Lincoln or Nostradamus?

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, — 'I see no probability of the British invading us;' but he will say to you, 'Be silent: I see it, if you don't.'

"The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood,"

- Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to William H. Herndon, Feb. 15, 1848.

What Now?

While this blog will never go so far as to long for a 'simpler time' when there was less information around, it must confess to being serially flummoxed by dissent and controversy in the scientific community.

This isn't about iffy new sciences like nutritionism. It's impossible to coallate valid data and develop good theories on eating habits that have been around for less than a generation, so for most part I ignore the headlines (More Protein! No Carbs! No, More Whole Grains! OMG, Omega-3!!) and follow the Golden Rule of food: eat what your great-grandmother ate, and for heaven's sake not that much, because she was a farmer.

No, this is about real science, the kind that's been around for a while, or at least, has irrefutable data banks to draw on covering great periods of time that nobody can argue with and only need to be interpreted logically. Is that so hard? Is it really?

Why can't this blog make up its mind about global warming (climate change, whatever), then?



This blog watched An Inconvenient Truth. Got all fired up, to tell you the truth, because yours truly is impressionable that way, and it's irritating sometimes because this blog does not want to be a goddamned teenager with a new cause every week. But it was so convincing! Spiffy charts, low on the theatrics, no discernable corporate lobby behind it, and hard data mined up from prehistoric ice, I ask you?

But apparently it was bogus. This Canadian fella (Canadian! Immediately trustworthy!) who is a proper climatologist and all, PhD etc., thinks so. The worst part of it is, he says he's tried to publish papers arguing his side of it and keeps getting rejected for no good reason, and to tell you the truth, one of the statistics Al Gore used to make his case was: there is a 100% consensus among climatologists on the issue of global warming, judging from the articles in peer-reviewed journals. So he was only telling a very convenient truth there?

There's something missing here. Let's think clearly for a second, shall we? We have evidence being chucked at us from both sides. One side is clearly better supported than the other both in terms of arguments and experience (hello, winter 2006/7?!!), but why would this supposedly scientific establishment simply refuse to publish opposing evidence? Very fishy. What we need, I think, are standards.

Do both sides agree that there's more CO2 in the atmosphere these days? (hard fact)
Do both sides agree that it's humans who've released this extra CO2? (dunno, but kinda obvious, isn't it?)
Does extra CO2 cause global warming? (hard fact, or is it??)
Have we in fact reached the point where we can say there is extra CO2, more than there ever was before in the history of the world since the last couple of ice ages at least? (dunno, but Al Gore was very convincing on this point. The charts!)

The hostility point as made by that Canadian fella is bothersome. Why the rancour? How can rational debate not compel the experts to agree on one version of reality in this matter? What am I missing?

Startling Fact! (and some other stuff)

(courtesy of The Onion)


... if it's 80% personally applicable, you've got to put it on your blog.



And these next two are just funny.





(PS: "DID"!! I knew I missed out a power-verb on my resume!)

Wow.

Sifting Through The Embers

by Douglas Adams

There's a story I heard when I was young that bothered me because I couldn't understand it. It was many years before I discovered it to be the story of the Sybilline books. By that time all the details of the story had rewritten themselves in my mind, but the essentials were still the same. After a year of exploring some of the endangered environments of the world, I think I finally understand it.

It concerns an ancient city – it doesn't matter where it was or what it was called. It was a thriving, prosperous city set in the middle of a large plain. One summer, while people of the city were busy thriving and prospering away, a strange old beggar woman arrived at the gates carrying twelve large books, which she offered to sell to them. She said that the books contained all the knowledge and all the wisdom of the world, and that she would let the city have all twelve of them in return for a single sack of gold.

The people of the city thought this was a very funny idea. They said she obviously had no conception of the value of gold and that probably the best thing was for her to go away again.

This she agreed to do, but first she said that she was going to destroy half of the books in front of them. She built a small bonfire, burnt six of the books of all knowledge and all wisdom in the sight of the people of the city, and then went on her way.

Winter came and went, a hard winter, but the city just managed to flourish through it and then, the following summer, the old woman was back.

"Oh, you again," said the people of the city. "How's the knowledge and wisdom going?"

"Six books," she said, "just six left. Half of all the knowledge and wisdom in the world. Once again I am offering to sell them to you."

"Oh yes?" sniggered the people of the city.

"Only the price has changed."

"Not surprised."

"Two sacks of gold."

"What?"

"Two sacks of gold for the six remaining books of knowledge and wisdom. Take it or leave it."

"It seems to us," said the people of the city, "that you can't be very wise or knowledgeable yourself or you would realise that you can't just go around quadrupling an already outrageous price in a buyer's market. If that's the sort of knowledge and wisdom you're peddling, then, frankly, you can keep it at any price."

"Do you want them or not?"

"No."

"Very well. I will trouble you for a little firewood."

She built another bonfire and burnt three of the remaining books in front of them and then set off back across the plain.

That night one or two curious people from the city sneaked out and sifted through the embers to see if they could salvage the odd page or two, but the fire had burnt very thoroughly and the old woman had raked the ashes. There was nothing.

Another hard winter took its toll on the city and they had a little trouble with famine and disease, but trade was good and they were in reasonably good shape again by the following summer when, once again, the old woman appeared.

"You're early this year," they said to her.

"Less to carry," she explained, showing them the three books she was still carrying. "A quarter of all the knowledge and wisdom in the world. Do you want it?"

"What's the price?"

"Four sacks of gold."

"You're completely mad, old woman. Apart from anything else, our economy's going through a bit of a sticky patch at the moment. Sacks of gold are completely out of the question."

"Firewood, please."

"Now wait a minute," said the people of the city, "this isn't doing anybody any good. We've been thinking about all this and we've put together a small committee to have a look at these books of yours. Let us evaluate them for a few months, see if they're worth anything to us, and when you come back next year, perhaps we can put in some kind of a reasonable offer. We are not talking sacks of gold here, though."

The old woman shook her head. "No," she said. "Bring me the firewood."

"It'll cost you."

"No matter," said the woman, with a shrug. "The books will burn quite well by themselves."

So saying, she set about shredding two of the books into pieces which then burnt easily. She set off swiftly across the plain and left the people of the city to face another year.

She was back in the late spring.

"Just one left," she said, putting it down on the ground in front of her. "So I was able to bring my own firewood."

"How much?" said the people of the city.

"Sixteen sacks of gold."

"We'd only budgeted for eight."

"Take it or leave it."

"Wait here."

The people of the city went off into a huddle and returned half an hour later.

"Sixteen sacks is all we've got left," they pleaded, "times are hard. You must leave us with something."

The old woman just hummed to herself as she started to pile the kindling together.

"All right!" they cried at last, opened up the gates of the city, and let out two ox carts , each laden with eight sacks of gold. "But it had better be good."

"Thank you," said the old woman, "it is. And you should have seen the rest of it."

She led the two ox carts away across the plain with her, and left the people of the city to survive as best they could with the one remaining twelfth of all the knowledge and wisdom that had been in the world.

[From the book Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams.]

Egalitarianism

The word has been out for a while: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be out on 21 July 2007. Today, TLC reported that J. K. Rowling finished writing the book on 11th January - a piece of information that is not insignificant to us fans. (What was I doing on the 11th, I wonder?) But more intriguing was the source of that information: J. K. Rowling allegedly finished the book in a suite at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinborough, and scrawled graffiti on the back of a marble bust in her room to commemorate the event.

Right on cue, hundreds of people with Causes and Moral Righteousness are beginning to crawl out of the woodwork:

I hope they charge her with criminal damage!" (The Sun reader)

way to go Jo....you are a perfect role model.....hey kids leave your name on private property....its ok!(TLC comment)

Ugh. People, get a life. Better still, stop reading Marx. All people are not created equal, and as we progress from creation to old age we become even less equal. OK? You cannot scrawl on a statue and get away with it. J. K. Rowling can. It's called C.E.L.E.B.R.I.T.Y. Get over it.

New Look

Finally! A graphic!

Under Construction

I'm trying to get this banner image to work with my template. Patience, me hearties. You will not have to endure this blinding white much longer.