You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2014.
One of the basic objections to religion laid out nicely by Darkmatter2525.
A handy reference for dealing with the MRA crowd.
What follows is a response to a popular list of claims and arguments made by men’s rights activists.
1. SUICIDE: Men’s suicide rate is 4.6 times higher than that of women’s. [Dept. Health & Human Services — 26,710 males vs 5,700 females]
Not for lack of trying: women attempt it three times as often. [1] Researchers have found that gender differences in socialization is the strongest explanation for men’s relative success in suicide attempts. In the United States, for instance, it has been shown that unsuccessful suicide attempts are considered “feminine” while it is considered masculine to succeed. In other words, the fear of being labeled “feminine” or “weak” in a male supremacist culture encourages men to ensure their attempts are successfully completed. [2] The statistic given here also masks that many of these “suicides” were actually murder-suicides. In the United States, an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 people died in suicide…
View original post 2,314 more words
The anniversary of World War I has been in the news as of late. Solemn words have been said, and in Canada, the funny idea that somehow it forged our nation from a quaint backwater into a respected player on the world stage. Sending people to die horrible deaths should not be the price of entry into world politics. WWI laid the foundation for WWII and both featured the notion that somehow civilian casualties were OK and even necessary to the war effort. Here we are in the 21st century and have the ultimate ‘soft target’ weapons available to us and they are not in anyway guaranteeing our safety, but rather our destruction – ain’t progress grand?
One can trace the insanity from WWI all the way to the present – let’s let John Oliver comment on the present state of affairs and the nuclear deterrent that keeps us ‘safe’.
Closing the blind doesn’t keep Fiona away from her favourite window perch.
It’s true. I love them. I wish I could have had the means to go see them perform live while they were still together. But, we can make do with the magic of youtube.
Just ask Mystro about designing logos. A great deal of time and effort is involved in making a clean, presentable logo. The next step, making the *right* logo for the task at hand… it could be the definition of time-sink.
Some of the logos hidden designs are not particularly mysterious, but there were a few I didn’t even notice until they were pointed out.
We are on course to have a ice-free arctic during the summer months. This is yet another indicator of traumatic warming of our world due in part to our activities and policies. The climate is changing rapidly and a new dynamic equilibrium is being established.
“Waves rearing as high as the second-floor windows of a building have been detected in the Beaufort Sea for the first time.
Arctic waves are normally kept in check by sea ice, which has traditionally covered large areas of the Arctic Ocean even in the summer. But warmer temperatures as a result of climate change are melting away more and more of that ice.
A wave gauge deployed in the Beaufort Sea in the western Arctic in 2012 has already measured some of the consequences, recording wave heights of almost five metres during a September storm.”
Daaaamn, waves in the Arctic Ocean – here is the bit on the positive feedback loop being established.
“Those waves, in turn, may gain enough power to smash away more sea ice, generating a “feedback mechanism which drives the Arctic system toward an ice-free summer,” they wrote in their paper.
In his blog post on the website of the American Geophysical Union, Thomson added, “Bigger, more powerful waves could also accelerate erosion of the Arctic Ocean coasts, which are already breaking down rapidly from the effects of climate change and melting of permafrost.”
The stories about the changing climate are often mixed in with stories about companies contemplating the new shipping routes that will become available and the resources that can be exploited once the ice is gone.”
The gradual nature of AGW is the perfect villain in this situation precisely because of our human tendencies toward short-term thinking.
Short term thinking will be the end of us.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…