JohnB

Firstly, I'm not a "scientist". Secondly, would you care to expand on your comment? You suggested that the shadows be compared and I showed that this is actually impossible, which made your "fake" claim a simple knee jerk reaction and without basis in fact. Personally, I don't give two hoots whether the woman is a time traveller or not, but I do care about the quality of arguments used. Put another way. You made the claim that the footage was faked. I showed that your "proof" was false. Any claims based on that proof are therefore wrong.

lemur, I take your points, but we see things differently. There are other options for decentralised government than just the "Republic", which also have their own inbuilt checks and balances. I live in a Federation which is a "Constitutional Monarchy". When the various colonies decided to combine and form the single nation known as Australia, the powers of the different levels of government were very strictly defined. Things that pertained to the good of the nation as a whole became the responsibility of the Federal govt (say Customs and Excise) and the States gave up their individual rights in this area. Other things were deemed the responsibility of the individual States and the Federal govt doesn't get a say in the matter. "Republic" is not the only way to do what your system does. In many ways it's the balance of "Authority" and "Responsibility". If something that effects the nation as a whole is going to be the responsibility of the Federal govt, then they are required to have the authority to do something about it. On a larger scale it is exactly the same thing that allows a State legislature to override a local council. In many cases in the US it appears that you want to have the Federal govt to be responsible, but are unwilling to grant them the authority required. This is an untenable situation. Something that you might want to consider. Your Constitution can be changed by your governments, ours must be changed by a direct Referendum of the people. The Federal govt cannot assume any power that is not explicitly granted them under the Constitution without asking for and gaining the direct permission of the Australian people. (Emphasis mine.) Demosthenes, get thee to an Atlas. If you are talking about the lower 48 States, then the US is about the same size as Australia. (7,680,577 v 7,692,024 square km) Texas would rank as our 6th largest State and with an area of 678,051 sqare km would fit 2.5 times into my home State of Queensland (1,730,648 squre km) and nearly 4 times into Western Australia, our biggest State. Our smallest State, Tasmania is bigger than every US State from Florida on down in the area rankings. The cattle property "Victoria River Downs" at its peak was bigger than Maryland and roughly half the size of Virginia. The current largest, "Anna Creek" is some 2,000 square km larger than Conneticut. Each of our States have local govt areas called "Shires", run by a City or Shire Council. The Shire of East Pilbara in Western Australia is bigger than every US State except for California, Texas and Alaska. The Barkly Shire in the Northern Territory would rank as your 5th largest State, being slightly smaller than Montana. Please, when it comes to "sheer size", we know a fair bit more about that than your govt does. People are another matter. East Pilbara has a population of 7,500 and Barkly has an estimated population of about 8,100. It's population densities like that which make getting good medical care to these regions very hard.

I'd like to thank Dune for demonstrating so clearly the way of never letting facts get in the way of a good accusation of "fake" or "debunking". "Compare the shadows" he says. If you take 10 seconds to see the footage, the first noticable thing about the zebra is that you never see its feet. Hence it becomes impossible to measure the shadow of the zebra to compare it to anything. Dunes argument than becomes "Something I cannot measure is out of proportion to something I can measure. Therefore the footage is faked." I'm sure such profound logical arguments will revolutionise the field of physics.

Zapatos hits the nub of the issue here. There are rules that you are supposed to follow if you are a member of the "Catholic Club", just the same as any other club. If you aren't a member of the particular club, then the rules don't apply to you. Which also means that members of any given club don't have to justify themselves, or their rules to anybody else to that anybodys level of satisfaction. If asked, they may try if they so choose, but they don't have to. (And failure to understand the answer is not their fault.) I add that trying to explain one rule without considering the full philosophical context is totally pointless. I'm not Catholic, their rules don't apply to me. If that is how they choose to live and so living doesn't hurt anybody else, then their rules are none of my bloody business. I find it interesting that people from the "Land of the Free" are demanding that someone with a different philosophical outlook justify themselves and their philosophy. Taking the religious out of it, but still in keeping with philosophic ideas. Would anyone here care to to justify the American system of government to me? To my satisfaction? Why should you? I'm an Australian and not effected by how your system works and so long as you don't pose a major threat to me and mine; 1. I don't care and 2. It's none of my bloody business.

To a degree it might. One of the problems I have is with the assumption that climate reacts only to external forcings. Which is why during calibration runs without external forcings you expect the models not to produce a long term temperature trend. The thing is that the assumption is demonstrably false. Even without any changes CO2, Solar radiation, Cosmic rays, etc the climate will still change. I think that this is a Catch 22 for modellers in that if the assumption is changed, then calibration runs will go all over the place and the signal of external forcings will be lost which ruins the usefulness of the model. However if the assumption is kept the RF of an external forcing is easier to detect, but it's relative to an "unreal" baseline and also isn't much use. To use the most extreme example I can think of to illustrate. Approximately 55 million years ago a major change to Earths Oceanic Circulation occurred. North and South America joined and blocked the Atlantic currents from flowing into the Pacific. This was a major change in energy distribution around the planet. The change in internal distribution caused regional changes in climate. One might argue, "But those were regional changes" which is true, but if all regions change then it is planetary climate change as well, occurring without any change in external forcings. It is simply not possible for one region to undergo a major climate shift without effecting the surrounding regions. It's something I've wondered about and can't find much at all in the literature. Bascule I'd appreciate your thoughts on this.

If I might bring up a point that to me is the "Elephant in the Room". I'm quite willing to be declared wrong as I'm not from the US, but this is something that seems rather glaring from the outside. Which one? You are a Union of States. Americans seem to consider themselves (politically) part of the nation "America" only when it suits them, if it suits them better then they are "Carolinans" or "Texans", or whatever. This means that a national problem that needs to be solved nationally can't be because you would have to override State rights. You really need to decide what you are, a collection of pissant little nation states or a single Nation. If you're a collection of nation states then you can't expect the Federal govt to solve national problems, but if you're a Nation then the Federal gov has to have the right to squash "State rights" to solve National problems. The problem isn't Republican v Democrat, it's Federal responsibility v State Rights. Your health care is a shambles because you have 50 State govs all writing their own versions of the law. If President Obama came up with the best health care plan since sliced bread, cheaper, better, more effective, a real "Nobel Prize in politics" effort, there are only two ways to get it passed. Either convince 50 separate govts to give up some of their precious "Rights" (good luck on that one Mr. President.) or to have the Federal power to force the States to toe the line. Neither of these options are currently possible and the mess remains. The same thing applies to all your "National" problems. So are you a Nation, or not?

Don't worry TBK, it was philosophy I was thinking of. Moontanman, I've been thinking about your question all day and I thinnk I have an answer and explanation. We have a different political spectrum and voting method compared to the US and especially I think the point of our left/right divide is in a different place. Firstly our political spectrum is different in that the extreme religious right and communist left have virtually no power at all. So the right hand end of the spectrum stops just short of your religious right and the left hand side goes out through to the "Green" left watermelons. The effect of this is to put the left/right split in a position somewhere in the middle of where your Democrats are. What you would call a moderate Democrat, we would call a slightly left leaning conservative. Which is why I can call myself "right wing" and "conservative" and still agree with many Democrat ideas, like UHC. One major result of this different split point is fiscal acumen. From what I can see, and ignoring all the hype, your moderate Democrats believe in fiscal responsibility and do a reasonable job of balancing the budget. Because of the different split, our right isn't too hot on "Social Justice" but is extremely good at managing the economy. Our left is very idealistic and ideological about social justice, but has the fiscal ability of a newt. The State of Victoria was something like 3 weeks away from being declared bankrupt a few years ago, the Federal govt had to bail them out by some $billions. And I do mean "bankrupt", not the hyper way the word is usually used. I mean "Cannot meet it's financial obligations and will have the IMF come in and set fiscal policy" type bankrupt. It would have been historys first Democracy to be in that position. South Australia was in the same boat shortly afterwards. Federally in three years we have gone from virtually zero national public debt and an annual budget surplus of $9 billion to a deficit of $3 billion and now have some $300 billion in public debt. In Australia, high unemployment and high inflation and interest rates go hand in hand under left wing govts. Where you have two major partys to cover the spectrum, we have four. Moving from right to left we have the "Nationals", notionally a party to represent the "Man on the Land", it's name was originally the "Country" Party and had it's powerbase in the regional areas outside the cities. Politically, they start roughly where your "Religious Right" end and cover the bit from there to "moderate Republican". Next we have the "Liberal" party, our main conservative party. Born in the city and representing businesses, large and small. Politically they cover from moderate Republican through to moderate Democrat. The first of our "Left" wing partys is the "Labor" party. Their powerbase is the unions and until relatively recently, the unions called the shots. Labor claim to represent "The Working Man" which is odd since in a recent election of 29 Labor Senators up for re-election 27 of them had never worked outside the Unions or the Party. They went to school, then Uni, then got a job at party or union headquarters and then got on the Senate ballot. Both Liberals and Labor claim to represent the "Family". Lastly are the "Greens". I'm not too sure where the divide between the "Greens" and "Labor" would be on your spectrum, but I suspect somewhere around "Socialist Left". The Greens go all the way out to humanity hating watermelons. Where this has an effect is that under our system (Preferential Voting) and where the political divide is, it has become increasingly necessary for Labor to rely on Green "Preferences" to gain or hold power. This has meant doing deals with the Greens, sometimes policy sometimes jobs, a very dangerous situation. Moderate ideologues with little fiscal knowledge are having to do deals with extreme ideologues who have no fiscal ability and don't care. Nor will those extreme greens let the facts get in the way of a good story. If some Australians are forced to exist in Third World conditions due to their policies, they don't care as it's for the "good of the future". If hundreds of Australians die because of their policies, its somehow not their fault. So, generally down here the Right got all the business acumen and knows how to run a country and the Left got all the ideologues who have great visions. Strangely enough, in some areas this has worked out rather well for us. Take Universal Health Care for example. This was first introduced by the Left Australia wide. (As a side note, Queensland which is possibly the most conservative State in the country had free public hospitals for decades before the rest of Australia thought it was a good idea. It was brought in under conservative govts and paid for out of gambling taxes) Anyway, Labor based the original Medicare on a Canadian system that the Canadians were in the process of throwing out due to it's horrendous expense. So we got UHC, but at great cost. When the conservatives came to power, it would have been electoral suicide to chuck it out, so they changed it and made it workable. With a couple of rounds of to and fro we now have a very good UHC system that gives better results than your healthcare system at roughly 1/3 the cost per head of population. Both sides think that expanding it to cover dental and optical is a good idea but disagree on the timing, the right would rather the national debt was knocked off (or mostly got rid of) first. An area currently being "negotiated" are unfair dismissal laws. Prior to the Hawke/Keating Labor (Left) govts, we had pretty crappy unfair dismissal laws and the bosses had it pretty much their own way. Labor came in and changed the laws, but went too far. I'll give two examples that I know of and you judge whether the dismissal was unfair or not; 1. A woman working in the pay office of a department store embezzled $22,000 to fund her love of the horse races. She was caught and fired. It was ruled an unfair dismissal because the employer did not "counsel" her on her gambling problem. 2. An employee in a paint factory couldn't wait for his scheduled break to have a smoke, so he went and had it in the "Thinners Storeroom", against all warning signs and common sense since he was in a room with thousands of gallons of highly flammable liquids. He was discovered and sacked on the spot. Ruled an unfair dismissal because he wasn't given 3 warnings. When the conservatives came to power, they rolled back these laws, but in some cases a bit too far. Now we have Labor in power again and both sides are looking for a compromise. Mainly because if they find one, then the constant toing and froing ends and they can get on to other business. So it sort of works for us. So, with that background, on to TBKs list and how things are different down here; •Protecting the environment. Even if this means that humans lose their lives or health, the "environment" is sacred. •striving for quality of jobs. Provided the Unions agree and the jobs are suitably "Green". •civil rights. Definitely better than the right on this, but often goes overboard. I am a white, middle aged, straight male and as such am part of the only group that can be legally discriminated against. •transparent government. Not a hope. Talks the talk but always makes sure there's a back door. But then, so does the right. •freedom of press. Until you're too much of a PITA and then you find that you're not invited to press conferences. The right does this to, but to a lesser extent. •the legal wall protecting us from religious and government dominance into each other's workings. Religious yes, but the left believes that the govt always knows best and people should do as they're told. It's for your own good, after all. •removing the profit of war by private interests. Definately. Why do you think we invent great weapons systems and then give them to you to make? (And then buy them from you.) •fair exposure to opportunity. With preferential treatment for those who "need" it and so long as it doesn't interfere with internal party politics. •widespread and improved access to fruitful education. Definitely, but the right believes the same. Both sides always claim to outspend the other on education. Which one actually does is hard to find out due to very convoluted accounting. •no monopolies of products that are essential to a vast number of people, business, and our economy. Yes. I note you didn't say "products and services". If you include services, then Union monopoly is always good but business monopoly is always bad. I happen to think that both are always bad. •fair representation of the people in government. Yes, even students of the right ethnicity here on student visas deserve representation in our govt. (Melbourne) •optimal infrastructure for business and civil society to operate most effectively. "Optimal" meaning no new highways, dams, rail lines, major bridges or power plants. •providing basic needs to those of us with problems helping themselves or to victims of market/economic failure. True for both left and right here, the difference is "cut off" points. e.g. How many children of an never married mother should society foot the bill for? We're still working on that one. •taxes based on drain of raw material and natural resources + use of infrastructure to faciliate acquiring one's wealth + the number of livelihoods at stake and level of upheaval on economy if that busines fails. We have higher taxes than you do, as well as all sorts of levies and charges and royalties on raw materials. Both sides like the money, but the left would tax resource production into extinction. •reasonably limited copyright durations. Not a lot of difference here. Neither side want copyrights to last too long. •basic human rights aren't lost by incarceration or trouble with the law. Your Patriot Act is far more draconian than anything our right would ever suggest. It's much harder for us to suspend Habeus Corpus. •inspection and monitoring of products likely harmful yet unknown to customers or physically affecting even non-customers. What? Big Brother knows what is best for you and is your friend? •rights to decide everything about the functions of your own body that doesn't physically impact the world outside it. Very much a left issue, but most on the right agree. •our individual freedom to enter and leave the nation (and travel within). Not really an issue here. •having sex with consenting adults however they damn well please. The left yes and except for the old fuddy duddies and the more religious Nationals, the right yes too. The argument is now about "Marriage" rather than homosexuality. •freedom to look at vulgar sexual images. Yes, contrary political views or other things the govt deems "bad", no. •privacy rights. About the same on both sides. •getting married to whatever sex one desires. See a couple of points up. We're still working on that one. Marriage is a Federal responsibility, not State. While we don't have gay marriage, we do recognise lawful gay marriages from other nations. I don't know whether the recognition was brought in by left or right, but I suspect right. If before 1996 it was the left, if after 1996 it was the right. •protection from consistent threat/intimidation/abuse by random (or familiar) people*(see below images). Yes, so long as you agree with what the left is saying, otherwise you should just shut up. •do whatever you like so long as it doesn't trample/deny rights for others. And so long as you don't want to remove dangerous trees from your property or do anything else the left deems "bad for the environment". •kids protected from critically unsafe homes or a parent who hits them violently in frustration as a hobby. Not necessarily, it's important a child has a bond with its mother, even if she is a heroin addict. Everything depends on the prevailing ideology. •clear away government debt. See essay above. •striving to ensure the justice system doesn't regress back to the "guilty without evidence" dark ages. Not a major thing here as our legal system is very dfferent from yours. I'll add a few specific to Australia. Aboriginals to have a say in the use of traditional lands. So long as they only ever say "No" to any form of development. Aboriginals to have free use of traditional lands. So long as they do not swim or fish in the rivers or build a dwelling wihin 1 mile of the river. Roll out of a high speed broadband network. But ISPs will be required to block access to any site on the web the gov designates. Support of "Fuel reduction burns" to prevent wildfires provided certain conditions are met. But the conditions are such that in something like 12 years, the conditions have never been met. Hence the direct responsibility for more than 200 deaths in the recent Victorian fires. Support of "Environmental" legislation and regulations so framed that "the environment" is more important than human life. Like I said, our left is very different from yours.

But South Carolina failed to elect Alvin Greene, thereby denying the entire planet 4 years of stand up comedy.

Even more than the difference between nations, I think for many it comes down to "What topic?". Many people would classify as conservative on some topics and liberal on others. I'm generally right leaning conservative, but I've argued as strongly as I can for Universal Health Care in the US, which is pretty much a liberal thing there.

Well TBK, your liberals /leftists are very different from ours.

No, they both do it. Selling fear is a standard tactic in politics on both sides. what I find fascinating is that those on the left often don't recognise fear mongering by their side for what it is.

Because you don't actually have "free trade"?

Of course, in the case of unions in a closed shop environment, people are forced to contribute money to an organization that campaigns for a candidate.

How I know is from experience. We used to have 2 Sunday papers in Brisbane, the slightly conservative Sunday Mail and the slightly liberal Sunday Sun. Murdock owned the Mail and then bought the Sun. He was very happy to let them fight it out because he made money no matter what. In a fit of brilliance our gov decided that he couldn't own both Sunday papers as that gave him a monopoly, so he was ordered to close one down. This left a lot of people scratching their heads "Owning both papers is a monopoly, but owning the only one isn't?" Since the Sun had the lower circulation, it was decided that it was the one to go. They tried everything to kill the Sun, short of pulling the plates from the press, but it just wouldn't die. Finally they had to bite the bullet and tell everyone "Go home, we're closed." About 6 years later I was working for Murdock using that building (the presses etc, we were printing local papers) and the upper floors were freaky. An entire building that felt like the "Marie Celeste". Coffee cups still on desks, half written notes for stories, everybody had just taken their personal items and walked away but it looked more like the people had simply disappeared. Just walking around made the hairs on the back of the neck stand up. I met Mr. Murdock at a Christmas party and asked him about it, so he told me the story.

lemur, sorry I don't get it. I was refering to doubt as in the self doubt concept of "I may not be 100% right on this", which allows for dialogue and exchange of ideas and concepts. Anybody who believes that they are 100% right on a topic has no interest in dialogue as they feel they have nothing to gain. Pangloss, why interesting, I would have thought it obvious. News media is a business, it exists to make a profit. I'm surprised that so few Americans seem to understand this. There is however a deeper factor. Programming is decided not just by Program Managers, but by advertising. Advertisers choose which shows they want their ads in and are willing to pay a premium for that. Advertising influences the way a network develops it's programming. Put simply, what do you do if there are more advertisers wanting to advertise in a given show (let's say someone like a moderate Glen Beck) than there are spaces to sell? You can jack up the price, or have another similar show on a different part of the network. Similarly, if a network had an extreme right wing show that brought in $100k of revenue and an exteme left wing show that brought in $20k, what do you, as management do? There is only one answer that is fiscally defensible. Dump the left wing show and get another right wing one. Advertisers watch their sales and show ratings very closely and move their advertising to shows that give them the best sales response. That is all they are interested in, not politics. In current affairs and commentary type shows, the shows are driven by the advertising revenue and the advertising revenue is driven by the people who watch the show. Think of any programming, say the rise and fall of "Reality" shows. One came along, it went big and the advertisers jumped on the bandwagon, therefore there were suddenly heaps of reality shows. As soon as the numbers started to drop the advertisers went elsewhere and funds dried up. So there are few reality shows now. Look at a newspaper and aside from the "classifieds" section, look at the amount of ads in various sections. It varies depending on the popularity of the topics on the pages. People can complain about "media bias" all they want, but the media is simply giving them what they want. People prove this by buying products advertised on the shows. Why did "Stargate" last so long? Because people watched it and the revenues were up. Why did they bring back Bobby in "Dallas" and make the whole dream sequence garbage? Because revenues dropped and they wanted them to rise again. It's accepted that Hollywood is a business is out to make a profit, why do people think news media isn't?

I realise that I'm looking at this from the outside and there was nil media coverage down here. It's quite possible that the crowd was predominantly liberal, but there is a world of difference between a 95%-5% split and a 60%-40% split. The first would have confimed (I think) your initial statement, but the second invalidates it. I think we should be careful about reading too much into something where there is little more than supposition and assumption to go on. No sweat. It's when you can't see yourself getting overzealous (people like Beck) that you have a problem. I'm a great believer in the concept of constantly doubting my beliefs. Those that doubt can be talked to, those who are 100% certain in the rightness of their beliefs cannot. Doubt is required for dialogue. (I could prove it, but I'd need a blackboard. ) I know, but it doesn't seem an uncommon belief from what I see around the web, so I thought I'd throw it in. Cheers.

Random, I doubt there is a way around it. Moontanman, 14???? What's the road toll there? We find that fully 1/3 of road deaths are in the 17-25 age group, adding 14 yo pubescents that can barely see over the dashboard to the mix makes me shudder. How bizarre that in America you can have a 14 yo hurtling down the highway in 2 tons of metal at 60 mph, but you keep him away from dangerous stuff like tobacco until he's 18. (Alcohol is 21, isn't it?)

Not a red herring DH, just an incomplete thought. The thought I had while posting was with respect to claims that such and such was "unprecedented". That the rise in temps was somehow out of the ordinary. It's not. The temp change in the last 150 years is well within natural parameters and is orders of magnitude lower than the most abrupt changes measured in the last 12,000 years. I just forgot to put in the bit about "unprecedented". The thing is that perspective changes statements. Take the one from AR4; "It is highly likely that temps in the 20th Century are warmer than any time in the last 500 years", or words to that effect. Sounds very profound and worthy of a bit of worry, doesn't it? Until you step back and realise that the last 500 years were the "Little Ice Age". Which makes it as profound as declaring in the middle of summer "It's warmer now than any time in the last 9 months". Well, DUH! I have a real problem with advertising/sales techniques being used to "sell" science. Statements of fact are being used as if they have predictive abilities when they don't. Let's take another example; "The first decade of the 21st Century is the warmest in recorded history". The statement is almost certainly true, but so what? If (Thor forbid) the temps dropped and we went back to a full blown Ice Age, guess what? The first decade of the 21st Century would still be the warmest in recorded history. A final point. We hit people hard down in "Speculations" for moving the goal posts, or changing their definitions to suit their arguments. Yet we've gone from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change" to "Climate Disruption" without a comment. If you follow it at all, note that since the Arctic ice has failed to disappear as predicted, the talk is no longer about "area", we're concerned about "volume" now. Something which is much harder to measure because it depends on estimates of ice thickness. What was the definition of "pseudo science" again?

I watch it whenever I can, mostly on the web, but I'm not a liberal. If he were current affairs or serious opinion, then you might be right, but his show is comedy. He's funny, and therefore appeals to a wider demographic than a serious show does. While your second assumption, that those who attended the rally were from his viewing demographic is sound, your first, that these must be predominantly liberal is not. Yes, the show has a liberal bias, but it starts from the moderate liberal position. All this means is that it is slightly funnier to the left than to the right. Liberals might find 85% of the jokes funny where conservatives find 75% of the jokes funny. (Talking about moderates here, not the extremes.) The thing is that you are assuming that what, 90%? of his demographic is liberal and therefore 90% of the people at the rally were liberal. What if the split were 60/40? Would that mean that the 40% of people there who vote Republican think "there's almost a universal sense of the deleterious effect Republican (and Fox's) fearmongering are having on this country, and how the Republicans and Fox are practically one and the same." Jon Stewart specifically went down the apolitical road. The rally wasn't about Democrats or Republicans. The rally was about the moderates being heard over those who want to politicize everything and loudly paint their opponents as the root of all evil. Yet you're painting the rally as a "win" for liberals that somehow demonstrates the Republicans are the root of all evil. The rally wasn't for your position, it was against it, just as it was against the position of Beck. When the rally was announced, Stewart made the point that 20% of the loudest were trying to control or prevent the dialogue that would allow the other 80% to come to compromises they could live with by constantly denouncing the "other side" as false, untrustworthy, comparable to Hitler, etc, etc. Which group do you honestly see yourself in? The 20% or the 80%? Just as a point on Fox. I've worked for, met and talked to Murdock and he really doesn't give two hoots about politics. He's in business to make money. If Fox is the way it is, it's because it's successful the way it is and makes money. If an overt liberal bias would have made more money, then Fox would be a "Liberal" network. Murdock is quite happy to own competing newspapers or networks and let them go for each others throats. Why should he care? He makes money no matter who wins. So don't blame Fox for it's demographic, blame the demographic for Fox.

Bascule, if you could clear up some points for an Aussie? The Beck rally was for the right wingnuts, I think we can all agree on that. However, Jon Stewart has continually stressed that his rally was apolitical. On that basis, the only thing a comparison shows is that there are more moderates willing to go to a rally than there are extremists willing to go, I would have thought that this was a good thing. Now, I might have missed reports in the US media, but why do you seem to be assuming that the majority of people at the Stewart rally are liberals? Because they're young? (The youngest ever elected politician in Australia is a conservative, elected earlier this year at the ripe age of 20) Is there a particular reason that there can't be young, moderate conservatives attending? Were there polls taken on the day as to how people voted? With a crowd that large, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume (unless there is research to show otherwise) that the crowd consisted of 1/3 liberal moderates, 1/3 conservative moderates and 1/3 independent moderates?

I sometimes think it's worthwhile to step back and look at things in perspective. The top graph is the O18 from GISP2, taken from the NOAA site. (The page concerns D-O events.) O18 of course being a proxy for temperature. Now if you could zoom in the graph, the entire current debate is about the top 1/3 of the very last uptick on the right hand side. (And that includes the "Hockey Stick".) Perspective, anyone?

Chalk it up as another "French Military Victory".

What a pity your politicians put forward "Universal Military Service" far more often than "Universal Health Care". Is it any wonder that other nations view the US as "Militaristic"?

It strikes me as an impliment to leave impression, in wet clay paving stones perhaps? The design would appear to be for a right handed person, as the "horn" part is offset to the left. This perhaps implies that the right hand holds the handle and the left holds the horn. Holding it this way would allow you to get good downward pressure with both hands and an even imprint. I can't prove it, but that's my thought. A hand held device for putting decorative impressions in clay paving stones.

michel123456, the phonophor is a good idea, but it's held differently and the shape of the piece that is held does not match the shape of the item in the footage. The end of the thing being held can be seen in the closeup as she turns towards the camera. As to the idea of the footage being faked, what's the point? A DVD company put out a set of the works of Charlie Chaplin and included some extra footage as "Extras" on the DVD. There is no reason to think the footage has been faked. I must add that I don't have an opinion on this. I posted it because I thought it interesting that it created such controversy and that all the explanations seem to come up short. Also I find the reactions to the idea interesting. As Pangloss mentioned there was a similar incident back in April, most sites that examined it linked back to forgetamori as the most complete discussion. A reading of the comments is enlightening. Many quite detailed expositions of exactly why the picture from a museum was a hoax. Long revelations about missing arms and strange shadows. In the end, of course the man in the picture was identified and the veracity of the picture proven. What was interesting here is that not only was the notion of "Time Traveller" debunked, but every single debunking effort was also "debunked". Isn't it interesting that when faced with a possibility that is unpalatable, the "Defenders of Reason" will declare truth to be falsehood? Because people cannot concieve the truth, they must declare it false?