is for lacrosse! The top indoor league is Buffalo’s National Lacrosse League (NLL), while the top outdoor league is the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) which starts in two weeks. Many of the world’s top lacrosse players play in both leagues. Most of the Bandits’ offense, for example, also play together for the Carolina Chaos in the PLL (yet another Carolina/Buffalo pro sports connection…LOL…). Canadians and Indigenous peoples prefer the more physical indoor/box version of lacrosse, while Americans tend to prefer the outdoor/field version. The indoor version resembles ice hockey in style of play, with elements of strategy that are also seen in basketball. The outdoor version resembles soccer too much in pace, which is why I personally think the NLL will eventually overtake the PLL to become the undisputed top version of professional lacrosse in North America.

THANK YOU. Someone had to say it. A more understated approach to makeup application might serve her well. We actually knew Kristi Noem was a sociopath two years before news leaked of her dog-murdering ways. She is on record for defending abortion bans even in cases of rape. If you’re someone who thinks the state should force a 10-year-old girl to carry her rapist’s child to term, you’re also very likely to be someone who won’t think twice about blowing a puppy’s brains out for the crime of acting on its canine instincts. I doubt Trump was ever seriously considering her as a VP candidate. He may be a lot of things, but he’s not nearly as dumb as your stereotypical MAGA supporter who still believes Trump is fighting The Establishment (i.e., corporate oligarchs and their political puppets). Trump probably understands Noem’s limited demographic appeal. If he wants to get re-elected, he needs to expand beyond the simpletons clinging to their God, guns, and supple Ned Beatty a** cheeks in some nondescript forest parcel located in flyover country. Speaking of pig squealing…I implore all the dog-loving omnivores in this thread to look up Yulin’s “Lychee and Dog Meat Festival” and then to ponder the intrinsic differences between pets and farm animals. Spoiler alert: there aren’t any.

Yay!! You can use an internet search engine! Now use it once more for any critiques of that paper’s flaws and limitations. Doing so may help explain why a paper that is 7 years old has negligible citations and no follow-up research, from the author himself or from any peers within the skeptical climate science community. The theme of my posts has been to direct some of that same skeptical energy toward the skeptics, too. The correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and surface temperature has been exhaustively researched over the years, so any future hypothesis that challenges the conventional wisdom has a steep mountain of scientific tests to climb. You just looked up the stratosphere cooling effect NOW?? We’ve been talking about it for several weeks! The theory has been around for many decades, soon after the discovery of the stratosphere itself. How much more time is needed for the data to persuade you? 1 year? A decade? A century? A full geological epoch? I have already explained why the data is so persuasive. Climate skeptics always have unreasonable standards that are never rooted in scientific reasoning… A solution to anthropogenic climate change is way too nuanced for me to address in full right now (and I’d rather focus on NFL draft gossip, to be honest, because this is my personal Christmas in April!). So a very brief summary: 1. What private industries should mostly control: market-driven technological innovation in solar energy, electric vehicle battery technology, nuclear energy, other green energy (wind, geothermal, hydro, biofuel), carbon sequestration, planetary terraforming, civil engineering, agricultural tech, and lab-grown meat. 2. What the government should mostly manage: fundamental STEM research funding in everything related to the climate change problem, carbon market legislation for industries, green economy training programs for displaced workers of old energy economy, public transportation upgrades, all other civil infrastructure upgrades, regulations/land acquisitions for curbing suburban sprawl, land reforestation, and EPA oversight of environmental conservation practices. You brought up COVID, by the way, as if managing a sudden pandemic in real time is comparable to long-term planning for climate change… Ironically enough, the absence of effective government economic intervention (in the form of financially compensating citizens who were forced to not work) was an enormous socioeconomic stressor but a policy that libertarian types supported. The standard free-market solution was to keep everything open as normal, but doing so would have rapidly overloaded hospitals and led to many more deaths.

Broadly speaking, the purpose of these protests is to raise public awareness on any/all of the following issues: 1. The ongoing genocide in Gaza. 2. Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank. 3. Israel’s active prevention of Palestinian statehood. 4. Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians. 5. The financial and diplomatic culpability of the United States in all of the above. The hope is that increased public awareness will, in turn, lead to both political pressure in the eventual form of a permanent ceasefire and widespread economic pressure in the form of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. Judging by the level of media coverage of these college protests, both good AND bad, both nationally and internationally, I’d say that they have been wildly successful in their objective! Recent polling trends support my assessment. Nevertheless, what’s so pathetic (but predictable) is the intellectual regression of American right-wingers. For fleeting moments within the past decade, one COULD sort of argue that they were the standard-bearers of free speech and anti-establishment politics. Their overall response, however, to the Gaza crisis and to these protestors has erased such Pollyanna-ish thoughts. You’re not for the First Amendment if you want the police to crack down on peaceful college protests. You’re not a crusader against the political establishment if you so easily fall for media narratives framed by the MIC, AIPAC, and all corporate oligarchs who financially benefit from the bellicosity of the U.S. empire’s Middle East vassal state. And you’re DEFINITELY not the ones fighting Nazis if you condone collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, and genocide against anybody!

I’m guessing you never skimmed through the articles or the Nature paper?? I’ll explain it another way: D = A – B – C D is the observed increase in Earth’s angular velocity. C is the calculated decrease in Earth’s angular velocity due to polar ice cap melting. A is the increase in Earth’s angular velocity due to mass movement within its liquid outer core. B is the long-term decrease in Earth’s angular velocity due to the Moon’s gravitational pull. “D” is what everyone agrees is happening. “C” is the subject of the Nature paper. “D” is positive and greater than “C.” So “C” is saying that global warming effects are slowing Earth down, but not enough to reverse the effects from “A” that are speeding up Earth (in the short-term). Did that clarify? And yes, I’m still quite confident in the science of anthropogenic climate change! If you have been paying attention to my posts, then you know why: data confluence plus an effective process of isolation/elimination of climate change-inducing variables. Any progress on an alternative scientific explanation for the cooling stratosphere?? Or on a scientific refutation of the causal relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide ppm and planetary mean surface temperature?? Ugh. This thread was at its peak when it was just Muppy and I analyzing awesome dresses. Somewhere between Leh-nerd Skin-erd posts, we must have leapfrogged a megalodon or two.

No, Tibsy, Israel is an ethnostate. Secular Jews benefit from the same apartheid state privileges as do practicing religious Jews (the special legal status of the ultra-Orthodox notwithstanding…even though that was very recently overturned by law). The U.S. shouldn’t be encouraging ethnostates by funding them. Until there is a one-state solution with equal rights for every Israeli citizen within the country’s borders (albeit with special constitutional protections for Jews from tyranny-of-the-majority complications), I doubt the endemic violence and political turmoil there can ever inherently go away. Two-state solutions, in my opinion, simply promote ethnic segregation and can’t practically resolve the illegal settlement issues (among so many other issues). Having said that…a two-state solution of two adjacent ethnostates is FAR preferable to the status quo! Ultimately, it is up to Palestinians and Jewish Israelis to decide how they want to live there…I’m just a silly New Yorker…with beautiful long hair…just like you, Tibsy!!

But the claims from the two articles don’t contradict each other! One is describing the larger NET RESULT of an increase in Earth’s angular velocity, mainly due to movement of mass in the liquid outer core beneath the mantle. The other is describing the smaller GROSS RESULT of a decrease in Earth’s angular velocity, due to mass redistribution from melting polar ice caps. Note that this observed net result of increasing angular velocity is an extremely temporary one, on the order of a human lifetime, compared to the vastly larger long-term trend of decreasing angular velocity due to Moon-induced tidal force friction. So all this has next to nothing to do with anthropogenic climate change and everything to do with the conservation of angular momentum. And we know that modern data collection for this science is exceptional, as are the computational models that depend on the accuracy of moment of inertia modeling (i.e. how the Earth’s mass is distributed). Even the geological data matches well with the modeling predictions: as early as around 600 million years ago, an Earth day was around 22 hours long. There’s no geological data beyond that time, but physical modeling suggests that an Earth day about 4 billion years ago was about 8 hours long. In conclusion: everyone please read these types of articles and blog posts more carefully. Apply the same skeptical energy to the skeptical crowd (who have their own agendas!) as you do to the mainstream science crowd.

I would refer to what Hamas has been doing as “terrorism,” not “genocide.” The difference lies in the power dynamics, the scale of application, and the nature of the political intent. Both Hamas and the Israeli government, however, are clearly guilty of horrific crimes against humanity. All involved participants should be removed from positions of power and brought before international courts of law. Regarding your disagreement with definitional clause “D,” think about what a pregnant woman might need to successfully give birth to a baby: sufficient food (calories and nutrients), clean water, shelter (ideally with regulated temperatures), access to medical supplies, access to a hospital and a medical staff, safe and efficient transportation services, minimal stress and anxiety (i.e. no PTSD in a war zone), etc… If Israel is NOT deliberately imposing measures to prevent Gazan births, then they sure don’t seem too concerned about the welfare of the potential mothers, either!! But the pattern of humanitarian aid restrictions and hospital destruction, along with the reports of war crimes inside these hospitals, DO strongly suggest clause “D” genocidal intent. General Austin can say whatever he wants about the slaughter in Gaza, but the conflict of interest within his professional position is apparent. He serves Genocide Joe’s administration (and would behave identically under Decimation Don’s). The United States is unsurprisingly loath to admit its role as an empire funding a genocidal vassal state, just as Israel is loath to admit its role as a settler colonial ethnostate seeking territorial control and regional hegemony.

It comes down to power differentials and leverage. Israel is a full-fledged nation with a bona fide military that the U.S. funds. Hamas is a comparably small band of psychotic and intransigent insurgents. The first step of negotiations is for the U.S. to get the far-right Israeli government to stand down. Steps down the line, we’ll need the Gazan populace to turn on Hamas. But the latter can’t proceed before the former. FYI: No one in this subforum condones the actions of Hamas, though a handful of us here do have a more complete and thoughtful understanding of why they occurred. Oh, IN THEORY, I totally agree with the distinction you articulate between MAGA and neocons! IN PRACTICE, however, my argument is that MAGA types tend to easily fall back into more comfortable realms of political tribalism and traditional conservative biases. In other words: they’re not very policy-driven after all. This current Middle East conflict has been a good case example of what I mean. MAGA people fashion themselves to be standing in great contrast to MIC-loving neocons like John Bolton, but a vocal majority of them have been in full support of Israel’s genocide while cheering on extremely aggressive provocations toward Iran, dating back to Trump’s reign (reneging on JCPOA, the Abraham Accords, Soleimani’s assassination, etc.). These provocations, of course, can quickly spiral into boots-on-the-ground internecine warfare a la the 2003-2011 Iraq War, which is great for the MIC and neocon politicians but bad for Americans and the world. MAGA types believe in American primacy to the point that our country’s own policy vacillations aren’t considered from Iran’s perspective, which is not only terrible diplomacy but also arguably deeply rooted in reactionary prejudices. I do really like your post, by the way! By linking neoconservatism with neoliberalism, you clearly understand what it means to be a “populist” fighting the corporate oligarchy (a.k.a. the true “establishment”). I agree that the European countries, through the web of NATO, operate as vassal state extensions of American imperialism. I also agree that our overextended military is helping to eventually bankrupt us and destroy the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. Regarding Islamophobia: Fear of religious zealotry and religious nationalism is always rational, but that’s equally true for Christianity (see: Bible Belt abortion laws) and Judaism (see: Gaza genocide) as it is for Islam. The crux of Islamophobia is judging the character of individuals and prioritizing human life based on religious affiliation. What the Sam Harris types don’t get is that you can’t uncouple the current state of Muslim-majority countries from the influence of American and European imperialism. Once upon a time, the Islamic world was a nexus of human enlightenment while the Christian world was an intellectual backwater…so other factors are apparently in play. Good morning, sunshine! Yay!! You unblocked me! Springtime: a season of verdant bloom and floral ebullience, of new beginnings and rekindled friendships, of political revolution and Marxist subversion…welcome back, dear reader. That’s reasonable retrospective advice for Hamas and Iran, but I’m more focused on our own country’s involvement and what we, as a free-speech-loving democratic nation, can presumably control in this moment. I call balls and strikes with public policy, regardless of the administration in office, and especially given the gravity of what’s at stake. Such is the modus operandi of one Commie Kay. My perspective: Biden took the 100% right approach by helping to defend Israel from Iran’s attacks and then subsequently telling both Israel and Iran that the U.S. won’t participate in any retaliatory offensive. Conversely, Biden has been largely terrible since October 7 by not placing conditions on our aid to Israel (and by not threatening sanctions down the line, for that matter). It should be super obvious that Bibi has been working to undermine any hope of rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran. His objectives are territorial seizure and broader regional hegemony, and Iran is the biggest impediment to these objectives. Drawing the U.S. into a war with Iran is the only way Bibi can achieve them. And yes, of course I’m staying mad about possibly getting sucked into another Middle East war!!! I guess I’m one of those crazy peace-loving hippy types that supports nuclear power plants, not nuclear weapons. I think Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane were pretty groovy, too. Oh, and fashion fads from the late 60’s and early 70’s? Yes, please. PEACE out, - Commie Kay

Yup. Sadly, I fully expect Israel to escalate. The time of their response probably depends on the time that they plan to initiate the Rafah offensive in southern Gaza. Having to manage a war on multiple fronts (including the Hezbollah one), with a sagging economy and limited manpower and strained international relationships, COULD hopefully convince them to abandon a retaliatory response altogether. However…Israel’s motivations for bombing the Iranian consulate building in Syria were fairly transparent. A regional war for them accomplishes the following: 1. Further delays Israel’s calls for elections, thereby allowing the domestically unpopular Bibi to maintain power and avoid facing corruption charges. 2. Sinks Biden’s own domestic popularity possibly through November. Trump is likely viewed as the more reliable ally to Israel who will let Bibi do whatever he wants (which is not to say that AIPAC-controlled Genocide Joe has been a shining beacon of morality, but it’s obvious which side in American politics faces more anti-Zionism pressure from its constituents). 3. Bolsters wavering U.S. motivation to continue supplying Israel with weapons that, in turn, can also be used (illegally) for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 4. Distracts from the Gazan genocide. 5. Provides the means and justification to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities (Israel’s ultimate objective with Iran). Quick Angry Kay Side Rant: What’s so amusing to me are all the MAGA types criticizing Biden for his dovish stance on Iran. Whatever happened to being anti-war, anti-establishment, and anti-MIC?? These alleged right-wing “populists,” blinded by their political tribalism and latent Islamophobia, are essentially American supremacists and closet neocon imperialists…intellectual children whose minds exist in a dichotomous world of good guys vs. bad guys, like some bad Hollywood action movie. Some of these MAGA-ts also have significant financial investments in military contractor companies, yet no children of their own who would be sent to fight and die in another stupid Middle East war. Ugh! Angry Kay is angry!

Wow! So 24 hours later and no responses from the pro-Zionism crowd?? Not even a perfunctory eyeroll or mock laugh emoji reaction? THE SILENCE IS DEAFENING. Moving on… Let me address the “intent” component of Israel’s genocide. Political analysts fixate on the overly retributive self-defense explanation, as well as an explanation imbued with religious directives. Both are obviously true to some extent, but in my opinion Jared Diamond-esque geopolitical explanations are far more instructive. Israel is a modern-day case study in settler colonialism, so this is more about geography and the age-old motivations of land grabs and natural resource seizures for the purposes of wealth and power aggregation. In three ways this appears to be true: 1. Gaza: It’s at a strategically situated position on the Mediterranean, with potential for a far greater seaport, prime coastal real estate development, and untapped offshore natural gas fields. Ethnic cleansing removes the indigenous people in the way; genocide thins the herd and expedites the cleansing. 2. West Bank: Its western geographical limit is as few as 12 miles away from the Mediterranean Sea coast at Tel Aviv. The western frontier of the West Bank also features a bunch of hills perched above the lowland bottleneck of Israel’s middle section. A military strategist might argue that this is a natural military “choke point,” and that losing sudden control of it would easily cut off Israel’s two halves from each other. This is likely a big reason why Israel is accelerating its illegal settlement encroachment into this particular area of the West Bank, while the slaughtering continues unabated in Gaza. 3. Negev Desert: It’s an extensive region of land that still remains significantly underutilized, in terms of desert agriculture methods and natural resource extraction. Israel understands that a two-state solution with a non-contiguous Palestine (or a non-contiguous Israel) can’t relieve certain levels of tension (partly due to national transportation logistics), and that contiguity may likely require relinquishing this connecting region between Gaza and the West Bank (a region, by the way, that contains Israel’s critical nuclear weapons facility near Dimona). It’s in Israel’s interest, therefore, to remove Gaza from the entire equation of negotiation. Summary: I think geopolitical explanations are more fundamental. Retributive self-defense and religion are what settler colonialists tell others and each other to justify their horrible behavior. Thoughts?? Am I right? Wrong? Can I at least get an eyeroll acknowledgment, pretty please?! Thank you.

In their partial defense, Justice, they’re being fed a steady dose of Zionist propaganda from corporate media and/or independent far-right media. Most here are likely unaware of the recent settler rampages in the West Bank. Now seems like a good time to update my post on the ongoing genocide (page 183 of this thread; March 4). As a reminder to the readership, systemic reckless indifference to civilian casualties can constitute legal proof of genocidal intent. We don’t need to wait for Bibi to hold up a sign that states, “Hey everyone! I am officially committing genocide!” We don’t need a particular minimum number of casualties. We don’t need to see red-soaked, red-handed IDF hands holding Hutu-fashioned machetes. Not every genocide looks the same. Further evidence of genocide: 1. The aforementioned systemic heedlessness toward civilian casualties: Euro-Med HRM can’t report as often because virtually all aspects of societal order in Gaza have collapsed. Nevertheless, the latest update on April 3 reports 37,676 civilian deaths and 3,280 combatant deaths for a historically unacceptable 9.86:1 civilian casualty ratio (for comparison: the overall ratio for WW2 was no worse than 2:1). This is the numerical consequence of indiscriminate bombing and AI programs like “Lavender” and “Where’s Daddy.” There are also numerous reports of Gazans being killed despite waiving white flags. 2. Weaponizing famine: significant delays and restrictions (~70%) to food convoys, cancelling UNRWA, widespread destruction of Gazan farmland, and of course the World Central Kitchen murders that fit within this larger pattern of similar behavior. 3. Targeting health care workers: Never mind the near-complete eradication of Gaza’s hospital infrastructure; a frightening number of reports have been coming out of hospital staff members being deliberately targeted, such as those at Gaza’s critical Al-Shifa Hospital. The IDF have also destroyed most Red Crescent vehicles in Gaza, in addition to the Palestine RC Society headquarters in Khan Younis. 4. Suppressing war crime coverage: Al Jazeera was recently banned throughout Israel. Gaza has now set the record for the most journalists killed in one location within one year. There are also numerous reports of IDF bulldozers burying bodies before Gazans can get to them. Poopiness…gotta get ready for work…later today or tonight, I want to post additional thoughts on the “intent” component behind Israel’s genocide. I’m sorry your people are experiencing this, Justice. I wish I could do more to help than write super lengthy posts that no one reads, in a sad politics subforum of a perennially disappointing pro football team.

This is such a good idea that I’m guessing Democrats have already been planning to do so immediately before their Congressional summer recess. It might be more politically strategic to have the Comstock Act become a major topic of debate leading up to the national party conventions. A few other thoughts on this topic: 1. Abortion is exposing multiple cracks in the Constitutional edifice that probably shouldn’t have been left unrepaired for this long. One of these cracks is the failure of the Bill of Rights to more explicitly protect the right to privacy. At the moment, this right has been left vague enough and piecemeal in the First, Third, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. An all-encompassing right to privacy should specifically mention a right to “sexual” privacy, thereby preventing ridiculous state laws like 6-week abortion bans and no protections for rape cases. I realize that such an amendment won’t realistically pass for at least another generation’s time, but Democrats in the meantime can put this goal in their official party platform while stridently advocating for a federal codification of Roe v. Wade (with clarification on temporal limits, exceptions, and who adjudicates the exceptions). Another Constitutional crack in need of repair is articulation of the Supreme Court branch. It should be democratized with limits on term, limits on number, codes of conduct, and a better federal system of oversight. 2. National poll trends continue to show independent voters shifting to the pro-choice side since Dobbs (June 2022), regardless of Trump’s messaging obfuscation on how to proceed (Tenth Amendment argument vs. federal ban) or on who to blame (Jackson WHO vs. himself and his SC Justice nominations). I count six swing states: Arizona (11 EC votes), Nevada (6 EC votes), Wisconsin (10 EC votes), Michigan (15 EC votes), Pennsylvania (19 EC votes), and Georgia (16 EC votes). Everywhere else, Trump holds a narrow EC lead of 235 to Biden’s 226 (source: 270towin.com). We all know what happened in Arizona recently. We all know how badly Republicans have been underperforming polls recently in elections with abortion referendums. At this point, Trump’s only way out of this catch-22 issue will be to simply ignore and deflect, focusing 100% on Biden’s cognitive health or the mishandling of the genocide in Gaza or perhaps…oh, I don’t know…the scourge of communist Marxist atheist “trannies” illegally crossing the border so to participate in women’s sports (a.k.a. the resonating right-wing social crisis du jour)??? Eeek!!! 3. Women stuck in red states should be made aware of The Brigid Alliance, a national nonprofit organization that addresses the financial and logistical challenges of those seeking an abortion over long distances. I liken them to the Underground Railroad of the post-Dobbs era because their services are most pertinent in the South. Every Bible Belt state now has some sort of draconian abortion law.

But we’re doing so much more than mere guessing! The theme of these climate science discussions should be “data confluence.” The confluence of data is what gives us our confidence in the consensus science. With respect to the stratosphere topic, we have all of the following support: 1. Predictive theories based on very well-established physics subfields (mostly stat mech and a/m/o physics, mixed in with some fluid mech at the troposphere below, plasma physics at the ionosphere above, and a delightful dash of basic quantum mech throughout). 2. Computational models whose guiding equations are based on the aforementioned theories. 3. Tabletop experiments of the atmosphere layers, analogous in spirit to what aeronautical engineers do with scale modeling in wind tunnels. 4. Direct measurements taken from air balloons and satellites over the past century, which NACA and later NASA recorded. I’ll argue that the structural simplicity of the stratosphere is what further increases our confidence. At steady-state conditions, it’s basically an altitude-dependent thermodynamic system of temperature, pressure, and gaseous composition (nitrogen, oxygen/ozone, and a few trace gases). There’s very little water vapor, carbon dioxide, or air turbulence to complicate things. You have typical transient behavior and diffusion at boundary layers, but nothing that can individually explain a global temperature variation trend sustained on the order of several decades! So there’s nothing wrong with extrapolation when your assumptions are so strong. Historical behavioral extrapolation comes down to two basic cases, each unassailable without some sort of paradigm-shifting explanation from physics or atmospheric science: 1. Uniform temperature growth in each atmospheric layer, due to solar activity. 2. Inverse temperature growth, divergent at the stratosphere-troposphere boundary, due to major volcanic emissions or life-induced (i.e. plants, microbes, humans) changes to atmospheric composition that, in turn, alter the greenhouse effect. P.S. Your apology is kindly accepted, though it wasn’t necessary to offer one! The prerequisite for PPP subforum participation should be a thick skin. All of us here have failed the mantra of “attack the message, not the messenger” from time to time. It happens often enough that the subforum moderator** has given up moderating personal attacks. P.S.P.S. The Finger Lakes were likely ancient river valleys. Glaciers from the most recent ice age likely carved them further into their current form. (P.S.) x 3: I trust government and politicians about as much as I do private corporations. Trust is earned with proof over time, buttressed with systems of oversight and power checks/balances. ** - His moderating presence, in fact, is so light that some have suggested he’s not even technically a moderator!! << Commie Kay shockface emoji >> But um…I’ve already said too much, lest I be banished to an even lower Dante-esque forum circle of heck than PPP, with nothing but a red stapler in hand. EDIT: Additional notes on extrapolation case #2: “Major volcanic emissions” was more a reference to Earth’s volatile early atmospheric history, not to random individual volcano eruptions. Effects from isolated cases of meteorites and major wildfires can be similarly transient. Certain human-generated industrial air pollutants can actually mitigate the stratosphere cooling effect from greenhouse gases.