Huguenot

SLP? Which one... SLP Speech Language Pathology SLP Speech Language Pathologist SLP Service Location Protocol (RFC 2608) SLP Sea Level Pressure SLP Slope SLP Super Long Play (video tape recording) SLP Socialist Labour Party SLP Spoken Language Processing SLP Spring Lake Park (Minneapolis, Minnesota suburb) SLP Symposium on Logic Programming SLP Service Logic Program SLP Service Learning Program SLP Systematic Layout Planning SLP School Lunch Program SLP San Luis Potosi, San Luis Potosi, Mexico (Airport Code) SLP Suggested List Price SLP Street Legal Performance SLP Saint Lucia Labor Party SLP Supported Living Program SLP Seiko Label Printer SLP Single Link Procedure (ITU-T) SLP Standard Long Play SLP Standardized Language Profile SLP Social Democratic Welfare Party (Latvia) SLP Southern Lower Peninsula (Michigan, USA) SLP Serial Link Protocol SLP Sturm-Liouville Problem (transmission lines) SLP Soci?t? Linguistique de Paris (French) SLP Speed Limiting Point SLP Systemwide Livestock Program SLP Supervivencia Libre de Progresi?n (Spanish: Progression Free Survival) SLP seaward launch point (US DoD) SLP Sri Lanka Police SLP Structured Learning Program SLP System of Least Prompts SLP Sensor Link Protocol SLP System Locked Pre-Activation (Microsoft) SLP superficie lorda di pavimentazione SLP Service Level Plan SLP Saskatchewan Liberal Party SLP Strategic Logistics Program SLP Superintendent's Leadership Program SLP Standardized Language Proficiency SLP Sears Low Price SLP Society for Liaison Psychiatry (affliate of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine) SLP Shelf Life Program SLP Superior Learning Program SLP Stock Listed Price SLP Services Launch Partners SLP Sacred Landmarks Partnership (of northeast Ohio) SLP Surface Launch Platform

I'm not sure that 'original source data' is any better than seeing your medical records, or interpreting every sniffle as a symptom of disease. A white tongue (for example) can present in conditions ranging from nothing to poorly cleaned teeth, thrush, alcoholic heptatitis, AIDS, necrotic fasciitis or ebola. It's only through a combination of factors - that are extremely difficult to understand without a decade of careful study and experience (which is what doctors do) that you can draw a reasonable conclusion as to the real cause. What we've got here is the climatic equivalent of alcoholic liver disease. We're killing our planet's ability to cleanse itself through over-indulgence. In climate deniers you've got a range of players: Firstly those who won't go to the doctor (or do the science) because either they insist alcohol is their right, or death is natural, or that they're quite fine for the moment - just the odd hangover. Secondly those who keep getting second opinions from doctors until they find one who is corrupt enough, under educated enough or simply not in the right discipline to assure them that the symptoms all mean nothing. Then they believe only what they want to hear. Either way three things will happen: * Interpreting their own records won't tell them anything * They'll still die painfully of alcoholic hepatitis * They'll wish they'd listened to a real doctor and done the right things earlier Frankly JohnL, that's where you are. Not only are people trying to help you, but the desperate situation is that you're taking everyone with you - you'll kill them all painfully with your attitudes - your children, your grandchildren. Shame on you, because you will regret it.

And if ever I wanted proof that climate denial was political rather than scientific... (From the Express) "The report, by the respected European Foundation, also argues that a higher level of carbon dioxide (CO2) ? the main greenhouse gas ? is not a problem because it helps to boost crop yields. Political analyst Jim McConalogue, who wrote the report, said: ?This demonstrates how..." etc. etc. Edited to add... I should add that Jim McConalogue has no background in science - only in political philosophy and poetry. He is a 28 year old who writes on conservative blogs that the biggest failure of the Conservatives is their willingness to engage with Europe, and his Facebook photo is a Union Jack. The really really pathetic things, is that a national newspaper would publish his ballshit as an exposition on climate science, and leave deluded old men to think it demonstrates a lack of scientific consensus. WTF. You believe this idiot?

There's a difference between 'weather' and 'climate', and you need to address this before looking at the issue. Largely a decade long snapshot of some of the hottest years are insufficient to illustrate any change. Thus '1998 was the hottest year ever' (or especially 'it's been cooling since then') are non arguments for climate change. Also to a degree, recent reductions in arctic ice are more likely down to natural variation rather than climate change. If it did it every year that would be a concern. The best illustration is the 0.8 degree rise over the last 100 years - 0.6 degree change over the last forty. The arguments of teachers in the 70s were subject to the knowledge of the time. There is no doubt that Earth should be undergoing a cooling phase. It is in the right shape in its orbital cycle, and it is in the right place in terms of solar activity. In that sense it is all the more shocking that it is not, and that studies of every possible permutation of climate-based event records have demonstrated we're undergoing a major swerve away from the normal global cycle. Only a fool would argue the Earth didn't undergo changes according to natural cycles, but it takes extraordinary stupidity to argue that we are not now moving outside these cycles and that the only additional factors are man-made influences. This is EXACTLY what climate change is all about. The extreme nature of some possible climate change consequences (rather than prophesies, this is not religion) are based on possible outcomes of a number of factors. The results throw up a standard bell curve in which extreme change is at one end, and no change at the other. That some outcomes denote 'no change' is not grounds for justifying no action, as it's all about likelihoods. That's what stats are - most likely is the 'middling' outcome. In this case stated as 2 to 6 degree warming. Where some scientists raise extreme concern involves secondary outcomes of warming - particularly the release of methane hydrates. This is sixty times more warming than CO2, and in some estimates would entail the end of human civilization as we know it. It blows the stats out of the water, and suggests a state of the planet where sea levels are 65m higher (that has been experienced in the past). The 'fright factor' is that there is evidence from the fossil record that such tipping points can create massive change in very few years. The end of civilization is not because humans can't adapt, but because they have a nasty habit of going to war over limited resources - and things are likely to get really limited. To argue that 'flat earth' was the orthodoxy of the day, and Galileo was an isolated maverick has no bearing on the climate change debate. Flat earthers were characterised by a refusal to engage science and experimentation as it challenged faith-based assumptions about the place of humans at the centre of the universe. Galileo conversely trusted science and experimentation and proved his point. Climate deniers reject science and experimentation in favour of faith-based assumptions. They have nothing in common with Galileo. Most climate deniers argue philosophical hypotheticals - or even politics - or just nitpick for this reason. They have no case of their own. Climate denial is about avoiding a small 1% cost in living standards now, in favour of dumping a 70% cost on the future. It's exactly the same principle as the Credit Crunch. This is why it's also driven mainly by ageing, greedy conservative males. They couldn't care less about future suffering.

The approach of climate change deniers is largely to try and make it a political issue - because this is what their opposition is based on. Climate change deniers are politically against the large scale social solutions that would have to be engaged to address the problem. For deniers, this means 'big' government and taxation - and they have an aversion to such ideas. The only way they can address the issue is to deny that climate change exists on political grounds. Climate change is a science, and whether guys like EDOldie can be bothered to educate themselves about where the 65m figure comes from does not define whether it's true or not. The fact that this figure is overwhelming also doesn't mean it's not true. For the record the figure comes from the amount of water coming into the ocean system that is currently stored as ice on land. It will not melt instantaneously, it is one possible outcome of runaway warming in an accelerated feedback cycle. The timescale and actual temperature rises are under debate, but what's not under debate is whether it will happen at all. Glaciers and icecaps are melting right now. To deny it in the face of photographic evidence is puerile. The fact that most climate change deniers are ageing men speaks reams about the selfish motivations that they have in denying it exists. They are prepared to destroy the world to support their own greed, and won't live to see the consequences.

AAAAArgh.! WTF? Piersy manipulating climate change to make a political point? WTF is the world coming to? Accusing the state of manipulation and thus rejecting the findings is just DENIAL!!! It's NUTS!!!! There is no bloody justification for being NUTS. "I hate the government therefore the world is FLAT" AAAAAAArgh.!! At times like this I wish you all the worst. I just hate the fact that as a reasonable bloke I don't want to see you suffer. It's my own bloody failing. F you, I'll dance on your grave. But you know I won't don't you. I'll still keep trying to help whilst you pee on my hand. AAAAAAArgh.!!

Pffft. You parade opinion as fact ;-)

I guess that as any policeman will tell you, when you're making stuff up, the devil is in the detail.

To be fair, I don't think anyone in the public sector has been "decadent, selfish, corrupt, greedy, unethical", but when tax receipts are down UK PLC only has control over these areas. It's an ill-directed rage.

There's nothing better than a smartarse out-smarted. I thought the original thread was smug, but to see BR trying to duck payment is a measure of the man.

They certainly appear more informed than Y'man ;-)

How convenient. So it's only the 'Bible' when it suits you? I loved your comments on scientists mate, like it's either one messiah or another. If the 'scientists' can't prove they're right then they're just one more in a string of false gods?

"Changed all of a sudden" And you probably all think the management is to blame for the postal strike? People don't want to get up that early. They campaign for high wages and concessions. High wages means high taxes. You don't want to pay. QED.

:))

As a lover of old boilers, I can tell you that DM didn't meet the requirements. And reggie... good work on the injunction thread.

It may have been Brendan's point that SMG's quoted letter was "too much pulling apart". I was observing that sometimes a little pulling apart goes a long way ;-) Edited to reassure that I'm amongst the dinner party classes myself. It would nevertheless be a cold day in hell that someone argued at my table that disproportionate representation of criminal elements in ethnic minorities meant you could judge a person's criminality by his/her skin colour.

I see your point Brendan, but that are those of a dinner party persuasion peddling pseudo-scientific justifications for prejudice who are more likely to be swayed by the critique that SMG's correspondent does. We've heard the argument on this forum (many times) that correlation doesn't signify causation, but for some slow-witted aspirational middle classes it does. Perhaps the SMG quote is the reassurance they need - that by trumpeting their prejudices they subvert their own social ascendancy. Your skin colour has no impact on your beliefs or persuasions.

I'm not upset chaps, I wasn't levelling an accusation merely musing for reasons below... I've never heard anyone argue that God is simply more plausible than evolution. It's like arguing God is more plausible than infrared in remote controls. Evidence for physical (and testable) processes in play every day exist for both evolution and remote controls. Curly speaks with such erudition I simply can't believe that he could argue that God is a more plausible explanation. Perhaps trees don't grow according to the prevailing winds, it's just God recreates them whilst we're sleeping? Ergo, either he believes he's right (and manifestly denying everyday observtions), or he's playing devil's advocate without disclosing it (which isn't a poor definition of a troll). Or again (musing), perhaps he's just bogged down in a poetic conceit revolving around biblical interpretation. The harsh reality of biology didn't meet with the rosy rhythm of mythos?

I've never heard anything so ridiculous as someone saying something spectacularly contentious and then forbidding comments on it. What on earth gave you the right to dictate what people could or couldn't comment on? I take it you were joking. Let me rephrase to again request your clarity - you called evolution far-fetched by comparison with God. If you're struggling with definitions, let me enlighten you: far-fetched means "unconvincing, unlikely, strained, fantastic, incredible, doubtful, unbelievable, dubious, unrealistic, improbable, unnatural, preposterous, implausible" And the antonyms (for comparison - and of course by implication your characterisation of God) are: "possible, likely, reasonable, acceptable, realistic, authentic, credible, probable, plausible, feasible, imaginable, believable" Do I understand you're backing 'God' based on the odds? You don't have to work the odds on evolution, you can watch it in action. If long-term scales are making you confused, you can just as easily make short term observations of disease resistant bacteria or fruit flies. Unlike God in action, which is a matter of faith. Or do you simply close your eyes when presented with immutable facts, hug your rosary, and plead to the heavens to rid you of Satan's work? (light hearted musing... or are you just a troll?)

I was also struck how many Americans think she must be innocent because she's American. There also seems an unecessary prejudice against Italians on the basis that they must be corrupt, and an appeal will overturn.

She also seemed a strange girl - almost child-like Cartwheels and snogging in the police station in the aftermath won't have gone down well. I saw her 'mask of a murderer' speech and was struck by how she appeared like a primary school kid in her first play. There was kind of a disconnect between her words and her actions, they didn't seem natural. Juries will judge people on this, as it goes to the plausibility of her testimony. It's not exactly evidence. Her misdirections to the police were fundamental to the case, but don't necessarily imply guilt: attention seekers and pathological liars will also do this - and also kids who are struggling with the concept of consequences. But then if she struggles with the concept of consequences, that would also diminsh her need for 'motive' to perform terrible acts....

Oh Gosh. :( I just thought it was funny ;-) Annaj was only doing a bit of a harumph. I get poofled every day, best solution is usually to ruffle the hair. Very down to earth. Cheer up ladymuck, disdainful is part of your repertoire.

It. Just. Wouldn't. Occur.... to leave the car running when I'm not in it. This isn't crazy stuff is it? Why would a nincompoop do that? It's just stupid. Really thick school. I appreciate all the well wishers, but it's just really really stupid. "Well officer, my son wanted a level surface for his Scrabble letters and the railway seemed to offer the best solution." Human frailty sympathy. But really. Really stupid. ;-). Please don't confuse this with a lack of love.

;-) I won't take it offline either - that's just a way to stifle dissent. I'm clearly not entirely growed-up. This one just rankles. It's entirely possible that the rail authorities don't have a case. It's also possible that they do have a case, and don't have a s*it hot PR machine. TJMP and Eileen do have a s*it hot PR machine, and it panders to the lowest possible taste. That makes bad solutions. Because locals are conflicted on this one, I'm carrying the candle. I don't like Eileen creating a new thread on this one every time because it's hiding intelligence and debate, it deletes the moderate views. Do you know what, she'll probably create a new thread next time she has some news? Tessa's on the right political horse in that sense. But respect zero. Is it worth being in charge if you don't make good decisions?

County? Bloody saffers ;-)