finknottle

I'm not thrilled by either outcome. But a return to glaciaration is gradual compared to the warming, and can take a thousands of years. This gives plant life a chance to find new temperate zones, and animal life too of course. Global warming, on the the hand, is occuring startlingly fast. If over a period of only 40 years western new york were to turn into a tropical climate, say, the current plant life would die off but it is doubtfull that a tropical ecosystem could spread north fast enough. So what you get is an extinction of most species. (It is only is anectdotal, but we seem to be seeing already that Maple trees are dying off rather than spreading. I don't know if that is from global warming tho. Ragweed and poison ivy are doing quite well, on the other hand.)

If anyone cares, I've thrown together some temperature charts for the past 100 million years. Temperature charts If you treat them like stock prices and submit them to technical analysis, you will see from the moving averages (both long term and the short-term 'ice age' average) that for temperatures to ubruptly start rising now represents a breakout from the natural pattern. Good time to buy if you like the heat. And that's really my point. If it's not because of our influence, then why is the trend breaking now, after all these millions of years?

No, the thaw is warm spell that occurs between the waves of glaciatation, a pattern that has repeated itself for the 500,000 years. The warm spell has now lasted about 10,000 years, which is about as long as the warm spells have lasted in the past. So unless the pattern is broken, we would expect a return to glaciaration and ice age temperatures (lasting maybe 40,000 years), some time in next thousand years or so. It was discovering this geologic pattern that caused scientists in the 70's to predict a return to the ice age. Their evidence was based on trends for the last million years, and assumed no impact from man.

I have no idea what you are saying in the second paragraph. As for the new Ice Age, that was a prediction based on likely climate swings absent man's influence. It's still valid - the most likely outcome, if there were no external influences, would have been for this current 'Ice Age Summer' to end within a thousand years and glaciers to come back. That has been the pattern for the last million years. Looking over the past 100 million years, the planet has been cooling off. We are currently in an exceptionally long (10,000 years) periodic thaw. The odds that, without man's influence, we randomly happen to be alive at the point in which the moving averages of global temperatures are finally turning upwards, breaking the trend to head back towards what they were 50 million years ago... well, that's as strong an argument for Intelligent Design as any, I suppose.

What if what he concluded from whatever he heard was that this was a despicable act, and that the internal investigation didn't appear serious? Should he sit back and let things take their course? What if they were clearly guilty but that there was a feeling that for political reasons (Iraq, not rep v dem) it would be better to sweep this under the rug? What would that do to the morale of the Marines?

But that's the point. Let's assume that you are a former Marine, and presumably deeply proud of the institution, and are now in Congress. If in the course of investigating the investigation you become convinced not only that they are guilty but that they and the lack of investigation have brought shame upon the Marines and possibly lasting damage to their reputation, are you telling me that you would sit back and let it go on? I'm not making either of these claims, only arguing that if that's what he concluded than his response is not neccessarily as outrageous as people make it out to be.

If what Murtha knew convinced him of their guilt, then don't you think that *as a former Marine* he might be particularly and personally incensed?

This isn't the 70's, 80's, or 90's. Football isn't about three yards and a cloud of dust. Most winning teams beat you by having more quality receivers than you have secondary - having little drop-off at #'s 2, 3, and 4 is more important than having a top #1 receiver. And having strong #'s 2, 3, 4, and 5 in the defensive backfield is more important than having a lock-down corner. No comment on the TE strategy. (EDIT: That came off too harsh. I'd certainly feel better about drafting linemen. But I think the defensive backfield strategy is very defendable.)

Excellent analysis, though I'm not so sure that Willis isn't being lumped in with Losman. (see my next reply...)

I'm not so quick to give him a pass on 2003. Granted he looked good in 2004; IMO he was MIA in 2005. So are you saying that a first round pick - getting you five years of service for five years of salary - is good if you get out of it 3 good years, one poor year, and an injured reserve year? For an impact position, that sounds like a break-even at best to me.

Wow! This is a really tough one! I had to pick 'other' because IMO no one bad move really stuck out, and none were indefensible. Instead, I have to put it down to overall arrogance. His tenure was marked by his constantly trying to show the rest of the NFL that he was smarter than they. But like a chronic gambler, whenever he was right initially he wound up losing it all by doubling up. Think the Bledsoe extension. But to me the move that really shows his arrogance - and I'll be flamed for this - is the drafting of WM. Using your first round pick on a player who is guaranteed to be injured at least the first year, 20% of his contract; all the while drawing a first rounder paycheck out of your cap; and when you have a guy coming off a 1,300 yard season who plays for chump money. A guy who is a running back, so it's not like he will give you 10 years even if he works out. A guy who may not recover to what he was in college. I don't care if he is a top 10 back - I don't even care if he is a top 3 back, which he is not - you add it up and it is a dumb move, both capwise and personnel-wise. But with TD, it was all about showing the NFL that he was smarter than the other GM's and would gamble on WM's recovery when everybody else was afraid to draft him.

Just out of curiosity, who do you think is doing it poorly? Every year I see a bunch of teams rediculously over, and they cut a few and restructure a few and they are right back in it. Once in awhile you see a team take a big step back ala the Bills and 49rs, but I fail to see the difference between a good firesale and a bad one. If anything, its the teams like the Redskins that are handling salary cap jail well, and TD who didn't.

The basis of this is that, geologically speaking, for the past two million years we have been in the Pliestocene, the coldest stretch in the last few hundred million years. The period has been marked by successive waves of major ice ages, each lasting a few hundred thousand years, and each itself defined by individual periods of advancing and retreating glaciers. To the best of our knowledge, we are in one of these major periods, but in a warm period of retreat now lasting 10,000 years (but still essentially colder than any point in the last 200 million years). So, the theory goes, unless the Pliestocene is really over (and we have no reason to conclude that), based on the previous pattern we are overdue to lurch back into a glacial period. Of course this is based on extrapolating from previous experience, and does not preclude man-made influences from kicking us out of the pattern.

And yet here we are, wallowing in debates about finger-pointing... It's like Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

Unfortunately, that's true. Here's the problem. A continuing infusion of low-skill labor is essential for business short-term, bad for the country long-term. Politicians need to realize that if the country is to remain economically strong in 30 years the economy needs to shift to one which is not low-wage dependent. Consider this question: what is the impact of the illegal immigrants on the trade deficit? It's sort of like oil. Yes, if the price triples to what it is in Europe then the US economy may collapse. But few would argue (outside of politicians) that we wouldn't be better off shifting away from it.

Who cares if global warming is man-made or not? The climate is changing, and at an accelerating rate - debate that if you want. Arguing about whether man is causing it or too many flatulant cows is nothing but a distraction. I sometimes think that it is the conservative position that if a giant meteor were screaming down on the earth, the decision to do anything about it would hing entirely on whether we could prove it was caused by NASA.

No, its not about the temperature change per se. Minute changes can have dramatic effects on weather patterns. For example, it is thought that a half a degree rise in ocean surface temperature uncreases the intensity of the Hurricane season by something like 5%. Similar effect with El Nino. Another issue is the sensitivity of the North Atlantic Gulf Stream to temperature, salinity, and the effect of the Artic cap. If it begins to change, temperatures in Europe will shift to something more in line with their latitude (northern Canada). But that's not your question. You are really asking how a seemingly small change in temperature can wipe out mankind. Well, a 1 degree change is an average. What really happens is that the climate shifts around everywhere, some places up 5 degrees, some down 6, and so on. That's why under global warming the temperature in Europe is actually likely to drop severly. Anyway, we've become so tightly linked to a just-in-time economy that I don't think civilization can survive a sudden climate shift. Suppose the trade winds shift over the course of a decade, changing the rainfall patterns. In that scenario it's not hard to imagine the heartland of America drying out like central asia and, say, Mexico becoming raindrenched. The two don't balance out - crops everywhere will fail, because they are the wrong kind of crops, and tens of millions will starve. Or suppose the Hurrican intensity increases dramatically, effectively disabling the oil industry in the Gulf, Venezuela. What would happen around the world if production suddenly dropped 10% for the forseeable future? If the State breaks down, and our fine-tuned system of commerce with it, what happens to people in Buffalo when there is no more food or oil coming in?

I'll have to look into this. One simple test would be measuring the changes in height with satellites of the zone of accumulation that feeds the glacier coverage. If the surface temp is generally constant, then the heights should be sort-of-constant (or more precisely, porportional to the volume of the range) with changes in snowfall effecting the distance to the zone of ablation. But if the underlying resistence is softening due to warming of the surface then (snowfall accumulation being equal) the height in the zone of accumulation should be falling as the entire glacier flattens.

I might be misunderstanding what you are saying, but: glacier 'movement' is simply caused by the difference between the snowfall and melt at the base (loosely meaning the south pole, not the bottom). When more falls than melts, the surface icepack builds up. The weight of the icepack grinds the soil underneath it, and with pressure providing the lubricant the weight of the ice pushes the lower grind and ice and slush forward along the gradient of least resistence (this is what geologically carves valleys). So it's not that the glacier is actually moving. Rather, the tendrils flow forward. The tendrils advance and retreat (typically in winter and summer) based on whether they are being fed at a pace to match their own melt rate. As far as I know it has nothing to do with surface temperature, only snowfall.

It may not take all that long for Antarctica to melt - the process accelerates as it goes along. The more the snow cover melts, the less there is to reflect sunlight, and the more heat is absorbed by the earth. Thus we are now absorbing more heat from the sun than we did 10 years ago, speeding up the process. And the snow cover is disappearing measurably. The African glaciers have shrank rom 2.5 square miles in 1900 to 1 in 1995 to .4 today. The Alpine glaciers are noticably receeding, and the north pole ice flows are melting earlier and earlier - you can expect the Polar Bears to fall extinct in the wild over the next 15 years, since they primarily hunt during the winter and fewer and fewer are getting enough during the shortened season. Glaciers over the south pole are not neccessarily natural; they formed about 25 million years ago (over maybe 5 million years, in a process that accelerated quickly) destroying a south pole ecosystem that had been only cool-to-temperate for the preceeding 50 million years. It should be noted that these climate lurches are usually accompanied by mass-extinctions. So global warming may be a natural process, but the lurches can be abrupt. And they can be kick-started by man' s actions. You also cite natural hurricanes. It is quite clear that the frequency and intensity have increased over the past 50 years; interestingly, the effect appears to be in line with predictions of several simulations modeling the observed increase in the oceans temperatue. Bottom line - IMO Global Warming is more than real, it is now inevitable and too late to do anything about it. Don't bother worrying about grandchildren.

In fact, in 2004 TH had none. WM had three times the carries, so that pace would have projected to 3 or 4 TD's for TH. For passing, WM only had twice the receptions, which is surprising considering that he played much more. But how can the Bills have seen the decline coming during the '03 draft when TH was still yet to have his best season (2003)??? Unless you meant see it coming in the sense that I see WM's and every other veteren players decline coming in 3 or 4 years.

I said a modest upgrade, not barely, and I was speaking of production. In '03 WM contributed absolutely zilch for his paycheck, while TH had a banner year. In '04 when they were both on the field, TH looked bad and WM looked ok - 3.5 versus 4.0 yards per carry. I call half a yard per carry a modest upgrade. Did the braintrust know TH was going to hit the wall after leaving the Bills or was in drug trouble? Considering that that was three years down the road, I doubt it. If they merely thought he might be winding down generally in a few years, then why not draft a running back later? [based on the numbers, if I were to say it all over again, I would probably say he is a modest upgrade in talent but no upgrade in production. Flame away.]

I agree. The Willis-lovers are misrepresenting the Willis-bashers. For those of my thinking, (1) WM is a modest upgrade over TH. I have yet to see him be dominant. (2) He is costly - in salary, in draft pick (given we had a starter), and in the sense that whatever we paid for him we get one less year of production than we would have gotten with a healthy back. We are paying him 5 years of salarty for 4 years of playing - and so far, he's not running for 25% more yards than his peers. (3) Today's NFL is a passing game, not a running game. The team that has 4 good receivers and a line built to pass goes farther than the team with a great runningback and a line built to run. The whole 'U' character thing is fun and amusing, but not really the issue.

I think it could, with the following nuance: If I were to create a party, I would pick just one or two defining positions and say that is who we are - on those issues we lead, and on all others we follow. So suppose I choose fiscal discipline, say. If elected, I am going to fight hardest to balance the budget, period. On all other issues, from gun control to logging to abortion to immigration, I'll more or less do what my constituancy wants. In line with this, party members can have great diversity of opinion on any issue outside the core. Maybe it's wishfull thinking that it could work, but it certainly addresses the central problem faced by the voter who wants to vote based on issues instead of party loyalty. Each party endorses so many positions that they really are not in aggreement with any voters. The result is that you get politicians talking only plank A to group A while downplaying B, and talking plank B to group B while downplaying A, based on pollster analysis.

This is why people start these threads. This isn't the 50's, and handing the ball over and over again to your star runningback is going to lose you every game. Yet we have people acting as if he is so good that that will work. I guess they are really smart - maybe WM is actually the best runningback in the league. Because if he is only second or third best, then the teams that have better backs would have won the superbowl if only they'd become smashmouth teams and 'run the damn ball!'