Warming Globes

For some reason, I find myself drawn into these long rambling arguments on other sites. I feel a little guilty about this because I write these long dissertations buried in the comments of other sites instead of pulling my weight at ChicagoBoyz.

Instead of rewriting the comments into a post, I think I will be lazy and just link to the comments themselves. So, anyone interested in my perspective on politicization of science and global warming should read my comments to this post over on Science Blog.

[Note that the way ScienceBlog does its comments is last first.]

Ideological Warfare

The Cold War has been over, or so we’re told, for over a dozen years now. Why then is it that our political discourse sometimes still sounds like Marx vs. Gladstone? Eric S. Raymond examines the history of ideological warfare, from its roots in the Cold War, to the modern manifestation in the seeming clash of civilizations between Islam and the West.

The essay does wax a bit … pretentious, if I may. But all the name-dropping (in terms of philosophers, writers, and memes) is exactly the sort that ivory tower types might be most excited by.

The essay also seems to adopt what Richard Hofstadter has called the “paranoid style”. Now, I’m not big on conspiracy theory or religion, which share some traits. Still, the temptation to adopt conspiracy theory is a basic human impulse, and in this vein, one could do worse than to read what Raymond has to say. You don’t have to agree with his conclusions, but what he states should be interesting, and a thought-provoking examination of the source of your beliefs.

[Cross-posted at Between Worlds]

Breaking News: Tourists Shun Hot, Humid Weather!

Hurricanes Don’t Stop Tourists in Florida is the headline of this AP article linked by the ever-analytical Drudge.

Tourists visited Florida in record numbers last year, apparently undeterred by four hurricanes that lashed the state and caused widespread damage, officials announced Monday.

The tourists know what the author of the article doesn’t seem to, namely that Florida’s hurricane season is May through November while its main tourist season extends from approximately November through May.

Next: Oil Drilling Thought Responsible for Dearth of Alaska Winter Tourism

UPDATE: I should have made clear that the author of the AP piece missed two points that should have been obvious: 1) there isn’t much overlap between tourist season and hurricane season (the point I made) and 2) the 2005 hurricanes occurred late in the year and therefore could not have affected tourism during the preceeding nine months.

Rothko & Edna at Sea

Lex’s post asks what drives demography and notes Spengler’s answer. They seem often right and provocative. (More.) Surely, those who refuse to defend themselves & choose not to reproduce themselves are troubled. And Lex & Spengler demonstrate at least for some it may be a lack of faith. That lack reverberates in the center of the Rothko Chapel, where the ecumenical becomes negation.

As the mother of three daughters, I, like everyone else, has always been pulled by the the nurturer & the bitch, the submerged & the awakend self; I like to talk about the alienation of twentieth century modernism from the biological as Lex sees it solipsistically moving from the spiritual. Or, as my children say, there Mommy goes again – its all life force & castration with her.

Read more