Alone among economists, Nouriel Roubini of New York University accurately predicted the current economic woes of the United States.
Nouriel Roubini, NYU photo
Who knew? Do you know anything about what he predicts now?
Read this profile from The New York Times.
Roubini contributes to RGE Monitor.
Other resources:
1 Comment | 
Economics, Globalization, History, Politics | Tagged: Economics, Globalization, History, Politics | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
At American Creation, Tom Van Dyke looks at the questions paster Rick Warren asked Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, with an eye to history.
George Washington probably would have flunked the test, had he been on the dais yesterday, Van Dyke notes.
Santayana’s Ghost shifts nervously.
"Washington Bible" - image from the Masonic Library and Museum
Leave a Comment » | Elections, First Amendment, History, McCain 2008, Obama 2008, Politics, Religion, Santayana's ghost, Separation of church and state | Tagged: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, History, John McCain, Politics, Religion, Santayana's ghost, Separation of church and state | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Will Rogers, images from Will Rogers Museums, Oklahoma
After Mark Twain died, America found another great humorist, raconteur, story-teller, who tickled the nation’s funny-bone and pricked the collective social conscience at the same time. Will Rogers is most famous today for his sentiment that he never met a man he didn’t like. In 1935, he was at the height of his popularity, still performing as a lariat-twirling, Vaudeville comedian who communed with presidents, and kept his common sense. He wrote a daily newspaper column that was carried in 500 newspapers across America. Rogers was so popular that Texas and Oklahoma have dueled over who gets the bragging rights in claiming him as a native son.
Will Rogers ready to perform. Photo taken prior to 1900 - Wikimedia
Wiley Post was known as one of the best pilots in America. He gained fame by being the first pilot to fly solo around the world. Post was famous for his work developing new ways to fly at high altitudes. Post was born in Texas and moved to Oklahoma. He lost an eye in an oil-field accident in 1924, then used the settlement money to buy his first airplane. He befriended Will Rogers when flying Rogers to an appearance at a Rodeo, and the two kept up their friendship literally to death.
Post asked Rogers to come along on a tour of the great unknown land of Alaska, where Post was trying to map routes for mail planes to Russia. Ever adventurous, Rogers agreed — he could file his newspaper columns from Alaska by radio and telephone. On August 15, 1935, their airplane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska, killing them both.
Wiley Post, first to fly solo around the world, in an early pressure suit for high-altitude flying - Wikimedia photo
On August 15, 2008, a ceremony in Claremore, Oklahoma, will honor the two men on the 73rd anniversary of their deaths. About 50 pilots from Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas will fly in to the Claremore Airport for the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Fly-In Weekend. Oklahoma Lt. Gov. Jari Askins will offer a tribute.
Rogers was 56, leaving behind his wife, Betty, and four children. Post, 36, left a widow.
Rogers’ life is really quite legendary. Historian Joseph H. Carter summed it up:
Will Rogers was first an Indian, a cowboy then a national figure. He now is a legend.
Born in 1879 on a large ranch in the Cherokee Nation near what later would become Oologah, Oklahoma, Will Rogers was taught by a freed slave how to use a lasso as a tool to work Texas Longhorn cattle on the family ranch.
As he grew older, Will Rogers’ roping skills developed so special that he was listed in the Guinness Book of Records for throwing three lassos at once: One rope caught the running horse’s neck, the other would hoop around the rider and the third swooped up under the horse to loop all four legs.
Will Rogers’ unsurpassed lariat feats were recorded in the classic movie, “The Ropin’ Fool.”
His hard-earned skills won him jobs trick roping in wild west shows and on the vaudeville stages where, soon, he started telling small jokes.
Quickly, his wise cracks and folksy observations became more prized by audiences than his expert roping. He became recognized as being a very informed and smart philosopher–telling the truth in very simple words so that everyone could understand.
After the 10th grade, Will Rogers dropped out of school to become a cowboy in a cattle drive. He always regretted that he didn’t finish school, but he made sure that he never stopped learning–reading, thinking and talking to smart people. His hard work paid off.
Will Rogers was the star of Broadway and 71 movies of the 1920s and 1930s; a popular broadcaster; besides writing more than 4,000 syndicated newspaper columns and befriending Presidents, Senators and Kings.
During his lifetime, he traveled around the globe three times– meeting people, covering wars, talking about peace and learning everything possible.
He wrote six books. In fact he published more than two million words. He was the first big time radio commentator, was a guest at the White House and his opinions were sought by the leaders of the world.
Inside himself, Will Rogers remained a simple Oklahoma cowboy. “I never met a man I didn’t like,” was his credo of genuine love and respect for humanity and all people everywhere. He gave his own money to disaster victims and raised thousands for the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
Post’s legacy is significant, too. His employer, Oklahoma oil man F. C. Hall, encouraged Post to push for aviation records using Hall’s Lockheed Vega, and Post was happy to comply. Before his history-making trip around the world, he had won races and navigation contests. NASA traces the development of the space-walking suits worn by astronauts to Post’s early attempts for flight records:
For Wiley Post to achieve the altitude records he sought, he needed protection. (Pressurized aircraft cabins had not yet been developed.) Post’s solution was a suit that could be pressurized by his airplane engine’s supercharger.
First attempts at building a pressure suit failed since the suit became rigid and immobile when pressurized. Post discovered he couldn’t move inside the inflated suit, much less work airplane controls. A later version succeeded with the suit constructed already in a sitting position. This allowed Post to place his hands on the airplane controls and his feet on the rudder bars. Moving his arms and legs was difficult, but not impossible. To provide visibility, a viewing port was part of the rigid helmet placed over Post’s head. The port was small, but a larger one was unnecessary because Post had only one good eye!
Last photo of Will Rogers (in the hat) and Wiley Post, in Alaska in 1935 (from Century of Flight)
Tip of the old scrub brush to Alaska bush advocate Pamela Bumsted.
Resources:
9 Comments | Airplanes, Education, Famous quotes, History, Humor, Politics, Technology, Texas history, Transportation | Tagged: Airplanes, Alaska, Aviation, Famous quotes, History, Humor, Oklahoma, Texas, Transportation | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
The thing with the flag? That was sorta funny. It was meant as humor.
This isn’t funny: The Bush administration is actively working to stop injured and ill veterans in Veterans Administration facilities from registering to vote.
These actions are most likely violations of the Voting Rights Act (under Section 2, or Section 11 – not my area of expertise, alas), but don’t expect Bush’s Justice Department to prosecute. These actions violate the VA’s own rules on helping veterans to vote. More pragmatically, there isn’t time for a big fight before the election. Veterans will be stopped from voting unless there is action now.
There is an easier, simpler solution — though we’re late. Bush should just rescind the order, encourage all veterans to vote, and help voter registration drives and attempts to get absentee ballots injured and ill veterans in VA facilities.
WHAT is the secretary of Veterans Affairs thinking? On May 5, the department led by James B. Peake issued a directive that bans nonpartisan voter registration drives at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans. As a result, too many of our most patriotic American citizens — our injured and ill military veterans — may not be able to vote this November.
I have witnessed the enforcement of this policy. On June 30, I visited the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Haven, Conn., to distribute information on the state’s new voting machines and to register veterans to vote. I was not allowed inside the hospital.
Outside on the sidewalk, I met Martin O’Nieal, a 92-year-old man who lost a leg while fighting the Nazis in the mountains of Northern Italy during the harsh winter of 1944. Mr. O’Nieal has been a resident of the hospital since 2007. He wanted to vote last year, but he told me that there was no information about how to register to vote at the hospital and the nurses could not answer his questions about how or where to cast a ballot.
Just a minor glitch, an information vacuum waiting to be filled? Go back and reread the last sentence in her second paragraph: “I was not allowed inside the hospital,” to register veterans to vote, she said.
Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, and I wrote to [Veterans Affairs] Secretary [James B.] Peake in July to request that elections officials be let inside the department’s facilities to conduct voter education and registration. Our request was denied.
The department offers two reasons to justify its decision. First, it claims that voter registration drives are disruptive to the care of its patients. This is nonsense. Veterans can fill out a voter registration card in about 90 seconds.
Second, the department claims that its employees cannot help patients register to vote because the Hatch Act forbids federal workers from engaging in partisan political activities. But this interpretation of the Hatch Act is erroneous. Registering people to vote is not partisan activity.
If the department does not want to burden its staff, there are several national organizations with a long history of nonpartisan advocacy for veterans and their right to vote that are eager to help, as are elected officials like me.
The department has placed an illegitimate obstacle in the way of election officials across the country and, more important, in the way of veterans who want to vote.
Read the rest of her plea, which was carried in the New York Times last Monday, August 11.
And then take action. Bills have already been filed in Congress to force the Department of Veterans Affairs to allow veterans in its hospitals to register and vote. Frankly, time is running out. Many of these veterans will have to vote absentee — they need to be registered and have about a month to get the ballots and mail them back. There are 82 days to the election. Time is short.
So: Call George Bush and tell him to let veterans in hospitals register, and vote. George’s phone number for comments is 202-456-1111; if for any reason that does not work for you, try the general switchboard at 202-456-1414. Tell Bush I said to say “Howdy.”
The White House won’t put you through to George, but they will tally your opinion. If they give you a hard time, ask them: Why is George Bush afraid of the votes of wounded and ill veterans?
Ready to do more to support our veterans? Call the Secretary of Veterans Affairs: [::grumble:: Just try to find a general phone number for VA. Still looking. It appears the Secretary of Veterans Affairs doesn’t give a damn about veterans — they can’t call him, you can’t call him either. Still looking.]
Or you may write Sec. Peake at his office:
The Honorable James B. Peake
Secretary
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20420
I do not recommend on-line messages, since they clog a bureaucracy that should be helping veterans, but VA does not make it easy to contact them. If you wish to write an electronic message to the VA, try here.
“The federal government should be doing everything it can to support our nation’s veterans who have served us so courageously. There can be no justification for any barrier that impedes the ability of veterans to participate in democracy’s most fundamental act, the vote,” Sec. of State Byseiwicz said.
Absolutely.
This is no small group. Veterans in hospitals are numerous enough to swing elections in many districts, and nationally. They fought for our nation, and they deserve to have their voices heard, and their votes registered.
In her request, [California Secretary of State Debra] Bowen cited a 1994 executive order by President Bill Clinton requiring federal agencies to undertake the responsibility of registration when asked to do so by state election officials. A spokeswoman for Ms. Bowen said she was considering litigation.
More than 100,000 people reside for a month or longer at the V.A. campuses nationally, a number that has grown in recent years as more soldiers return wounded from the war.
In California, the federal Department of Veterans Affairs runs eight major medical centers and 11 nursing homes that provide care for more than 200,000 veterans.
What would George Washington do?
More resources:
Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches From the Culture Wars.
2 Comments | Citizenship, Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Government, History, Patriotism, Politics, veterans, Vietnam, Voting Rights Act, World War I, World War II | Tagged: Civil Rights, Government, Patriotism, Politics, Veterans Affairs, Voting Rights | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Photographic proof that George Bush has America backwards. (Avert your Cub Scout’s eyes — he shouldn’t see his president doing that to the U.S. flag. Your Cub Scout knows that the union should always be displayed to its own right — to Bush’s right, the opposite of how he’s holding it here.)
President Bush displays U.S. flag backwards, at Beijing Olympics. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Worse, there’s more:
But, by God! He’s wearing his lapel pin! Wearing the pin makes one immune to the rules of respectful flag display, one would assume, from the complaints of Sen. Barack Obama’s not wearing the lapel pin, and the remarkable silence from those same people about Bush’s many insults to the flag.
George Bush makes the case: We don’t need a Constitutional Amendment to make flag desecration illegal. We need Americans who pay attention to flag etiquette, instead.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Larry Perez, and to BuzzFlash, “The Diplomatic Decathlon: Bush’s Marathon of Olympic Blunders”
8 Comments | Flag etiquette, Patriotism, Politics, Presidents | Tagged: Flag Code, Flag etiquette, Patriotism, Politics, President Bush, US Flag | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Be sure to check out the customer comments, too.
I was looking for lesson plan ideas for government class. With my background in airline and airport management, this one just jumped out at me.
If only it were just fantasy for kids.
It may be useful for customer service classes and corporate training, too.
Big, wet and bubbly tip of the old scrub brush to This One Goes to Eleven.
Leave a Comment » | Airplanes, Classroom technology, Education, Government, Humor, Lesson plans, Politics, Travel | Tagged: Classroom Manipulables, Education, Government, Humor, Politics, Toys, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
This will be a short post, and so will confuse the long-winded but short-thought intelligent design advocates, especially those who claim to be philosophers, and especially those who claim to be philosophers of science who can see a role for intelligent design.
A short visit to Telic Thoughts last week produced a revelation that they have a new philosopher who wants to argue that intelligent design “philosophically” could be science, if. I answered that argument at some length, in lay terms, here: “Intelligent Design, a pig that does not fly.”
Dr. Francis Beckwith, at Baylor, appears to have dropped his campaign to teach philosophy in science classes since he rediscovered that God visits the Pope, and since he moved on to more serious philosophical pursuits and away from his practice of confusing people about the law of separation of church and state in America (especially confusing the Texas State Board of Education). We hope Beckwith sticks with philosophy and stays out of Texas textbooks.
So there was a vacancy in the phalanx of defenders of intelligent design, in the slot reserved for company store philosohers. Dr. Brad Monton volunteered for the job. Monton has a blog, here. Monton philosophizes at the University of Colorado.
What should be the role of theism in science? Exactly this: Theism should encourage scientists to be diligent, to be honest, to ask tough questions, and be kind. Theism should encourage scientists to be wise stewards of their lab resources and time, and to share the fruits of their work with humanity, for the benefit of all creation (no, not “creationism”).
That’s it. Honest and thorough, not mean. Work quickly and true.
If scientists stick to the noble purposes of their work, using these noble methods, we will see a quick death to creationism and intelligent design, which clamor and riot to be included in the science texts though they have not a lick of evidence to support them that is honest, true and nobly gained.
Philosophical debates do not belong in high school science classes, nor middle school or elementary school science classes. The fun of science, the honest ethics of science, the value of science, and the stuff of science are appropriate topics for those science classes. Especially school kids should not be encouraged to offer unevidenced, petulent denials of the facts as we know them. That will only encourage them to become larcenists, disturbed individuals, and Republican state legislators. Heaven knows we don’t need those.
Wes Elsberry agrees at his blog, The Austringer, but with more felicity:
The issue is not whether science could make progress in spite of re-adoption of 17th century theistic science, but whether theistic science could provide any benefit to the methods of science today. Monton, Plantinga, and the neo-Luddites have not convincingly made that case. Mostly, they haven’t even badly made that case. They seem to assume that science would be better off reverting to 17th century theistic science and become perplexed when scientists disagree with them. We had that debate, we call it “the 19th century”. Nobody has shown that the mostly-theistic body of scientists who decided to eschew supernatural conjectures as part of science were wrong to do so. Mostly, I think, because they were right to do so, and their reasoning still applies today.
Monton seeks a publisher. I wish he’d seek a course in botany, another in zoology, another in genetics, and one in evolution. He might find something worth publishing, then.
Philosophically, anything fits in science, if there is evidence to support it, and especially if there is theory that supports it and offers solid explanations that can be relied upon. But we don’t teach philosophy to kids. We teach the kids the evidence. Philosophically, any voodoo science could be considered science, if there were evidence to support it. Philosophically, the FAA should regulate flying pigs that pose a threat to commercial and general aviation. Pragmatically, however, pigs don’t fly. In regulation of our air space, and in our science classes, we rely on theory backed by hard evidence. I wish theists would all agree on that point, and shut up about intelligent design until some institute of discovery actually provides research results that provide evidence that ID is science, rather than philosophy.
See? I said it would be short.
10 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Politics, Religion, Science, State school boards, Teaching, Voodoo science | Tagged: Creationism, Education, Evidence, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion, Science, State Boards of Education, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Whatever happened to the U.S. Institute of Peace?
I asked that question as I read a post over at Jon Taplin’s Blog, “The Cost of Empire Conversion.”
Here’s the website for USIP. Here’s a video introduction:
Remember the old gospel tune, “Ain’t gonna study war no more?” Time to sing it louder, and implement the idea.
Leave a Comment » | Education, History, Patriotism, Peace, Politics, War | Tagged: Education, foreign affairs, History, Peace, Politics, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
63 years ago, U.S. military action brought a quick close to hostilities without an invasion of Japan, with the detonation of two atomic bombs, one over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and one over Nagasaki on August 9.
Daily Yomiuri Online carried a description of memorial events in Hiroshima today, from Yomiuri Shimbun:
NAGASAKI–The Nagasaki municipal government held a ceremony Saturday marking the 63rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city, at which participants called for the abolition of all nuclear weapons.
A total of 5,650 A-bomb survivors, representatives of victims’ families from around the nation and Nagasaki citizens participated in the ceremony. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda also attended the ceremony, which was held in Nagasaki Peace Park near ground zero.
Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue read out the Nagasaki Peace Declaration, which urges the worldwide abolition of nuclear weapons.
“Human beings have no future unless nuclear weapons are eliminated. We shall clearly say no to nuclear weapons,” Taue said.
The ceremony started at 10:40 a.m. Three books listing the names of 3,058 people confirmed to have died as a result of the bombing in the past year were placed inside a memorial box in front of the Peace Statue.
The total number of books listing the names of the deceased is 147, and the number of names is 145,984.
Representatives of surviving victims, bereaved families, the prime minister and Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba placed flowers at the site.
At 11:02 a.m., the time the atomic bomb struck, ceremony participants offered a silent prayer. At the same time, local high school students rang the Bells of Nagasaki.
In the peace declaration, Taue read from an academic paper written by four people, including a former U.S. secretary of state, which promoted a new policy for developing nuclear weapons. The proposal encouraged countries to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The mayor said world nuclear powers “should sincerely fulfill their responsibility of nuclear disarmament,” and urged the government to pass the three nonnuclear principles into law.
This year also marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Takashi Nagai, a medical doctor who helped rescue of victims after the bombing.
The mayor referenced one of the doctor’s remarks, saying: “There are no winners or losers in a war. There is only destruction.”
Shigeko Mori, 72, representing survivors of the bombing, read out an oath for peace that said Japan should promote its Constitution and the three nonnuclear principles to the rest of the world to prevent nuclear proliferation.
Fukuda gave a speech, saying, “Japan should play a responsible role in the international community as a nation cooperating for peace.”
(Aug. 10, 2008)
Other information:
Other related posts at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub:
4 Comments | Atomic Bomb, History, Japan, Manhattan Project, Peace, Politics, Science, Travel, World War II | Tagged: Atomic Bomb, Hiroshima, History, Japan, Nagasaki, Politics, Science, Travel, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
One of the great mysteries of history is how an entire nation of people can follow a leader into tragedy — a stupid war, economic morass, cultural suicide, genocide, or other tragedy — without appearing to notice they were going against their national values, against reason, against morality.
I wonder if part of the answer can be found by studying the way our brains perceive things, in particular, the way our brains force us to see things that are not so.
Some things are just so unbelievable, our brains tell us we’re seeing something different, something more believable. Here are two examples, the Charlie Chaplin mask illusion, and the Einstein mask illusion.
Chaplin — you know it’s concave, but the nose sticks out every time:
Einstein — is Big Brother really watching you? What do your eyes say?
Here’s a nasty little kicker: Even when most people know that it’s an illusion, they can’t perceive the illusion-in-action; as Paul Simon wrote, “Still a man sees what he wants to see and he disregards the rest.” See Stephen Fry’s discussion about the illusion from BBC2:
Richard Feynman discussed at length how scientists know their experimental results are accurate, and how to keep science honest. He pointed out that most of the time, errors creep in at the start, and some people just refuse to believe they exist. It is easiest to fool ourselves, Feynman said — and so a good scientist understands that, and protects against self-deception. If only other disciplines could adopt that philosophy, strategy and tactics!
Faith can get us through troubled times, but often gets us into troubled times in the first place.
Do you have other examples of self-delusion by illusionary means?
Leave a Comment » | Brain learning, History, Politics, psychology, Reason, Santayana's ghost, Scams, Science, Science and faith, Vietnam, World War II | Tagged: Brain learning, Brain Science, History, Napoleon, Optical Illusions, Politics, psychology, Science, Vietnam, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Among other issues I’ve not followed closely on the blog due to a way too-busy summer is the issue of teaching the Bible in Texas public schools. The Texas Lege, failing to get a contract with Comedy Central, passed a law that says every public school district in Texas “may” teach a course in the Bible if kids petition for it.
The bill had fancier, slightly more legal language, but was just about that ambiguous (having drafted my first federal law <cough>34</cough> years ago, and having written many amendments to state, federal and local laws, and having survived the rigorous legislative drafting course at George Washington, I feel qualified to complain about the problems in the law’s language).
Left hanging were answers to these questions:
The question about whether the law requires a course to be offered was bucked over to the Texas Attorney General’s office, but so far they have ducked the issue (if Greg Abbott were alive today, I’m sure they would have given a quicker answer so schools could prepare).
The question on whether the SBOE would offer guidance on curriculum was also answered in July. No.
About three dozen school districts in Texas’s 254 counties already offer courses in the Bible. Some have been sued for offering more of a Sunday school class, and they lost, or settled, by requiring real academic rigor.
What are the stakes?
Well, consider that Texas also has among the highest teen-age, school-girl pregnancy rates in the nation, which contributes mightily to a staggering drop out rate. Shouldn’t Texans be happy that kids can get instruction on Biblical history and its use as literature?
Well, have you read the Bible?
Christian Beyer, who blogs at Sharp Iron, noted in comments at John Shore’s blog, Suddenly Christian, in a thread about whether God cares if one is married or unmarried:
You know, I think you just might be right.
Anita over on her blog [Grace Unfolding] wrote an interesting article related to what you are saying, and she surprised the heck out of me with a new Biblical revelation (for me, anyway). The dude and the chick in Song of Songs (Song of Solomon?), even though they ended up in the sack, were NOT MARRIED! [bolding and link added]
http://www.sisterfriends-together.org/gay-okay-sex-no-way/
I never really cared for the Song of Songs before – too many Christian guys quoting it to me when they bragged about how ‘Godly’ their marriage was and how the Holy Spirit was giving their sex life a boost. Puh-leese! Breasts like fawns? What’s next – thigh’s like calves? (Wait a minute… )
How will this play in Crawford, Beaumont, Pleasant Grove, Crockett or Paris? Oh, my.
So far the SBOE has gone with a “teach the controversy” philosophy in science. Turnabout is fair play, no?
Additional resources:
10 Comments | Education, Politics, Public education, Religion, Separation of church and state, Texas, Texas Education Agency (TEA), Texas Freedom Network, Texas Lege, Textbook Selection | Tagged: Bible Classes, Education, public schools, Religion, Teach the Controversy, Texas, Texas Freedom Network | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Environmentalism is the most politically diverse movement in history. Here in the Kingsnorth climate camp, I have met anarchists, communists, socialists, liberals, conservatives and, mostly, pragmatists. I remember sitting in a campaign meeting during the Newbury bypass protests and marvelling at the weirdness of our coalition. In the front row sat the local squirearchy: brigadiers in tweeds and enormous moustaches, titled women in twin sets and headscarves. In the middle were local burghers of all shapes and sizes. At the back sat the scuzziest collection of grunge-skunks I have ever laid eyes on. The audience disagreed about every other subject under the sun – if someone had asked us to decide what day of the week it was, the meeting would had descended into fisticuffs – but everyone there recognised that our quality of life depends on the quality of our surroundings.
The environment is inseparable from social justice. Climate change, for example, is primarily about food and water. It threatens the fresh water supplies required to support human life. As continental interiors dry out and the glaciers feeding many of the rivers used for irrigation disappear, climate change presents the greatest of all threats to the future prospects of the poor. The rich will survive for a few decades at least, as they can use their money to insulate themselves from the effects. The poor are being hammered already.
British ecologist, journalist and activist, George Monbiot (Wikimedia image)
Leave a Comment » | Climate change, Environmental justice, Environmental protection, Global warming, History, Politics, Quotes, Science | Tagged: Climate change, Environmental protection, George Monbiot, History, Moral Authority, Politics, quote, Science, Social Movements | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
In the old, old movie, from the H. G. Wells story, “Things to Come,” the forces of scientific good (led by Raymond Massey) use a gas to knock out warring parties, to stop the shooting, and to give the good guys a chance to disarm disputants and set things right.
1936 movie poster for "Things to Come" - WikiMedia image
That was fictional. The “Gas of Peace” doesn’t exist.
The sniping will continue about P. Z. Myers’ complaint that some Catholics grossly over reacted when they threatened death to a fellow who didn’t swallow his wafer at communion, and then kept the wafer (not a hostage — the wafer has been returned), and a lot of the sniping will come from Rod Dreher at the Dallas Morning News.
Did anyone else note the irony of Dreher’s comments commending the ideas of the late Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who campaigned his entire life against authoritative oppression of freedom and enforcement of ideas against all good and common sense, while at the same time railing against Myers’ similar campaign?
Santayana’s Ghost needs to do more active haunting. We can’t excuse tyranny from a church, nor tyranny from any government in the United States of America, either. Freedom typically works better when the freedom to offend is greater than the privilege of being free from being offended. Why doesn’t Dreher see that?
More resources:
1 Comment | Free market economics, Free speech, Freedom - Political, History, Newspapers, Politics, Religion, Santayana's ghost, Texas, Totalitarianism | Tagged: bullying, Dallas Morning News, freedom, History, Politics, Religion, Rod Dreher, Totalitarianism, Tyranny | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
No, I’m not talking about actual poisoning by the chemical, an organochloride insecticide. I’m talking again about people driven to madness by false claims that DDT will cure malaria, that DDT is banned for use against malaria, and that some few super powerful people, all of them evil environmentalists, are forcing governments, all health workers, and the world’s tobacco companies to stop the use of DDT — ergo, they say, everyone who has died from malaria since [some point in the past that is surely the fault of environmentalists] died due to lack of DDT.
Which makes those people worse murderers than Stalin at least, so the crazies claim.
Here’s the latest fuse that set me off. I’ll analyze it below the fold, after the lecture.
Is it a virus that spreads in late summer? I’ve noted here earlier the tendency of the pro-DDT wackoes to surge out of the woodwork in summer to claim, against the facts, that West Nile virus would be no problem if there were DDT. Mosquitoes that carry West Nile are best killed in as larva, living in water; DDT is not as efficient as other larvacides, particularly when weighed against DDT’s tendency to kill everything that comes in contact with the water and the plants and animals living in and around it.
But watch: Any mention of malaria in the news, and they drop letters to the editors of every weekly newspaper in America, blaming unnamed environmentalists for killing millions in Africa, or Asia, or both. In the Bizarro™ World of DDT advocates, all insect-borne diseases were on the run until Rachel Carson personally padlocked every DDT manufacturer in the world. I have news browsers set to pick up mentions of DDT, and except for the recent surge in news about the band DDT from Russia, every day brings another internet mention of how DDT could have saved the world, if only.
Dear Reader, Dear God, there are several inaccuracies there. It’s curious that some people can get ideas so exactly contrary to the facts, contrary to reality, so often.
Arnold Kling, economist blogging at the Freedom Fund’s Library of Economics and Liberty — in this case, misblogging against science and medicine.
Wait. What’s this? There’s a trail of misinformation and disinformation we can follow. This livejournal poster links to this Wikipedia article on “seasteading,” and from there to this blog on the value of seasteading, which bases the pie-in-the-sea philosophy on the common, occasionally-but-randomly correct rant against government, based on Arnold Kling’s rant at EconLog.
Have we seen this before? Yes, Dear Reader, we have — and if you look in the comments to Kling’s rant, you’ll see Tim Lambert fiercely shoveling facts to try to put out the fires of ignorance. I even posted there — back in April. The facts, the links, the arguments, are all there, for anyone with half a brain and half a desire to do the right thing and get the facts right.
April to August (misdated September). The nutty DDT advocates are working on a four month cycle. Repeat the falsehoods every four months, three times a year (intentionally or not; some viral marketing works better if it’s not intentional, like the innocent carriers of typhoid who are unaffected by it, don’t mean to spread it around, but breath the pathogen out with every breath).
Blather, don’t bother to rinse, repeat.
It’s time someone wrote a new book on propaganda, warning of its evils.
2 Comments | Accuracy, DDT, Politics, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Accuracy, DDT, Economics, Politics, Propaganda, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
President Lyndon B. Johnson looks on as U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk prepares to join foreign ministers from more than 50 other nations in signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, July 1, 1968. Photo from the LBJ Presidential Library, Austin, Texas, via the Nuclear Archive.
Another missed anniversary — but a found archive of original documents on a key issue of our time which has flared up into worldwide controversy in the past year: On July 1, 1968, nations that had nuclear weapons and nations capable of making such weapons — more than 50 nations total — joined in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) designed to discourage anyone else from getting “the bomb.” In the past 40 years, few other arms treaties, or any treaties, have worked so well, reducing by two-thirds the potential growth of “the Nuclear Club.”
The National Security Archives at George Washington University (one of my alma maters) assembled a solid history as a press release, featuring links to 34 documents important to the NNPT. For AP world history and U.S. history, and pre-AP courses, and maybe for AP government, these documents form an almost ready-made Documents-Based Question (DBQ).
The Scout Report explains it well:
13. The Nuclear Vault: 40th Anniversary of the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb253/index.htmSigned into law on July 1, 1968, the historic Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) was a major step towards creating a world that had the potential to be a bit safer from the threat of nuclear annihilation. This particular collection of documents related to the NPT was brought together through the diligence of staff members at the Archive’s Nuclear Documentation Project and released to the public in July 2008. The site starts off with a narrative essay which describes the backdrop to the signing of the NPT in 1968, along with offering a bit of additional context about the international political climate at the time. The site’s real gems are the 34 documents which include State Department cables, internal planning documents, and other items that reveal the nature of the political machinations involved with this process. [KMG]
Nuclear Archive does a good job itself — eminently readable, suitable for high school and maybe junior high:
Near the end of the protracted negotiations that produced the historic Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) 40 years ago, U.S. government officials warned that countries could legally reach “nuclear pregnancy” under the Treaty and then withdraw and quickly acquire nukes, according to declassified U.S. government documents published on the Web today by the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org).
The documents detail the well-known resistance to the NPT from countries like India (“China at her back, and Pakistan lurking on the sidelines”) but also from more unusual objectors such as Australia (concerned that the Western Pacific security situation might worsen) and Italy (unhappy about the “second-class status” of non-nuclear states). The documents suggest that the current crisis in the NPT system has deep historical roots, but also that current headlines overlook the long-term achievements of the NPT regime.
During the mid-1960s, prior to the NPT, U.S. intelligence had warned that as many as 15 countries had incentives to become nuclear weapons states but after the Treaty was signed, only five additional countries have developed such weapons (Israel, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and North Korea, while South Africa has renounced them). How much of an impact the Treaty had on keeping the numbers low can be debated, but the non-nuclear standard that it set remains a central goal of the world community to this date.
This is a fantastic source for student projects, for reports, for teachers putting together presentations, for students to read on the Cold War, on 1968, on nuclear weapons, on the Johnson administration, on foreign affairs and how treaties work and are negotiated.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Dr. Bumsted at Grassroots Research for pointing me to this site.
Leave a Comment » | 1968, Atomic Bomb, Cold War, Communism, DBQ sources, Education, foreign affairs, Historic documents, History, Lyndon B. Johnson, Nuclear power, Nuclear weapons, Peace, Politics, Science, World history | Tagged: 1968, Atomic Bomb, Cold War, foreign affairs, History, Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Peace, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
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Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 