[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

Temperatures went up. And then they went down.

As Roger, citing Hadcrut, NOAA, NASA, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, has pointed out, that's far from true.

But then you're not the only one writing foolish things in these threads. Despite the clear evidence to the contrary, I and others insist on believing that you are open to facts. How long will we refuse to accept reality?

[Charlie Southerland]

Hi Janice, You are right. I should have referenced the countries and the African continent. I assumed most folks knew. My bad.

Most, if not all of the signees to the Kyoto Accords are poor, underdeveloped countries. Russia is also poor and underdeveloped too. The Oligarchs and the Russian government hold most of the finances there, not the people. My question is this: Why would countries without the ability to pay for the changes they have signed on to sign on to such an agreement? Answer: They expect the U.S. to pay for it, for them, like beggars with their hands out. Same thing with the UN— we pay much of the burden so that all of those poor countries can remain members, stay in nice hotels, eat like kings, and spit in our faces. I am paying for that.


I digress. My next question is this: When the earthquake in Japan's Fukushima happened, whose fault was the earthquake? And, whose fault was it that the nuclear reactors failed to hold up contaminating much land and surely some sea life? Now all of that wreckage from the tidal wave is washing up on America's shore.

To whom does one assign responsibility to?

Who should pay for the cleanup of our shores?

What if our children on the Pacific coast become contaminated and get sick or die from radiation poisoning?

One could say that the Japanese didn't build the reactors strong enough. How can they or anyone outbuild something that has no limits to its natural destructive force?

What irony. Choose, but choose wisely. You can't control or prevent the power of an earthquake or tidal wave any more than you can prevent a nuclear disaster unless you decommission nuclear power— and then more irony ensues. Where does one store the nuclear waste? Some say in the deepest part of the most corrosive part of the ocean. It is saltwater after all. Or let's burn the nuclear waste. Oh wait! That would create air pollution. OK. Then let's bury it in a country or state somewhere where it can never leak out. Someplace like Hanford.

The point being, in spite of us, nature does what it wants, not what it is mandated or directed to do.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Originally Posted by Charlie Southerland

Answer: They expect the U.S. to pay for it, for them, like beggars with their hands out. Same thing with the UN— we pay much of the burden so that all of those poor countries can remain members, stay in nice hotels, eat like kings, and spit in our faces. I am paying for that.

Charlie, I don't want to quarrel with you, but these facts might be interesting.
Member States' Assessed Share of the UN Budget

https://www.globalpolicy.org/un-fina...un-budget.html
There are 193 member states in the United Nations. The scale of assessments reflects a country's capacity to pay (measured by factors such as a country's national income and size of population.

The peacekeeping budget assessments are based on the regular budget rates, but with discounts for poor countries. The five permanent members of the Security Council, who approve all peacekeeping operations, pay extra fees to compensate for those discounts. A "ceiling" rate sets the maximum amount of any member state's assessed share of the regular and peacekeeping budgets. The US is the only member that is affected by those ceilings.

Consequently the US pays less than its share of the world economy. As of December 31, 2010 the US was in arrears to the tune of $736 million or 80% of all member states debt.

*****
That was four years ago. How are things now?

US funding to the UN. http://www.betterworldcampaign.org/i...ds-the-un.html
In recent years, after a lengthy period of accumulating arrears in its UN dues, the U.S. returned to good financial standing at the world body by fully funding its regular and peacekeeping budget assessments and paying off past debts. Unfortunately, the U.S. took a significant step back in Fiscal Year 2014: the omnibus FY'14 appropriations legislation approved this January underfunded our UN peacekeeping dues by more than $350 million and had no funding for the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA). This could have serious implications for MINUSMA—which is currently working to stabilize territory once held by several radical Islamist groups—as well as numerous other peacekeeping missions that promote critical U.S. interests.

On March 4, 2014, the Obama Administration released its International Affairs budget request for FY'15. We are pleased that the Administration’s request for peacekeeping represents a significant increase over the FY'14 omnibus and helps reduce the amount the U.S. is in arrears to the UN.

**************
So far this year only two security council members have paid their 2015 dues. http://untribune.com/two-15-security...aid-2015-dues/

Feb. 25, 2015 – New Zealand and France are the only two members of the Security Council to have paid their 2015 United Nations dues so far this year.

Permanent members Britain, China, Russia and the United States have still to pay along with nine of the ten non-permanent countries on the Council.

Here you can see what countries have paid their due so far. http://www.un.org/en/ga/contributions/honourroll.shtml

All business people know that it is better to have a customer who buys and pays cash for 1000 dollars a month than to have one who runs up a bill for 10,000 and pays when he feels like it.

Respectfully
Janice

[Michael Cantor]

Janice - Roger - Julie - Bill - Max - etc. - give it up. This isn't a discussion on global warming. It's religion and anecdotes and the Koch brothers versus science, and you're not going to change any minds on this board.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Re #25

Answer: They expect the U.S. to pay for it, for them, like beggars with their hands out. Same thing with the UN— we pay much of the burden so that all of those poor countries can remain members, stay in nice hotels, eat like kings, and spit in our faces. I am paying for that.
(…)
To whom does one assign responsibility to?

To whom indeed. There is a famous question that has endured down passing millennia. "Am I my brother's keeper? "

I am an atheist, but I know the answer.

Today's news seems to be about that Palestinian camp in Damascus where for generations happy little campers and their parents have "stayed in nice hotels, dined like kings, and spit in our collective faces". Now that ISIS has moved in, those kids will have to go out and look for a paying job.

That'll teach 'em, the little moochers.

[Charlie Southerland]

Michael, that is my point exactly. You and others don't like folks like myself spouting Gomer Pylish religion around the place while at the same time to some greater or lessor extent, you take up your Global Warming cross and make that your religion. I can't do anything about a God I can't see. I surely can't control Him if he exists. It is the strangest thing to me that you and others believe that you can control and satisfy—dare I say worship, your man-made god. Global warming, climate change, is a religion to bow to, pay tithes to, make donations to, get taxed for.

If global warming is man caused, it would be much more simple to do away with man so that there would be no causation. When the earth finally heals, no one will be around to notice. Perfect.

Poverty is universal, Janice. ( Jesus said it first) So is displacement. Governments are responsible for it. The super wealthy aren't gonna' give up their money to anyone. The middle class does, voluntarily and un-voluntarily. Palestinians would have a state today if they weren't so adamant on Israel's destruction. And they would win 'right of return' too.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Charlie, this story about Mary anointing Jesus feet is related in two places in the gospels, the one you quote from Mark and also in St. John 12.8.

The former states that it was in reply to: "some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her." After which Judas goes to the high priests to betray Jesus.

But the latter reports that it was Judas Iscariot, already with the silver in a bag on his person, who complained: 4. Then said one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, 5. Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? 6. This he has said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein."

This "the poor always" has been used by the pious for centuries to ignore the plight of the poor, in fact to make them suffer for being poor.

But how do you reconcile the fact that the reports are so contradictory that in one case it is a number of folks who are asking (in latter times it was the trustees of the poorhouses and the refugee camps) while in the other it was specifically the bad guy Judas.

For my part, I doubt that the historical Jesus ever said it.

Coincidentally I wrote a paper in Swedish on the Gospel of St. Mark about ten years ago to compensate for not attending a seminar in my Comparative Literature class. So I am primed for this question. I won't bore you with the contents of the entire paper, but here are some pertinent bits.

The Gospel of St. Mark was written some sixty or seventy years after the death of the historical Christ. It is included as the second book in the New Testament but most critical assessments regard it as being the first of the four that was written. Scholars in antiquity and all extant manuscripts name Mark as the author. The oldest reference is Papias (200 years Common Era) who says that Mark was an interpreter for Peter and that he wrote his version in Rome based on what Peter had told him. Most researchers concede the Marcan priority, and conclude that Matthew and Luke more or less copied Mark to create their versions. Some also hold that Matthew and Luke drew from an hypothetical document known as Q.

The literary relationship of the first three gospels are known as "the synoptic problem" because the first three—known as the synoptics—are similar (the so-called triple tradition) but in strong contrast to John.

The phenomena that demand clarification in the synoptic problem are:

1) Ninety percent of Mark's 661 verses are (often ipsis verbis) in either Matthew (more than 600) or Luke (350) or both.
2) Mark text arrangement is followed by the other two.
3. When the words are given verbatim, Matthew and Luke are seldom in agreement, but one of them uses Mark's text.
4) When there is no parallel text in Mark (roughly 200 verses), the corresponding texts in Matthew and Luke are similar.

According to the earliest Greek manuscript and the earliest writings of the patriarchs, the Gospel of St. Mark ends abruptly after chapter 16, verse 8. Several manuscripts have different endings and both the English and Swedish versions have 12 additional verses. (And since Easter is just around the corner, I will tell you that verse 9 and following are about the resurrection and ascension.)

To further confuse the issue, in 1958 in the ancient monastery Mar Saba was found a copy of a letter and a copy of the Marcan gospel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar_Saba_letter

All these confounding issues aside, what we do know is that the gospel had a long history before it was written down and was based on an oral tradition several generations after Christ's crucifixion. And it has gone through many translations. I found it interesting that the Swedish and KJV English versions have radically different styles. And now both have been turned into modern versions and any critical thinker must ask: What did Jesus really say about the poor?

Well, one thing he supposedly said, (Mark 10.21.) was:

21 "Then Jesus beholding him loved him and said unto him, "One thing thou lackest,. Go thy way, sell whatsoever thus hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the cross and follow me.
22. And he was sad at that saying and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

Now you get a reward for reading all this, Charlie. Don't cheat. If you haven't really read it all, your screen will crack.

The Swede Joe Hill was executed one hundred years ago this year. Like the historic Christ he was executed on trumped-charge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ236CwhlPw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUR2PDTptO0

Happy Easter, Charlie.

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Charlie Southerland

I can't do anything about a God I can't see. I surely can't control Him if he exists.

Charlie, my friend, you may need to deepen your thinking. All relations are meant to be reciprocal. No exceptions. That's the whole point of having covenants: they are agreements, as the lawyers say, between parties. And every phrase has a corollary. If "as above, so below" is true, then "as below, so above" must also be true. That's why we do the rituals so carefully. How we do them affects things in the other realm. It's not just earth that needs restoring.

That's why we try to rectify the world, it's why we write poems and build houses and measure our words carefully. Yes, things fall apart, constantly, the vessels break, over and over, and it's up to us to remake them, and put evil back in the containers. Even though we know they're going to break again. It's what we do. It's why we're here.

That's why I love the story of the Lamed Vavniks so much. Milton was wrong: poetry doesn't exist to justify the ways of God to man. It exists to give the Lamed Vavniks arguments and indisputable evidence.

And that's why it's so sad that you, Charlie, yes, you, personally, my friend, are so willing to justify, explain away, and ignore evil and evil collective actions. It undermines their case. If God gathered them together this morning, they'd have many good arguments for why he shouldn't just go ahead and destroy the world. But he might reply "Look how many do evil, and deny they're doing it! Look how many just try to explain it away! And look how sure of themselves they are as they do it!"

Do the Lamed Vavniks exist? It's a nice story, but who can say? Besides, what the hell do I know? But if they do, shouldn't we be trying to give them evidence to bolster their case?

Best,

Bill

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Max Goodman

But then you're not the only one writing foolish things in these threads.

Max,

No serious person still argues about this. The only reason it's even still on the agenda is because american politicians take money from energy companies, and they don't want the flow to dry up. And a certain kind of american voter watches a certain network which keeps viewers by using it as a point of cultural identification.

Rational people ask themselves, all the time, why people vote against their own self interests, in the face of all evidence. How could there be an electoral coalition between the guy who lives in a penthouse and the guy who fixes the rich guys' air conditioner? I wondered about it for a long time myself. Then I found the answer in Dostoyevsky:

"Even if man were nothing but a piano key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of sheer ingratitude, simply to have his own way…then, after all, perhaps only by his curse will he attain his object, that is, really convince himself that he is a man and not a piano key!"

In other words, John and Charlie and the others know they're wrong, they know it with deep certainty. But they believe in personal freedom. Under those conditions, no amount of natural science will persuade them. The defiance of their self-determination gives them identity. It doesn't matter how many maps Julie posts. Reality is beside the point, that's all external. They want their own way, to have their own say, and it's theirs, after all, and so they exist.

It's why the guy who fixes air conditioners votes for people who hate him, it's why the deep south is so poor, it's why women still don't have their rights, even to equal representation. "I'm not defined by circumstances, I'm my own person, my beliefs are me, and I share them with others, and to hell with reality." When people told Cheney invading Iraq wasn't realistic, didn't match the facts on the ground, he said "We make our own reality." And that reality was his, he wasn't just some piano key, and to prove it to himself he still has to deny the results. And he does so. With heartfelt conviction.

John and Charlie and the rest have those same convictions. Rationality never persuades anyone. Poets should know that better than anyone else. "Only emotion endures."

Best,

Bill

[Charlie Southerland]

Bill, you have wandered off into the land of goofy again.

At no time in this thread have I said that global warming doesn't exist. I am not a global cooling denier or propagator either. There are clearly both, simultaneously happening all the time. What I am denying is the depiction of the phenomena and the attempts to co-opt and blackmail unsuspecting souls with the theory that either is man-caused. Nonsense. Conversely, Bill, just because you believe what you do, doesn't make it true. It is unprovable. Lots of serious scientists continue to argue with the man-caused meme you spout. By the way, I vote against my own self-interests all the time. That is another discussion though. Rational people normally vote their pocketbooks, unlike the past two presidential elections which hinged upon the promise of a savior who would change the world. Well, he surely did that. As to the piano key reference; I am surely a man, not a piano key. I play piano, it doesn't play me.

Your idea that the south is poor because of ignorance or redneckedness borders on insanity. What is South LA's, Chicago's Detroit's, Seattle's, Cleveland's, and numerous other northern and western city's excuse for dire poverty? What ails you, Bill? I fear that upon reading your pointy-headed silliness, some southern-repressed women are gonna' come up there and whup your ass. Foolish things indeed!

I have few convictions, Bill. The ones I do have are Christian-based. If that makes me irrational, I can live with that. Emotion isn't such a bad thing. They're trying to install emotions into robots so that robots can be more humanlike. Unlike dodo's who watch certain other networks which keeps viewers by using them as propaganda tools for their progressive agenda. Down deep in your heart,Bill, you know I'm right, but no one likes to be embarrassed by a stump jumper with mud between his toes. Ya'll.