Now Cat,
You know I don't condone that kind of talk about the Manatee, seriously, I want this animal to survive, which it is doing quite well these days.
But here is the latest update on the Manatee issue. This is a quote from the Fl. Sportsman mag. this month. www.floridasportsman.com

"County Commissioners Take Stand in Manatee Plans"

"St. Lucie and Martin county commissioners say that instead of restricting waterway access, launch ramp and other Intracoastal Waterway development as a means to provide manatees with more protection, it would be a better idea to enforce speed zones already in effect. Martin County commissioners are in favor of funding four deputies to patrol local waterways. St. Lucie County officials say increased enforcement will probably be handled by the county sheriff's office."
Let the debate continue,
MD :D

[ 01-18-2002: Message edited by: Dean Ferry ]

Cat and SC- so all that stuff happened in 6 years-yeah, right! Damn, they are hard working down there in TX aren't they?? As for the new data vs. old data-I will try to put this in a way you can understand using one of the libs favorite scapegoats.\

In the early 1900's people thought cigarette smoking actually promoted good health. In the middle part of the century science got better and we realized that it might not be beneficial and might be harmful. In the late 1900's science got even better and told us that cigarettes were bad for us and we shold eradicate them from the planet-oops sorry, can't do that we need the tax money for roads and free health care for children-well, you get the picture.
Note that the cigarettes never changed, the science got better and we got better data. Now we find that the environment might not be changing and the science is finding better ways to measure and in turn refute the old "theories" of the past. Plus the data set is getting larger as time passes so a better statistical model can be formed.

So before we go signing treaties that would cost American consumers billions of dollars based on old data, maybe we need to study some real numbers and crunch them to see what is really happening. And before you say "What if it is true and the temp is going up?", in 10 years of study the temp will only increase .1 degrees F if we use the most pessimistic model-I think we can handle that.