I think you put in more than two cents worth in that baby, but you should have gone all out for the two buck version. Since you obviously are detail oriented, do you mind if I perhaps point out some of the places where our thoughts diverge slightly in the thicket of highly entertaining non-sequitors?

Institutional Bias/Paradigm Maintainers? Moi? Are you implying that I am “expecting bullet-proof proof’ about prediction issues? Not so. I am merely oh so politely suggesting that some effort should be made to guess where when and how high on a rational basis, and if that can’t be done, then perhaps a person would be more rational in not predicting, or rather, not guessing at all, nicht wahr? (got my fingers crossed hoping that seemingly witty addendum passes your litmus test for “decidedly witty”. If not, stick it where the sun don’t shine. Dang, that last sucker’s prolly (intentionally cute) going to break the bank for hauntings, hey?

That was all tongue well in cheek, but I didn’t want to mess up the furious flow of seeming witticisms with smiley faces:)

3 and 4 I didn’t get. Probably doesn’t fit my Institutional Bias/Paradigm Maintainers.

5 is possibly true but I didn’t say it, you didn’t see me say it and you can’t prove a thing (The Simpsons).

6’s willy-nilly is not in my seemingly witty paradigm.

7 Dang it, 2-Cents, stop being so cloying. However, slam-dunk in this context is one a them hot-button issues which I reject for its racial overtones.

8 You say “meat-already-on-the-pole & problem solved” with a straight face? Maybe you oughta use a few of my bankrupt phrases so you won’t sound like a hick. But to continue: LW came back with an argument that I have heard over and over from proponents of Crop Circles, Faces on Mars, Space Aliens, Stigmata, Miracles, Psychics, ESP, Roswell, Perpetual Motion, etc (add your favorite pseudo-science here... thanks), and topping it off with the usual attack on science for it’s widely recognized mistakes and it’s pedantic attitude that truth is a virtue. Needless to say, I, a scientist, was miffed. Frankly, I have heard his argument so often that it makes me want to puke. Fortunately I was able to restrain my esophagus and my temper, and thus composed a delightful, seemingly hostile rebuttal.

9 2-Cents goes way out in left field and muffs an easy fly ball that Bonds could have caught easily with his right foot. Hope that doesn’t qualify as “distortion to ridicule”--if it does, then you are misinterpreting the metaphor. Excuse me, but in case you haven’t noticed, there is an awful, even scary, amount of New Age psychobabble going around out there that threatens the end of reason and it’s high time someone stood up and began to harangue the infidels. So you shove a merangue pie in my face for being honest (my spell checker is glaring at me for misspelling merangue, but that’s the way it should be spelled, so to hell with it). Same with “weird non-science”. Sorry, bub, but if you don’t know the aptness of that phrase, then perhaps you should do some more searching of “pseudo-science” on Google. I categorically deny that I was intending anything personal whatsoever about LW, and you are waaaay off base for your presumption to impugn my motives when I wrote that message. PS, I don’t have any grants and I am not a her, and for a person with pretenses of being an expert identifier of bankrupt writing and a terrific analyzer of motives, and a master at recognizing emotional flameouts, you suck at all of them as much as you suck at gender identification through the written word. By the way, your sanctimonius attitude gets a little tiresome when you start shoveling the pig slop that I, in the emotional and figurative proton storm you purport that I wallow in, wallow in. By the way, the scientific credentials remark? Straight truth, although you are entitled to your unscientific opinions. A while ago, I read some of LW’s remarks and presumed he was a scientist. The thoughts he has expressed recently do not coincide with most scientists opinions. Ergo, (I know, I know, Chapter 11, or is it 13?) I seriously questioned whether he was, in actuality, a scientist. I am almost certain that he is not. Perhaps a mathematician, statistician, or technician, but most likely, not a scientist in the strict definition of the word, but it has nothing to do with our debate except that it may explain why he thinks the way he does. For your and LW’s enlightenment, I am a geologist who is currently working as a tech—how’s that for scientific credibility? In any case, let us continue. Wait, first let me savor this expression of yours, are you telling me that “you get the picture” is not a bankrupt phrase in your opinion?

Now for the meat already on the pole (note how much cleaner and more succinct it is without the hyphens? A good writer knows when to eschew the hyphens):

Ok, let’s get serious. I’ve been playing just for the fun of it and don’t really have any beef with you except for the fact that you’re an obnoxious twit:)

Au contraire, but pseudo-science is very much the issue here now, and I must ask what you with what you were using to hold back that ego of yours, the straw with which you clean your teeth? My goal was and is to indicate that speculation about impending earthquakes is meaningless and potentially dangerous without sufficient scientific reason, and especially not for “sensitives” because it tends to spread the false notion that people who have normal physical symptoms, the same symptoms that everyone else has, are capable somehow of receiving true precursory signals from earthquakes, signals that cannot be detected by man-made detection devices, and that sometime in the future, those so-called sensitives, chosen no doubt because God liked them better because they are, in all ways, superior to ordinary mortals, will miraculously save millions of lives by warning us all to get out before the next disaster occurs. Won’t happen 2-cents, get used to it.

With respect to LW, I still say he had no business speculating that an earthquake might occur on the basis of proton storms, although I admit that it was a petty item to hit him with. I won’t budge on the issue that it was an irrational speculation, but neither will any of you who hold the opposing view. I regret being so hard on him, but I expected better from him. Needless to say, I am getting all the flak, so stop feeling sorry for him. Besides, I already apologized in my response to Catherine, although I was actually lying (I had my fingers crossed when I apologized). Catherine is just so cute in her transparent attempts to lure me into the sack with her.

Cathy, if you are reading this, that was a joke :) :) :)

(Your husband ain’t one of them gun-nuts, is he?)

Fact is, I enjoy reading the messages on this board from those who are trying to predict earthquakes using scientific methodology, but it chaps my hide when baseless claims are made about the causes of earthquakes that defy logic and common sense and scientific principles. Perhaps this board is not quite ready for a scientific curmudgeon. I am chagrined that not one of you seems to have the faintest idea what I have been railing about. But I do appreciate your and LW’s and Catherine’s attempts to soothe the savage beast. Better luck next time:)