66 Comments

1. wws:

“What may actually be on the downward path is rationality.”

I’ve been increasingly concerned with that these days. That thesis explains as much in the third world as it does in the west.

What worries me most about the widespread faith in “global warming” (no wait; I guess it’s now “climate change”) are the consequences to society when nature acts with complete disregard for our beautiful theories, which nature is wont to do. How do we as a society react when it becomes widely accepted that all the most well known scientific and academic leaders were completely wrong, and most were corrupt? Sadly, I doubt that most will simply wish to learn from their errors and admit that they were duped. I fear it is much more likely that it will be science and rationality itself that will be rejected as having failed.

The consequences of an irrational, unscientific majority living in the detritus of a technologically advanced world is too dystopian to contemplate. But I fear that is where we are headed.

Jun 30, 2009 - 7:31 am 2. Gerald P. Hanner:

The PBSG members betray themselves as members of a cult who are posing as scientists. They simply cannot allow a heretic into their meetings.

Jun 30, 2009 - 7:31 am 3. Doug:

- EPA Suppressed Report Skeptical Of Global Warming –

“The Environmental Protection Agency may have suppressed,” “an internal report that was skeptical of claims about global warming, including whether carbon dioxide must be strictly regulated by the federal government, according to a series of newly disclosed e-mail messages.
Less than two weeks before the agency formally submitted its pro-regulation recommendation to the White House, an EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty ‘decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data.’

The EPA official, Al McGartland, said in an e-mail message to a staff researcher on March 17: ‘The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward… and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision.’”

Jun 30, 2009 - 7:45 am 4. Doug:

Korengal Firefight

Jun 30, 2009 - 7:46 am 5. Talnik:

To the lawmakers and “elites” it is neither a cult nor a religion. In their opinion, the wasteful proles are eating well, driving nice cars and taking advantage of the best Western medicine has to offer. This has to stop so they’re going to use AGW as an excuse to deny the proles access to such things.
But not them .

Jun 30, 2009 - 7:47 am 6. Lifeofthemind:

These cultists are practicing the methods of Leninist party control within the academic community. Has Daniel Hannan heard about this? Taxpayer money is expended on these conferences and the schools and foundations that employ these people.

Jun 30, 2009 - 7:55 am 7. Doug:

Black Watch vs Taliban

Jun 30, 2009 - 8:04 am 8. pel:

> What may actually be on the downward path is rationality.

That’s an unfortunate way to frame it. There’s nothing rational about excluding evidence in order to fit a pre-determined conclusion.

Rationality was never really rejected by those with faith, despite the atheistic bleating to the contrary. It was simply looked on as another tool in obtaining knowledge (albeit an important one).

That’s the trouble for the irreligious. They have nothing but rationality to hang their hat on. Those of faith have that, and more.

Jun 30, 2009 - 8:09 am 9. Doug:

Hypocrites! Hypocrites! Hypocrites!

Energy?
Democrats ride around in gas-guzzling limos and SUVs and fly around the world on private and military jets, and many live in mansions you and I could never dream of owning. But they sanctimoniously demand that we reduce our “carbon footprints” and pay higher energy prices through cap-and-trade schemes and new taxes on the natural resources that drive our economy.

When it was discovered that Al Gore, the world’s foremost global warming alarmist, was burning through more power and fuel in a year than most people use in a lifetime, the greens defended their prophet by explaining that he buys some electricity from green sources and leads a “carbon-neutral” lifestyle. Whatever the rationalization, Gore remains an energy hog while arguing that we need to ditch our cars and shiver in the dark to save the planet.

Education?
Democrats consider themselves champions of this country’s public school systems. Yet there’s a mile-long line of Democrats who put their kids in private schools, then work feverishly to water down or drown legislation that would let Americans who can’t afford private schools make that same choice.
Charter school and voucher legislation is dead on arrival, per Democrats’ masters in the teachers unions.

Jun 30, 2009 - 8:38 am 10. wws:

Pel, I believe that thought was a theme of GK Chesterton’s.

The epigram usually attributed to him is: “He who does not believe in God will believe in anything.”

that’s actually one of the great literary misquotations, although it is very similar to what he said many times and captures the spirit of his thoughts.

something Chesterton DID write:

“Its drowning all your old rationalism and scepticism, it’s coming in like a sea; and the name of it is superstition.” The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything: “And a dog is an omen and a cat is a mystery.”

more info here:

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2005/12/rjn-123005-one-more-word

Jun 30, 2009 - 9:01 am 11. twobyfour:

OT: MAV–the tiny terminators

Jun 30, 2009 - 9:22 am 12. Jay:

I had a friend whom I have not talked to in years. He is a physicist whose career was in futurism. I did some work for him when he had a small consulting company in DC.
He drove a Jag. He told me that people should not drive autos but should take public transportation. I asked him why he did not. He said “I am too important to waste my time”. He had family wealth and is from an old American Yankee family. He had Puritan values.
Since I was his friend I could drive my car.

Jun 30, 2009 - 9:39 am 13. JMH:

How do we as a society react when it becomes widely accepted that all the most well known scientific and academic leaders were completely wrong, and most were corrupt? Sadly, I doubt that most will simply wish to learn from their errors and admit that they were duped. I fear it is much more likely that it will be science and rationality itself that will be rejected as having failed.

Just like the economy. When the housing bubble, caused by government regulations and enabled by government funded Fanny Mae & Freddy Mac, popped, the finger got quickly pointed at “capitalism” and “deregulation.” Barney Frank is still the go-to guy for financial matters, despite his clear, and videotaped, cluelessness about the impending disaster. I suspect Algore will still be a High Priest/Prophet (or is it spelled “Profit”?) of the eco-gentsia long after Mother Nature has convincingly disproven everything he’s espoused. Somehow it’s always the Dr. Taylors who end up getting blamed for their opponent’s errors by progressives.

The only real hope I think is to inextricably tie progressivism to Global Warming (don’t let them change the name) and socialist crony capitalism. The notion of better living through government has to be discredited since, as long as it persists, it discredits and tarnishes every good thing under the sun. Consider all the misdirected blame that this cancer of a political theory has heaped upon religion, free markets, representative democracy, federalism, and soon science and rationality itself. Its practitioners have mastered the con-man’s game of dancing around blame. We’ve got to stop letting them do that. I think the mistake those of us who believe in rationality have made is assuming everyone else will automatically blame the snake oil and its salesmen for their illness, but it isn’t working that way. We have to actively discredit the quacks. I’m not sure we can proactively discredit them (unfortunately) but we should be able to tie them to their own products. We have to. It’s the only way to reverse the decline of rationalism.

Jun 30, 2009 - 10:15 am 14. buddy larsen:

Rationalism’s weakness is rationalism –rational people just don’t go off half-cocked. Their enemies and adversaries and opponents do, tho. In fact it’s their major strength. All one need know about the defensiveness of rationalism is contained right there in the name itself. Everything is ‘rationed’ to the weight it ought to be, rationally-speaking that is. Telling the irrational to be rational is weak beer. Worked for awhile but it wasn’t exciting.

Pop culture is tho. That’s what it does, it excites. So we’ll have it, or something that excites as it does, as long as we have liberty and freedom for all. One could say that a nemisis has formed in opposition to the very thing that enables an opposition to form –freedom that is.

Balance is the problem. One of the weights on the spinning wheel fell off somewhere and we have to put it back on. Or take off some weight on the opposite side.

Jun 30, 2009 - 11:08 am 15. RWE:

In the 90’s someone raised an interesting point. If the Ozone hole over the Antarctic caused by choloroflorocarbons was letting more UV in, how much more was there? And it just so happened that a scientist had set up a network of UV detectors across that continent and had been taking data for some time. So the pro-ozone hole people took that data and announced that yes indeed, it showed more UV was getting in.

Then the scientist who was responsible for the UV detectors spoke up, pointing out the conclusions of the study were wrong. Some detectors showed more UV. An equal number of detectors showed less UV. The rest showed no change.

The response to this bit of scientific treason was sure and swift. His funding was eliminated.

Jun 30, 2009 - 11:17 am 16. Roderick Reilly:

“”"”"He drove a Jag. He told me that people should not drive autos but should take public transportation. I asked him why he did not. He said “I am too important to waste my time”. “”"”"

I had (definitely past tense) two friends, a couple, who were moderately prosperous independent contractors. With their career chices, one would think that they’d be libertarians, but no, they were died-in-the-wool leftists. They owned a nice, mid-sized home on an oversized lot in Potomac, MD, and a 44 ft. powerboat. When we got into a conversation over dinner about American values and the economy, I opined that “striving for prosperity” was as American a value as one could find.

They both looked at me like I had just farted or something. The word “prosperity” literally offended them (both, as noted, were prosperous). So, baffled at their reaction, I asked them what they thought Americans should “strive” for? Their answer: “Adequacy. Yes, that’s it, Americans should strive for adequacy.” I was flummoxed. Now, unfortunately — because I wasn’t sure if I could contain my temper at their arrogance — I didn’t ask them to elaborate as to how they defined “adequacy.” But, you can bet the farm that they wouldn’t have defined “adequacy” as living in an upscale DC suburb and berthing a 44 ft. powerboat at an Eastern Shore marina as “adequacy.” Those pricks. They became ex-friends very quickly.

Jun 30, 2009 - 11:17 am 17. joe buzz:

And a stable unchanging sun rotates around a flat earth doomed by brilliant cultists hellbent on saving their careers, funding and feelings.

Jun 30, 2009 - 12:06 pm 18. Kinuachdrach:

I am in serious danger of becoming a bore about this — but it is worth looking up President Eisenhower’s famous Farewell Address. (It’s on the internet). Right after he warns about the dangers of the Military-Industrial Complex, he warns about the dangers of science becoming overly-dependent on government for funding.

And the travesty of alleged Anthropogenic Global Warming shows just how prescient Eisenhower was.

Jun 30, 2009 - 12:22 pm 19. PA Cat:

science is supplanted by theology

Wretchard, I think “ideology” is a better word in this context. As Pel said above, reason (or rationality, if you prefer) was never rejected by most theologians in the West. (Okay, there were a couple of hair-pullers like Tertullian, but he had been trained as a lawyer. ‘Nuff said.) The theologians of both Roman Catholic and seventeenth-century Protestant Scholasticism had entire categories for “those matters that are subject to reason” (sub ratione)– which covered most human activities. I think if our friend Fred were still around to post, he could expand further on this point.

And wws is certainly right in quoting Chesterton to the effect that cats are mysteries!

Jun 30, 2009 - 12:33 pm 20. The Emerging American Twitocracy:

This Wretchard quote from a few posts back (In Thrall to the Bargain) got me thinking:

But it raises the question of why, without assuming that the President is a fool, that Barack Obama should think it would work.

Which could be applied to basically everything Washington is doing these days.

I’ve concluded the US has invented a new form of Government: The Twitocracy. Twitocracy is rule by twits. Twits are not just fools, but arrogantly foolish.

The Administration is approaching Iran like a teenage girl who hooks-up with the bad boy loser in order to shock her conventional parents. But the teenage girl thinks she can save the “bad-boy,” though all her friends warn her not to try. Such behavior in a teenage girl indicates immaturity and a potentially fatal lack of common sense. Such behavior in adults, especially those with positions of power and authority, shows foolish arrogance. After all, a fool can learn from touching a red hot stove. It takes an arrogant fool to touch the stove and blame George Bush.

The House of Representatives just passed the Cap ‘n Trade bill, which will cost the nation millions of good paying jobs during a period of prolonged and high unemployment. This is done, they say, to lower CO2 emissions and thus save civilization a few centuries from now. These same arrogant fools obstruct nuclear power, which would produce the same end while actually helping the economy. Who would act in such a way? Twits.

The source of their arrogance and foolishness is the identification of their own interest, and the interest of the Twitocracy as a class, with the interests of the nation and, indeed, the world. Individually they may be, and often are, quite competent. It is when they lash themselves to the mast of their class that their behavior is objectively twitish. What we see is not so much the decline of rationality, but the triumph of the disguised class interest of a disguised class, one that is not circumscribed by borders anymore than the Class of Kings was in the Middle Ages.

The Twitocrats
The nation can survive — and in the past has survived — arrogant fools in the position of authority. The problem we face today is that these arrogant fools have coalesced into a recognizable strata of society, a current ruling group that aspires to permanence. Fortunately for the nation, their positions are not yet permanent (though many of them work to correct that defect). The members of this self promoting “mutual back scratching society” are not yet Aristocrats: they are Twitocrats.

Twitocrats are not just powerful politicians. They are a class whose interests are tied to Washington Power Politics. Their status is not dependent on money — although many are quite wealthy — but on power and influence. Twitocrats may well be Wall Street Money Men cashing in on government bailouts. Twitocrats can be the heads of major corporations using the regulatory apparatus of the nation to thwart, or even plunder, rivals. They can be influential bureaucrats trying to capture more control over the economy. Or Union leaders capturing the money of Bond Holders for the furtherance of their own objectives. They include academics, scientist, activists, NGO’s and numerous institutions, and, of course, the top lobbyists and the very best political hacks. Accomplished Posers and Players, the national interest is never better served than when it serves them — at least in their telling.

And they control the telling, since journalist often feel duty bound to spread a kind of “cloak of invisibility” over the Twitocracy. As such, they are not reporters, but Twitalist, who are themselves either members of the Twitocracy, or aspire to join. Their stories are basically the Press Releases of the Twitocracy. In their view, every problem has the same solution: more power to the Twitocracy.

Many of the prominent purveyors of Popular Culture are either members of the group or part of the retainer class: their foolish arrogance is often overt and considered a plus (see Michael Jackson and hangers on), lowering standards for all.

It is important to remember that while the behavior of the Twitocratic class may be objectively foolish and arrogant — when viewed in terms of the national interest or in the interest of the citizens — it is quite rational when viewed from the perspective of the Twitocracy. The Twitocracy is like an inflatable doll dressed up in a Traffic Cops uniform. Fully Pumped Up, it towers over every circumstance. But many Twitocrats believe — and the rest will cynically maintain — that the traffic cop is real, wise, and always alert. Indeed, one of the drawbacks of the Twitocratic mode of governance is that many talented, intelligent, and ambitious people become self deluded and trapped into promoting the interest of one narrow strata of society — quite often to the determent of themselves and society as a whole.

Membership in the Twitocracy
Of course the Twitocracy must control entry into the class. While members do not yet issue Patents of Nobility, they do have their stamp. Sarah Palin was a poor prospect for membership in the Twitocracy, and so she is continually portrayed as a Twit. Your humble Twitalist may make a poor investigative reporter, but at this task he excels. Meanwhile, State Senator Obama’s membership was fast tracked. Twitocratic aspirant Perez Hilton, after making an example of Miss California and in the process losing his utility, went from Twitocratic minion to whipped dog.

The Washington Power structure is like the blue light in the Twitocratic bug zapper: it attracts many more prospects than can possibly become members of the Twitocracy. So they flutter about until they get zapped and fall into the retainer class — mid level civil servants, grant seeking academics, cloyingly servile scientists and popularizers of Twitocratic causes. They are the eternal envelope stuffer, door knockers, and crowd organizers of the new ruling elite and often its willing victims. They live lives of not-so-quite desperation, with their anger directed ever outward.

Recovery of the Republic
National Recovery will require the continued decline of the Main Stream Media, along with its many prominent Twitalists. The “cloak of invisibility” they hold over the Twitocracy must be rended to shreds.

Congress is at the very center of the system of confiscation and patronage upon which the Twitocracy depends. The Cap ‘n Trade bill that past the house was a vast increase in the power and reach of the Twitocracy. Having thus self identified as committed Twitocrats, it is important that few — preferably none — of them are returned in 2010.

It is important that in 2012 we elect a President who is not a Twitocrat. Ideally, the next President will be the product of a broad based political movement that seeks to return power to the people, their communities, the free market and free enterprise economy, and to the states.

Of course a new political movement needs a motto:

For America to stop acting Witless,
Washington must be made Twitless.

hdgreene (Sorry, got carried away)

Jun 30, 2009 - 12:45 pm 21. Al_Batross:

“What may actually be on the downward path is rationality”.

I agree. Perhaps the title of this thread should have been “Paws for Thought?”

Jun 30, 2009 - 1:06 pm 22. Marcus Aurelius:

Not too long ago I was watching some tube and saw some teary adverts on the imminent near extinction of the polar bear: http://bloggerbeer.blogspot.com/2009/06/wwf-advert-on-polar-bears.html

Reminded me of I was watching some tube and saw some teary adverts on the imminent extinction of the tiger: Well, I’ld repeat the URL but don’t lest it trigger spam blockage!

Jun 30, 2009 - 1:09 pm 23. Lifeofthemind:

Franken wins.
No law, no juistice, no reason, no hope.

I am naked in the dark now.. Nothing is between me and the ring of fire

Jun 30, 2009 - 1:19 pm 24. Marcus Aurelius:

The really important aspect the Global Warming story isn’t the subject matter — whether or not humans are heating the Earth to death — but the process through which the findings are reached. It goes right to the heart of what it means to know something. Whatever one may think about AGW, ’science’ that excludes views on the basis of not being “helpful” looks suspiciously like a process of fitting the evidence to the desired conclusion. It should be the other way around. When this fundamental is abandoned, knowledge is replaced by belief and science is supplanted by theology.

The problem with using current science to answer the question are we cooking the earth? is with our current technology and understanding of physical laws and mathematics we can not make reliable predictions. We can make all sorts of predictions but they will not be considered reliable until it is too late to do or prevent anything, and even if the models are considered reliable by post-event observation, one can hardly be confident they are reliable into the future.

Nor can we set up experiments to properly test the sorts of hypotheses put out there (other than basic notions such as the fact that such & such a gas serves to trap heat).

The situations above make it awful hard for either side to have the upper hand in a debate. While many deride consensus as un-scientific getting many experts together to become familiar with the situation and then to distill a conclusion from the mass is going to have to do. The problem here though is, excluding certain opinions from the discussion is essentially placing bets on team X to win and sending Moose & Rocko to break the legs of team not-X’s star. This is not surprising given there are astronomical amounts of wealth at stake.

Follow the golden brick road.

Jun 30, 2009 - 1:27 pm 25. Jay:

HDGreene, Your analysis is superb. Please give more examples when you have time.

Jun 30, 2009 - 1:31 pm 26. Langley:

The Religious Left will immediately switch to;

“We have always been at war with global cooling.”

Jun 30, 2009 - 1:35 pm 27. RWE:

“How do we as a society react when it becomes widely accepted that all the most well known scientific and academic leaders were completely wrong, and most were corrupt?”

I have been thinking about that for some years now. I even wrote a science fiction story about what happens when the scientific chickens come home to roost.

My prediction was that when people grow disgusted with the National Inquirer Weekly World News nature of Scare Science, then scientists seeking to study subjects of no clear commercial value will turn to sources like as the Weekly World News and National Inquirer for funding.

But in any case I love one quote I saw recently:

“There is no such thing as Science. There is only that which rapidly becomes practical engineering and the remainder, which is merely unfounded speculation.”

Jun 30, 2009 - 1:56 pm 28. buddy larsen:

what do we do when we need warming to fight (grow food during) the next ice age, the next in the series that the most recent withdrawal of which (a mere 11,000 years ago) named our ‘end of the Pleistocene and beginning of the Holocene’. Think those names will stop the next glaciation?

Jun 30, 2009 - 2:02 pm 29. Professor Guvinoff:

If we were truly living in a scientific age, the astrology industry, the lotteries of all kind, the palm readers, and even the financial forecasters would have to take a good look at business diversification.

The human nature is not exclusively rational, but the western culture and its accomplishments owe much to the value of rationality. If the west loses itself, it’s because it will have lost its foundations in the first place.

Only self-inflated pedants can refuse to listen to a scientist who might say something surprising! How much information do you receive when you hear only what you expected to hear? Should ignorance triumph just because it has the votes? We should not give up. We must encourage children to develop critical thinking.

They actually like it! The ability to reason does not diminish the enjoyment of fairy tales, it only provides the balance necessary to the growth of the mind. Why deprive them of the essential tools of survival?

Jun 30, 2009 - 2:32 pm 30. hdgreene:

Jay, I’m glad you could make sense of what I wrote.

I did paint with a broad stroke.

In that matter of Sarah Palin, I think there were commentators who attacked her qualification but were not what I called “Twitalists.” Charles Krauthammer, for instance, basically criticized Senator Obama’s qualifications in the same way as Gov. Palin’s.

An example of a leading House Twitocrat would be Representative Barney Frank. For years he prospered politically promoting the subprime mortgage mess, but a couple of weeks ago I watched him blithely blame bankers and ordinary borrowers for doing what he required bankers to do while promoting the borrowing to ordinary borrowers. But Barney Frank deals mainly with Twitalists, who will not call him on these matters.

Of course “responsibility” is a slippery concept where the Twitocracy is concerned. If they say “He is responsible” when speaking of a person who is not a Twitocrat, they mean “He is to blame.” Example: “The Plant manager is responsible for the workers losing their jobs.” Used when referring to a member of the Twitocracy, it means “gets the credit for.” As in: “President Obama is responsible for the creation of 200,000 green jobs.” Or: “The Democrats in Congress are responsible for the abundance of affordable housing.” Of course, with little notice this can change to: “The bankers are responsible for the subprime mortgage mess.”

Of course in this, as in much else, they require the help of the Washington Twitalist Corps.

Perhaps I have bled enough words on this concept.

Jun 30, 2009 - 3:05 pm 31. Unsk:

Buddy- How right you are!

The first warming period of the Holocene was thousands of years long and significantly warmer than today. Each successive warming period of the Holocene has been cooler and shorter. The last one which ended two years ago was only roughly 150 years long.

If the dimming of the sun spots occurring now is similar to what happened in 1645 we could be in for a period of sustained cooler temperature, if not the beginning of an ice age. That last cooling period was called the “little Ice Age”. It was so cold that by the 1690’s the canals of Venice would freeze in winter.

According to real climate change science, the warmth we have now is rare. Ice Ages come in 100,000 year cycles with the ice age lasting for most of that 100,000 years. Officially the last Ice Age ended 20,000 years ago, but it really became warmer just 10,000 years ago give or take. The non ice age warming periods like we have now are comparatively very short.

We may be needin some of that Global Warming soon. In the last Ice Age, the ice sheet covering the upper Midwest was a half mile thick. That night be bad for property values in Minnesota.

Jun 30, 2009 - 3:05 pm 32. PA Cat:

Unsk: Here’s your theme song right here– the “Minnesotans for Global Warming Song.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJUFTm6cJXM

Jun 30, 2009 - 3:12 pm 33. buddy larsen:

yep, it won’t be long before GE will be trying to bribe its way into selling giant greenhouse gas generators. And some new AlGore will be lithping “Thith planet hath a COLD! And it needth MONEY!”

Jun 30, 2009 - 3:35 pm 34. JFSanders:

12. Jay: If you were a true friend you would have put him out of our misery…

20. TEAT: “Such behavior in adults, especially those with positions of power and authority, shows foolish arrogance.”

And thus we have wars.

23. LOTM: Franken had to win. It is necessary for the chain of events to be pulled along. We are but riders on this train to hell. Ready to get your ticket punched?

31. Unsk: “In the last Ice Age, the ice sheet covering the upper Midwest was a half mile thick. That night be bad for property values in Minnesota.”

The Karma of that being perpetrated on a court jester of a senator would be delicious. LOL

Jun 30, 2009 - 3:42 pm 35. buddy larsen:

Norm Coleman made a very gracious exit. i think he shoulda spun, dropped trou, and mooned the camera. that might have started some truth-telling somewhere. At least they woulda told tales for a hundred years around the campfires of the Shining Big Sea Water, of the Brave Moon of the Big Chief Coleman, and how he spoke in sign language to the DC people of the forked tongue.

Jun 30, 2009 - 3:56 pm 36. PA Cat:

OT again: for friends of Fred here at BC: Neo Neocon has posted his obituary (with permission of Fred’s family) and a link:

http://neoneocon.com/2009/06/30/fredhjrs-obituary/#comments

We have indeed lost a good man.

Jun 30, 2009 - 4:04 pm 37. Mad Fiddler:

The present elites so cynically promoting a demonstrably false AGW scare campaign, are banking on their story being false. If it turns out to be true that humans are the cause of an actual global warming, there’s not a damn thing that their pathetic sacrifice of the US economy can possibly accomplish.

The fact of the matter is that even without the crippling of the US economy imposed by the Cap&Trade bill, the US has long since already dropped from the lead in heavy industries and other pollution production. China and India together account for close to one half of the world’s population. Their people are increasingly determined to have heat in the winter and a/c in the summer, color television, cell phones, automobiles, health insurance, strawberries in the off-season, computers, flat-screen tv’s and Hot European fashions at rock-bottom prices.

For years, China’s industrial cities have been experiencing smog that would terrify a Los Angelino, almost as bad as the London “Killer Fogs” after WWII.

If memory serves, both China and India rejected the Kyoto accord. As did 99 of 100 US Senators, most of whom are still serving.

If human industrial activity has been causing a rise in world wide temperatures, hold on to your butts, cause the ride is just starting.

To Marcus Aurelius: Noah Wylie needs to be spanked. His commercial for WWF shows a Mama and cub on a tiny bit of ice, and while he talks about their hunting grounds diminishing, and Polar bear cubs starving, you’re supposed to think “Oh, look, they only have that tiny little iceberg that’s not even big enough for the two of them, so the mother has to jump into the water, just like Leonardo di Caprio did in ‘Titanic!’”

What a bunch of CRAP!

The species is named Ursus Maritimus, folks. They are SEA MAMMALS. They EAT FISH AND SEALS from the OCEAN. They can swim between islands that are miles apart.

I want to write to WWF and tell them I’m never giving their lying organization another penny, but I’m afraid that just gets you on a list for special TAX levies.

Jun 30, 2009 - 4:07 pm 38. Marcus Aurelius:

Rodney Stark of Baylor University conducted a study (see http://www.discovery.org/a/7481 for a summary of the study, I’m looking for another source) comparing how the religious and irreligious look at things such as Bigfoot, and other such ‘paranormal phenomena” and it turns out the study found the irreligious have a much high incidence of belief in such. It kinda backs up the observation by Chesterson that those who don’t believe in God will believe in anything.

One thing that happens with me occasionally is I’ll be working on some code and running tests. Everything is fine, I submit my job, and it starts running. Then the system goes down, too often the conclusion I often times leap too is my job was behind it all. Of course, that is silly (I have yet to bring a system down) there are a lot more jobs being run as well as tons of underlying processes that could be at fault. That is what we have going on here, it is some sort of arrogance to believe that we must be at the root of every problem.

Jun 30, 2009 - 4:56 pm 39. Doug:

No matter, Our Messiah is the solution to all our problems.

PBUH

Jun 30, 2009 - 5:00 pm 40. Doug:

.

Jun 30, 2009 - 5:01 pm 41. Lifeofthemind:

But the Ursus is noble and authentic and deserves respect. We can reach it if we learn to listen and it will unclench its fist. Go on give it a hug and look up at it with real big eyes. Go on, you first.

Jun 30, 2009 - 5:05 pm 42. buddy larsen:

doug, if you say ‘my messiah my messiah’ over and over, it starts becoming ‘i am my messi am my mess i am my mess’

(LotM, if you and the missus are running from a polar bear, you don’t have to outrun the bear, you only have to outrun the wife)

Jun 30, 2009 - 5:23 pm 43. Doug:

Warm Fuzzy Wuzzy

Jun 30, 2009 - 5:24 pm 44. Doug:

That’s what the wife thinks.
But for me it’s an affirmation:
I Mess therefore Iyam.

Jun 30, 2009 - 5:26 pm 45. Gaffe Prices:

I saw good video on polar bears. Two things: the Arctic Ice shelf breaks up and melts during the summer, and then it starts to re-freeze when its winter and the region is no longer in full sunlight, but has returned to full darkness.

When it melts and breaks up, the polar bears head south to land, such as Canada, because they can swim for 20 miles at a time because the hairs of their coat retain air and buoyancy and they land on various pieces of ice along the way.

the time when they have it tough is in the winter. The mother will hollow out a hole and hibernate in it feeding her cubs, (born before the onset of winter) with her milk, and at the beginning of the new spring she will hunt seal meat for her cubs (no, she’s not a vegetarian, but, *gasp* a carnivore), and feed it to them even though she has not eaten in 4 months. When they are fed, only then will she feed herself. But she is able to do this because she has gained a rich layer of *gasp*again* TRANSFAT [(*swoon*) Oh my lack of GOD!!!] that prevents starvation.

Those who really have it tough are the seals and whales that don’t make it south fast enough, and as the winter freezing happens with rapidity, they are cut off from being able to swim underwater (under the ice) long enough top make it to holes further south and must surface every few minute in the one hole they are stranded at, for the entire winter, before they have another chance to leave next summer.

The seals must chew and claw the holes for them to remain holes as the ice is cold enough to melt the holes shut, (I don’t know about the whales).

Long story short, the arctic will always refreeze every winter, because it is in the dark for six months. The arctic is a very harsh environment, but if its conditions are a tad warmer, the bear population stands in fact, to increase. But with sun storm activity low in recent months (zero last October), they will face the return of the harsher effect of more frigid conditions that might threaten their numbers but which the species has faced over and over many times before and survived.

they are champions of harsh conditions none of us would dream of facing, and there is nothing our psuedo-scienced, good-intentioned artificialities can do to improve their quality of life. and I suppose it is for that hubris, and not any “greediness” that we deserve to loose the quality of our own lives.

Jun 30, 2009 - 5:44 pm 46. Lifeofthemind:

Many years ago a tribe of happy Physicists received a Messenger from their King. He was a mighty lord who went by the unpronounceable name of NSF, which proved how mighty he was. The message proved how kindly their King was and said “Investigate the Unified Field Theory.” Even better attached to the message was a nice thing called a Grant. So all the happy physicists retired to the Field of Brookhaven where they fed the Grant to their fetish object an enormous beast that was known as the Accelerator. Soon the mighty creature began to hum and many lights dig blink and there was a clattering of teletypes, for the thing was ancient and did still punch cards. A great sheaf of paper, green it was, came forth bearing numbers. Now these were various and strange and some interpreted them one way and some another and a few would hold them and the punch cards up to the light and see pretty patterns. But soon the babbling of Interns did cease as they perceived the great stillness emanating from where their Lords did assemble. Fellows were they and Fool Profusers and they wielded Tenure. As soon as the stillness had spread it was followed by a murmur that rose to a babble and then almost to a roar. The elderly among the Fellows gestured wildly with their pipes and the Interns stared about amazed and with wild surmise. For the chamber echoed with the cry,”We got it. It all fits. We have proven It.!”

The most senior of the Fellows nodded and heard his colleagues but learned and wise in the ways of things that deliver and consume the Grant and having passed the ordeals of peer review he spoke. “We must do it again and yet again. Three sets the Journal shall demand before we may publish.”

And at that moment all went dark.

Three days later they found and replaced the fuse that had failed but they could never duplicate the experiment.
It took God 72 hours to rebuild the Universe and rewrite his laws to get around them.

Jun 30, 2009 - 5:53 pm 47. buddy larsen:

And on the street the People rejoicethed !

Jun 30, 2009 - 6:42 pm 48. Jim Nicholas:

Marcus Aurelius @ 38

Here is another report of Rodney Stark’s findings, from the Baylor University website.

Thanks for the lead.

Jim

Jun 30, 2009 - 6:53 pm 49. Boss Tid:

@ #31 Unsk, @28 buddy larsen

Ditto, and that’s why I say “stoke them fars, to fend off yon pending Ass Age”.

…and the more we stoke those fars, the more it doth cause yon super volcano to swell, so that once Ass Age settle in, in earnest, the more we a’have a’somethun real big to fight backe with!

Hold on a sec, and I’ll put on some Doors, and we will, we will roch you!

Jun 30, 2009 - 10:36 pm 50. Beverly:

The global warming [non]debate reminds me of the status of Lamarkian evolutionary theory in the USSR.

Anyone else?

Jul 1, 2009 - 12:33 am 51. Beverly:

Another thing the AGW furor reminds me of: the ancient customs of mass human sacrifice to “propitiate the gods.” Blood ran down the steps in streams in Teotihuacan. . . .

Jul 1, 2009 - 12:47 am 52. John de Beer:

Atheism on the wane, religion on the rise, rationality declining … what about the surge in sheer perversity?

Jul 1, 2009 - 1:13 am 53. Lifeofthemind:

John de Beer,
sheer perversity
I want the Trademark on that. It is a natural for a line of Ready to Wear and Accessories.
We’re all going to get rich!

Jul 1, 2009 - 2:51 am 54. Gaffe Prices:

“Micklethwait explained that contrary to all 19th and 20th Western expectations, religion is booming and not declining…
…but the swarms of Western devotees to the cult of environmentalism then [means] the numbers might be even more impressive.”

I’ve heard tell, of the rise in faith in Pagan religions as well.

But unlike even those, the cult of environmentalism is a belief system with no god or gods. No Zues, no pantheon of Gods, just the “planet”, “The Great Mother” (Earth, I presume), etc. Gaia, for crying out loud.

(Hey, I still believe in The Great Pumpkin, I just don’t invest my faith in he/her.)

Jefferson mentioned in a letter the phrase “separation of church and state”, and this is cited by Evangelical Atheists as the Dogma for preventing any expression of christian, uh, anything, uh, anywhere if they have their way.

Ah well the joke is on you cuz- no, wait, the ‘joke’ is still on us.

Perhaps the better choice of words is “the separation of the church from the state: separate, but not equal.

Anyway, what Jefferson’s intent was is that the first amendment should be tantamount to a commandment, (as in “Thou shalt not…”) so as to forbid the Government from ever intruding, introducing, or dictating doctrine or dogma to religious faith, and establishing a state religion.

The Founders of our Constitution and this country, established that citizens of this country would be represented, by the voters electing their representatives by secret ballot, in this dem-o-crat-ic fashion: the point was that men would use their g-d given talents and abilities, to decide for themselves the role of their government, and how they should rule themselves, establish justice, defend the republic and so forth, separate and without any Sovereigns or Subjects (to a sovereign).

What complicates it all is that the dogma of MMGW is based (on a cheap rip-off of the Old Testament, namely the Flood) on the false premise that stupid, and yet morally reprehensible man, abused and exploited the land and sea, and now it must needs be, that- what? Not g-d, but man(?), and not just man, but the elect, the select, the uberman is required to make, to set things right.

…all the while pretending to be the fulfillment of “secular” (as in non-theocratic) mandate.

And yet this Crap and Traitor Bill of Sale, will be the final success of the establishment of a government religion, that trumps all matters of faith, and is maintained by a priesthood of raving lunatics, drunk with power and avarice.

Recon-silly-i-zation with earth through works and acts of piety, and punitive taxation.

And, rather than light votive candles, we must screw in curly light bulbs, that contain deadly, mercury vapor (that is making people in factories in China sick) because Our Lady in Washington has spoken.

Harry Reed says the CO2 makes us sick.

Faith, not works, you craven, pathetic moron.

Jul 1, 2009 - 3:55 am 55. Wadeusaf:

If as I am told AGW refers to Anthropogenic Global Warming, then there is no need to save the polar bear.

However if, as I suspect, AGW really refers to Apocalyptic Global Warming, well there you have it then. Twelver’s and Comet trail-ologians all wrapped up in a nice little economically comfortable package designed to make Al Gore rich at home with Afro-Chi gas and deified. So what was it he sold to those Buddists again?

Oh yeah, must of been jc’s phone number.

Jul 1, 2009 - 5:19 am 56. buddy larsen:

AGW: Al’s Girth Widening

Jul 1, 2009 - 5:30 am 57. RWE:

Life of Mind #46:

I heard the first of these quotes many years ago but the second only recently:

Albert Einstein: “God does not play dice with the Universe.”

Enrico Fermi: “Albert, quit telling God how to run things.”

Jul 1, 2009 - 5:50 am 58. Doug:

Agorophobic Ghost Whisperers

Jul 1, 2009 - 8:01 am 59. Ashen:

#20.
Good point. I agree.

Jul 1, 2009 - 8:17 am 60. Mad Fiddler:

Dear Lifeofthemind,

The cosmic humor being must have inspired the naming of the National Science Foundation.

Anyone who has dealt with a bank branch knows “NSF” means “Insufficient Funds.”

Jul 1, 2009 - 8:34 am 61. Unsk:

According to Gateway Pundit, one provision in the Cap n’ Tax requires that before someone sells their home, they must bring it up to new the energy standards which btw are going to be nearly impossible to meet.

This could easily cost over a 100K for many homes, particularly older ones with 2×4 exterior studs and smaller joists that don’t easily meet even today’s standards which need bigger insulation cavities.

This will decimate the real estate business, home sales and will devalue most residential property drastically.

Gee thanks, Buraq! That ’s the change we’ve been looking for! Not.

Jul 1, 2009 - 12:09 pm 62. JMH:

According to Gateway Pundit, one provision in the Cap n’ Tax requires that before someone sells their home, they must bring it up to new the energy standards which btw are going to be nearly impossible to meet.

This could easily cost over a 100K for many homes, particularly older ones with 2×4 exterior studs…This will decimate the real estate business, home sales and will devalue most residential property drastically.

If this is true, I sense a rise in house fires.

“See, we were going to sell the house (which is why all our stuff was out and we were staying with relatives across town) and we thought we should redecorate a little to make it attractive to buyers. That’s why all those cans of paint were in there. And the oil we were using to refinish the wood floors (unfortuantely they weren’t sustainably harvested, but since they were already there, we thought it best to keep them). Anyway, then we found out we have to do all this extra work to bring it up to eco standards. So we hired some guys to do that. I guess one of the workers must’ve left a cigarette butt smoldering in there (you know contruction workers, filthy beasts, and liars too – none of them admits to being a smoker…). Next thing you know, the whole place is on fire. I tried to put it out with a garden hose, but forgot I’d turned off the water to save, well, water. Plus I thought it might be bad to let all the burning pieces of house drain into the acquifer.

Anyway, someone else must’ve called the Fire Department while I was wondering about what to do, because eventually they showed up. But it was too late and the house was a total loss. Glad I upped the insurance policy in preparation for selling the place.”

Jul 1, 2009 - 12:49 pm 63. buddy larsen:

unsk/61; plus, there’ll need to be a new agency-sized “home-inspection” corps –which will among the other oft-noted things begin getting we the peope used to letting strangers from the government into the house to “case” our home interiors.

Maybe to ’save money’ The O’s will outsource the job to those fresh-faced mid-20s teenagers at AmeriCorps.

Jul 1, 2009 - 1:17 pm 64. Mad Fiddler:

About 1970… that’s around the time of

The Murder of Fred Hampton!!!

The Revelations of the Pentagon Papers!!!

Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia

The Shootings at Kent State and Jackson State (nobody seems to recall those…)

I remember lots of my mates in school saying “Nixon is going to declare martial law, suspend the constitution, cancel the elections!”

Instead, it was Nixon that was tossed out.

…

Jul 1, 2009 - 3:23 pm 65. Mad Fiddler:

Of course, it’s the folks who were campus radicals then who are the architects of the current reamjob.

Jul 1, 2009 - 3:25 pm 66. SpeakEasy:

Mass Media as we knew it is dead. They were once the champions of TRUTH. Now the pursuit of TRUTH means silencing opposing viewpoints not matching their foregone conclusions. RIP. This forum and many others will fill the void nicely.

Jul 3, 2009 - 5:23 pm

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