DH Templates

Does anybody know any web sites were i can get free business letter writing templates? I'm looking for a template to tell customers about changes to our on site procedures, I've tried the Microsoft site with no luck any other suggestions would be welcome. thank you in advance.

does anybody know any decent web sites were i can get free business letter writing templates? specifically looking for cover letter templates to send out with catalouges introducing a new company

I am looking for a free personal letter writing templates. Is there such a thing?Please help? letters to say, I am sorry.

Help!! Is there anywhere online to get free business letter templates? I was offered a job with sales involved. Have never done sales before. Need to write a letter to potential clients introducing myself and our product.

Anyone know where I can get some great FREE business letter templates? I need to write some business letters for a construction contractor but am stuck. Do you know where I can find some templates for this SPECIFIC line of work? I looked on Microsoft Online already and didn't find any. TIA

How do I write a letter to pay a tenant to move? Any free templates online? Want to type up a letter to pay a tenant to move/give tenant a decision to take the money or stay. Is there any example letters out there to do this? ANY letter would be of help. TO 1st answer: According to an attorney we can only offer to pay this tenant to move. It's quite complicated (we've talked to attorney's and numerous landlord advisors)...in my case it is easier to pay them to move; we are in a rent controlled area; it would be in our best interest to get them to move this way. we will be able to get someone in there to pay what the apt is worth in our area and get the $ back quicker; even in our rent controlled area the apt is worth twice as much as what the tenant is paying; we can only raise rent at a certain percentage and we are not getting anything out of her paying what she's been paying before i purchased the bldg.

Is there any free web sites that has templates for writing official letters?

Where can I find free examples of great cover letter and resume templates? I am trying to write a cover letter and have no idea what I am doing. Please help.

Writing a cover letter and resume? I just lost my job of 4 years, and I am trying to put together a good professional resume and cover letter. Something that will catch someones eye. I have already composed a resume with job history, skills, education, and references. I was looking at cover letter templates but they all seem geared toward a specific job or position. Is there any 'right' way to write a cover letter for a general employment? Any other advice or help, feel free.

Is there a template to write a thank you letter for a book review? I am trying to find a free template I could use to write a thank you letter for a book review that was given. Any ideas? I have been on microsoft... they don't have a template for a thank you letter for book review.

writing letters website? i need a site that lets you make a letter free with templates etc

i want to write a letter to my friend, but i don't want to print it on just a plain paper? where can i go to write a letter with pretty templates that r free and easy.??so when i do print it here @ home the paper will have lik rainbows, flowers, animals, water etc---. thanks for ur help.

Is there a free alternative to the old Microsoft 'Works'? I really liked using the program, which I had on XP.I had Vista,then upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium. Like most people, I find the latest OS is very good.However,I do miss working with 'Works',as it had many templates for letter-writing,etc.Does anyone know of a similar type of progam?

How do i write an early return notice for maternity leave? i have to write a letter to notify my employer of my intention to return to work early. I have to give 8 weeks notice but dont know where to start. What do i put and does anyone know where i could get a letter template (free) for it.

Professional Letter Template? I am looking for a template for a letter I'm writing to my city's parks department requesting modifications to a tennis court to better fit the needs of a bike polo club that meets there twice per week. Nobody else uses these courts as there are much nicer courts within walking distance. Does anyone know where I can find a free template that addresses both the request details and the impact on the community?

How do I write a legal letter of agreement, that if I teach you something you offer it free of charge? I'm at work and we started a non-profit organization. Other shops around the country want to learn to do what we do. However, we don't want to give them the tools unless we know they will offer this free of charge, as do we. Where can I find a template or format to write a legal document like that?

How do i write a return notice from maternity leave? I have already contacted Human Resources about my date of return. However, they want me to email my boss in writing about my start time, position, date , etc. What do i put and does anyone know where i could get a letter template (free) for it.

Letter of Intent for applying for job? I need to write a letter of intent for a job I am applying for. It is basically to sell myself, but I dont know how to even begin? Any suggestions, or maybe a good website that has FREE templates?

How do I write a letter to businesses in the hope of expanding my own buisness? I am wanting to write a letter to other businesses about my business in the hope that I can acheive work from them. What I am needing is a basic letter of introduction, with what my business does and how I can assist them. Can anyone please tell me where I can go (Would like it to be FREE) to find out any templates?? Thanks

What legal form would I use for the following? "I will give you the refund, inturn I request from you a notarized signed paper by you, releasing me of any legal action in anything of or relating to this matter." Would that be called a "release of liability"? I would like to know so I can download a template, rather than write a lawyeresque from scratch? However, anyone here feel free to write such a letter. Also, it is contingent on a refund. How would I include that as a term? Thanks!

can i can get nebraska husker stationary.free i want to write some letters.dl or can i make my own ? i want to download templates or some way make my own stationary of the husker logo.to write letters on.i dont want to pay for already made stuff.anyone know how i can make my own.i have office/phoso suite/photo programs...what other programs can i use ?. coptright laws lol..i guess you dont live in nebraska..huskers logo is everywhere...im using it for letters that im sending to family/friends...gezzz..oh well i found out..i can use microsoft word..stationary..insert pic..format..pic behind text..save as.document template..so take a hike...

donation request letters? Our local youth baseball org. is asking for donations to help with repairing the fields, buying new eqiupment..etc,..they are asking all the coaches to type a letter so we can send it to local business for donation requests..I SUCK at writing letters like this..can you help me out here...or are there any free templates out there I could use as a guideline??..All I have found on yahoo are paid sites..thanks!!! just for additional info my son is 5 and playing t-ball

Teach me on how to write letter and application letter of various porposes! ? i wana learn onine on how to prepare the best letter for all porposes.,.suggest me the free n effective website or mail me the template at bishnu48@ovi.com thank u

Theatre Troupe Thankyou for donation letter? My Troupe just did our first raffle and I'd like to send out a letter so the donors can write it off on their taxes. I can't seem to find a template or a sample anywhere online that doesn't sound completely dumb. Does anyone have a sample letter that I could use? If not, I will just write my own and would like some ideas to get me started. Thanks in advance! Ryan If you have a sample letter, please feel free to email it to me here: rcantb@yahoo.com. Thanks again!

How to properly craft a letter petitioning the court.? I have legal guardianship of my 17 yr. old step-daughter along with physical and legal custody of my 7 yr. old boy. Long story short Mom has severe bi-polar and left us all. But that is another story. Now if that isn’t enough on my plate we just found out my daughter is pregnant. She has a trust fund / conservatorship that her Aunt is the administrator of. My daughter is going to get it when she turns 18. For now with all the running around, Doctors appointments and she helps me with her brother while I work she needs a car. Well since the wife left us all money is tight. I have spoke with my sister in law and she said we could petition the court to release some funds to buy a car and a yrs. worth of insurance. But we need to craft a professional letter to do this. I think I have the knowledge to do this but sometimes I know when you submit things to court / the judge it has to be written a certain way etc..I was wondering if anyone out there has knowledge to help me with this or is there a website with free templates etc..Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!!

Spooky Lettering For Pumpkin Carving? I need to find a site that has free templates for differnt fonts. I made a Michael Myers template for my Jack o lantern and want to write MYERS on it in spooky lettering. Looking for FREE templates. Anybody??

creating a free cv online then saving to my documents to apply for online job? hi guys need some help here please i need to know if anyone of you know whats the best free cv template websites are because ive found a job online that im really intrested in it requires me to upload my cv to from my documents and the cover letter is already filled in saying dear whoever I am writing in application for the above position as advertised on the ******* website yours sincerley me does that mean its ok to send like that all i need help with is free cv online creation to save to word and the cover letter thanks

creating a cv online for then saving to word and uploading it with a cover letter online? hi guys need some help here please i need to know if anyone of you know whats the best free cv template websites are because ive found a job online that im really intrested in it requires me to upload my cv to from my documents and the cover letter is already filled in saying dear whoever I am writing in application for the above position as advertised on the ******* website yours sincerley me does that mean its ok to send like that all i need help with is free cv online creation to save to word and the cover letter thanks

I can't stop prescreened credit offers? I get a ton of credit offers in the mail. I have called the 800 number to opt out. That was four months ago. I am pretty much debt free owing almost nothing and plan to keep it that way. One credit card is good enough for me and I do not want to be bothered with more credit offers. I get checks for several thousands dollars for me to cash at my bank to start a loan and that is scary. If those checks fall in the wrong hands; I will be screwed. I am at the point of writing legal threats to creditors to stop soliciting prescreened offers. Is the “opt out” law a joke or can I sue them? Is there a letter template I can use to demand money for being a nuisance? I hate to write a letter to each credit offer, listed on the back of the offer letter. I am willing to sue them for wasting my time. I live in Orange County, Ca. USA. Any advice would be great or web page referral. If you are getting the offers too let me know. Maybe a class action will make the “opt out” stand out tough.

How to write a resignation letter, please help urgent? My contract ends this month and the company is closing, however the company is just giving us verbal notice that we are free to search for jobs elsewhere. They have warned us that they MIGHT be closing (NOT 100% Certain as they may stay open if they get business) however they are not giving us any written notice because they are not sure themselves. I cannot afford to sit here and wait thus I have found another job and thus need my P45. My workplace has said I need to write a resignation letter to them in order for them to issue my P45. What my concern is that it is them that have told us to leave but they are not pinning it on themselves rather making it sound that it is the employees wish to leave. Therefore I want help or template on how to word my resignation letter. I want to make it clear that it is because of them that I have to leave, they have not even paid us for 2 months as they say they have no money. I want to keep it as polite as possible. I have other responsibilities thus cannot be out of employment, but I want to make it clear that I am leaving because I need the money and they can't pay me which is causing me problems with my other responsibilities. Thanks Please could you help me write this letter.

Move out notice in LA, California? I am moving out and need to write a move out notice to my suite-mate, who is also a sub-landlord (head tenant). Here are my questions: 1) Where can I find a professional free move out letter/template online? I couldn't find the most compiled version. 2) I am wondering if my suite-mate (the sub-landlord) or I have the legal responsibility to find someone to replace me? *He found me after the previous sub-tenant left. 3) What are the rights of sub-landlord (head tenant) and sub-tenant (me)? Thank you so much for your time!!

Micro chip question a couple of days ago, Want more info? The question asking for opinions on micro chipping seemed to be 'for', but do you really understand what it means? Here's another thought: On March 11, 2009, R-CALF USA President Max Thornsberry, D.V.M., testified at a congressional subcommittee hearing on USDA's National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Dr. Thornsberry presented a powerful case against NAIS, but the witnesses were clearly stacked in favor of mandatory NAIS. Most of the members of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee's Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry (Subcommittee) who attended the hearing also appeared to favor NAIS. Our best chance to stop NAIS is in this Subcommittee, and it is right now, while the hearing record remains open. We need thousands of letters from across the country, from livestock producers, main-street businesses and consumers, to be faxed to the Subcommittee before March 20, 2009, the date the hearing record closes. Below is a template letter you can use to fax your letter to the Subcommittee. Feel free to use all or part of this letter, or write one on your own. The important thing is we must literally have thousands of letters from all across the country faxed in before March 20. This is URGENT if you want to put a stop to NAIS. Please circulate this alert and the template letter to any e-mail or fax list you may have in order to blanket the country. There are about 3,000 R-CALF USA members that receive this alert. This is so important that we are asking every R-CALF USA member to deliver a copy of this alert to at least one non-member to get them to also fax a letter to the Subcommittee. Here is the Subcommittee's Fax Number for faxing your personal letter: 202-225-4544. Timing is everything. Please help us get thousands of personal letters from livestock producers, main-street businesses and consumers faxed to the Subcommittee before March 20. Good Luck! I cannot add the letter here as text is too long. If you wish to read or send the letter, I will e-mail to you via your request. edit, AMEN, KB! I was hoping for more interest in this subject as it IS important to any one that owns animals. Thanks to all who answered, keep alert to this and God Bless.

I need a good template to follow in sending out my own foreclosure letter!? Does anyone know where I can find one or a guide to follow in doing so. This guy was suppose to buy some property from my father and never fully paid for it. My father didn't act on it and now years later its my responsibility to get the money or get him out. I want to send him the foreclosure letter myself and then foreclose on it if he doesn't pay. I guess I would be serving notice that I will be foreclosing on the property if he doesn't pay X amount of dollars in 45 days. He has been sent other letters through the years, but has never responded to them or picke dup certified letters that were sent to him. Does anyone know a free site that has legal forms like this that I could follow while I'm writing things up?

Does anyone have any ideas for this? I want something wrote on my wall in gold paint. I have a small pot of gold wall paint which I will be wanting to use, but I need like stencils of letters or something because it is very important that it is perfectly neat (so I obviously couldn't do it free-hand). I want lyrics wrote on a certain part of my wall. Please do not suggest I print out templates because the paper would move about too much when I am painting in it. Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions? Thank you.

Would it be rude to ask a teacher to give me multiple recommendations for scholarships? I am applying for several large scholarships that require one or two teacher recommendations. Rather than asking all the teachers that consider me one of their best students for a new recommendation every time I apply for a different scholarship, I thought it would be more convenient if I asked one teacher to write me a recommendation letter that he/she would save and use when the following scholarship applications came up, sort of like a template. As only one of my teachers is nice enough and has enough free time, I would still ask various teachers to be the second teacher to recommend me. There are, however, two problems that might occur: (1) the scholarships might require a different format for the letter, causing the teacher to spend time altering the template letter, (2) it might make the teacher think that I am ungrateful for his/her help. Please tell me what I should do (and why) or if I am not considering other factors. Thank you in advance for your mature advice.

Now do you believe it? Now that the retired cartoonist formerly known as Molly Norris has gone into hiding and changed her name -- essentially 'witness protection' mode -- at the behest of the FBI and in fear of her life (she is the one who jokingly proposed 'Everbody Draw Mohammed Day'), now do you believe that Islam is a clear and present danger to a free society? 'David Gomez, the FBI's special agent in charge of counterterrorism in Seattle (stated) the agency was doing everything it could to protect individuals on a fatwa list issued by Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Awlaki said in the June issue of English-language Muslim youth magazine Inspire that Norris is a "prime target" who should reside in "Hellfire." ' By any standard of US law, that threat is a criminal offence. Anyone who made such a declaration about the president would have the Secret Service knocking on their door in a half an hour! Where are the 'moderate' Muslims to condemn this homicidal maniac? I am perfectly willing to be proven wrong. If you are Muslim, state below -- "Anwar al-Awlaki is a dangerous criminal who should be in jail. There is no place for this in the United States, or in any Western nation." Then write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Then get your friends to do the same. Have your imam issue a fatwa condemning al-Awlaki as a dangerous lunatic. Too many times in history it has been proven that "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing," Now is the time to stand up and stand against evil -- or admit that there is no such thing as 'moderate' Islam. Full story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129917890&ft=1&f=1003

Ending an o2 contract (it's at the end of it's 12 month term)? Hi all, I called o2 to cancel my contract which is in it's 12th month and they said I need to send my request to cance in writing... what exactly should I put in this letter..... can anyone direct me to any templates ??? also they offered me an upgrade deal which I am 50/50 abut accepting... Free Nokia 6500 Classic 200 Mins + 400 Texts (with unlimited free o2 to o2 calls) £75 credit On an 18 month contract for £15 per month (though £75 would equate to 5 months free line rental).... is this a good upgrade deal or should I try for more ? So any advice on al of this ? thanks !

please check my grammar here? I am doing a self evaluation on my presentation that i did last week. please check my grammar here. If you have any suggestion to make these sentences better, please feel free to comment. ================= Having a smile on my face, dressing formally, I have done a great job on my presentation. My visual aids were attractive and easily readable because the presentation included art, graphics, photos and a fancy template to illustrate ideas. I also organized my presentation very well, giving a lot of good examples on how to write an application, categorizing three steps to write an application letter, including all the information of how to write an application letter. However, I was little too nervous in the beginning when I was delivering the presentation. The butterflies suddenly fly into my stomach. I had a stomachache; the stomachache happened every time during the presentation. ===================== thank you very much for checking the sentences.

How do I make suggestions for Yahoo Answers and what do you think of my suggestion? I have a legitimate suggestion that I feel can greatly improve a certain aspect of Yahoo Answers and would like to know where I can post the suggestion. As for what do you think about my suggestion I am looking for positive commentary on what I managed to do right and constructive criticism on what clearly needs work or is hard to understand. Feel free to quote when commenting on something in particular. My suggestion is the following, it is about how the site handles polls. #1 way to improve polls: First of all for some reason with the current setup polls have their own little category in the corner out of site. This is disastrous because it means that all of the polls are out of sight and are less likely to be answered. Yes, it sounds like it makes sense to put polls in a category called polls but it really doesn't. The reason it doesn't is because all polls are polls but each poll can be about a different subject. For example: As you can see I am top contributor in Nintendo Wii. It is the section that I go to to answer questions. Let's say somebody makes a poll called: Do you call it the Wii Remote or Wiimote? It would go into the poll category and not the Nintendo Wii category so it wouldn't be getting the attention from the people it should get the attention from. Letting polls go into other categories is the first way to improve the system. You might say that some people only answer the polls so they stick to the poll section and would answer less if there were none but as I will explain in my next tip you can keep the poll category while putting every poll in the category they belong to. #2 Way to improve polls: Right now if you make a poll on Yahoo answers it is no different from a regular question, it is formatted the same way, it looks the same, it acts the same, it can be answered the same way, etc. but it should not be the same as other kinds of questions, a poll should be a poll. When you first click ask it should send you to a regular template for your question but next to where it says "What's your question" it would say something like "Would you like to make a poll?" and when you click the poll option it would send you to a slightly different template for making your poll and it would allow the poll to act differently. First of all polls would be automatically tagged by the system by writing POLL in big bold letters at the beginning of the title of the question or the title would be in a different colour or even something I haven't even thought of that clearly shows at first glance that it is a poll. Not only that but since it would be tagged as a poll all the polls could be easily grouped up into the polls category automatically for those who want to see the polls all together but remain in their own categories. Now, back to the template. The one thing that would be the same about the template is the title. You write the title the same way it is for every other question so that part is simple. What would be different is that instead of one big box that you can use to add details to your question there would be a few boxes a little bit smaller than the title box where you could write the various options for the poll. So back to my poll about Wiimotes. First I would fill in the title which would be "Do you call it a Wiimote or Wii Remote?". Then under that there would be the boxes that I described. In one I would write Wiimote and in another I would write Wii Remote and if I wanted I could write "other" in a third box. After all that the asker would chose a category as usual and press submit to post his question. When answering the poll the way I imagine it is that after you click to open the poll answer you see the poll laid out in the question field just like or similar to the daily poll on http://www.gamefaqs.com where you see the options and after you choose one you get a see a pretty graph comparing the various options. Polls should also be either completely anonymous or have an option to vote anonymously. #3 Way to improve polls: If it is a poll there should be no best answer. Polls by nature don't ever have best answers and they shouldn't here either. Best answers are non existent in polls and think about it. Let's say that I had my poll and 14 people voted Wiimote and 6 people voted Wii Remote what could there possibly be that would make one stand out more than the others? Best answers are a great reward for the other questions but are poison in polls especially to those who like to keep a high percentage of best answers. There,I'm done. I might have forgotten a point or two but that about sums up how I want the polls to be changed. I think that it could greatly improve the site. Thank you in advance to those who actually read the whole thing and thank you in advance for your helpful comments.

Which CMS should I use and why? Drupal or Joomla or what elase? Hello I want to make a website for a school. 1. I will use the installation and configuration from the host, won’t do it myself. 2. It should be free (I will earn in dimes!) 3. The users who will update the site letter are not computer savvy 4. I want simple, beautiful templates to work with. So, my question is which CMS will suite me more? Please write few more words explaining why? If applicable please also mention your source or level of experience. The reason for this question is, like you; I want know clearly and concisely what I am going to do and why :) Thanks a lot in advance..for thoughtful and technical experienced answers... Hello I want to make a website for a school. 1. I will use the installation and configuration from the host, won’t do it myself. 2. It should be free (I will earn in dimes!) 3. The users who will update the site letter are not computer savvy 4. I want simple, beautiful templates to work with. So, my question is which CMS will suite me more? Please write few more words explaining **why**? ** If applicable please also mention your source or level of experience. The reason for this question is, like you; I want know clearly and concisely what I am going to do and why :) Please also suggest some tutorial/forum to visit/video/features.. Thanks a lot in advance..for thoughtful and technical experienced answers...

Need help with a jscript application? I found this template editor file. I want to run it, but on line 10 char 1, document is undefined. // // htmlArea v2.02 - Copyright (c) 2002 interactivetools.com, inc. // This copyright notice MUST stay intact for use (see license.txt). // // A free WYSIWYG editor replacement for <textarea> fields. // For full source code and docs, visit http://www.interactivetools.com/ // // write out styles for UI buttons document.write('<style type="text/css">\n'); document.write('.btn { width: 22px; height: 22px; border: 1px solid buttonface; margin: 0; padding: 0; }\n'); document.write('.btnOver { width: 22px; height: 22px; border: 1px outset; }\n'); document.write('.btnDown { width: 22px; height: 22px; border: 1px inset; background-color: buttonhighlight; }\n'); document.write('.btnNA { width: 22px; height: 22px; border: 1px solid buttonface; filter: alpha(opacity=25); }\n'); document.write('.cMenu { background-color: threedface; color: menutext; cursor: Default; font-family: MS Sans Serif; font-size: 8pt; padding: 2 12 2 16; }'); document.write('.cMenuOver { background-color: highlight; color: highlighttext; cursor: Default; font-family: MS Sans Serif; font-size: 8pt; padding: 2 12 2 16; }'); document.write('.cMenuDivOuter { background-color: threedface; height: 9 }'); document.write('.cMenuDivInner { margin: 0 4 0 4; border-width: 1; border-style: solid; border-color: threedshadow threedhighlight threedhighlight threedshadow; }'); document.write('</style>\n'); /* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *\ Function : editor_defaultConfig Description : default configuration settings for wysiwyg editor \* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- */ function editor_defaultConfig(objname) { this.version = "2.02" this.width = "auto"; this.height = "auto"; this.bodyStyle = 'background-color: #FFFFFF; font-family: "Verdana"; font-size: x-small;'; this.imgURL = _editor_url + 'images/'; this.debug = 0; this.replaceNextlines = 0; // replace nextlines from spaces (on output) this.plaintextInput = 0; // replace nextlines with breaks (on input) this.toolbar = [ ['fontname'], ['fontsize'], // ['fontstyle'], // ['linebreak'], ['bold','italic','underline','separator'], // ['strikethrough','subscript','superscript','separator'], ['justifyleft','justifycenter','justifyright','separator'], ['OrderedList','UnOrderedList','Outdent','Indent','separator'], ['forecolor','backcolor','separator'], ['HorizontalRule','Createlink','InsertImage','InsertTable','htmlmode','separator'], // ['custom1','custom2','custom3','separator'], ['popupeditor','about']]; this.fontnames = { "Arial": "arial, helvetica, sans-serif", "Courier New": "courier new, courier, mono", "Georgia": "Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, Serif", "Tahoma": "Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif", "Times New Roman": "times new roman, times, serif", "Verdana": "Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif", "impact": "impact", "WingDings": "WingDings"}; this.fontsizes = { "1 (8 pt)": "1", "2 (10 pt)": "2", "3 (12 pt)": "3", "4 (14 pt)": "4", "5 (18 pt)": "5", "6 (24 pt)": "6", "7 (36 pt)": "7" }; //this.stylesheet = "http://www.domain.com/sample.css"; // full URL to stylesheet this.fontstyles = [ // make sure these exist in the header of page the content is being display as well in or they won't work! // { name: "headline", className: "headline", classStyle: "font-family: arial black, arial; font-size: 28px; letter-spacing: -2px;" }, // { name: "arial red", className: "headline2", classStyle: "font-family: arial black, arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: -2px; color:red" }, // { name: "verdana blue", className: "headline4", classStyle: "font-family: verdana; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: -2px; color:blue" }, ]; this.btnList = { // buttonName: commandID, title, onclick, image, "bold": ['Bold', 'Bold', 'editor_action(this.id)', 'ed_format_bold.gif'], "italic": ['Italic', 'Italic', 'editor_action(this.id)', 'ed_format_italic.gif'], "underline": ['Underline', 'Underline', 'editor_action(this.id)', 'ed_format_underline.gif'], "strikethrough": ['StrikeThrough', 'Strikethrough', 'editor_action(this.id)', 'ed_format_strike.gif'], "subscript": ['SubScript', 'Subscript', 'editor_action(this.id)', 'ed_format_sub.gif'], "superscript": ['SuperScript', 'Superscript', 'editor_action(this.id)', 'ed_format_sup.gif'], "justifyleft": ['JustifyLeft', 'Justify Left', 'editor_ac

Survey: What would you do (part 4)? It's back by public demand :) People emailed me saying they wanted more...so here it is :). Anyway rules still apply, one answer per question and use this template to answer, that way I can count results easier. Also please use letters instead of sentences to answer. Thanks 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) Section 4: Imagine you are a... 1. Imagine you are a famous footballer and are loved by many of your fans, one day a (crap) club wants to buy you for a record £100m and £300K a week, doing this might lose popularity, what would you do? a) Tell your manager you don't want to leave for the fans sake b) Immediately say yes, thinking more about the money instead of your fans c) Have a long think about it, why not flip a coin to decide if you're not sure? d) Don't play football again since this situation will never end 2. Imagine you are a manager and suddenly your star player calls you a crap manager with crap tactics, what would you do? a) Tell him your banned from the club forever b) Tell him how crap he is c) Fight him, who ever loses is crap d) Sell him to another club...no wait...give him away free due to his bad atitude 3. Imagine you are a referee and halfway through a match your watch stops working, what do you do? a) Just imagine a clock in your head and continue playing b) Stop play and say why you need to get a new watch, bearing in mind everyone will be jeering at you c) Ask a fan for a spare watch d) Quickly with your tools, fix the watch in front of everyone 4. Imagineyou are a die-hard football fan and your girlfriend/boyfriend tells you to stop supporting football or risk keeping him or her, what would you do? a) Tell him or her "sorry, football before love" and dump him or her b) Say OK but secretly support football behind his or her back c) Truthfully say you will never support football again to keep him or her d) Flip a coin to decide, heads = support football, tails = never support football again 5. Imagine you are a fan that loves to bet, one day you spend £10k on bets for your team, only in the last minute of the game, the other team score an equaliser and you lose all your money, you know your lover will be very angry, what would you do? a) Admit to what you done and risk being dumped/divorced b) Make up a stupid lie, such as "I was robbed" or "I accidentally wrote a cheque for £10k and lost it" c) KIll yourself since there is no way out d) Complain to the betting shop 24/7 that you want your money back Thanks for completing this survey, results will appear here tomorrow, please come back to check on it.

How do i write a return notice from maternity leave? I have already contacted Human Resources about my date of return. However, they want me to email my boss in writing about my start time, position, date , etc. What do i put and does anyone know where i could get a letter template (free) for it.

Do you belong to the "new Church of Global Warming"? "Aliens Cause Global Warming" A lecture by Michael Crichton California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA January 17, 2003 My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression of belief will be my task today. Let me say at once that I have no desire to discourage anyone from believing in either extraterrestrials or global warming. That would be quite impossible to do. Rather, I want to discuss the history of several widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy. I have a special interest in this because of my own upbringing. I was born in the midst of World War II, and passed my formative years at the height of the Cold War. In school drills, I dutifully crawled under my desk in preparation for a nuclear attack. It was a time of widespread fear and uncertainty, but even as a child I believed that science represented the best and greatest hope for mankind. Even to a child, the contrast was clear between the world of politics-a world of hate and danger, of irrational beliefs and fears, of mass manipulation and disgraceful blots on human history. In contrast, science held different values-international in scope, forging friendships and working relationships across national boundaries and political systems, encouraging a dispassionate habit of thought, and ultimately leading to fresh knowledge and technology that would benefit all mankind. The world might not be avery good place, but science would make it better. And it did. In my lifetime, science has largely fulfilled its promise. Science has been the great intellectual adventure of our age, and a great hope for our troubled and restless world. But I did not expect science merely to extend lifespan, feed the hungry, cure disease, and shrink the world with jets and cell phones. I also expected science to banish the evils of human thought---prejudice and superstition, irrational beliefs and false fears. I expected science to be, in Carl Sagan's memorable phrase, "a candle in a demon haunted world." And here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity. Some of the demons that haunt our world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not benefited from permitting these demons to escape free. But let's look at how it came to pass. Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation: N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live. This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice. As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion. One way to chart the cooling of enthusiasm is to review popular works on the subject. In 1964, at the height of SETI enthusiasm, Walter Sullivan of the NY Times wrote an exciting book about life in the universe entitled WE ARE NOT ALONE. By 1995, when Paul Davis wrote a book on the same subject, he titled it ARE WE ALONE? ( Since 1981, there have in fact been four books titled ARE WE ALONE.) More recently we have seen the rise of the so-called "Rare Earth" theory which suggests that we may, in fact, be all alone. Again, there is no evidence either way. Back in the sixties, SETI had its critics, although not among astrophysicists and astronomers. The biologists and paleontologists were harshest. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard sneered that SETI was a "study without a subject," and it remains so to the present day. But scientists in general have been indulgent toward SETI, viewing it either with bemused tolerance, or with indifference. After all, what's the big deal? It's kind of fun. If people want to look, let them. Only a curmudgeon would speak harshly of SETI. It wasn't worth the bother. And of course it is true that untestable theories may have heuristic value. Of course extraterrestrials are a good way to teach science to kids. But that does not relieve us of the obligation to see the Drake equation clearly for what it is-pure speculation in quasi-scientific trappings. The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage-similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example-meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks. Now let's jump ahead a decade to the 1970s, and Nuclear Winter. In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences reported on "Long-Term Worldwide Effects of Multiple Nuclear Weapons Detonations" but the report estimated the effect of dust from nuclear blasts to be relatively minor. In 1979, the Office of Technology Assessment issued a report on "The Effects of Nuclear War" and stated that nuclear war could perhaps produce irreversible adverse consequences on the environment. However, because the scientific processes involved were poorly understood, the report stated it was not possible to estimate the probable magnitude of such damage. Three years later, in 1982, the Swedish Academy of Sciences commissioned a report entitled "The Atmosphere after a Nuclear War: Twilight at Noon," which attempted to quantify the effect of smoke from burning forests and cities. The authors speculated that there would be so much smoke that a large cloud over the northern hemisphere would reduce incoming sunlight below the level required for photosynthesis, and that this would last for weeks or even longer. The following year, five scientists including Richard Turco and Carl Sagan published a paper in Science called "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions." This was the so-called TTAPS report, which attempted to quantify more rigorously the atmospheric effects, with the added credibility to be gained from an actual computer model of climate. At the heart of the TTAPS undertaking was another equation, never specifically expressed, but one that could be paraphrased as follows: Ds = Wn Ws Wh Tf Tb Pt Pr Pe… etc (The amount of tropospheric dust=# warheads x size warheads x warhead detonation height x flammability of targets x Target burn duration x Particles entering the Troposphere x Particle reflectivity x Particle endurance…and so on.) The similarity to the Drake equation is striking. As with the Drake equation, none of the variables can be determined. None at all. The TTAPS study addressed this problem in part by mapping out different wartime scenarios and assigning numbers to some of the variables, but even so, the remaining variables were-and are-simply unknowable. Nobody knows how much smoke will be generated when cities burn, creating particles of what kind, and for how long. No one knows the effect of local weather conditions on the amount of particles that will be injected into the troposphere. No one knows how long the particles will remain in the troposphere. And so on. And remember, this is only four years after the OTA study concluded that the underlying scientific processes were so poorly known that no estimates could be reliably made. Nevertheless, the TTAPS study not only made those estimates, but concluded they were catastrophic. According to Sagan and his coworkers, even a limited 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange would cause a global temperature drop of more than 35 degrees Centigrade, and this change would last for three months. The greatest volcanic eruptions that we know of changed world temperatures somewhere between .5 and 2 degrees Centigrade. Ice ages changed global temperatures by 10 degrees. Here we have an estimated change three times greater than any ice age. One might expect it to be the subject of some dispute. But Sagan and his coworkers were prepared, for nuclear winter was from the outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign. The first announcement of nuclear winter appeared in an article by Sagan in the Sunday supplement, Parade. The very next day, a highly-publicized, high-profile conference on the long-term consequences of nuclear war was held in Washington, chaired by Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich, the most famous and media-savvy scientists of their generation. Sagan appeared on the Johnny Carson show 40 times. Ehrlich was on 25 times. Following the conference, there were press conferences, meetings with congressmen, and so on. The formal papers in Science came months later. This is not the way science is done, it is the way products are sold. The real nature of the conference is indicated by these artists' renderings of the the effect of nuclear winter. I cannot help but quote the caption for figure 5: "Shown here is a tranquil scene in the north woods. A beaver has just completed its dam, two black bears forage for food, a swallow-tailed butterfly flutters in the foreground, a loon swims quietly by, and a kingfisher searches for a tasty fish." Hard science if ever there was. At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons were growing the next year. So, he was asked, how accurate were these findings now? Ehrlich answered by saying "I think they are extremely robust. Scientists may have made statements like that, although I cannot imagine what their basis would have been, even with the state of science at that time, but scientists are always making absurd statements, individually, in various places. What we are doing here, however, is presenting a consensus of a very large group of scientists…" I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases. In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compellng evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women. There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light. Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees. And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therap6y…the list of consensus errors goes on and on. Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. But back to our main subject. What I have been suggesting to you is that nuclear winter was a meaningless formula, tricked out with bad science, for policy ends. It was political from the beginning, promoted in a well-orchestrated media campaign that had to be planned weeks or months in advance. Further evidence of the political nature of the whole project can be found in the response to criticism. Although Richard Feynman was characteristically blunt, saying, "I really don't think these guys know what they're talking about," other prominent scientists were noticeably reticent. Freeman Dyson was quoted as saying "It's an absolutely atrocious piece of science but…who wants to be accused of being in favor of nuclear war?" And Victor Weisskopf said, "The science is terrible but---perhaps the psychology is good." The nuclear winter team followed up the publication of such comments with letters to the editors denying that these statements were ever made, though the scientists since then have subsequently confirmed their views. At the time, there was a concerted desire on the part of lots of people to avoid nuclear war. If nuclear winter looked awful, why investigate too closely? Who wanted to disagree? Only people like Edward Teller, the "father of the H bomb." Teller said, "While it is generally recognized that details are still uncertain and deserve much more study, Dr. Sagan nevertheless has taken the position that the whole scenario is so robust that there can be little doubt about its main conclusions." Yet for most people, the fact that nuclear winter was a scenario riddled with uncertainties did not seem to be relevant. I say it is hugely relevant. Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends. That is why it is so important for the future of science that the line between what science can say with certainty, and what it cannot, be drawn clearly-and defended. What happened to Nuclear Winter? As the media glare faded, its robust scenario appeared less persuasive; John Maddox, editor of Nature, repeatedly criticized its claims; within a year, Stephen Schneider, one of the leading figures in the climate model, began to speak of "nuclear autumn." It just didn't have the same ring. A final media embarrassment came in 1991, when Carl Sagan predicted on Nightline that Kuwaiti oil fires would produce a nuclear winter effect, causing a "year without a summer," and endangering crops around the world. Sagan stressed this outcome was so likely that "it should affect the war plans." None of it happened. What, then, can we say were the lessons of Nuclear Winter? I believe the lesson was that with a catchy name, a strong policy position and an aggressive media campaign, nobody will dare to criticize the science, and in short order, a terminally weak thesis will be established as fact. After that, any criticism becomes beside the point. The war is already over without a shot being fired. That was the lesson, and we had a textbook application soon afterward, with second hand smoke. In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was "responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking adults," and that it " impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of thousands of people." In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven studies it based its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and that they collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of 1.19. (For reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action by the EPA. or for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, for example.) Furthermore, since there was no statistical association at the 95% confidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They then classified second hand smoke as a Group A Carcinogen. This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans on smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned public smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the Christian Science Monitor was saying that "Second-hand smoke is the nation's third-leading preventable cause of death." The American Cancer Society announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand smoke. The evidence for this claim is nonexistent. In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had "committed to a conclusion before research had begun", and had "disregarded information and made findings on selective information." The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: "We stand by our science….there's wide agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure to second hand smoke brings…a whole host of health problems." Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, it isn't even a consensus of scientists that Browner evokes! It's the consensus of the American people. Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read, for example, that second hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand smoke. As with nuclear winter, bad science is used to promote what most people would consider good policy. I certainly think it is. I don't want people smoking around me. So who will speak out against banning second-hand smoke? Nobody, and if you do, you'll be branded a shill of RJ Reynolds. A big tobacco flunky. But the truth is that we now have a social policy supported by the grossest of superstitions. And we've given the EPA a bad lesson in how to behave in the future. We've told them that cheating is the way to succeed. As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact. The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard? And so, in this elastic anything-goes world where science-or non-science-is the hand maiden of questionable public policy, we arrive at last at global warming. It is not my purpose here to rehash the details of this most magnificent of the demons haunting the world. I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established. Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron. Next, the isolation of those scientists who won't get with the program, and the characterization of those scientists as outsiders and "skeptics" in quotation marks-suspect individuals with suspect motives, industry flunkies, reactionaries, or simply anti-environmental nutcases. In short order, debate ends, even though prominent scientists are uncomfortable about how things are being done. When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it? To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs. This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands. Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds? Stepping back, I have to say the arrogance of the modelmakers is breathtaking. There have been, in every century, scientists who say they know it all. Since climate may be a chaotic system-no one is sure-these predictions are inherently doubtful, to be polite. But more to the point, even if the models get the science spot-on, they can never get the sociology. To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd. Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam? Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses? But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was. They didn't know its structure. They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS… None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn't know what you are talking about. Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it's even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They're bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment's thought knows it. I remind you that in the lifetime of most scientists now living, we have already had an example of dire predictions set aside by new technology. I refer to the green revolution. In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." Ten years later, he predicted four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and it now seems it isn't ever going to happen. Nor is the population explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago. In 1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by 2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and falling. But nobody knows for sure. But it is impossible to ignore how closely the history of global warming fits on the previous template for nuclear winter. Just as the earliest studies of nuclear winter stated that the uncertainties were so great that probabilites could never be known, so, too the first pronouncements on global warming argued strong limits on what could be determined with certainty about climate change. The 1995 IPCC draft report said, "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced." It also said, "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes." Those statements were removed, and in their place appeared: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on climate." What is clear, however, is that on this issue, science and policy have become inextricably mixed to the point where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to separate them out. It is possible for an outside observer to ask serious questions about the conduct of investigations into global warming, such as whether we are taking appropriate steps to improve the quality of our observational data records, whether we are systematically obtaining the information that will clarify existing uncertainties, whether we have any organized disinterested mechanism to direct research in this contentious area. The answer to all these questions is no. We don't. In trying to think about how these questions can be resolved, it occurs to me that in the progression from SETI to nuclear winter to second hand smoke to global warming, we have one clear message, and that is that we can expect more and more problems of public policy dealing with technical issues in the future-problems of ever greater seriousness, where people care passionately on all sides. And at the moment we have no mechanism to get good answers. So I will propose one. Just as we have established a tradition of double-blinded research to determine drug efficacy, we must institute double-blinded research in other policy areas as well. Certainly the increased use of computer models, such as GCMs, cries out for the separation of those who make the models from those who verify them. The fact is that the present structure of science is entrepeneurial, with individual investigative teams vying for funding from organizations which all too often have a clear stake in the outcome of the research-or appear to, which may be just as bad. This is not healthy for science. Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them. The institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups. In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it. If we were to address the land temperature records with such rigor, we would be well on our way to an understanding of exactly how much faith we can place in global warming, and therefore what seriousness we must address this. I believe that as we come to the end of this litany, some of you may be saying, well what is the big deal, really. So we made a few mistakes. So a few scientists have overstated their cases and have egg on their faces. So what. Well, I'll tell you. In recent years, much has been said about the post modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. Science, we are told, is no better than any other undertaking. These ideas anger many scientists, and they anger me. But recent events have made me wonder if they are correct. We can take as an example the scientific reception accorded a Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist. The scientific community responded in a way that can only be described as disgraceful. In professional literature, it was complained he had no standing because he was not an earth scientist. His publisher, Cambridge University Press, was attacked with cries that the editor should be fired, and that all right-thinking scientists should shun the press. The past president of the AAAS wondered aloud how Cambridge could have ever "published a book that so clearly could never have passed peer review." )But of course the manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, and all recommended publication.) But what are scientists doing attacking a press? Is this the new McCarthyism-coming from scientists? Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts. The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes." It was a poor display featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocust denier. The issue was captioned: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist." Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to? When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down. Further attacks since have made it clear what is going on. Lomborg is charged with heresy. That's why none of his critics needs to substantiate their attacks in any detail. That's why the facts don't matter. That's why they can attack him in the most vicious personal terms. He's a heretic. Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of mother church. Is this what science has become? I hope not. But it is what it will become, unless there is a concerted effort by leading scientists to aggressively separate science from policy. The late Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that "Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-science and the nation will suffer." Personally, I don't worry about the nation. But I do worry about science. Thank you very much.

Survey: What would you do (part 4)? It's back by public demand :) People emailed me saying they wanted more...so here it is :). Anyway rules still apply, one answer per question and use this template to answer, that way I can count results easier. Also please use letters instead of sentences to answer. Thanks 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) Section 4: Imagine you are a... 1. Imagine you are a famous footballer and are loved by many of your fans, one day a (crap) club wants to buy you for a record £100m and £300K a week, doing this might lose popularity, what would you do? a) Tell your manager you don't want to leave for the fans sake b) Immediately say yes, thinking more about the money instead of your fans c) Have a long think about it, why not flip a coin to decide if you're not sure? d) Don't play football again since this situation will never end 2. Imagine you are a manager and suddenly your star player calls you a crap manager with crap tactics, what would you do? a) Tell him your banned from the club forever b) Tell him how crap he is c) Fight him, who ever loses is crap d) Sell him to another club...no wait...give him away free due to his bad atitude 3. Imagine you are a referee and halfway through a match your watch stops working, what do you do? a) Just imagine a clock in your head and continue playing b) Stop play and say why you need to get a new watch, bearing in mind everyone will be jeering at you c) Ask a fan for a spare watch d) Quickly with your tools, fix the watch in front of everyone 4. Imagineyou are a die-hard football fan and your girlfriend/boyfriend tells you to stop supporting football or risk keeping him or her, what would you do? a) Tell him or her "sorry, football before love" and dump him or her b) Say OK but secretly support football behind his or her back c) Truthfully say you will never support football again to keep him or her d) Flip a coin to decide, heads = support football, tails = never support football again 5. Imagine you are a fan that loves to bet, one day you spend £10k on bets for your team, only in the last minute of the game, the other team score an equaliser and you lose all your money, you know your lover will be very angry, what would you do? a) Admit to what you done and risk being dumped/divorced b) Make up a stupid lie, such as "I was robbed" or "I accidentally wrote a cheque for £10k and lost it" c) KIll yourself since there is no way out d) Complain to the betting shop 24/7 that you want your money back Thanks for completing this survey, results will appear here tomorrow, please come back to check on it.