| Classic. |
[Nov. 24th, 2009|10:00 pm] |
Via Buzzfeed: The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody
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| Observing nature at it's finest. |
[Nov. 24th, 2009|09:35 pm] |
Iowahawk Geographic: The Secret Life of Climate Researchers Within minutes of arriving on campus, the migratory researchers approach the entrance of the Climate Research Unit and perform the secret credential dance, fiercely displaying their prominent curriculum vitae. This signals to the security drone that they can be trusted with the sacred electronic lanyard badge that will grant them entrance to the hive's inner sanctum.
During the upcoming research season, this hive alone will produce over 6 million metric tons of grant-sustaining climate data guano, but until recently little was known about the elusive genus of homo scientifica living inside. Where do they come from? What strange force draws them here year after year? It's definitely important research that must be carried out before these illusive and mysterious members of homo scientifica die out. |
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| Ouch. |
[Nov. 24th, 2009|08:09 am] |
Quagmire telling off Brian in "Family Guy." Worth a watch even if you don't know any of the characters.
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| Remember that episode of Star Trek when Good Kirk and Evil Kirk appeared on the transporter? |
[Nov. 23rd, 2009|08:17 am] |
Obama inspires; Palin connectsThey do not as speakers, it is obvious, share the same idiom. Mr. Obama is utterly composed, deliberate down to gesture and word, very conscious that he is a “figure” on a stage. Mr. Obama “bestows” himself on an audience. Ms. Palin has none of that. She will never speak in front of faux Greek columns. She walks on the stage much the same way she'd go into a gas station. But she's shrewd in her choice of themes, has a marvellous feel for her audience, and a confidence that will never be confused with arrogance.
They are, in the way fate or the mysteries of politics sometimes offers such things, curiously equivalent or parallel figures, polar opposites but equals. Ms. Palin connects: Mr. Obama inspires. She's a latter-day frontier figure, impulsive, instinctive; he's pure urban cool, highly deliberate, even detached. Both have real charisma. It's worth reading the whole thing.
They also have very striking similarities: President Obama was propelled to office based not on his experience (a scant 2 years in the Senate, most of the time where he was absent during voting, combined with a few years in state office), but based on his rhetorical presence. And he was installed by his handlers in 2004 to use his rhetorical presence to help the DNC--only to run away with the DNC four years later. Ms. Palin is on a similar trajectory--with little experience but a very strong rhetorical connection she is positioning herself to be, if not King, then at least the King maker of the GOP: running away with the GOP and remaking it in her image just as the inexperienced Senator remade the DNC.
The next paragraph, noting that Ms. Palin's bond with her supporters is stronger and more forceful than President Obama's bond with his supporters, is true (IMHO) and extremely telling, as is the fact that AP has sent 11 reporters to "fact check" Going Rogue. Ms. Palin is, in point of fact, the perfect opposition figure for President Obama: she is everything he is not, she is a galvanizing force, and by attracting the attention (albeit negative scorn) of the major media press, she is at the eye of the hurricane.
And she is also influencing policy: she was the person who coined the term "death panels," for example. And she did so unconventionally: the term was first used in one of her blog postings on Facebook.
We live in interesting times. |
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| Bön and Buddhism |
[Nov. 22nd, 2009|01:37 pm] |
BönBön ... is the oldest spiritual tradition of Tibet. Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, has recently recognized the Bön tradition as the fifth principal spiritual school of Tibet, ... Must travel to Tibet and to Nepal someday... |
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| Why Government takeover of Health Care is such a bad idea. |
[Nov. 22nd, 2009|10:06 am] |
By having the government take a seat at the same table as you and your doctor, the Government no longer seems impartial:
New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines Spark Confusion, Criticism
Here's the problem. I suspect the United States Preventive Services Task Force, who establishes these guidelines, have a legitimate reason for suggesting that women between 40 and 50 not get screened for breast cancer. I suspect the problem is that early deaths caused by unnecessary treatments of false positives outweigh the early deaths caused by women between 40 and 50 whose cancer would be detected at this early stage. And prevention is always a numbers game: will we save more lives by performing a procedure or a screening or will the screening lead to treatments that cause more deaths?
Ideally, of course, women would go in for screening between their 40's and 50's, but understand that a positive is extremely likely to be a false positive--and act as if the results are a false positive until proven otherwise. However, that's not going to be the case.
So I suspect the government's changing recommendation has absolutely nothing to do with the government take over of health care, nor is it an early sign of the so-called "Death Panels" at work.
But it doesn't look like that, does it?
The problem here is that now that the government is taking over health care, this looks like a prelude to the lower quality of service many worry will result from "government savings."
And there's the problem: the government, by taking a seat at the table, is no longer an impartial observer or an impartial adviser of policy--but now has a vested interest in saving money. The fear is that Big Brother will turn the country into an HMO, using the force of law to enforce the food pyramid guidelines and exercise guidelines, and allowing the more expensive of us to die. Even if the government never does this but always acts in our best interests, we can no longer trust the government to be impartial. |
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| The absurdity of the Global Warming scare-mongering. |
[Nov. 22nd, 2009|09:47 am] |
Climate change pushes poor women to prostitution, dangerous work
The first thing that triggered my "WTF" flag over global warming years ago was the intrinsic tying in of global warming and extremely dubious economic statements--such as the presumption that all economic activity causes the same environmental footprint, or assigning environmental (resource management) explanations to the downside of local economic activities, such as prostitution using traditional Marxist-style materialist logic.
Fundamentally the economic side of Global Warming is Marxist Materialism: the assumption that economic wealth all traces back to planetary resources--and work only pulls those resources out of the planet without adding value.
And, IMHO, Marxist Materialism is a complete crock of crap--which makes the claims of direct linkage between Global Warming and economic activity also a complete crock of crap. |
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| A bunker mentality. |
[Nov. 21st, 2009|10:23 am] |
Global Warming Bombshell The biggest news story of the day is one that has barely begun to break and will continue to reverberate for months or years to come. Someone hacked into a computer at the University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Centre, one of the main centers of anthropogenic global warming research. The hacker downloaded 62 megabytes of data from the server, consisting of around 1,000 emails and a variety of other documents. He uploaded them to an FTP server, where they were available to the public, apparently, for only a few hours. ... The emails I've reviewed so far do not suggest that these scientists are perpetrating a knowing and deliberate hoax. On the contrary, they are true believers. I don't doubt that they are sincerely convinced--in fact, fanatically so--that human activity is warming the earth. But the emails are disturbing nonetheless. What they reveal, more than anything, is a bunker mentality. These pro-global warming scientists see themselves as under siege, and they view AGW skeptics as bitter enemies. ... The emails show beyond any reasonable doubt that these individuals are engaged in politics, not science. Which has always been my instinct about those who engage in global warming research who have been driving the debate towards the idea of man-made global warming. I have never for a second believed there was ever a conspiracy on either side of the debate--neither those who believe in global warming nor those who believe it's not happening or that it's not man-made are engaged in any sort of conspiracy. For there to be a conspiracy there has to be a working knowledge within that group that they are deliberately promulgating a falsehood in order to gain political power.
And it's always been evident to me that neither side of the debate believes it is promulgating a falsehood--they're all True Believers.
But all True Believers fudge data.
The problem with those who believe in global warming is that any data which suggests uncertainty introduces doubt. There is no incentive for those who think man-made global warming doesn't exist to fudge data--all they need to show is show doubt. And most who "oppose" AGW (anthropomorphic global warming) really are expressing doubt with the certainty shown by agencies like the IPCC, and doubt that the changes being proposed would work even if AGW was assumed to be true. There is no need, in other words, to show that global warming is not happening or that it's not man-made: it's only necessary to show that the science is not certain.
But those who support the IPCC's mission, who believe AGW is happening, and who believe we need to make radical changes to society in order to save the planet--they aren't doing this because they are seeking power. There are certainty people who are positioning themselves to take advantage of things in a post-reorganized world (such as Al Gore's millions in investments), and there are certainly politicians who are seeking greater power and control in a post-reorganized world. And, quite likely, those scientists who are promoting AGW, like all useful bolsheviks after the revolution, will find themselves the first up against the metaphorical wall once their usefulness is done.
No; they believe. Anyone who doesn't believe is an enemy to be stripped of their Ph.Ds., social positions, and gleefully celebrated when they die horrible deaths. And they must make us believe as well.
Even if the data doesn't cooperate. Even if temperatures have been declining. Even if the economic models used to show industrial expansion over the next 50 years are totally flawed, as they are in the IPCC models of the 1990's which presupposed (for a 3°C increase) an Africa which was more industrialized and more economically sophisticated than the United States in less than 30 years.
They believe. They want us to believe. And we will be made to believe, even if it means fudging a temperature dip in the 1940's or aggregating incompatible data sets to show a desired result, or defending a scientific paper from attack without knowing if the science was even valid. |
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| Writer's Block: Name your talent |
[Nov. 16th, 2009|08:32 am] |
Oh, if I could have a new one. I already have one--but sadly it's geeky.
If I could have an extraordinary talent, it would be the ability to stop time for everyone but me. Especially first thing in the morning when I wake up 5 minutes before the alarm goes off and I really need two extra hours of sleep. |
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| Huh. |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|08:32 am] |
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Started new job. Aught to be interesting. |
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| Making strippers mandated reporters. |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|07:38 am] |
Alleged Fort Hood Shooter Frequented Local Strip ClubThe Army psychiatrist authorities say killed 13 people and wounded 29 others at the Fort Hood Army Base Thursday was a recent and frequent customer at a local strip club, employees of the club told FoxNews.com exclusively. It's still unclear to me--though a pattern seems to be emerging--if Major Hasan shot up Fort Hood out of a sense of Islamic Jihad.
On the other hand, we do know the 9/11 hijackers all visited strip clubs prior to committing their acts.
So I have a modest proposal: make strip clubs mandated reporters. |
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