I simply am unmoved by the conditions of the food I eat before it becomes my food.

Point being that's the immoral part. I don't particularly blame you, or anybody, or myself. It's hard to relate to the suffering of animals when we're not fully considerate of it. Personally, I don't feel I can abide it.

But, y'know, whatever. I have no intention of being evangelical about it; it just seems that whatever way you look at it, the current utilisation of animals is morally sub-optimal. But if you don't care, I can't see myself changing your mind.

Meta you fuck, I spent like 10 minutes on that just for you. The least you can do is a like or response.

Ha, I was on a driving lesson.

It's certainly interesting though; would it be possible to get rid of juries in common law countries? Or are the two simply too intertwined?

Nice to know I'm not a hypocrite since I don't care what happens to my food before it is food.

I'd still say that's immoral.

After reading Pendulate's post, and watching that documentary he mentioned.

I think I have no choice, morally, but to make the transition to a vegan lifestyle.

I guess if you wanted to pull at your heartstrings you could watch Earthlings on youtube

Currently watching.

We gained knowledge.

What knowledge?

That lack of sleep will fuck you up?

We already knew that.

According to a recent NASA study

There’s been much debate these past few years over the cause of the so-called global warming “hiatus”—a pause in the overall uptick up of Earth’s temperature due to cooling at the surface of the Pacific Ocean since the early 2000s. Did climate warming stop? Nope, we just weren’t looking deep enough.

Earth’s extra heat, you see, has spent the last 10 years sinking into the vast depths of the equatorial Pacific and Indian Oceans.

That’s the conclusion of a new study, conducted by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and published today in the journal Science. The study, which examines two decades of observational data, offers the most definitive evidence to date that Earth’s largest ocean has been massively redistributing heat since 2003. Specifically, cooling in the top 100 meter layer of the Pacific Ocean has been compensated by warming in the 100 to 300 meter layer of both the Pacific and Indian Oceans, which together cover over 40% of our planet’s surface.

The global average ocean surface temperature has been rising since 2003 by +0.001ºC per year, according to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That temperature rise is notably slower than century-timescale warming of +0.006ºC per year since 1880. For the last few years, climate scientists have been trying to understand whether the hiatus was the result of a redistribution of heat within the ocean, or less overall heat uptake at the ocean’s surface.

Over the last few years, a likely scenario has begun to emerge. Modeling studies show that the cooling of the surface of the Pacific is probably being balanced by more rapid warming in deeper parts of the Atlantic or the Pacific. What’s more, a recent paper in Nature Climate Change used observational data and models to demonstrate increased heat transport from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean over the last decade. Clearly, the pathways by which Earth’s oceans process heat seem to be changing.

The new study, however, is the first to include a comprehensive analysis of real-world data from the past two decades. Similarly to modeling efforts, the researchers’ findings point to a redistribution of heat from the surface to the deep ocean. Taken together, however, Earth’s oceans and atmosphere have continued to absorb heat at the same overall rate since 2003:

Quote

Observational estimates provide a more accurate means of assessing oceanic temperature changes and show clear decadal signals that are robust across different analyses and clearly significant relative to observational errors. Our findings support the idea that the Indo-Pacific interaction in the upper-level water (0-300 m depth) regulated global surface temperature over the past two decades and can fully account for the recently observed hiatus. Furthermore, as previously shown for interannual fluctuations, the decade long hiatus that began in 2003 is the result of a redistribution of heat within the ocean, rather than a change in the net warming rate.

The scientific debate over global warming ended a long time ago. Misconceptions about the “hiatus,” however, have continued to add fuel to the woefully unscientific political debate that still rages in the halls of Congress. Hopefully, with this particular riddle now solved, again, we can all move on to the real task of reducing our fossil fuel emissions and preparing for a hotter future.

Well, fuck me.

Fucking Syriza, man

The Greek government capitulated on Thursday to demands from its creditors for severe austerity measures in return for a modest debt write-off, raising hopes that a rescue deal could be signed at an emergency meeting of EU leaders on Sunday.

Athens has put forward a 13-page document detailing reforms and public spending cuts worth €13bn with the aim of securing a third bailout from creditors that would raise €53.5bn and allow it to stay inside the currency union.

A cabinet meeting signed off the reform package after ministers agreed that the dire state of the economy and the debilitating closure of the country’s banks meant it had no option but to agree to almost all the creditors terms.

Parliament is expected to endorse the package after a frantic few days of negotiation that followed a landmark referendum last Sunday in which Greek voters backed the radical leftist Syriza government’s call for debt relief.

Syriza, which is in coalition with the rightwing populist Independent party, is expected to meet huge opposition from within its own ranks and from trade unions and youth groups that viewed the referendum as a vote against any austerity.

Panagiotis Lafazanis, the energy minister and influential hard-leftist, who on Wednesday welcomed a deal for a new €2bn gas pipeline from Russia, has ruled out a new tough austerity package.

Lafazanis represents around 70 Syriza MPs who have previously taken a hard line against further austerity measures and could yet wreck any top-level agreement.

Emphasising the likelihood of further strife in Greece next week even should a deal be concluded, Brussels officials talked privately of plans to fly in humanitarian aid such as food parcels and medicines to major cities.

The urgency of Greek efforts to prevent an exit from the euro came after Brussels set a midnight Thursday deadline for Greece to produce a package of measures in line with previous demands.

The new proposals include sweeping reforms to VAT to raise 1% of GDP and moving more items to the 23% top rate of tax, including restaurants – a key battleground before.

Greece has also dropped its opposition to abolishing the lower VAT rate on its islands, starting with the most popular tourist attractions. Athens also appears to have made significant concessions on pensions, agreeing to phase out solidarity payments for the poorest pensioners by December 2019, a year earlier than planned. It would also raise the retirement age to 67 by 2022.

And it has agreed to raise corporation tax to 28%, as the IMF wanted, not 29%, as previously targeted.

Greece is also proposing to cut military spending by €100m in 2015 and by €200m in 2016, and implement changes to reform and improve tax collection and fight tax evasion. It will also press on with privatisation of state assets including regional airports and ports. Some government MPs had vowed to reverse this.

In return, Greece appears to be seeking a three-year loan deal worth €53.5bn.

The Greek government said parliament would vote on the proposals later today, before an emergency summit on Sunday of all 28 European Union leaders.

Several EU leaders said the troika of creditors – the European commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank - must also make concessions to secure Greece’s future inside the eurozone.

Donald Tusk, who chairs the EU summits, said European officials would make an effort to address Greece’s key request for a debt write-off.

“The realistic proposal from Greece will have to be matched by an equally realistic proposal on debt sustainability from the creditors. Only then will we have a win-win situation,” Tusk said.

Tusk, a former prime minister of Poland, aligned himself with France and Italy in seeking a way through the political maze that has defeated all previous efforts to find a breakthrough.

Sources close to Greece’s chief negotiator and finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, said he had finalised and submitted a plan of reforms for a third bailout to give creditors time to review it ahead of a summit of EU members on Sunday.

On Thursday, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble said the possibility of some kind of debt relief would be discussed over coming days, although he cautioned it may not provide much help.

“The room for manoeuvre through debt reprofiling or restructuring is very small,” he said.

Greece has long argued its debt is too high to be paid back and that the country requires some form of debt relief. The IMF agrees, but key European states such as Germany have resisted the idea.

Making Greece’s debt more sustainable would likely involve lowering the interest rates and extending the repayment dates on its bailout loans. Germany and many other European countries rule out an outright debt cut, arguing it would be illegal under European treaties.

The developments on Thursday boosted market confidence that a compromise will be found. The Stoxx 50 index of top European shares was up 2.4% in late afternoon trading.

Prime minister Alexis Tsipras met with finance ministry officials ahead of the cabinet meeting on Thursday afternoon which finalised his country’s plan, a day after his government requested a new three-year aid programme from Europe’s bailout fund and promised to immediately enact reforms.

The last-minute negotiations come as Greece’s financial system teeters on the brink of collapse. It has imposed restrictions on banking transactions since 29 June, limiting cash withdrawals to €60 per day to staunch a bank run. Banks and the stock market have been shut for just as long.

The closures, which have been extended until Monday, have led to daily lines at cash machines and have hammered businesses. Payments abroad have been banned without special permission.

Greece’s financial institutions have been kept afloat so far by emergency liquidity assistance from the ECB. But the central bank has not increased the amount in days, giving the lenders a stranglehold despite capital controls.

German ECB governing council member Jens Weidmann argued Greek banks should not get more emergency credit from the central bank unless a bailout deal is struck.
He said it was up to eurozone governments and Greek leaders themselves to rescue Greece.

The central bank “has no mandate to safeguard the solvency of banks and governments,” he said in a speech.

The ECB capped emergency credit to Greek banks amid doubt over whether the country will win further rescue loans from other countries. The banks closed and limited cash withdrawals because they had no other way to replace deposits.

Weidmann said he welcomed the fact that central bank credit “is no longer being used to finance capital flight caused by the Greek government”.

Well that sucks. Both sides really have fucked over Greece here.

#trayvonshotfirst

That doesn't answer my question.

I figured the "who cares?" was facetious at best, since you're basically faced with a thread full of people who seem to care. I thought I'd elucidate on why such people care.

Yo, fuck you man.

My great grandma had dementia.

She thought there were diamond smugglers in her ward.

. . .

Why would you post this?

They're just rats, who cares?

Because rats have a capacity to suffer, perhaps?

Quote from: Meta Cognition on July 09, 2015, 08:11:45 PM

Cheers.

but being totally honest your best bet is to just buy a textbook

I have; just looking for complimentary sources.

Cheers.