So - in just one year - and after just one half hour airing on a popular comedy show - Brazil has gone from being the nation least likely to have its mainstream media deny climate change to one of the bad guys.
Perhaps the best known denier-tracking journalist , Chris Mooney, credits - or blames - popular TV comic Jo Soares and his invitation to denier & geography prof RA Felicio to babble on for half an hour, for turning Brazil into a place hospitable to the denier classes.
I am not surprised - I have said all along the deniers are not a mere fringe of nutters but about 60% of us - the majority of us.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
Mike of WATCHING THE DENIERS writes in the spirit of Cobbett and Twain
If you don't read the Ozzie blog WATCHING THE DENIERS you really must.
Mike writes in the style of the William Cobbett taking on the British government over its ill-treatment of troops at Ely (an article that got him two years at Newgate for sedition .... and made him forever famous as a defender of the ordinary people).
He writes in the style of the Mark Twain who took on the American government for the genocide at the Moro Crater.
Mike writes in the style of the William Cobbett taking on the British government over its ill-treatment of troops at Ely (an article that got him two years at Newgate for sedition .... and made him forever famous as a defender of the ordinary people).
He writes in the style of the Mark Twain who took on the American government for the genocide at the Moro Crater.
why me and not some academic writing up Henry Dawson's discoveries ?
Good question : one I get asked many times.
One answer is that if an academic is ever going to do a thesis on Henry Dawson, I want it done before I am dead, so I can read it too.
I mean the man made the significant breakthrough in DNA almost 85 years ago, the significant breakthrough in penicillin almost 75 years ago - so why aren't thesis supervisors beating at his family's door, looking for personal and professional papers ?
I think I know why.
I am a longtime DIYer and I instantly recognized a kindred "go it alone" spirit in Dawson's tiny little makeshift penicillin project, something I was sure that "Big Academia's collegiality won't be able to fathom.
One answer is that if an academic is ever going to do a thesis on Henry Dawson, I want it done before I am dead, so I can read it too.
I mean the man made the significant breakthrough in DNA almost 85 years ago, the significant breakthrough in penicillin almost 75 years ago - so why aren't thesis supervisors beating at his family's door, looking for personal and professional papers ?
I think I know why.
I am a longtime DIYer and I instantly recognized a kindred "go it alone" spirit in Dawson's tiny little makeshift penicillin project, something I was sure that "Big Academia's collegiality won't be able to fathom.
Rex Tillerson Poster Boy for the Church of Latter Day Modernity
"One step forward, a zillion steps back, smile at the camera and you're doin' The Exxon-Mobil Jack".
Yessiree Bob, as I could have predicted*, the new boss of Exxon-Mobil has accepted that climate change is happening .
But (a) he says that worries about it are well and truly overblown and (b) he also says it will all be quickly,quietly, cheaply, efficiently engineered right back out of existence.
Yessiree Bob, as I could have predicted*, the new boss of Exxon-Mobil has accepted that climate change is happening .
But (a) he says that worries about it are well and truly overblown and (b) he also says it will all be quickly,quietly, cheaply, efficiently engineered right back out of existence.
the fragments of a dialectic enlightenment :Adorno & Horkheimer as PUNK DIYers ...
If one of your dear, dear friends gave you as a christmas present, late in December, over 300 pages of turgid prose, written in fragmentary style, and mimeographed to ensure ultra low quality readability and then stuck it all between two dull brown covers, you might be forgiven if you waited until January before you began a token,polite, skim through it.
That would be January....... 1945.
1945 ! : post-hegemony's annus mirabilis.
That would be January....... 1945.
1945 ! : post-hegemony's annus mirabilis.
I know nothing - I hope - about academic post-hegemony
I find reading academic works on post-hegemony feels like being fracked in the butt by a sociology thesis - the jargon will tear your insides out like nothing else can.
All I believe is that something very important happened in 1945, after 500 years of stability.
Modernity didn't die but it was wounded, its hegemony assailed - one could fancy you could even heard its last breaths.
Post-modernity didn't replace modernity, but it was birthed that year and one could almost hear its faint first yelps.
So, nope, no shiny brand new hegemony dominating the high ground, replacing the earlier hegemony.
That is a very modernist notion and feels almost quaint to say in 2012.
Instead we see competing hegemonies occupying different parts of that high ground - an concept that itself is typically post-modernist and 2012-up-to-dated.
So I am saying that pre-1945 Modernity survived almost unchanged, but limited to areas such as politics, business, some applied sciences, among wealthy retirees - call them all 'the denier classes', from their position on climate change.
But they really deny any and all thought that there can ever be biological or material limits on man's will to do whatever he wants ---- and to correct quickly any mistakes he might very occasionally make.
They see themselves as Pierre-Simon LaPlace would - as skygods - high above Nature.
Post-1945 thinkers are usually but not always younger - they accept that there are limits to what Humanity can hope to do.
They accept we humans are deeply embedded in the web of life and that we must be global commensalists and share the Earth, because it is the only lifeboat in the Universe that Life has got.
Think of them as earthlings - particularly in relationship to their polar opposites - the skygods.
The earthlings dominate in areas like the life sciences, among greens and environmentalists - and among some of the young.
That is enough for you to know about post-hegemony as I see it.
I might attempt to describe hegemony of course - good luck !
It can be thought of as when sincere opponents to a system of government or society nevertheless coach their opposition in terms that the government or society's elite have provided - the day in day out total emersion bath of schooling, media, political talk etc.
Successful hegemony isn't seen as an ideology - but as pure common sense and even as 'the way of nature' - unchangeable even if we wanted to change it.
All I believe is that something very important happened in 1945, after 500 years of stability.
Modernity didn't die but it was wounded, its hegemony assailed - one could fancy you could even heard its last breaths.
Post-modernity didn't replace modernity, but it was birthed that year and one could almost hear its faint first yelps.
So, nope, no shiny brand new hegemony dominating the high ground, replacing the earlier hegemony.
That is a very modernist notion and feels almost quaint to say in 2012.
Instead we see competing hegemonies occupying different parts of that high ground - an concept that itself is typically post-modernist and 2012-up-to-dated.
So I am saying that pre-1945 Modernity survived almost unchanged, but limited to areas such as politics, business, some applied sciences, among wealthy retirees - call them all 'the denier classes', from their position on climate change.
But they really deny any and all thought that there can ever be biological or material limits on man's will to do whatever he wants ---- and to correct quickly any mistakes he might very occasionally make.
They see themselves as Pierre-Simon LaPlace would - as skygods - high above Nature.
Post-1945 thinkers are usually but not always younger - they accept that there are limits to what Humanity can hope to do.
They accept we humans are deeply embedded in the web of life and that we must be global commensalists and share the Earth, because it is the only lifeboat in the Universe that Life has got.
Think of them as earthlings - particularly in relationship to their polar opposites - the skygods.
The earthlings dominate in areas like the life sciences, among greens and environmentalists - and among some of the young.
That is enough for you to know about post-hegemony as I see it.
I might attempt to describe hegemony of course - good luck !
It can be thought of as when sincere opponents to a system of government or society nevertheless coach their opposition in terms that the government or society's elite have provided - the day in day out total emersion bath of schooling, media, political talk etc.
Successful hegemony isn't seen as an ideology - but as pure common sense and even as 'the way of nature' - unchangeable even if we wanted to change it.
DEXTER best Modernist govt NS ever had --- just too bad we live in postmodernist times...
If postmodernist times believe in de-centralization, the local, small is beautiful, DIY/PUNK and Off-the-Grid , modernity * just as surely worships megaprojects and the idea that ever bigger is ever better.
Darrell Dexter's NDP government here in Nova Scotia isn't bad (ie isn't corrupt) and is giving us the kind of competent "modern" government we can only wish we had had in the 1970s and 1980s.
The problem is that we are living in the 21st century and in postmodernist times.
Darrell Dexter's NDP government here in Nova Scotia isn't bad (ie isn't corrupt) and is giving us the kind of competent "modern" government we can only wish we had had in the 1970s and 1980s.
The problem is that we are living in the 21st century and in postmodernist times.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
97% consensus of climate scientists OPPOSED good evidence of climate change in 1892,1902,1922,1942 etc
If today's climate scientists are united in accepting evidence of climate change it is NOT because the evidence has changed that way.
It is because the scientists themselves have changed - no longer living in (and promoting) High Modernity with its rarified/reified views of the unlimited potential of Man to quickly solve any little problem He himself might create.
It is because the scientists themselves have changed - no longer living in (and promoting) High Modernity with its rarified/reified views of the unlimited potential of Man to quickly solve any little problem He himself might create.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Dr Dawson a FIFTH COLUMN of low postmodernity , inside the Citadel of High Modernity?
The term "FIFTH COLUMN" is now more than 75 years old.
It was first used in a radio address in 1936, by a right wing (Nationalist) general named Emilio Mola , during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, to describe his efforts to take left wing (Republican) Madrid .
It was first used in a radio address in 1936, by a right wing (Nationalist) general named Emilio Mola , during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, to describe his efforts to take left wing (Republican) Madrid .
Monday, June 25, 2012
Doubting Reality : (Koch's red slippers) birthing DENIAL in a Mayberry sort of town
Growing up in a Mayberry sort of town, a little place on the prairie , is just the sort of thing that might make a feller want to doubt reality: current reality anyway."Denying Life after the 1950s" (birthing DENIAL in a Mayberry sort of time & town)
To misquote the late Ian MacDonald : "revolution OUTSIDE the head"
Forget denying climate change - it is the mere tiniest iceberg tip of the denying classes' overall brief against the world.
What they are really denying is the existence of the real revolution that has happened, in the physical world, outside their heads.
What they are really denying is the existence of the real revolution that has happened, in the physical world, outside their heads.
SVE's "awkward" sub-title is no accident
Why does SVE 's sub-title run so 'trippingly-not' off the tongue?
Moderns versus Post-Modernity indeed - why not moderns versus post-moderns or Modernity versus Post-Modernity ?
I constructed it that way because I have come to believe that while our world has decisively and permanently changed (ie is clearly post-modern in its structure) --- we haven't.
Moderns versus Post-Modernity indeed - why not moderns versus post-moderns or Modernity versus Post-Modernity ?
I constructed it that way because I have come to believe that while our world has decisively and permanently changed (ie is clearly post-modern in its structure) --- we haven't.
Sun-hegemony in a post-hegemonic world
It is a very very brave - and rare - reader of the TORONTO SUN who publicly dares to define the group hegemony among its readers.
But recently, 6% of those readers defied the SUN Hegemony that there is no change in the Climate.
But recently, 6% of those readers defied the SUN Hegemony that there is no change in the Climate.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Climate Debate's "Included Middle" and excluded edges
When I claim you can't simultaneously be an environmentalist and a supporter of Mars colonies, I really mean you shouldn't be both.
Because obviously many of us - perhaps most of us - feel we can have our environmental cake and eat a little Mars bar as well.
We like to be both Modern and Post-Modern : we just feel richer by settling for both, without letting our sense of consistency keep us up nights.
Are we living in a Post-Modern Age or have we got it all badly wrong?
Until recently I accepted the general consensus unquestioningly that 1945 marked the shift from the Age of Modernity to the Age of Post-Modernity.
But what, oh what, what if we all got it very badly wrong?
But what, oh what, what if we all got it very badly wrong?
Paul Shreenan: trying to be GREEN in big metro
Paul Shreenan is a true renaissance man.
He has been a geography and urban planning prof , a two time GPC candidate, a very successful urban food gardener,a father, an avid cyclist and lately a bus driver.
He tries very hard to live green and use as few resources as possible.
So he doesn't own a car ,for example.
But Paul can't take a bus to get to his work, because he is one of the bus drivers arriving at the bus garage while it is still dark to drive the early morning buses we use to get to work.
A bit catch-22.
He has been a geography and urban planning prof , a two time GPC candidate, a very successful urban food gardener,a father, an avid cyclist and lately a bus driver.
He tries very hard to live green and use as few resources as possible.
So he doesn't own a car ,for example.
But Paul can't take a bus to get to his work, because he is one of the bus drivers arriving at the bus garage while it is still dark to drive the early morning buses we use to get to work.
A bit catch-22.
The only true ALIEN in the world of SF writers is ROI and it scares the bejesus outa them
The only obscene vulgarity a writer can perpetrate in the world of SF is talk about money, the money trail , the ROI : 'oh the horror ! the horror !
Saturday, June 23, 2012
"Water will follow the Probe" : criminally stupid in 19th, globecidally stupid in 21st century
You'd think the denier classes would learn something from the mess they made of the 19th century.
Remember all their boosterish talk about "the rainfall following the plow" ?
In fact, what little moisture that was held by the Great Plains & Prairies' original grass and bush cover was released and lost into the atmosphere once industrial scale deep plowing was undertaken : cue the shots of the resulting Dust Bowl.
Remember all their boosterish talk about "the rainfall following the plow" ?
In fact, what little moisture that was held by the Great Plains & Prairies' original grass and bush cover was released and lost into the atmosphere once industrial scale deep plowing was undertaken : cue the shots of the resulting Dust Bowl.
A poignant HIT : Science inaction, a love story
Griffin McInnes's satirical, funny but ultimately touchingly poignant play hasn't officially opened yet but Griffin was lucky enough - through the graces of Situating Science director Gordon McOuat - to hold a performance at the Kings College University Crypt Theatre* last night, before an audience of HOPOS 2012 attendees.
Friday, June 22, 2012
1945 : the climatic Battle over MODERN synthetic penicillin vs POSTMODERN natural penicillin
If we see Postmodernity as organic and natural, versus High Modernity's love for the synthetic and the man-made (and I think we all do) why then do we focus on 1945's Auschwitz and Hiroshima as the climatic revelations that signal the switch from the Era of Modernity to the Era of post-Modernity ?
The Chosen "ones" : after Peak Earth, after the Gold Rush, children crying , loading, silver seed
After the 2040s, after Peak Earth, after the Gold Rush, this will be the Neil Young song that all the Silicon Valley billionaires will choose to sing..... after the loading has begun.
"It was 60 years ago today" : birthing the UFO craze amongst the Skygods
Reluctantly we must acknowledge Ken Arnold, the father of the modern UFO, who claimed he saw nine high speed flying saucers from the cockpit of his CallAir C-2 aircraft, while flying past Mount Rainier, Washington, on June 24th 1947.
I have Seen the Future and it is Paula Todd's tiny e-book , not the fading "bricks and mortar media"
Right now, right today, right this minute, only one book matters in Canada - in both the news media and in the blog-o-sphere.
It is tiny and it is virtual, the very antithesis of the tradition that a book's newsworthiness could be literally weighed on a set of luggage scales.
It is tiny and it is virtual, the very antithesis of the tradition that a book's newsworthiness could be literally weighed on a set of luggage scales.
Belters, Lunies, Marties, Venonaults : today's Skygods
Yesterday's Skygods, the military airplane pilots of the 1910s to the 1950s, are so, well , yesterday.
Their battles with those old fashioned military leaders still trying to fight static wars of trenches dug deep into the soil, are also so over. So very very yesterday.
No, today's Skygods are those among today's billionaires who are obsessed with space exploration, mining and settlement : call them Lunies, Belters, Marties or Venonaults depending upon whether the Moon, the Asteroid Belt, Mars or Venus is their all-consuming interest.
Their battles with those old fashioned military leaders still trying to fight static wars of trenches dug deep into the soil, are also so over. So very very yesterday.
No, today's Skygods are those among today's billionaires who are obsessed with space exploration, mining and settlement : call them Lunies, Belters, Marties or Venonaults depending upon whether the Moon, the Asteroid Belt, Mars or Venus is their all-consuming interest.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Small comfort to HOPOS 2012 that they didn't hear Lincoln at Gettysburg either
The very first science that historians and philosophers of science need to devote themselves to , is the science of microphones and public address systems.
The international society of scholars devoted to the history of the philosophy of science has teamed up with, among other partners, Gordon McOuat and the Situating Science crew at Kings College University in Halifax.
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| from all over the world's universities to Halifax |
The international society of scholars devoted to the history of the philosophy of science has teamed up with, among other partners, Gordon McOuat and the Situating Science crew at Kings College University in Halifax.
HELIOS II off on 60 trillion year trip to send a message to Intelligent Life at edge of Universe
Helios II is the fastest man-made object ever. If it survives, it will act as a sign of other intelligent life in the Universe for some possible Intelligent Life form living at the currently known edge of the Universe ,14 billion light years away.
But fast as Helios II is, it is only about one four thousandth the speed of light, so it would take at least 60 trillion years to reach that civilization at the bleeding edge of the currently visible universe.
But fast as Helios II is, it is only about one four thousandth the speed of light, so it would take at least 60 trillion years to reach that civilization at the bleeding edge of the currently visible universe.
Scientism's powerful ability to unite the polar opposites of CUT and RUN
Scientism is the unbreakable faith belief that human mindpower will inevitably triumph over anything mere Nature can throw up.
While its days of unquestioned total hegemony was only between 1875 and 1965, it still dominates the political and economic classes and is successfully winning back intellectual hegemony among the environmentalist classes, through the back door of hard core SF films and books.
While its days of unquestioned total hegemony was only between 1875 and 1965, it still dominates the political and economic classes and is successfully winning back intellectual hegemony among the environmentalist classes, through the back door of hard core SF films and books.
RIO+20 celebrate ! Western MINERALS all gone ; Western NATIVES still there
In the early 1950s, the conventional opinion of the proto-denier class was that the various "western" Frontiers (Alaska, the Canadian and American Wests, Australia, South Africa, Argentina et al) would always have lots of mineral wealth but that their natives/aboriginals were on the inevitable path to total extinction.
Sixty years on, at the cusp of the disappointing Rio+20 Conference, let us pause in our lamenting to celebrate a small victory over the forces of greed and hubris.
Sixty years on, at the cusp of the disappointing Rio+20 Conference, let us pause in our lamenting to celebrate a small victory over the forces of greed and hubris.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
"The weak shall be strong" : the DIVINE IRONY (in the Chesterton sense) of penicillin, 'the medicine from Muskogee'
There is nothing more uncool and literally square than the penicillin drugs, but they have saved more lives - because of their squareness - than 'the hip have had hot dinners'.
Most North Americans have heard - and understood - the Merle Haggard song "Okie from Muskogee", but readers from the rest of the world might need a little help.
Most North Americans have heard - and understood - the Merle Haggard song "Okie from Muskogee", but readers from the rest of the world might need a little help.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Looking back at 21st Century Fiction : The Cut'n'runners Boys vs the Sustainer Gals
I will be long dead before the 21st century is over, let alone properly evaluated.
But I am still willing to stick my neck and foretell what the characteristic fiction of this century will look like --- and what it won't look like.
Oh sure, there will be plenty of spy cum adventure action dramas that replace battles with Russian communist spies with tales of blue-eyed blondes fighting off dusky Arabs and sinister yellow perils, but really - isn't this all a bit 19th century-ish ?
No, a truly 21st century genre fiction will deal with the striking events of its own century : and that means denier-wars and global warming / climate change.
But I am still willing to stick my neck and foretell what the characteristic fiction of this century will look like --- and what it won't look like.
Oh sure, there will be plenty of spy cum adventure action dramas that replace battles with Russian communist spies with tales of blue-eyed blondes fighting off dusky Arabs and sinister yellow perils, but really - isn't this all a bit 19th century-ish ?
No, a truly 21st century genre fiction will deal with the striking events of its own century : and that means denier-wars and global warming / climate change.
Monday, June 18, 2012
The Who, What, Where, When of Climate Change I leave to others : I seek the "Why"
The Climate Wars are but the latest skirmish in an old, old war.
But with the stakes never higher, righteous anger fills both sides, each convinced that the other will lead their planet to rack and ruin.
I am Canadian, but I hate hockey and you will certainly see no climate hockey sticks here - nor any other peer-reviewed science either.
But with the stakes never higher, righteous anger fills both sides, each convinced that the other will lead their planet to rack and ruin.
I am Canadian, but I hate hockey and you will certainly see no climate hockey sticks here - nor any other peer-reviewed science either.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
"Closing of the American West" won't truly happen for DENIERS until PONTA DO SOL's labour is too expensive & its natural resources too depleted to profitably keep a factory there
Where the Bejesus, you might well say, is Ponta do Sol in the American West?
Well perplexed you surely should be - this tiny place is the only sizable community on the island of Santo Antao, in the tiny African nation of Cape Verde.
It just happens to be the most western point in the continent of Africa : the truly western-most spot in the American Western frontier ---- for American business anyway.
Well perplexed you surely should be - this tiny place is the only sizable community on the island of Santo Antao, in the tiny African nation of Cape Verde.
It just happens to be the most western point in the continent of Africa : the truly western-most spot in the American Western frontier ---- for American business anyway.
the skygods & earthlings of 1936's "Anti-Bacterial Wars" : synthetic Sulfa versus natural Penicillin
Rather incredulously, I slowly backed into the poop we call 2012's Climate Change Wars ---- from research I had been conducting on a highly similar war - from more than 75 years ago!
That war, more a skirmish in its earliest stages, was between the old anti-bacterial agent, natural penicillin and the new anti-bacterial agent, synthetic Sulfa.
That war, more a skirmish in its earliest stages, was between the old anti-bacterial agent, natural penicillin and the new anti-bacterial agent, synthetic Sulfa.
Post 1875-1965 Scientism's "SHATTERED CONSENSUS" : esteem-lowering news for McKitrick & Michaels
Don't you sometimes wish you could actually meet a "junior" Fellow from one of those long-winded think-tanks?
Or maybe just a hail-fellow-well-met type of fellow?
When everyone is a "Senior", no one is a "Senior", my mom used always say.
Is bluster and bombast just something they mix in the Kool-Aid ?
Anyway, where was I ?
Oh yes, crying crocodile tears over the losses in the all-important self esteem department for those two white guys, Ross McKitrick and Pat Michaels.
Or maybe just a hail-fellow-well-met type of fellow?
When everyone is a "Senior", no one is a "Senior", my mom used always say.
Is bluster and bombast just something they mix in the Kool-Aid ?
Anyway, where was I ?
Oh yes, crying crocodile tears over the losses in the all-important self esteem department for those two white guys, Ross McKitrick and Pat Michaels.
Charlie Koch's ruby-red slippers: DENYING his way back to daddy's "Lost Hegemony of Scientism"
Okay it might not be the sort of book about Kansas and ruby-red slippers that L Frank Baum could write - maybe more in Joseph Conrad's line : "the horror! , the horror!".
But I seriously think there is a book there , a psychologically-probing examination about "Charlie G" Koch's magnificent obsession over the sad fate of his father Fred's science/scientism.
But I seriously think there is a book there , a psychologically-probing examination about "Charlie G" Koch's magnificent obsession over the sad fate of his father Fred's science/scientism.
We got the birth certificate , CATO : Denialism was birthed in America, more precisely in Wichita
DENIERS are busy,busy,busy people, but among all their other denials, they never hesitate to find time to deny that America could have possibly birthed the current president.
They seem to feel that he is either the spawn of the Devil or the spawn of darkest Kenya ----and as part of the DENIERS' overall "Southern Strategy", either hallucination will work equally well at the ballot box.
One thing they will never ever deny (or its bye-bye that life-sustaining greenback oxygen) is that the DENIER Movement was birthed in America - more precisely in Wichita Kansas's Koch-funded CATO INSTITUTE, back in 1974.
Unfortunately for The-Fate-of -the-Planet, the rest of the world was too busy to notice.
They seem to feel that he is either the spawn of the Devil or the spawn of darkest Kenya ----and as part of the DENIERS' overall "Southern Strategy", either hallucination will work equally well at the ballot box.
One thing they will never ever deny (or its bye-bye that life-sustaining greenback oxygen) is that the DENIER Movement was birthed in America - more precisely in Wichita Kansas's Koch-funded CATO INSTITUTE, back in 1974.
Unfortunately for The-Fate-of -the-Planet, the rest of the world was too busy to notice.
Most effective DENIER message isn't a think-tank or a blog : its a song
Or accurately a song industry: the one that keeps pumping out Nashville's road songs.
I am thinking particularly of Tim Nichols' "HEADS CAROLINA, TAILS CALIFORNIA" and "YOU AIN"T IN KANSAS ANYMORE" , as sung by Jo Dee Messina.
God, how I love those songs: songs so infectious that they'd make a graveyard of old tombstones get up and dance a two-step.
Yet I know I really shouldn't.
I am thinking particularly of Tim Nichols' "HEADS CAROLINA, TAILS CALIFORNIA" and "YOU AIN"T IN KANSAS ANYMORE" , as sung by Jo Dee Messina.
God, how I love those songs: songs so infectious that they'd make a graveyard of old tombstones get up and dance a two-step.
Yet I know I really shouldn't.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
"Pandemic Invasion from the DENY-o-sphere"
Those who deny (and then plan to flee) the mess they've made of this Planet have got themselves a nice home, an echo chamber and cheering section: call it the DENY-o-Sphere.
Not a permanent home you understand: that's MARS, and they're still pouring the cement foundations for it out there.
But for now, they're over here, over-sexed and over-funded by fossil-devouring mega-energy-corps --- squatting down plunk in the middle of our blog-o-sphere ---- uninvited.
So what have we got, to counter this invasive species ?
Not a permanent home you understand: that's MARS, and they're still pouring the cement foundations for it out there.
But for now, they're over here, over-sexed and over-funded by fossil-devouring mega-energy-corps --- squatting down plunk in the middle of our blog-o-sphere ---- uninvited.
So what have we got, to counter this invasive species ?
Coming soon : "OFF-PLANETTING" the 99%'s jobs to Martian robots ...
Let's pretend it all began in 1870.
Some uppity bunch of employees in New England's pioneering factory mill system now want a fairer share of the money rolling in - as does the town and the state legislators.
Farmers downstream from the mill complain that the river water is now making their cows sick and want something done about it.
In a soon-to-be-classic gambit, the mill owners first deny everything - the existence of profits or pollution.
Some uppity bunch of employees in New England's pioneering factory mill system now want a fairer share of the money rolling in - as does the town and the state legislators.
Farmers downstream from the mill complain that the river water is now making their cows sick and want something done about it.
In a soon-to-be-classic gambit, the mill owners first deny everything - the existence of profits or pollution.
20th Century Socialism's BIG LIE : latest example
The good folks in Atlantic Canada are a bit slow - or a bit sensible - so only now are they enjoying the kind of disappointment most of the rest of the world has already endured.
They have discovered Socialism's (-in-government) definitely not-green thumb....
They have discovered Socialism's (-in-government) definitely not-green thumb....
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Nova Scotia oceans: meet the new (SOCIALIST) boss, same as the old (CAPITALIST) boss
Growth-oriented governments of the left as well as the right are both equally deadly to Mother Nature.
Both rape and pillage and deplete the Earth and then deny they are doing so.
Just take the socialist government of Nova Scotia ----- please take it !
Both rape and pillage and deplete the Earth and then deny they are doing so.
Just take the socialist government of Nova Scotia ----- please take it !
"Within a year, you WILL have read Ozzie Zehner's 'Green Illusions' " - SVE
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| Ozzie Zehner |
In it he makes clear that we don't now, never have and never will face an energy crisis - as in 'too little energy'.
Rather we face the effects of excessive energy use and adding solar panels and windmills, alone, will only make it worse - by expanding the energy supply and thus, in effect, lowering the cost of all energy - all energy as in coal and oil.
The big "DISCONNECT" that drives the climate change debate
When High Modernity (aka Scientism) lost the intellectual hegemony it held between 1875 and 1965, it did not also lose any political or economic power.
So now we see a world that basically - publicly - says it worries about a steadily warming planet, but, in practise, does nothing to mitigate it.
To exaggerate a lot, to make my point more vivid, it is as if the 99% agreed that that climate change was real and dangerous, but that the 1% did not.
So now we see a world that basically - publicly - says it worries about a steadily warming planet, but, in practise, does nothing to mitigate it.
To exaggerate a lot, to make my point more vivid, it is as if the 99% agreed that that climate change was real and dangerous, but that the 1% did not.
GRDs : "Global Rape Deniers" who ravish our planet
What are the so-called "Climate Change" Deniers/Skeptics/Doubters really denying?
I would argue that what they are really denying is something much bigger and much worse : the rape and ravishing of every bit of our planet to steal its natural wealth --- and of which one side effect (but only one) is the polluting of the atmosphere with excessive human carbon pollution.
I would argue that what they are really denying is something much bigger and much worse : the rape and ravishing of every bit of our planet to steal its natural wealth --- and of which one side effect (but only one) is the polluting of the atmosphere with excessive human carbon pollution.
Climate DENIERS as latter-day Alexander Flemings
If you are a very attentive reader of SVE - and I have good reason to doubt that you are - you will have noticed I took down my first few names from my ENEMIES list and added a few unsuspected ones.
I had started with the usual suspects - the ones you see and laugh at on every denier-watcher blog.
But I quickly saw they were in fact contrary to my position on the whole 'Deny-Me-Not Movement'.
The usual climate deniers are almost ridiculously easy to mock - but they are also, in my view, just stalking horses, a false front for the more serious and subtle backroom climate denying activities, performed by the sort of names I put up to replace them.
I had started with the usual suspects - the ones you see and laugh at on every denier-watcher blog.
But I quickly saw they were in fact contrary to my position on the whole 'Deny-Me-Not Movement'.
The usual climate deniers are almost ridiculously easy to mock - but they are also, in my view, just stalking horses, a false front for the more serious and subtle backroom climate denying activities, performed by the sort of names I put up to replace them.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Sorry, Megan, but the Halifax Oceans panel was a microcosm of the problem it seeks to solve
HALIFAX - The Canadian branch of the International Ocean Institute (IOI-Canada) held its 8th Annual Elisabeth Mann Borgese lecture & panel/public discussion at Dalhousie University's Law School on May 8th 2012, mere weeks before Rio+20 Conference.
There has been international efforts to improve the state of the oceans against the assaults of man for at least 40 years - plenty of nice words spoken by government leaders - plenty of serious treaties written and signed.
But basically no action.
Admittably there has been little action on any environmental front, so why should the oceans be so different?
Well, it is our oceans - not our land - that makes the Earth uniquely the one planet in a trillion ,trillion, trillion planets that has intelligent life on it ---- that's why this stuff matters.
There has been international efforts to improve the state of the oceans against the assaults of man for at least 40 years - plenty of nice words spoken by government leaders - plenty of serious treaties written and signed.
But basically no action.
Admittably there has been little action on any environmental front, so why should the oceans be so different?
Well, it is our oceans - not our land - that makes the Earth uniquely the one planet in a trillion ,trillion, trillion planets that has intelligent life on it ---- that's why this stuff matters.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
CHRIS LADD, GOPlifer, is one Republican well worth reading
I may not always agree with everything the ole GOPlifer says - but Chris Ladd never fails to amuse and inform as he says it.
Liberty without Limits is the Law of the Jungle & the Law of the Strong
Let's re-phrase that: unbridled Liberty is the law-lessness of the Jungle and of the Strong.
The Liberty Movement, always powerful not never in power, has never had to admit this fact of life.
God deliberately gave humanity a world and universe with limits - both biological and material - for a reason.
The Liberty Movement, always powerful not never in power, has never had to admit this fact of life.
God deliberately gave humanity a world and universe with limits - both biological and material - for a reason.
Harridans from Hell : the three women who are destroying our planet
Destroying all the planet, from the grave.
All three Harridans - Isobel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane and Ayn Rand - died years ago .
But they are still uniquely honored by the mostly male (and male chauvinistic) libertarians of the world as "The Founding Mothers" of Libertarianism.
Yes - there are no Founding Fathers of this uniquely male-centric theology of greed and self-centredness.
All three Harridans - Isobel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane and Ayn Rand - died years ago .
But they are still uniquely honored by the mostly male (and male chauvinistic) libertarians of the world as "The Founding Mothers" of Libertarianism.
Yes - there are no Founding Fathers of this uniquely male-centric theology of greed and self-centredness.
This century's battle between Webster and the Devil is for the soul of all humanity
Forget Republican versus Democrat, Liberal versus Conservative, Socialist versus Capitalist ---- they are all yesterday's news, yesterday's papers - throw 'em in the trash, we won't be needing them again.
Today's battle royal, between a latter day Daniel Webster and a latter day Devil is the battle between the Libertarians versus the commensalists.
Today's battle royal, between a latter day Daniel Webster and a latter day Devil is the battle between the Libertarians versus the commensalists.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Where humans see dozens of human ideologies, NATURE sees only one: Libertarian greed
Right wing humans think the strong should get to keep their wealth, no matter how obtained, while left wing humans think they should share it with their poorer, less aggressive, fellow humans.
That basically is the continuum that you can plunk all the human ideologies along.
Except one (well one that I know of -and I admit I know little !) :
GLOBAL COMMENSALITY.
That basically is the continuum that you can plunk all the human ideologies along.
Except one (well one that I know of -and I admit I know little !) :
GLOBAL COMMENSALITY.
NATURE survey confirms LIBERTARIAN GREED is humanity's dominant ideology
Okay, okay, who uses gallows humour to describe our terrestrial spiral downwards into total disaster?
But I just couldn't resist the opportunity to make a pun and a serious point about the just-published, highly depressing, BARNOSKY SURVEY.
But I just couldn't resist the opportunity to make a pun and a serious point about the just-published, highly depressing, BARNOSKY SURVEY.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Evergreen Nova Scotia: PLANET B ---- are the wealthy planning to knock up Mother Nature and then bugger off to a new conquest ?
Evergreen Nova Scotia: PLANET B ---- are the wealthy planning to knock up Mother Nature and then bugger off to a new conquest ?
Rebecca Mosher at Evergreen Nova Scotia takes a feminist kick at the mostly male SPACERS - bang on !
Rebecca Mosher at Evergreen Nova Scotia takes a feminist kick at the mostly male SPACERS - bang on !
As Earth approaches tipping point of disaster, SPACERS head for "PLANET B" : Mars
Yesterday, June 6th 2012 should have marked the 68th anniversary of a famous 'invasion' of Earth : D-Day, the invasion of Nazi-held Europe.
That invasion seems ( but only seems) to have gone un-noticed in the general gloom of a report released in NATURE that same day.
That invasion seems ( but only seems) to have gone un-noticed in the general gloom of a report released in NATURE that same day.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
why I say the POLICE are libertarians to the man - or woman
If DARREN WOURMS had murdered another man's wife and baby on May 28th (instead of just his wife and his baby) do you really think it would have taken the RCMP (or any other police force) till June 4th to tell us so ?
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Australia's DUTCH DISEASE is worse than Canada's Tar Sands: ANDREW BOLT
None of Andrew Bolt's former lovers and colleagues who have gone on the record, seem to believe he really is the "foaming at the mouth" rightie-denier that he chooses to portray himself as --- in public ---- for fame & money.
They think he saw a way to move up from being a relatively unknown Labour-Party-supporting hackette to become Australia's FOX NEWS' Bill 'Oh Really?' --- if he moved quickly, before some genuine Aussie right-winger did so.
They think he saw a way to move up from being a relatively unknown Labour-Party-supporting hackette to become Australia's FOX NEWS' Bill 'Oh Really?' --- if he moved quickly, before some genuine Aussie right-winger did so.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
"RAPTURED TO MARS" : the new Earth 1.0% (while the 99% get 'LEFT BEHIND')
The oddballs that make up the visible 1/10th of the denier/birther/spacer (non-melting) iceberg are not exactly from that cohort's top drawer.
Everyone admits this, even the spacers - but no one is exactly sure why.
Why have your artillery fire fruitcakes at the cast-hardened massed armour of the left-liberal-scientific establishment, if you really truly deny global climate and environmental disaster?
Where are the heavy-lifting-ready brains and the real heavy money of the denier/birther/spacer movement?
Everyone admits this, even the spacers - but no one is exactly sure why.
Why have your artillery fire fruitcakes at the cast-hardened massed armour of the left-liberal-scientific establishment, if you really truly deny global climate and environmental disaster?
Where are the heavy-lifting-ready brains and the real heavy money of the denier/birther/spacer movement?
"DENIER LIT" : 'Hard' SF
We think we know what women like to read - we claim it is something called "CHICK LIT". So what do deniers/birthers/spacers - call 'em what you will - read ?
Can the jokes about them being unable to read, or only reading with their fingers while breathing through their mouths as the knuckles of their other hand grazes the ground , ape-style.
These guys do read - a lot. A lot more than their younger critics probably do.
I think we will find that they read 'Hard SF' and its close cousins - with authors like Robert Heinlein, Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton high in their Pantheon of author-prophets.
Can the jokes about them being unable to read, or only reading with their fingers while breathing through their mouths as the knuckles of their other hand grazes the ground , ape-style.
These guys do read - a lot. A lot more than their younger critics probably do.
I think we will find that they read 'Hard SF' and its close cousins - with authors like Robert Heinlein, Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton high in their Pantheon of author-prophets.
Monday, June 4, 2012
almost all AUTHORS are really employees who employ unacknowledged 'ghost writers' ....
When people ask me what I think of this 'worrisome' trend to self-published authors, I tell 'em - politely - that they are full of shite.
I tell them that I, by contrast, welcome the trend to self-published music records, song titles, magazines and pamphlets and only wonder why it took so long.
I have been self publishing in these areas since the early 1970s and I haven't got cancer yet.
I tell them that I, by contrast, welcome the trend to self-published music records, song titles, magazines and pamphlets and only wonder why it took so long.
I have been self publishing in these areas since the early 1970s and I haven't got cancer yet.
Deniers: if they LIE to you about their funding, they'll LIE to you about global warming as well
Trust me on this one, will ya ?
If a blogger or website (be it a denier, birther or spacer site) won't tell where all their funds come from, in detail, they are hiding something they are ashamed of.
And that something is frequently the fact their opinion is not in fact their own, but rather something stuffed in their mouth --- in exchange for 30 pieces of very big silver.
If a blogger or website (be it a denier, birther or spacer site) won't tell where all their funds come from, in detail, they are hiding something they are ashamed of.
And that something is frequently the fact their opinion is not in fact their own, but rather something stuffed in their mouth --- in exchange for 30 pieces of very big silver.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
SETI travel is the American BARBAROSSA : very long, very cold, very short of food
"Packing for Mars" (and points east) ?
Been there, done that - got the t-shirt.
It says : "I barely survived OPERATION BARBAROSSA ,winter of 1941-1942".
Most didn't: survive (or get the t-shirt).
Cock-eyed optimists and utopian libertarians, the Nazis cheerfully set off on a summer trip to visit the Urals, thinking it would be exactly like all those the articles in the German popular science magazines.
Been there, done that - got the t-shirt.
It says : "I barely survived OPERATION BARBAROSSA ,winter of 1941-1942".
Most didn't: survive (or get the t-shirt).
Cock-eyed optimists and utopian libertarians, the Nazis cheerfully set off on a summer trip to visit the Urals, thinking it would be exactly like all those the articles in the German popular science magazines.
SKYGODS discover 'intelligent life' : now what and so what.....
The fastest human-made (physical object) ever is Helios Two which travels at about .02% the speed of light. It takes 5000 years to travel the distance that man-made light signals would travel in one year.
The next nearest star (with any sort of planets) would take Helios Two 40,000 years to travel to and back.
But the first star with a planet very very very close to Earth in features (and thus supporting intelligent life) could easily be 100 light years away - taking Helios Two a million years to travel to and back to visit our closest relatives.
The next nearest star (with any sort of planets) would take Helios Two 40,000 years to travel to and back.
But the first star with a planet very very very close to Earth in features (and thus supporting intelligent life) could easily be 100 light years away - taking Helios Two a million years to travel to and back to visit our closest relatives.
Off camera, TEA PARTY actually drinks 1% kool aid - its own ....
The Tea Party is not conservative, cautious, skeptical, frugal : they are in fact very utopian, libertarian, optimistic, ideologues ---- when you examine their total universe of beliefs.
Ask them about space travel and you'll find the perpetual teenage boy fantasies of tossing Earth 1.0 off like a used condom and sailing off to Earth 2.0 on Planet Mars, leaving the rest of us, the 99%, to our fates.
Ask them about space travel and you'll find the perpetual teenage boy fantasies of tossing Earth 1.0 off like a used condom and sailing off to Earth 2.0 on Planet Mars, leaving the rest of us, the 99%, to our fates.
"Is that MUSK or just HUBRIS dat I smell ??
This just in from the 'bang-on' department:
Elon Musk, CEO of SPACE X, says that trips to Mars* will be as common as a trip to Europe, in just a few decades.
This utopian libertarian kool aid drinker was just being his usual optimistic self but , for once, SVE was forced to admit that Musk was not wrong.
Elon Musk, CEO of SPACE X, says that trips to Mars* will be as common as a trip to Europe, in just a few decades.
This utopian libertarian kool aid drinker was just being his usual optimistic self but , for once, SVE was forced to admit that Musk was not wrong.
New DUTCH DISEASE worse than TAR SANDS : Mars settlements by 2023
You don't have to come from one of the world's current superpowers to be consumed with hubris: you only have to have been a global powerhouse a few hundred years back to still strut like a skygod.
Take the Dutch - please - take the Dutch !
A group calling itself MARS ONE and headed by a Dutchman with a Masters in Science called Bas Lansdorp, is confident it can have a tiny colony of Dutch men on Mars permanently by 2023, 11 tiny earth-years from now.
Take the Dutch - please - take the Dutch !
A group calling itself MARS ONE and headed by a Dutchman with a Masters in Science called Bas Lansdorp, is confident it can have a tiny colony of Dutch men on Mars permanently by 2023, 11 tiny earth-years from now.
North Carolina's REPUBLICAN King Canutes to turn back ocean rising -----with their mouths
North Carolina's utopian libertarian brigade was out in full fury recently, passing legislation ordering ocean levels NOT to rise in coastal communities, because it might spook unsuspecting innocents from 'outa state' who might otherwise fall for 'too good to be true land deals', now that the supply of swamp land in Florida has dried up - thanks to global warming.
Oooops ! Not-supposed-to-use-that-word, not in connection with North Carolina, International Headquarters of the Flat Earth Society.
I can tell you what North Carolina's problem is in one word : Christianity.
Christianity hasn't been tried there and failed : its never been tried.
Oooops ! Not-supposed-to-use-that-word, not in connection with North Carolina, International Headquarters of the Flat Earth Society.
I can tell you what North Carolina's problem is in one word : Christianity.
Christianity hasn't been tried there and failed : its never been tried.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Pity Peter Bergson wasn't ALICE PAUL & LUCY BURNS : then some more Jews might have been saved....
I would be truly horrified if I left the impression that the infamous Peter Bergson was a fiery troublemaker among WWII's American Jewry.
He wasn't - not by a long shot - he was merely the least limp dick among a legion of limp dicks, when it came to saving Europe's Jews.
He wasn't - not by a long shot - he was merely the least limp dick among a legion of limp dicks, when it came to saving Europe's Jews.
"Three Generations of JEWISH Cowards Is Enough"
Part Two of Two Posts on this issue
Since 1945 (and the revelations about the Holocaust and what Jews in the free world failed to do to stop it) a disproportional percentage of every country's well known controversial columnists have been of Jewish descent.
At first glance, it may appear that the children and grandchildren of that generation of free world Jews who failed to ACT UP or OCCUPY WALL STREET during WWII, are simply being very confrontational and controversial now, in a catch-up effort to negate the meek and mildness of their forefathers' generation.
I argue this is simply not so.
Since 1945 (and the revelations about the Holocaust and what Jews in the free world failed to do to stop it) a disproportional percentage of every country's well known controversial columnists have been of Jewish descent.
At first glance, it may appear that the children and grandchildren of that generation of free world Jews who failed to ACT UP or OCCUPY WALL STREET during WWII, are simply being very confrontational and controversial now, in a catch-up effort to negate the meek and mildness of their forefathers' generation.
I argue this is simply not so.
Six million DEAD - Six million SILENT : One Holocaust , Two Crimes
Part One of Two Posts on this issue:
There were over six million Jews in the democratic Allied nations during world war two - able to safely protest ,in acts of public civil disobedience, even in wartime, over the fate of Europe's Jews, but who clearly failed to do so over and over again.
No "ACT UP" or "OCCUPY WALL STREET" for them - they preferred to colour within the lines, even as Jewish blood flooded over the lines in Europe.
One theory holds that they, their children and grandchildren have tried to deflect away questions as to why they did nothing then , by becoming fiery "warriors of the mouth" now.
There were over six million Jews in the democratic Allied nations during world war two - able to safely protest ,in acts of public civil disobedience, even in wartime, over the fate of Europe's Jews, but who clearly failed to do so over and over again.
No "ACT UP" or "OCCUPY WALL STREET" for them - they preferred to colour within the lines, even as Jewish blood flooded over the lines in Europe.
One theory holds that they, their children and grandchildren have tried to deflect away questions as to why they did nothing then , by becoming fiery "warriors of the mouth" now.
Friday, June 1, 2012
the ANTI-BIBLICAL republicans most popular among bible-"loving" evangelicals
The BIBLE ,remember it ? , said that that would be easier for a Republican elephant to go through the eye of a needle than it would be for a One Percenter to get to Heaven.
The Republican elephants have responded, in Florida and elsewhere, by saying "that was then, this is now: we're going to make harder for a Ninety Nine Percenter to get through our new voter registration process, than it would be for Mother Theresa to get to Heaven."
The Republican elephants have responded, in Florida and elsewhere, by saying "that was then, this is now: we're going to make harder for a Ninety Nine Percenter to get through our new voter registration process, than it would be for Mother Theresa to get to Heaven."
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