tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6727975.post2026824864923454024..comments2024-03-25T16:30:58.213+13:00Comments on GREENIE WATCH: JRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00829082699850674281noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6727975.post-67476714592041376562012-04-13T03:16:47.270+12:002012-04-13T03:16:47.270+12:00Banning all but reusable bags should lead to incre...Banning all but reusable bags should lead to increased income for personal injury lawyers as people use bags that CANNOT be washed except by hand (who does that?) and are infested with ecoli bacteria and other such bad things. Maybe the council consists of lawyers??? <br /><br />Also, banning paper bags puts tree farmers out of business. I think the argument used by turbine folks that turbines keep ranchers in business should apply to paper bags. Paper bags keep tree farmers in business so let's subsidize them and keep these people in business. Farmers are as important as ranchers. Plus, are the councilmen really so stupid they don't know paper is made from "leftovers" and no trees are saved. Toilet paper manufacturers think consumers are that stupid--maybe they are right.slktacnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6727975.post-12665151285193125982012-04-12T23:25:31.135+12:002012-04-12T23:25:31.135+12:00"This paper marks, in my opinion, the death o..."This paper marks, in my opinion, the death of credibility for Nature on global warming. The first symptoms showed up in 1996 when they published a paper by Ben Santer and 13 coauthors that was so obviously cherry-picked that it took me and my colleagues about three hours to completely destroy it."<br /><br />For the record, I got out of science as a career in 1998 after a final three year postdoc in science at Harvard. I saw that I would not survive well in academia as a free thinker rather than just a prodding technician who keeps his head down. Back then I still accepted AGW at face value though somewhat bemusingly as chemists do look at any other softer science. The drug war took the sails out of chemical adventure so now it's just faster computers and life extension work that must all be pre-justified rather than be curiosity based. All the hype I could not imagine joining in on when only the aging demigods of science were having all the fun pursuing eccentric avenues to their heart's content. Research on the liquid crystals which led to flat panel displays would barely be funded today for a young academic were it a brand new idea. No playful tinkering aloud until you're past your prime! Thank god for DARPA though, since those guys are nuts in the good old sense that I equate with early and mid 20th century science. The journals Science and Nature were not like airport magazines but they were major events in an academic's career if their work appeared there. I personally made the cover of Nature, albeit not scientifically, by knowing how to colorize an electron microscope image in Photoshop that a labmate wanted to spruce up. The wonderful fabric image was for an article that passed peer review without having to report what to me as a chemist was basic data: what was the yield?! When I myself tried to later use the technique it only worked for a small initial band of the claimed large area, and an odd lack of concern about this by anyone around me, even when pressed, deeply confused me, not so much only due to hype over substance but how the mystery of why the process halted at all garnered no enthusiastic attention. That global warming science was able to capture so much later attention was helped by how stale the original adventure had grown, I strongly suggest. The great frontier of human consciousness, one that requires all of the hard sciences and mathematics included, the central curiosity of mankind throughout recorded history, was shut down in the late 20th century by decree. Now kids can't even get real chemistry sets any more, either, just colored water tricks. Then, instead of building hot rods that move they apply cosmetic hot rod radiators to the same old speed computer boxes, you know, the ones that are still 3 GHz six years later. All we have to replace them being paradox ridden fantasies about quantum "computers." I predict a three hundred year lull in scientific progress as biology slowly becomes a technology and culture finally once again allows eager human volunteers to participate in psychoactive science.<br /> <br />-=NikFromNYC=-Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com