"the dog is sacred in Zoroastrianism." The cat was sacred in ancient Egyptian religion. The lamb is Christianity's unofficial animal. What about other religions—anybody have any nominations?

IIRC, there are a few hundred thousand Zoroastrians living in India, where they are known as "Parsees" (from "Persians"?).

. . . using one’s position of power or influence or authority to mislead the public into thinking that continued fossil fuel emissions is hunky-dory is probably the worst criminal action possible. What could be worse? (OK, leaving unshielded high-level nuclear waste in the middle of a city might be). It’s similar to the way the tobacco companies denied any connection of smoking with cancer: that was certainly criminal. It’s just that denying global warming is several orders of magnitude worse, because it threatens the survival of everyone on the planet, and a huge number of other species too. Posted by: Barbara | May 05, 2014 at 10:12 AM China has stated that it isn’t going to do anything about its CO2 emissions before 2020. When that year is reached, it’ll kick the can down the road again, most likely. Its plans out to 2040 will cause a doubling of its CO2 emissions. India’s plans for 2040 also will double its emissions. (And Russia has no plans to cut its emissions.) Indeed, China’s plans to reduce particulate emissions near its cities involve gasifying coal in Inner Mongolia and piping it in, which will substantially increase its CO2 emissions. See here: http://seattletimes.com/html/specialreportspages/2023517279_chinaenergyxml.html Will Greenies petition the UN to indict those countries for crimes against humanity? Nothing will come of that. The UN will just say, in effect, “Who’s ‘We’,’ white man?” Will Greenpeace sail a ship to a Chinese oil-drilling platform and occupy it? The outcome of that can be foreseen. Will Greenies Take a Stand and boycott their goods? It'll be hard to find substitutes, and it'll have no impact if they do, and the US collectively can't embargo China et al.--China has us by the short hairs. It’s a denial of reality to imagine that “doing something” will accomplish anything. If the West reduces its emissions, it will only reduce the amount of warming by 2100 by an insignificant amount. But it will badly harm its economies, as the arrows in the back of renewables-pioneer Spain indicate, and as the increasing economic pincushioning of Germany and the UK is foreshadowing. Anything the West can do that is affordable will be insignificant; anything it can do that is significant will be unaffordable. It is like building a levee against a flood while one’s next-door neighbors refuse to do so. Unilateral action is futile and self-destructive. Therefore, adaptation (and nuclear power) is our only option, and “deniers” are saviors of the West. They are also saviors of environmentalism, because the public in the West will revolt against Greenies if Green emissions and renewables policies cause great economic hardship, and especially if The Pause continues—or a cooling trend sets in.

doubter wrote: Concerning climate change, I guess this depends on where you live. I've lived near LA near the ocean for 51 years and have observed that here in Southern California there has been a pronounced warming trend with ever increasing drought conditions. You may be right about SoCal. I Googled for 20 or more minutes trying to find a chart of all of California’s historical temperature record, without success—although I seem to remember seeing one online in the past. But multi-decadal climate change like that and worse has existed in the US West all the way back, due to natural variation: “From Brigham Young University: Tree rings reveal nightmare droughts in the West If you think the 1930s drought that caused The Dust Bowl was rough, new research looking at tree rings in the Rocky Mountains has news for you: Things can get much worse in the West. In fact the worst drought of this century barely makes the top 10 of a study that extended Utah’s climate record back to the year 1429.” http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/02/worst-drought-of-this-century-barely-makes-the-top-10/ BTW, here’s a link to a somewhat contrarian WUWT thread on the drought situation in California, although it is mostly focused on water-supply issues: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/19/a-perspective-on-the-california-drought/ Of course there is no proof that all of this is due to the anthropogenic global warming effect of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but I find it highly likely that it is involved. The past record of major climate swings I cited above casts doubt on that being “highly likely,” as does this sentence from the NBC story you linked to: “Annual average temperatures across the state have risen by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895, with the greatest warming seen in portions of the Central Valley and Southern California.” Since the effect of CO2 didn’t kick in significantly until 1950, it’s odd that 1895 was chosen as the start date. I therefore suspect the rise since 1950 is only half of 1.5 degrees. If so, that’s hard to distinguish from natural variation.

I assume (actually I only hope) that these page numbers will be shown as well as, or instead of, location numbers in my Notes and Marks. Half their benefit would be lost if not.

"All latest generation Kindle and Kindle 3G customers will receive this software update automatically via Wi-Fi once it becomes available." I hope Amazon meant "via Whispernet," because I don't have a WiFi connection set up, or any plans to do so, not having access to one. Is this update something that requires a lot of data transfer, for instance to send all-new copies of the user's books? That would explain why WiFi or USB might be needed.