My last significant constitutional before Mexico in 3 weeks (yip yeah x2!), G-Rush better not let the TL crew down with no Academy shenanigans.

As for AGW, one cannot look at the evidence and dismiss the concept:

The permafrost capping the top of the world is irreversibly thawing and within two decades will release more carbon than it now absorbs, scientists calculate in a new study that makes this dire prediction: Up to 60 percent of Earth's permafrost will have thawed out by 2200.

Why care if you don't live in Siberia, Alaska or northern Canada, where thawing permafrost has already buckled roads and swallowed structures?

Because permafrost -- which is ground that's been frozen continuously for two or more years -- holds enormous amounts of carbon in the form of frozen plant matter, and adding more of that to the atmosphere would raise temperatures even higher, scientists say.

Click or MSNBC Me

Google Image search for permafrost melting.

Here's what one of the scientists who didn't sign the petition PPJ talked about says about the subject:

The Greenland ice sheet is melting twice as quickly as it was 10 years ago.

The glacier could be wearing away by as much as 10km per year, a leading glaciologist claims.

Professor Julian Dowdeswell of Cambridge University believes the thaw is dangerous for people in low-lying areas.

He said yesterday: "If the ice on Greenland were to melt, the sea would rise 7 metres. If the ice in Antarctica melted, it would be 70 metres. Sea level is rising 3 mm per year, but it could rise to 1 metre, which would be damaging. Then sea defences can be breached and low-lying areas of the world can be flooded."

More evidence?

Numerous studies in recent years have raised alarms about the rapid pace of disappearing Arctic ice. The retreating ice will eventually open new sea lanes to greater commercial traffic, and will expose the Arctic's rich oil and gas deposits to greater exploration.

Last summer, the melt of ice caps in the Arctic Ocean reached unprecedented levels, while a 260-square-kilometre chunk of ice broke off a glacier in northwest Greenland -- the biggest slab of Arctic ice to break away in half a century.

Klepsvik said the Arctic Change Assessment will study changing climate and melting sea ice, glaciers and permafrost. The aim is to help Arctic countries cope with inevitable, irreversible change.

"...since 2007 when the American Association of Petroleum Geologists changed its position, not a single scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion on global warming."  (my paraphrasing)

Link

Climatedepot.com is not a scientific body - certainly not one of any national or international standing.  Marc Morano and his laughable list of "scientists" are a joke.  His list of "scientists" is filled with people who are "so-called experts who are really weather broadcasters without advanced degrees", like Chris Allen (weather director for WBKO-TV in Kentucky), who is listed as a meteorologist on the report, even though he has no degree in meteorology.  In his report, Morano also misrepresents the work of legitimate experts like Dr. Steve Rayner (who does not dispute global warming), who actually asked to have his name removed from the report.

Not only is climatedepot.com not a scientific body of any standing, but they're a branch of CFACT - a winger group funded by Richard Melon Scaife and (surprise, surprise) exxonMobil Foundation.

"Scientific"?

Pfffftttttt ...

oil, and food?

New industries always face barriers to entry that make financial help extrememly valuable.  There is a significant development cost associated with any relatively new technology.  Spending money on science is usually worth it.  Unless you're content to just tread water forever, in which case the rest of the world will leave us in the dust.  As it is, the fact that our government isn't spending as much money to develop new technology is sending companies packing to china.  There are jobs to be had - it's only a matter of where they go.

What's big oil's excuse for sucking on the gov't teat?

I think that just about any documentary on war is, by definition, ugly. There is nothing pretty about war. Even wars that we think are justified, like say WW II, are ugly.

That people are sill dying is not my line in the sand. When we send people to war we do so knowing that people will die. And because we are both sending our fellow citizens off to possible death and expecting them to kill others, we had better be damned sure we have exhausted all other chances to resolve whatever problem the war is supposed to take of, and that we have a plan to get in and out as quickly as possible with a minimum of death.

I don't see that we have that plan in Afghanistan, or in Iraq for that matter (changing troops' designation from "combat" to something else does not mean the war is over). Maybe Obama does have a grand and good plan. If he does I haven't seen it. Just being different from Bush does not automatically mean better than Bush.

What slave revolt? I keep asking myself.  Where is Spartacus?   And we aren't in Rome but some backwater Villa.  This is just a bod show, and no seeming point, I keep thinking.....But still attention grabing at times....

But your comments here about this year's show being a prequel make sense.

Sorry about the spoiler--spoilers don't ruin the experience for me....But then again I like watching good films over and over....

In terms of sadism or maybe psychosis or sociopathy, the Roman overload, the blond guy, just seems so beyond any human qualities at all....I watch with the hope that he really gets "his" but it doesn't happen and he keeps in power.