It always stuns me when conservatives and, in particular, the gun community, make truly thoughtless statements. One such statement popped in comments a while back which can be essentially summed up as this: if someone is too mentally ill to handle a gun, they are too mentally ill to be out in society.
Setting aside the complete lack of intelligence in terms of mental health issues, how people are institutionalized and...well...that the world is shades of gray (not so black and white), statements like this show just how religious these folks are about guns. It's not about the 2nd amendment anymore. It's about proselytizing. Worse, it really illustrates just how ignorant these folks are regarding human nature and how they completely misunderstand, either by free choice or pure ignorance, the fact that low levels of responsibility are the norm, not the exception, in this country. It's this simple fact that will eventually bite them hard in the ass.
These thoughts really crystallized for me a couple of days ago when two separate events occurred. The first one was a story my wife told me about a fellow parent at my son's school. She was having a conversation with another mom that turned to video games. My wife was pretty shocked to learn that this mom let her son play whatever games he wanted (like Call of Duty) even though he has had mental health problems. Compounding this waiting disaster was the mom's admission that she and her husband were going to get their conceal and carry permits and how they were going to start taking their 11 year old son (the one with the mental health problems and love of Call of Duty) to the range on a regular basis to "turn him into a man." It's nice to know the next Adam Lanza will be just a few short blocks away.
Later that day, I went and played tennis with a younger guy who was clearly on the autism spectrum. He was very picky and jumpy throughout the match, admonishing me for not handing him the balls in the right way on the changeover. A couple of times he just wigged out because he thought he saw a ball flying onto the court from another court and in reality, there was nothing. He apologized after the match, noting his mental health issues, and asked me to give him a break. We never talked about guns but it occurred to me that, while this guy was just fine to be out in public, he would decidedly not be fine given a firearm.
There are many people in this country that are not dangerous in and of themselves. But you start adding in elements to the mix of a perfect cocktail and you can very easily have an explosion of violence. It's not as black and white as the commenter assured me (shocking). Everyone is different and each mental issue is complex with each individual. To say that they should all be institutionalized simply because they can't be trusted with a gun is completely myopic.
And I am real tired of the annual culling that goes on from gun violence as a result of this ignorance.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Huh?
Linguists have found the first universal word, a word that is in every language spoken on earth.
Huh?
Yes, it's the word "huh?" The authors of the study published in PLOS One call it an "other-initiated repair," an element of language
But still, the pronunciation of huh? is amazingly consistent: a single syllable, nasal, low front to middle vowel, never ending in a consonant. The intonation is rising in all languages except those having a falling interrogative prosody (to keep it consistent with other question sentences).
Some people might argue that huh? isn't even a word. I might have agreed until a few years ago, when my sister suffered a hemorrhagic stroke and lost her ability to speak. She can now form words only with extreme difficulty, and after many successive repetitions, when the signals finally get from her brain to her throat, tongue and lips. And still it sounds like a rusted gate opening, clumsy and nothing like her original voice. She knows exactly what she's trying to say, but her injured brain simply cannot force the sounds out. Even with words as simple as yes and no.
But when she says huh? she sounds exactly like her old self, no hesitation or mispronunciation. That implies that huh? is part of a lower-level universal vocabulary.
This makes me wonder if there are other utterances that are part of this ur-vocabulary. After trying unsuccessfully to form a sentence, my sister sighs with frustration, just like anyone else might. Is the sigh of frustration universal? Laughter seems to be universal, though individual laugh "accents" differ greatly. How widely understood are "uh-uh" or "mm-mm" for no, and "uh-huh" or "mm-hmm" for yes?
In any case, this means that when someone blurts at you in a foreign language, responding with "huh?" will get the message across loud and clear.
Huh?
Yes, it's the word "huh?" The authors of the study published in PLOS One call it an "other-initiated repair," an element of language
in which one participant produces a turn at talk, the other then signals some trouble with this turn, and finally the first produces a next turn which aims to solve the trouble, usually by means of repetition and/or modification. In some languages the interjection, or an item similar to it, was also found in other sequential environments, for instance to mark surprise or to pursue a response.The exact pronunciation of huh? varies somewhat from one language to another, much like the word "dog" might be pronounced "dawg" or "dowg" or "dahg" or "doug" or "doh-oog" in different parts of the world.
But still, the pronunciation of huh? is amazingly consistent: a single syllable, nasal, low front to middle vowel, never ending in a consonant. The intonation is rising in all languages except those having a falling interrogative prosody (to keep it consistent with other question sentences).
Some people might argue that huh? isn't even a word. I might have agreed until a few years ago, when my sister suffered a hemorrhagic stroke and lost her ability to speak. She can now form words only with extreme difficulty, and after many successive repetitions, when the signals finally get from her brain to her throat, tongue and lips. And still it sounds like a rusted gate opening, clumsy and nothing like her original voice. She knows exactly what she's trying to say, but her injured brain simply cannot force the sounds out. Even with words as simple as yes and no.
But when she says huh? she sounds exactly like her old self, no hesitation or mispronunciation. That implies that huh? is part of a lower-level universal vocabulary.
This makes me wonder if there are other utterances that are part of this ur-vocabulary. After trying unsuccessfully to form a sentence, my sister sighs with frustration, just like anyone else might. Is the sigh of frustration universal? Laughter seems to be universal, though individual laugh "accents" differ greatly. How widely understood are "uh-uh" or "mm-mm" for no, and "uh-huh" or "mm-hmm" for yes?
In any case, this means that when someone blurts at you in a foreign language, responding with "huh?" will get the message across loud and clear.
Simply Wrong
For the most part, I think it's best to not use comparisons to slavery in this day and age. But if you are Sarah Palin and want to get attention, then I guess it's OK!
Ignoring the obvious offensiveness of the statement, it's simply wrong as I have demonstrated just recently. Our debt is not entirely owned by the Chinese. For the most part, it's money we owe ourselves and it isn't that big of a problem.
Conservatives like to talk about how it's all "simple math" yet they completely ignore our assets as a country (hundreds of trillions of dollars), our economy ($17 trillion and growing), and our very steady revenue stream (just south of $6 trillion a year). Their irrational screeds about spending sound more and more like sermons and proselytizing and less like actual facts. Of course, Sarah Palin can best be summed up like this...
Ignoring the obvious offensiveness of the statement, it's simply wrong as I have demonstrated just recently. Our debt is not entirely owned by the Chinese. For the most part, it's money we owe ourselves and it isn't that big of a problem.
Conservatives like to talk about how it's all "simple math" yet they completely ignore our assets as a country (hundreds of trillions of dollars), our economy ($17 trillion and growing), and our very steady revenue stream (just south of $6 trillion a year). Their irrational screeds about spending sound more and more like sermons and proselytizing and less like actual facts. Of course, Sarah Palin can best be summed up like this...
When You Hear Their Answers...
As I have said many times, the biggest impediment to progress in this country is the conservative movement as it stands today (see: apocalyptic cult). While we are seeing signs of them moving away from psychosis, they seem unable to grasp that our country has one direction: forward. Yet, it is not simply the conservative that are holding us back. Another big impediment are the liberals themselves.
Liberals are, by their very nature, diplomatic and reflective. So when conservatives say things like climate change is a hoax perpetuated by people want to control us or that having universal background checks means a national registry, we pause and wonder if what they are saying might be true. That's where the first mistake is made. We take their assertions at face value. The second mistake is then the movement toward the playing field that they want to play on (i.e. where they can "win"). By even considering that climate change legislation is going to lead to internment camps or that a national registry is really, really bad, we feed into their paranoia and, sadly, embolden their argument.
So, the lesson is quite simple. Refuse to allow them to set the table. Ignore the impulse to be diplomatic and fair minded when they say something ridiculous. Instead, ask questions. Why is a national registry bad? What happens after that? Who are those people whose backgrounds are not checked now? What should we do with them instead? What should we do about climate change?
When you hear their answers, it will become obvious very quickly that these people should not be in charge of anything.
Liberals are, by their very nature, diplomatic and reflective. So when conservatives say things like climate change is a hoax perpetuated by people want to control us or that having universal background checks means a national registry, we pause and wonder if what they are saying might be true. That's where the first mistake is made. We take their assertions at face value. The second mistake is then the movement toward the playing field that they want to play on (i.e. where they can "win"). By even considering that climate change legislation is going to lead to internment camps or that a national registry is really, really bad, we feed into their paranoia and, sadly, embolden their argument.
So, the lesson is quite simple. Refuse to allow them to set the table. Ignore the impulse to be diplomatic and fair minded when they say something ridiculous. Instead, ask questions. Why is a national registry bad? What happens after that? Who are those people whose backgrounds are not checked now? What should we do with them instead? What should we do about climate change?
When you hear their answers, it will become obvious very quickly that these people should not be in charge of anything.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Veteran's Day Thoughts
When most Americans think of veterans, they imagine an older man in a baseball cap with United States flag on it. Certainly, there are plenty of veterans out there who fit that description. If you see one today, walk up to them, touch them on the shoulder and thank them for their service.
Yet there are plenty of young veterans as we can see in the photo below from USATODAY.
These are the faces of an entire new generation of veterans that very much need to be recognized for their service in the last decade. Two, three, four and even five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan have weighed heavily on the minds of young veterans and turned the spotlight onto the issue of mental health and PTSC (post traumatic stress disorder). Two people very close to me have struggled with mental illness after their service in Afghanistan. One was a marine who served three tours in that country and has struggled enormously with the guilt of surviving where so many of his brothers...close friends in his unity...have died.
They need our support and it can be something as little as just spending time with them and checking in regularly to make sure they are OK. Monetary donations are always nice but your time is much more valuable. Show them how grateful we all are!
Yet there are plenty of young veterans as we can see in the photo below from USATODAY.
These are the faces of an entire new generation of veterans that very much need to be recognized for their service in the last decade. Two, three, four and even five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan have weighed heavily on the minds of young veterans and turned the spotlight onto the issue of mental health and PTSC (post traumatic stress disorder). Two people very close to me have struggled with mental illness after their service in Afghanistan. One was a marine who served three tours in that country and has struggled enormously with the guilt of surviving where so many of his brothers...close friends in his unity...have died.
They need our support and it can be something as little as just spending time with them and checking in regularly to make sure they are OK. Monetary donations are always nice but your time is much more valuable. Show them how grateful we all are!
Sunday, November 10, 2013
True Geography
As someone who occasionally teaches geography, it's important to remember this lesson.
World News Roundup
Turing to world news, the biggest story of the last few day is the massive destruction in the Philippines caused by what may very well be the biggest storm the world has ever seen. The images we have been seeing for the past couple of days have been positively heartbreaking. According to the BBC, Up to 10,000 are said to have died in Tacloban city and hundreds elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands are displaced.
The typhoon flattened homes, schools and an airport in Tacloban. Relief workers are yet to reach some towns and villages cut off since the storm. In many areas there is no clean water, no electricity and very little food. There were repors of nearly 300mph winds felt across the islands in the area. One has to wonder if this was simply a fluke event or something that will be more commonplace due to our changing climate. We won't know for certain as this is simply an isolated weather event but if we see more events like this, then it will be the trend climate scientists have been predicting.
---
Heartbreaking but in an entirely different way is the situation in the Central African Republic. The Seleka coalition of armed rebels ousted President Francois Bozize earlier this year. Since then the rebels have committed human rights violations on an "unprecedented scale," according to Reuters and Amnesty. The image in the link shows houses that have been burned in just one town.
Usually stories of violence in African nations are so common that people simply blow them off as just how things are there. They don't have to be, of course, and many of the solutions to the problems African nations face are rooted in structural flaws left behind by the exodus of European nations post imperialism. Direct aid helps but not as much as the nations of the Global North going into these countries and helping them create sustainable economies.
---
The United States and Iran have failed to reach a deal on Iran's nuclear program. Shocking, I know. What began as more hope then we have seen in years, ended abruptly when faced with hardliners political capital on all sides of the talks. In some ways, I agree with the hardliners like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran has to do much more than elect a new president who says nice things. Granted, President Rouhani has to deal with his own hardliners but with protests in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities that are deeply anti-American, his government is going to have to take significant action if they want movement on an end to the sanctions that are crippling his country.
---
Finally, it seems there is one country in the world that would like to give up their guns: Yemen. It seems that the citizens of Yemen would happily hand in their guns if their government provided better security.
Like most Yemeni men, Mahmoud Shahra owns a gun and has known how to use it since childhood, although the 25-year-old activist used to leave his weapons at home. But since the politically motivated kidnapping of one of his close friends earlier this year, Shahra has carried a gun at nearly all times. He seems at ease with his AK-47, but his demeanor hides internal disquiet. “Even if I feel safer and more confident, I feel like I’m betraying my values when I carry a gun,” he says. “Still, the current security environment has forced me to do so.”
Values? Hmm...
The typhoon flattened homes, schools and an airport in Tacloban. Relief workers are yet to reach some towns and villages cut off since the storm. In many areas there is no clean water, no electricity and very little food. There were repors of nearly 300mph winds felt across the islands in the area. One has to wonder if this was simply a fluke event or something that will be more commonplace due to our changing climate. We won't know for certain as this is simply an isolated weather event but if we see more events like this, then it will be the trend climate scientists have been predicting.
---
Heartbreaking but in an entirely different way is the situation in the Central African Republic. The Seleka coalition of armed rebels ousted President Francois Bozize earlier this year. Since then the rebels have committed human rights violations on an "unprecedented scale," according to Reuters and Amnesty. The image in the link shows houses that have been burned in just one town.
Usually stories of violence in African nations are so common that people simply blow them off as just how things are there. They don't have to be, of course, and many of the solutions to the problems African nations face are rooted in structural flaws left behind by the exodus of European nations post imperialism. Direct aid helps but not as much as the nations of the Global North going into these countries and helping them create sustainable economies.
---
The United States and Iran have failed to reach a deal on Iran's nuclear program. Shocking, I know. What began as more hope then we have seen in years, ended abruptly when faced with hardliners political capital on all sides of the talks. In some ways, I agree with the hardliners like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran has to do much more than elect a new president who says nice things. Granted, President Rouhani has to deal with his own hardliners but with protests in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities that are deeply anti-American, his government is going to have to take significant action if they want movement on an end to the sanctions that are crippling his country.
---
Finally, it seems there is one country in the world that would like to give up their guns: Yemen. It seems that the citizens of Yemen would happily hand in their guns if their government provided better security.
Like most Yemeni men, Mahmoud Shahra owns a gun and has known how to use it since childhood, although the 25-year-old activist used to leave his weapons at home. But since the politically motivated kidnapping of one of his close friends earlier this year, Shahra has carried a gun at nearly all times. He seems at ease with his AK-47, but his demeanor hides internal disquiet. “Even if I feel safer and more confident, I feel like I’m betraying my values when I carry a gun,” he says. “Still, the current security environment has forced me to do so.”
Values? Hmm...
What Happens When We Die?
An answer to to this question would change the course of human history. For the believers of many religions, the soul moves on to the next life. For non-believers, death is the end and there is nothing else. Issue #307 of Fortean Times (one of my two favorite magazines, the other being the Christian Science Monitor) has a piece on page 16 that discusses exactly what happens after we die. The part that jumped out at me was this.
If all brain activity has ceased, where and how are the memories recalled by surviving cardiac patients being laid down? This was the point aptly raised by Dr Shushant Meshram, a neurophysiologist and sleep researcher from India who was speaking at the conference on precognition in dreams. His own suggested hypothesis is that our brains contain a non-physical component, which is involved with both NDE and other psi experiences. Certainly, there is much scope for further research here.
A non-physical component found through research? Think of it...scientific evidence of the soul. Consider for a moment the rapid and exponential rate at which technology is exploding into the world. Given that new understandings are coming more quickly these days, I think we are indeed going to get a more scientific explanation for the human soul.
And our lives are going to change forever.
If all brain activity has ceased, where and how are the memories recalled by surviving cardiac patients being laid down? This was the point aptly raised by Dr Shushant Meshram, a neurophysiologist and sleep researcher from India who was speaking at the conference on precognition in dreams. His own suggested hypothesis is that our brains contain a non-physical component, which is involved with both NDE and other psi experiences. Certainly, there is much scope for further research here.
A non-physical component found through research? Think of it...scientific evidence of the soul. Consider for a moment the rapid and exponential rate at which technology is exploding into the world. Given that new understandings are coming more quickly these days, I think we are indeed going to get a more scientific explanation for the human soul.
And our lives are going to change forever.
Saturday, November 09, 2013
Questions
Amia Srinivasan has many questions for free market moralists that deserve answers. Indeed, her entire piece deserves careful study as at eloquently illustrates the dichotomy of welfare liberalism and laisse-faire liberalism. Here are the four questions.
1. Is any exchange between two people in the absence of direct physical compulsion by one party against the other (or the threat thereof) necessarily free?
2. Is any free (not physically compelled) exchange morally permissible?
3. Do people deserve all they are able, and only what they are able, to get through free exchange?
4. Are people under no obligation to do anything they don’t freely want to do or freely commit themselves to doing?
Her answer show free market fundamentalism for the sham that it is. Like those on the left who preach of socialist utopias, libertarian utopias have just as
1. Is any exchange between two people in the absence of direct physical compulsion by one party against the other (or the threat thereof) necessarily free?
2. Is any free (not physically compelled) exchange morally permissible?
3. Do people deserve all they are able, and only what they are able, to get through free exchange?
4. Are people under no obligation to do anything they don’t freely want to do or freely commit themselves to doing?
Her answer show free market fundamentalism for the sham that it is. Like those on the left who preach of socialist utopias, libertarian utopias have just as
Good Words
There’s a certain type of political journalism that so exists in the moment that numerous such moments have been declared to be disasters for Obama, going back to Jeremiah Wright. This kind of hyperventilating approach always turns out to be wrong and overheated. It turned out that all those things were pretty bad, but it also turned out that Obama survived them. And he’ll survive this, too. Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast.
The whole piece is fantastic and exactly why I continue to laugh at the hyperventilating:)
The whole piece is fantastic and exactly why I continue to laugh at the hyperventilating:)
Ask and Ye Shall Receive
A few days ago I wrote about democracy and the Catholic Church. Lo and behold, my prayers were answered: they're going to poll their congregations about social issues. They're not exactly taking a vote, but it shows the Vatican might be paying attention to reality:
The usual argument against gay marriage is that it goes against "natural law." What most people don't know is that the Catholic catechism teaches that divorce is wrong because it goes against "the natural law":
The natural law argument against gay marriage can somewhat reasonably be made because of reproductive biology (but see below). You can also argue that polygamy is not natural because males and females are born in equal numbers. Allowing one man to have many wives would inevitably cause inbreeding when his closely related descendants unwittingly married. There are serious issues of child support involved with polygamy. And what do poor men do when rich men hog all the women?
Although lifelong commitment to a single mate may be a Christian ideal, it is not the natural order of things: nothing about humans is permanent or universal. Lifelong monogamy is certainly not the case in the Bible: the Old Testament is riddled with men who had dozens and even hundreds of wives and concubines, and stories of men who steal other men's wives. It's certainly not the case in nature, in which many species are polygynous, polyandrous or promiscuous. Lifelong monogamy is merely a social practice in certain human cultures. It is common, but by no means universal. It can't be classified it as "natural" in the same sense that heterosexuality is natural, because it is required at some level for reproduction. (A weak case for lifelong monogamy can be made under natural law on the grounds that it reduces the chances of inbreeding.)
And then there's the question of "natural life expectancy." Is it reasonable to expect people to stay married for 50 or 60 years, considering that is double or triple the life expectancy when these dogmas were cast in stone? Life expectancy has ranged from 20 in the Neolithic to almost 80 in some countries today, though historically if you survived to marry your life expectancy would be 45 or 50. Unless, of course, you were a woman, in which case death in childbirth was appallingly common.
The real problem with the natural law argument is that it cuts both ways: it could eventually be used to justify gay marriage. There's a great deal of evidence that links biology to sexual orientation, the "born that way" hypothesis. If your brain structure makes you gay, and promiscuity is bad, isn't gay marriage inevitable under natural law?
That future Vatican III Council composed of a majority of gay bishops could well take everything we know about nature into account when they make their decisions, rather than limit their understanding of nature and science to beliefs held by theologians born millennia before the invention of the internal combustion engine.
[...] Pope Francis, who has already shaken up the Vatican, is asking the world’s one billion Catholics for their opinions on a questionnaire covering social issues like same-sex marriage, cohabitation by unwed couples, contraception, and the place of divorced and remarried people in the church.That last part is interesting. Under canon law, you cannot receive communion if you remarry without receiving a Decree of Nullity. But, like birth control, millions of remarried Catholics regularly ignore Church dogma and receive communion.
The usual argument against gay marriage is that it goes against "natural law." What most people don't know is that the Catholic catechism teaches that divorce is wrong because it goes against "the natural law":
2384 Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery:
This entire argument boils down to "no backsies." If two people freely consenting to enter a contract is acceptable under natural law, why isn't freely consenting to cancel that same contract acceptable under natural law? Clearly, most Protestant churches think it's fine, and clearly, so does the Catholic Church because they have an entirely unnatural process to dance around it: they just want the Church to call all the shots when they issue a Decree of Nullity.If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another's husband to herself.
The natural law argument against gay marriage can somewhat reasonably be made because of reproductive biology (but see below). You can also argue that polygamy is not natural because males and females are born in equal numbers. Allowing one man to have many wives would inevitably cause inbreeding when his closely related descendants unwittingly married. There are serious issues of child support involved with polygamy. And what do poor men do when rich men hog all the women?
Although lifelong commitment to a single mate may be a Christian ideal, it is not the natural order of things: nothing about humans is permanent or universal. Lifelong monogamy is certainly not the case in the Bible: the Old Testament is riddled with men who had dozens and even hundreds of wives and concubines, and stories of men who steal other men's wives. It's certainly not the case in nature, in which many species are polygynous, polyandrous or promiscuous. Lifelong monogamy is merely a social practice in certain human cultures. It is common, but by no means universal. It can't be classified it as "natural" in the same sense that heterosexuality is natural, because it is required at some level for reproduction. (A weak case for lifelong monogamy can be made under natural law on the grounds that it reduces the chances of inbreeding.)
And then there's the question of "natural life expectancy." Is it reasonable to expect people to stay married for 50 or 60 years, considering that is double or triple the life expectancy when these dogmas were cast in stone? Life expectancy has ranged from 20 in the Neolithic to almost 80 in some countries today, though historically if you survived to marry your life expectancy would be 45 or 50. Unless, of course, you were a woman, in which case death in childbirth was appallingly common.
The real problem with the natural law argument is that it cuts both ways: it could eventually be used to justify gay marriage. There's a great deal of evidence that links biology to sexual orientation, the "born that way" hypothesis. If your brain structure makes you gay, and promiscuity is bad, isn't gay marriage inevitable under natural law?
That future Vatican III Council composed of a majority of gay bishops could well take everything we know about nature into account when they make their decisions, rather than limit their understanding of nature and science to beliefs held by theologians born millennia before the invention of the internal combustion engine.
WTF?
Running a blog is weird sometimes. This week a post from 2011 is getting beaucoup traffic. I wonder why? The photo? It was nice to revisit it, though:)
Getting Better
The National Center For Education Statistics released its 2013 report card and much to the dismay of right wing bloggers everywhere, it shows improved reading and math scores for both 4th and 8th graders. Granted, the improvement is small and there still is an obvious achievement gap issue (which, in the bubble, means "Who gives a fuck? They are all lazy") but it clearly shows that we are geed in the right direction.
For those of you who have trouble with the English language, that means not collapsing:)
For those of you who have trouble with the English language, that means not collapsing:)
Energy News A Go Go
There is quite a bit to talk about in energy news so let's get to it!
First up is a call for nuclear power that I have been waiting for a long time. Check out the source!
Four scientists who have played a key role in alerting the public to the dangers of climate change sent letters Sunday to leading environmental groups and politicians around the world. The letter, an advance copy of which was given to The Associated Press, urges a crucial discussion on the role of nuclear power in fighting climate change.
Environmentalists have the same problem with emotions and instransigence as the Right does in terms of their views on...well...just about everything:) Nuclear power is clean and much safer than the worry warts will have you believe. The letter signers are James Hansen, a former top NASA scientist; Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution; Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Tom Wigley, of the University of Adelaide in Australia.
Speaking of climate change, a report on the effect of climate change on world food supplies has been leaked and the news is not good.
The warning on the food supply is the sharpest in tone the panel has issued. Its previous report, in 2007, was more hopeful. While it did warn of risks and potential losses in output, particularly in the tropics, that report found that gains in production at higher latitudes would most likely offset the losses and ensure an adequate global supply.
The new tone reflects a large body of research in recent years that has shown how sensitive crops appear to be to heat waves. The recent work also challenges previous assumptions about how much food production could increase in coming decades because of higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The gas, though it is the main reason for global warming, also acts as a kind of fertilizer for plants.
For a closer look at this problem and all the data, click here.
Will this be enough to convince people? I think when you start messing around with the food that Americans eat, they tend to react!
Finally, for the "Drill, Baby, Drill" crowd, it looks like we have a way around the northern section of Keystone.
Since July, plans have been announced for three large loading terminals in western Canada with the combined capacity of 350,000 barrels a day — equivalent to roughly 40 percent of the capacity of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that is designed to bring oil from western Alberta to refineries along the Gulf Coast. Over all, Canada is poised to quadruple its rail-loading capacity over the next few years to as much as 900,000 barrels a day, up from 180,000 today.
Rail..uh oh! Republicans hate choo choos! Speaking of oil, why is the price of it so low right now? Because the dollar is stronger. How can that be? I thought we were heading for apocalypse! Also...
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said it expects demand for its crude oil to fall to 29.2 million barrels a day in 2018 from 30.3 million barrels a year this year. OPEC said rising supplies from other sources, such as Canadian oil sands, crude from Latin America and the increased use of biofuels would contribute to the fall in demand for its own output.
Demand has fallen? Wait...I thought demand had nothing to do with price. And increased biofuels? What pinko nonsense!!
First up is a call for nuclear power that I have been waiting for a long time. Check out the source!
Four scientists who have played a key role in alerting the public to the dangers of climate change sent letters Sunday to leading environmental groups and politicians around the world. The letter, an advance copy of which was given to The Associated Press, urges a crucial discussion on the role of nuclear power in fighting climate change.
Environmentalists have the same problem with emotions and instransigence as the Right does in terms of their views on...well...just about everything:) Nuclear power is clean and much safer than the worry warts will have you believe. The letter signers are James Hansen, a former top NASA scientist; Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution; Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Tom Wigley, of the University of Adelaide in Australia.
Speaking of climate change, a report on the effect of climate change on world food supplies has been leaked and the news is not good.
The warning on the food supply is the sharpest in tone the panel has issued. Its previous report, in 2007, was more hopeful. While it did warn of risks and potential losses in output, particularly in the tropics, that report found that gains in production at higher latitudes would most likely offset the losses and ensure an adequate global supply.
The new tone reflects a large body of research in recent years that has shown how sensitive crops appear to be to heat waves. The recent work also challenges previous assumptions about how much food production could increase in coming decades because of higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The gas, though it is the main reason for global warming, also acts as a kind of fertilizer for plants.
For a closer look at this problem and all the data, click here.
Will this be enough to convince people? I think when you start messing around with the food that Americans eat, they tend to react!
Finally, for the "Drill, Baby, Drill" crowd, it looks like we have a way around the northern section of Keystone.
Since July, plans have been announced for three large loading terminals in western Canada with the combined capacity of 350,000 barrels a day — equivalent to roughly 40 percent of the capacity of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that is designed to bring oil from western Alberta to refineries along the Gulf Coast. Over all, Canada is poised to quadruple its rail-loading capacity over the next few years to as much as 900,000 barrels a day, up from 180,000 today.
Rail..uh oh! Republicans hate choo choos! Speaking of oil, why is the price of it so low right now? Because the dollar is stronger. How can that be? I thought we were heading for apocalypse! Also...
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said it expects demand for its crude oil to fall to 29.2 million barrels a day in 2018 from 30.3 million barrels a year this year. OPEC said rising supplies from other sources, such as Canadian oil sands, crude from Latin America and the increased use of biofuels would contribute to the fall in demand for its own output.
Demand has fallen? Wait...I thought demand had nothing to do with price. And increased biofuels? What pinko nonsense!!
Friday, November 08, 2013
Good (?) Words
I put up a link to the Guns and Ammo story on my FB page and got some very interesting responses. One of my friends posted the following comment.
I own a gun as well, and I can discuss the merits of a shotgun versus a handgun for home defense all day because It is a subject that interests me. I also play my share of FPS video games, and consider Splinter Cell to be the greatest video game series to date. However, I consider myself a gun owner and that's about it.
People like the ones I was referring to are zealots who refuse to even consider ways we can modify our pervasive gun culture and put a dent in the annual culling of over 11,000 of our fellow citizens. It is a mentality that makes no sense to me at all, from a logic standpoint. Their behavior these days looks less and less like people working to protect a Constitutionally guaranteed freedom and more like religious fervor and proselytizing.
Culling...religious fervor...proselytizing...check, check, and check.
When I told him of my prediction (a shooting at a gun show or some other place frequented by the gun community), he didn't agree and was surprisingly cynical.
They'll do what every one else does whenever a horrible crime makes the news: they'll ignore how their culture has contributed to the crime, then write it off as the 'actions of a sick individual', and go on about their lives, blinders intact. Some will even defend and apologize for, the individual in question. If so-called "responsible" adults can do this with crimes like rape, they can do it with spree shootings.
Sadly, he might be right.
I own a gun as well, and I can discuss the merits of a shotgun versus a handgun for home defense all day because It is a subject that interests me. I also play my share of FPS video games, and consider Splinter Cell to be the greatest video game series to date. However, I consider myself a gun owner and that's about it.
People like the ones I was referring to are zealots who refuse to even consider ways we can modify our pervasive gun culture and put a dent in the annual culling of over 11,000 of our fellow citizens. It is a mentality that makes no sense to me at all, from a logic standpoint. Their behavior these days looks less and less like people working to protect a Constitutionally guaranteed freedom and more like religious fervor and proselytizing.
Culling...religious fervor...proselytizing...check, check, and check.
When I told him of my prediction (a shooting at a gun show or some other place frequented by the gun community), he didn't agree and was surprisingly cynical.
They'll do what every one else does whenever a horrible crime makes the news: they'll ignore how their culture has contributed to the crime, then write it off as the 'actions of a sick individual', and go on about their lives, blinders intact. Some will even defend and apologize for, the individual in question. If so-called "responsible" adults can do this with crimes like rape, they can do it with spree shootings.
Sadly, he might be right.
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