Henry Payne stares into the abyss, and vice versa:
If Kempthorne just ruled that global warming is an imminent danger to the polar bear’s habitat, then, how long will it be before greens take the next tactical step and sue to limit industry from producing carbon dioxide?
Something like this actually happened, he explains:
Joining with the environmental-racism movement and backed by a Clinton executive order, [EPA chief Carol Browner] Browner argued that locating industries near black populations created a “disproportionate impact” by exposing them to pollution — therefore violating their civil rights. Naturally, activists found courts willing to uphold this nonsense....
What makes this especially charming is that Payne doesn't dispute that these industries are disproportionately sited in minority neighborhoods (which is just as well) nor even that this causes health problems for residents (ditto). As far as I can tell, what qualifies as "nonsense" here is the idea that any sensible person should care (along with the democratic principle that allows citizens to agitate for a redress of grievances). To paraphrase Brecht, perhaps American industry should dissolve the people, and elect another.
Incidentally, there was a time when restrictive covenants impeded even a clean and articulate darkie like Nat "King" Cole from living among his betters; it doesn't take much effort to see the connection between ownership restrictions in white neighborhoods and forced accommodation to industrial pollution in minority ones.
Patrick J. Michaels says that global warming stopped in 1998 (as long as you ignore what's happened since). Also, polar bear populations are at a record high (as long as you take their drastically diminished 1950s population as your starting point). All of which demonstrates that Michaels is a genius (at least when compared to a flatworm).
Don Martin complains that people only care about polar bears because they're "majestic," and only get choked up about seals because "they graphically gush blood all over ice floes" when you slaughter them. If they really cared about endangered animals, they'd destroy Western Prosperity for the sake of the Vancouver Island marmot, instead. Polar bears are mere symbols, don't you know, which is why it's so offensive that the Bush Administration has given them "mostly symbolic protection." Besides, they eat seals. How you like 'em now, hippies?
Hell hath no fury like Cal Thomas scorned. John McCain has "joined the warming cult," and this leads Thomas to conclude that "the era of big government is so not over" (like, totally!).
This is a fine column, really. It's one of Thomas's best. For proof, I direct you to this remarkable piece of political jiu-jitsu:
[T]he apostle of global warming, Al Gore, and his new disciple, John McCain, want us to believe in a 2008 version of the Pete Seeger anti-war lyric: "we were — knee deep in (carbon monoxide) and the big fool said to push on."
He neglected to call Seeger a Commie, but other than that, I'd give it a 9.8.
So what should McCain have done? I'm almost too excited to tell you:
Mr. McCain would have done better to push back against the global warming cult and conduct a raid on the cultists similar to what Texas authorities did to the FLDS polygamists.
Oh, hell yes. Just imagine the look on the cultists' faces when The Man comes down on their crash pads and communes! I can honestly say that I'll be at least as disappointed as Cal Thomas if McCain doesn't take this excellent advice to heart.
What distinguishes Hypselodoris whitei from mortals? That many waves in their sight roll, an eternal stream: us the wave lifts, the wave swallows, and we sink.
The California Supreme Court has ruled that gay citizens have the same rights as straight ones:
The majority opinion, by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, declared that any law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation will from this point on be constitutionally suspect in California in the same way as laws that discriminate by race or gender, making the state's high court the first in the nation to adopt such a stringent standard.
The decision was a bold surprise from a moderately conservative, Republican-dominated court that legal scholars have long dubbed "cautious," and experts said it was likely to influence other courts around the country.
No rational person can criticize the Court's decision here without having at least a basic understanding of the governing California precedents. Anyone who condemns this ruling without having that understanding will be demonstrating a profound ignorance of -- and contempt for -- how the law works.
Ya don't say. The LA Times article is quick to point out that conservative activists aim to amend the state constitution this November. My prediction: They'll lose. Repeatedly.
Rape kits will soon be available for free, nationwide:
Starting next year across the country, rape victims too afraid or too ashamed to go to police can undergo an emergency-room forensic rape exam, and the evidence gathered will be kept on file in a sealed envelope in case they decide to press charges.
The new federal requirement that states pay for "Jane Doe rape kits" is aimed at removing one of the biggest obstacles to prosecuting rape cases: Some women are so traumatized they don't come forward until it is too late to collect hair, semen or other samples.
Another nail in the coffin of men's rights. (You can't have too many!)
The Supreme Court has inadvertently upheld a ruling that allows South Africans to sue American corporations for aiding and abetting apartheid:
The court couldn't take up an apartheid dispute involving some of the nation's largest companies because too many of the justices had investments or other ties with those corporate giants....
The result is that a lawsuit will go forward accusing dozens of corporations of violating international law by assisting South Africa's former apartheid government. The companies and the Bush administration had asked the court to intervene, arguing that the lawsuit was damaging international relations, threatening to hurt South Africa's economic development and punishing the companies using a fuzzy legal concept.
The BLM has restricted off-road vehicles from 55,000 acres of the Sonoran desert. It's a start.
“The vehicle closure is welcome news, but the Bureau of Land Management should be doing a lot more to protect the national monument,” said Randy Serraglio of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Off-road vehicles still have unfettered access to over 500 miles of routes and 270,000 acres on the monument. The agency is obligated to protect all of these lands from motorized abuse.”
A large parcel of privately owned California wilderness has been designated for conservation:
At a press conference on a sunny hillside 60 miles north of Los Angeles, the Sierra Club and others unveiled a deal to protect the largest contiguous parcel of land designated for conservation in California history -- 240,000 acres of stunningly diverse landscapes on the privately-owned Tejon Ranch south of Bakersfield. (Think about that: This is 2008 and we're still preserving massive hunks of land -- in Southern California no less!) At 375 square miles, the preserve of desert, woodlands, and grasslands is eight times the size of San Francisco and nearly the size of Los Angeles.
Yet another court has ruled against yet another of the Bush Administration's environmental policies:
In a reversal of the Bush administration’s attempt to accelerate logging for profit in the Sierra Nevada’s national forests, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled May 14th that the U.S. Forest Service likely violated long-standing federal environmental laws when revising the Sierra Nevada Framework, a management plan for all 11 national forests in eastern California.
While the "inner German border” that once divided East and West Germany decades ago, stretching 879 miles from the Baltic Sea to the Czech Republic, was a tangled jungle of barbed wire, landmines, booby traps and soldier patrols, it was also, much like the Korean DMZ, a kind of sanctuary for considerable wildlife.
When the Berlin Wall fell German environmentalists fought to protect the long line of no-man’s-land as a Green Belt, connecting it with Europe’s larger green belt that has followed the path of the Iron Curtain from the north of Finland south to the Adriatic Sea.
Read the whole thing.
Endangered scarlet macaws that were born in captivity are reproducing in the wild:
The ZooAve Center for the Rescue of Endangered Species has released 100 of the birds into the wild in the last decade. But biologists didn't spot offspring until last year, said biologist Laura Fournier.
Since then, they have recorded 22 chicks born in the wild, and four more scarlet macaw couples have laid eggs, Fournier said.
The tropics are more biodiverse than previously thought:
Doing DNA analysis on Blepharoneura fruit flies in Latin America, biologists led by Cornell professor Marty Condon found a surprising number of different species occupying separate parts of the same plant. Many of these were "hidden" species, species that were both physically concealed within the plant and species that "hidden" in that they were nearly indistinguishable from other species without genetic analysis. In all the researchers identified 52 different species from 24 different host plants from the cucumber, sampled from an area spanning from Mexico to southern Bolivia and from the Pacific to Atlantic coasts.
A new study suggests that bats could aid in tropical reforestation:
Once agricultural land becomes depleted and is subsequently abandoned, a wave of seed inputs is needed to help foster habitat regeneration. However, a lack of suitable roost sites and resources tends to keep most potential seed dispersers at bay. Attracting bats, which pollinate close to 1000 plant species and disperse their seeds widely via excretion, might then help accelerate the process -- if the right incentives are provided.
To test this hypothesis, a team of scientists led by the Leibniz Institute's Detlev Kelm built and installed 45 roosts in two Costa Rican habitats -- one in continuous forest and the other on recently abandoned agricultural land a few miles away. At the same time, they also set up traps to collect bat feces as a measure to quantify seed dispersal. Their findings indicate that 10 bat species quickly colonized the roosts, five of which occupied them permanently in both forested and agricultural habitats. As was expected, seed input around the roosts rose dramatically: The researchers calculated that 69 different seed types, mostly early-successional plant species, were transported to the deforested areas.
Scientists have discovered the microorganisms responsible for consuming undersea methane releases:
The importance of the anaerobic oxidation of methane for the Earth’s climate is known since 1999 and various international research groups work on isolating the responsible microorganisms, so far with little success. Pernthaler and co-workers developed a new molecular technique to selectively separate these microorganisms from their natural complex community, and subsequently sequenced their genome. The findings were exciting: Besides identifying all genes responsible for the anaerobic oxidation of methane, new bacterial partners of this syntrophic association were discovered and the ability to fix N2 could be demonstrated.
Another breakthrough is claimed in solar-cell efficiency:
Hoex was able to achieve the increase in efficiency by depositing an ultra-thin layer (approximately 30 nanometer) of aluminum oxide on the front of a crystalline silicon solar cell. This layer has an unprecedented high level of built-in negative charges, through which the – normally significant – energy losses at the surface are almost entirely eliminated. Of all sunlight falling on these cells, 23.2 per cent is now converted into electrical energy. This was formerly 21.9 per cent, which means a 6 per cent improvement in relative terms.
Scottish architecture firm ZM Architecture have come up with a brilliant scheme to provide solar power to the city of Glasgow - and do so in a way that is provocative, creative, and aesthetically appealing. The proposal? To design Solar Lily Pads which will float in Glasgow’s River Clyde and soak up the sun’s rays, sending electricity to Glasgow’s grid while also stimulating urban riverfront activity.
Speaking of biomimicry, a new design for wave-power generation mimics the motion of underwater plants:
Biowave mimics the swaying motion of the sea plants found in the ocean bed. The system looks like three buoyant blades which are constantly oscillating to the motion of the sea. As they sway in the tide, electricity is generated. If at any point the system is in danger because of the strong currents, it simply lies in flat until the ocean calms down.
And the fins of humpback whales have inspired a new blade design for turbines:
When biologist Frank Fish spied a figurine of a humpback whale in a Boston gift shop and noticed the pointy bumps along its fins, he said, "That has to be wrong."
But when the shop manager produced a photograph that showed the leading edge of the long fins was indeed serrated like the teeth on a saw, Dr. Fish was intrigued and decided to investigate.
He discovered that these bumps, called tubercles, are this creature's secret weapon, allowing a whale the size of a school bus to make tight turns and capture prey with astonishing agility.
Fish, a biology professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, is now using this technology perfected by nature to produce fans with serrated blades that use 20 percent less electricity than traditional models. This finding contradicts conventional designs that strive for the smoothest possible edges.
Rock Port, Missouri, is the first American town to be powered entirely by wind:
"What's interesting is my husband is in the oil business but that's alright, we're thrilled to have wind energy here. As Americans we need to get more independent," Rock Port resident Kim Bunton said.
Here's one of those ideas that seems obvious, now that it's been done:
The SOLo Lounge Table, by Intelligent Forms, is a sleek, chic outdoor table that not only looks fantastic, but comes with a built-in solar panel surface in order to power all of your electronic gadgets!
A company is making biodegradable dishware from fallen leaves:
The fallen leaves, which would traditionally have been burned on the roadside, are collected, sterilized, steamed and pressed into plates. The process uses no chemicals, glues or bonding agents, and over 80% of the water used during the steaming and pressing process is recaptured and recycled.
Cellphones may soon be used to transmit medical imaging:
A team of engineers at the University of California at Berkeley has developed a technique for transmitting medical images via cellphones. This potentially could bring medical imaging to the ‘three-quarters of the world’s population which has no access to ultrasounds, X-rays, magnetic resonance images, and other medical imaging technology.’ The lead researcher said that this new system would make imaging technology inexpensive and accessible in non-industrialized countries.
A Swiss marine biologist and an Australian quantum physicist have found that a species of shrimp from the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, can see a world invisible to all other animals.
Dr Sonja Kleinlogel and Professor Andrew White have shown that mantis shrimp not only have the ability to see colours from the ultraviolet through to the infrared, but have optimal polarisation vision — a first for any animal and a capability that humanity has only achieved in the last decade using fast computer technology.
Now for a mad dash to the finish line. Luminous Lint is working on a "Photographic Full Body Map"; follow the link to help out. Also: The Domestic Soundscape, "a record of ideas concerning the sounds of the home and our relationship to them."
Some people "get" America, says Kathleen Parker, and some "people" don't. It's not clear whether "getting" it means understanding it, or owning and running it by divine right. A little of both, probably.
Blackhearted gossoons like yours truly have sometimes hinted that the Right's idea of patriotism relies a little too heavily on dime-a-dozen stage props like the Stars and Stripes. Parker, to her credit, agrees:
Who "gets" America? And who doesn't?
The answer has nothing to do with a flag lapel pin, which Obama donned for a campaign swing through West Virginia, or even military service, though that helps. It's also not about flagpoles in front yards or magnetic ribbons stuck on tailgates.
These symbols are inadequate because anyone can buy them and flaunt them, from the wogs down the street to the coons next door to the chinks across the way. Real Americanism is deeper than that. It's more...integral, if you follow my meaning. It's more personal, if you catch my drift. It's one of those black and white issues, nudge nudge.
It's about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots....
We love to boast that we are a nation of immigrants -- and we are. But there's a different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice.
Oh, absolutely. One only has to read John Derbyshire or Mark Steyn or Dinesh D'Souza to appreciate the essential justice of this...this...this weltanschauung. It takes time, at the very least, to become a "full-blooded American." Indeed, I'd venture to say that some unfortunate people may never quite manage it. As Charles Bargone pointed out, "the climate, so quick to change a man's skin, takes years to change his blood, and centuries to modify the neurones!"
Anyhow, White America has been put on the defensive for too long, according to Parker, and its legendary patience is at last wearing thin.
What they sense is that their heritage is being swept under the carpet while multiculturalism becomes the new national narrative. And they fear what else might get lost in the remodeling of America.
This "remodeling" is what Parker elsewhere presents as "the dash to diversity," as though it were some drastic and purposeful deviation from the normal course of things. Acknowledging everyday reality amounts to special pleading, y'see, while aggrieved believers in the crackpot phantasmagoria that Parker calls "once-upon-a-time America" are merely keepin' it real...just as they were when they portrayed the Irish and the Italians and the Chinese and the Jews as an unassimilable horde of subhumans with a marrow-deep affinity for vice, vermin and filth.
I agree that this heritage shouldn't be swept under the carpet; it should be swept off the face of the earth. Any American life not spent in explicit or implicit repudiation of it is flawed at best. Parker talks sanctimoniously of forefathers who "fought and died" for America, as though the best of them hadn't fought and died precisely so that boots like Parker's might one day be lifted from the necks of minorities, women and the poor. (And God knows I'm not necessarily talking about soldiers here.)
Parker's sympathy, I suspect, lies more with that crowd of geniuses who saw Walt Whitman as a fag and George Herriman as a nigger and Emma Goldman as a kike whore, and couldn't look at the American wilderness without estimating how much it was worth per foot, and sneered at every native artistic production that didn't cater to their bottomless appetite for unearned praise and entrepreneurial platitudes. Which is to say, her sympathy lies with power, regardless of how confidently she struts around in the borrowed plumes of white working-class resentment.
Just in case you haven't had enough mawkish celebration of the Herrenvolk for one day, the intrepid Michael Medved checks in with an article on "American DNA":
The radical notion that our national character stems from genetics as well as culture has always inspired angry controversy; many observers scoff at the whole idea of a unifying hereditary component in our multi-racial, multi-cultural society....Our stark differences in appearance, if nothing else, argue against the concept of common DNA connecting contemporary citizens of wildly divergent ancestry.
Duly noted. But what these scoffers fail to reckon with is that we're a nation descended from traitors who deserted the Homeland when the going got rough:
In “American Mania,” Peter C. Whybrow of U.C.L.A. argues that even in grim epochs of starvation and persecution, only a small minority ever chooses to abandon its native land and to venture across forbidding oceans to pursue the elusive dream of a better life.
In other words, it slowly but inexorably dawned on them that someone had moved their cheese. It's only natural that the descendants of these visionary malcontents should "possess a distinctive makeup of their 'dopamine receptor system – the pathway in the brain that figures centrally in boldness and novelty seeking.'"
Which explains why Medved screams for smelling salts and a vinegar poultice when movies fail to follow the path made holy by The Sound of Music, and why Obama's polite refusal of a morning cup of coffee turned the nation upside-down, and why Kathleen Parker has devoted so much energy and malice to explaining that "full-blooded Americans" don't nohow cotton to this here multicultural guff, any more than they did back in 19-ought-3.
Next week: Jonah Goldberg explains that "blood and soil" is actually quite a useful concept, once you abstract it from its unfortunate liberal-fascist historical context, and praises ranchers (but notdairy farmers) as the most precious blood-source of the American People.
(Illustration: "The Coming Man -- Uncle Sam Introduces Eastern Barbarism to Western Civilization." From Harper's Weekly, 1869.)
If you've been yearning to know what Maggie Gallagher currently thinks about climate change, this is your lucky day. We'll start with the basics:
It's a new religious faith (of the wrong sort).
It's unfalsifiable (unlike her pet theories on the cosmic menace of gay marriage).
It encourages us to believe that pleasant activities can have negative consequences, whether we want them to or not. (As if!)
Algore!!
All this is boilerplate, though. The real purpose of the column is to give Gallagher a chance to play with her shiny new rhetorical bauble: Science -- that daydream, that idol -- says global warming has stopped! What makes her version of this fashionable lie interesting is how ably she herself debunks it:
The interruption in the increases in global temperatures observable this year may just be a glitch -- a temporary and localized weather phenomenon -- but it is happening even as carbon emissions have increased more dramatically than the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's "worst-case" scenarios estimated in 2000.
Weather is temporary and localized by definition. That said, it's generous of Gallagher to concede the remote possibility that this cooling will be localized and temporary, given that this is what the scientists who brought the matter to her attention have insisted all along. (RealClimate, meanwhile, both clarifies and challenges their forecast.)
You also have to admire her for presenting an intimately linked pair of conclusions from the Keenlyside paper as though they contradict each other, without offering any evidence beyond her own use of the word "but." It's too bad she breaks a cardinal rule of amateur denialism by acknowledging that there's such a thing as "localized" weather.
Still, what's really striking about this article is Gallagher's newfound respect for Science. Previously, she informed us that while a scientific theory may perhaps be possible, or even probable, it's "hardly an undeniable fact like the Holocaust."
But now the tide has turned, and theory is a flaming sword in her fist:
Here's my question: If 10 years of global cooling while carbon emissions increase dramatically does not falsify the global warming disaster scenario, what could?
And with that, a willful misunderstanding of the simplified version of the tentative conclusion of a single paper is poised to become an undeniable fact like the Holocaust, even though Gallagher rejects almost everything its authors accept as fundamental, and has no logical grounds for agreeing with whatever leftover fragments please her. To hear her tell it, this forecast, if it turned out to be correct, would falsify the very theory on which it's based. And if it turned out to be wrong...well, I suppose that'd prove once and for all that climate modeling is no more reliable than kephalonomancy.
By way of a punchline, I'll repeat what I said the last time Gallagher muddied these waters:
There was a point in time when the Holocaust wasn't an undeniable fact. Some people even think that more should've been done to prevent it.
When your circular path deepens into a trench, you know you're making real progress.
Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute explains that there are people out there who actually want to put an end to this sort of progress, just when the trench is getting comfortably deep. And it's all for the sake of the polar bear, a vicious and thankfully farflung monster that'd just as soon rip your throat open as look at you.
Remember when the snail darter brought Western Civilization to its knees by temporarily blocking the ill-conceived and unnecessary Tellico Dam? Well, if polar bears are declared an endangered species, you could be fined or imprisoned simply for starting your car. Anything that could conceivably contribute to global warming will be made illegal, up to and possibly including breathing. Life as we know it will simply end.
Don't drink that bottle of drain opener just yet, though. First, let's consider whether the polar bear is actually in trouble. Granted, they need ice, and plenty of it (at least according to biologists, whom you have to admit are not exactly neutral, given that their opinions diverge on occasion from the commonsense beliefs of the average citizen).
But whether the ice is melting, or will melt, is less pertinent than the fact that no one actually knows how many polar bears there are: some say the number is going down, while others say it's going up:
For example, University of Pennsylvania Professor J. Scott Armstrong told Science Daily that "the polar bear populations have been increasing rapidly in recent decades due to hunting restrictions."
Others, such as biologists Ian Stirling and Andrew Derocher, see troubling signs of decline in specific subpopulations that live in regions more affected by ice melts.
They can't both be right...unless polar bears are somehow threatened by loss of habitat while rebounding from overhunting. Without getting into scholastic niceties like these, let's all just agree to agree that no one has any idea what's going on with polar bears, and that any claim to the contrary is a vain and sinful departure from the doctrine of learned ignorance.
The truth is, as noted by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Kenneth Green in a recent article, "Is the Polar Bear Endangered, or Just Conveniently Charismatic?" we just don't have the data to assess what is happening.
That being the case, you must assume that everything is just ducky, much as you would if you wanted to write a large check, but had no idea how much money was in your bank account.
The alternative to carefree optimism is too terrible to contemplate, so let's go right ahead and contemplate it:
The snail darter almost killed a dam. The polar bear could, in theory, stop everything.
Everything! In theory, yeah, granted. But still...everything! No matter what sort of Ivory Tower you inhabit, you have to sit up and take notice when everything stops. No man is an island!
Picture a world, not far from today, in which everything has stopped. It's dark. It's cold. There's no food. No one can travel except on foot or on a "bicycle," but no one travels in any case because there's nowhere to go in a world that has stopped. Is that really what you want? When your child comes to you in tears, begging to be allowed to chew for a time on your belt, will you truly be comforted by the thought that on some ice floe thousands of miles away, a polar bear is biting the head off a baby seal?
Short of everything stopping, Hassett also worries that ruling in favor of polar bears might "heighten pressure on the United States to adopt a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade emissions program," which could inconvenience the companies that fund his thinktank. Plus, it could stop or slow oil exploration in the Arctic, which "is the only thing standing between us and $200-a-barrel oil." It stands between us and $200-a-barrel oil temporarily, if at all, but what of it? Life itself is temporary; it's a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and vanisheth away.
Enough philosophizing, though. Let's get back to the facts:
Many biologists think global warming is a serious threat to the polar bear. If that leads to the polar bear being listed as threatened this week, then the world you live in will have fundamentally changed.
Here's hoping, pal.
Hassett, by the way, is apparently an adviser on economic policy for John McCain. I'm old-fashioned enough to believe that the paper that printed this drivel should've said as much.
Previously, those of us whose opinions count were horrified to learn that Barack Hussein Obama is a secret Muslim, whose very first act of office will be to lop off our heads and wallow in our gore.
Since then, we've found out that he's actually a Christian, but a Christian of entirely the wrong sort; he believes in "black liberation theology," which, as any idiot can tell from the name, is an amalgam of Marx and Farrakhan (and is therefore Islamofascist).
Then again, maybe the real problem with Obama is that he's not very religious at all, as Star Parker suggests:
Religion for Senator Obama is not something too serious. It may satisfy some social needs and provide intellectual and emotional salve. But it doesn't translate into behavioral absolutes.
Shocking news, especially for the portion of Parker's readership that thinks Obama's a Muslim fanatic as well as an obdurate baby-killer.
But that's nothing compared to an exciting new theory from Edward Luttwak, who claims that if Obama really has turned against Islam, and is somehow elected, it'll annoy the Evildoers (and not in a good way, like torturing and killing their families would):
His conversion...was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).
In Muslim eyes, mind you; we mustn't paint with too fine a brush, given what's at stake here. Currently, the relationship between the Leader of the Free World and the forces of Islamofascism is one of bemused tolerance; an apostate president could change that equation faster than Jonah Goldberg can drink a tin of Van Camp's Beanee Weenee.
[M]ost citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.
Well, that clinches it. Clearly, President Obama's "apostasy" will inaugurate a new era of Islamic anger and mistrust (oh noes!!!1). Adding insult to injury, this will "complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries," because there's a good chance that some fanatic will see killing him as a path to glory.
John McCain, by contrast, will wander the Muslim world at his leisure, while sloe-eyed natives ply him obsequiously with sweet tea and dates. It's your choice, Mr. and Mrs. America: You can have president who'll be able to swagger through Syria's Souk Medhat Pasha in a t-shirt reading "Kiss me, I'm American," or you can explain to your children why those bearded men on TV are playing kickball with Obama's head.
I'm being somewhat unfair to Luttwak, who would never dream of phrasing things that way. Indeed, the thought that some readers might misunderstand him troubles his honest heart considerably:
That an Obama presidency would cause such complications in our dealings with the Islamic world is not likely to be a major factor with American voters, and the implication is not that it should be.
Obviously not. I mean, how could it be? Luttwak has simply pointed out that the Muslim world is more or less united in its belief that Obama's "conversion" is a greater crime than the wholesale murder of which they might accuse, say, George W. Bush. If you're the sort of hysteric who sees this as a reason to vote against Obama, that's hardly Luttwak's fault, whose sole concern is stringent accuracy (cf. his luminous observation that "war brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence").
As for those who are inclined to see this pseudoscholarly Muslim-baiting pig-ignorance as a low-water mark in campaign rhetoric, I can only remind you that the New York Times has plenty of blank space to fill between now and November.
Are you downhearted? Don't be! When life hands you a drought, build a water park:
A Duluth real estate company is proposing a 200,000-square-foot water park for Buford. In the middle of Georgia's historic drought....
The Buford City Commission rezoned land for an earlier version of the proposed development in November of 2006. Last month, the commission approved a modification to allow the addition of the water park, said Kim Wolfe, the city's planning director. Commission Chairman Phillip Beard did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the water park.
Any idiot can make lemonade out of lemons. What the Buford City Commission's contemplating is a real act of optimism, and therefore of patriotism.
And really, it's not as shocking as the author makes it sound. Ours is a culture that recommends borrowing one's way out of debt and eating oneself thin. It exalts forced choice as freedom, comforts the oppressed by torturing and killing them, fights abortion by promoting sexual ignorance, and sees taxpayer-funded incarceration as a better bargain than taxpayer-funded childcare. Building a redundant water park in a long-term drought isn't an aberration so much as a rather heavyhanded metaphor for business as usual.
It gets better, though:
Georgia officials are pushing a proposal to move the Tennessee border farther north to get access to the Tennessee River.
I'd heard a rumor that the South would rise again, but I never thought there was anything to it 'til now.
One thing is clear: once the first shot has been fired in the War of North Georgian Aggression, there's no telling where it'll end. Tennessee is low-hanging fruit; there's plenty of water in the Great Lakes, last time I checked, and the day may come when America's moribund auto industry is headquartered in Detroit, Georgia, beneath a Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
We'll start out this week with a timely message from my pal Chicago Dyke:
While we all tear each other apart, millions are dying, millions more are going to die, for no good reason. As an American, like it or not, you have an incredible responsibility to do what you can to make sure your power isn’t used for evil, oppressive reasons. Turn off the TV, goddammit. Stop reading the Wanker of the Day’s latest bullshit. Reach out your hand to those who are on the side of Good. Learn to say, “I’m sorry. Let’s get down to business.”
Or, not. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you do the work of the Evil for them, you have no one but yourself to blame.
Apropos of evil, a federal judge has ordered the CIA to turn over BushCo's 2002 torture memo:
The ACLU described the memo as "one of the most important torture documents still being withheld by the Bush administration."
Migra Matters alerts me to a website that records the charming behavior of the Minutemen:
Minutemen Unvarnished tracks the activities of the San Diego Minutemen as they harass and threaten day laborers, employers, and Latinos in general, at various locations throughout the region. They video the minutemen in action and present them uncensored in all their racist glory.
Not pleasant viewing by any means, but an important resource.
The Pennsylvania House has blocked a state constitutional amendment that would've banned same-sex marriage. Here's what the buffoon who proposed it has to say for himself:
"I have a healthy respect for the homosexual community," the paper quoted him as saying. "I have a healthy respect for heterosexuals. I have a deep respect for the institution of marriage. I am standing for marriage. I am not standing against any individual sector of our society."
I always find it reassuring when bigotry has to go to such absurd lengths to deny itself, especially given that this pseudotolerant boilerplate is likely to offend the very people who see gay marriage as a threat.
Voters in Virginia have elected an openly gay black man:
Lawrence Webb was elected to the Falls Church City Council, according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. Webb won one of three available seats with 1,215 votes in a close race -- coming in third, Webb beat out the fourth candidate by 39 points....
"I also hope my election opens the door for others to get involved in public service," Webb said in a statement. "It doesn't matter if you're gay or black or both. What matters is your dedication to building a better community and your willingness to work hard at it."
And Nepal has elected its first openly gay politician:
Ganesh Shah, general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal, said that Sunil Babu Pant was chosen to lead the party to "ensure the rights of gay and other minority groups. He will be the first person to represent Nepal's gay community."
Australia is changing laws that allow discrimination against gays:
Australia will change a raft of federal laws to remove discrimination against gay couples, but will stop short of allowing same-sex marriages, the government announced Wednesday.
Under the changes, gay couples in long-term relationships would be treated the same as married couples on issues such as taxation, pensions and welfare payments, Attorney General Robert McClelland said.
Meanwhile, yet another staunch defender of family values has been caught with his pants down. And the appalling Ward Connerly is fuming over yet another defeat:
A leader of a ballot initiative that would have ended state-based affirmative action programs lashed out at opponents on Monday and vowed to revive the issue in 2010, after failing to meet a weekend deadline to turn in signatures.
"So those who are gleeful right now about being able to bully us, you better enjoy your last laugh because it won't last very long," said Ward Connerly, a California businessman who helped spearhead the initiative in Missouri and four other states this year.
"Outdoor living rooms" are popping up in Los Angeles:
Armed with grant money, hammers and some technical help, residents around the city have gone about spiffing up bus stops, among a number of other outdoor spaces, into something known as community living rooms.
The idea began several years ago in Oakland, where community organizers and residents got together to improve places where neighbors tended to congregate — the corner store, outside the barbershop — amid a decidedly downtrodden environment.
In New York, meanwhile, urban gardens are on the rise:
Growing up in rural Jamaica, the Wilkses helped their families raise crops like sugar cane, coffee and yams, and take them to market. Now, in Brooklyn, they are farmers once again, catering to their neighbors’ tastes: for scallions, for bitter melons like those from the West Indies and East Asia and for cilantro for Latin-American dinner tables.
For more information on the myriad ways in which people are addressing the problem of urban food deserts, see People's Grocery.
Typically, contaminated soil is hauled off, buried or burned. Using the mushroom method...it is put in plots, strewn with straw and left alone with mushroom spawn. The spawn release a fine, threadlike web called mycelium that secretes enzymes “like little Pac-Mans that break down molecular bonds,” Mr. Stamets said. And presto: toxins fall apart.
In related news, fungi may also be able to reduce the hazards of depleted uranium:
Although less radioactive than natural uranium, depleted uranium is just as toxic and poses a threat to people.
In the new study, the researchers found that free-living and plant symbiotic (mycorrhizal) fungi can colonize depleted-uranium surfaces and transform the metal into uranyl phosphate minerals.
And bread molds reportedly offer hope of directly targeting disease-causing genes:
A University of Missouri scientist, along with a collaborative research team, has examined a new mechanism in the reproductive cycle of a certain species of mold. This mechanism protects the organism from genetic abnormalities by "silencing" unmatched genes during meiosis (sexual reproduction). The finding could have implications for higher organisms and may lead to precise "targeting" of unwanted genes, such as those from the HIV virus.
Speaking of HIV, a quick test for it seems to be very helpful in preventing mother-to-child transmission:
Of the participants, about 82% had never taken an HIV test, according to the study. The tests found that 11 women were HIV-positive. These women were given antiretroviral drugs to prevent MTCT. According to the study, 10 of these infants survived and tested negative for HIV.
Several new species have been found in a rapidly shrinking area of Brazilian savanna.
The lizard — part of a separate evolutionary line from snakes — is one of 14 species believed new to science discovered on a four-week expedition to a 1.77-million-acre (716,000-hectare) protected area in the Cerrado. The team also found several threatened and rare species.
"We don't know exactly what we're losing," said expedition leader Christian Nogueira, a Conservation International biologist.
Eight rare Amur leopards have been photographed by a Russian camera trap:
"The confirmed stability of the leopard population … warm[s] our hearts and give[s] hope," Pavel Fomenko of WWF Russia said in a statement.
Furthermore, 14 tiger cubs have been spotted in an Indian national park:
Wildlife experts welcomed the news and said they also have information about sightings of tiger cubs in four other reserves.
"Ranthambore is back to its heyday of the 1980s, and the secret of success is in better management and a lot of protection, which was not there earlier," said Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI).
A paper in PLoS Biology suggests that frog conservation efforts should concentrate on Madagascar:
[O]ne of the best places to focus these efforts is Madagascar, a global hotspot of amphibian diversity that shows no signs of amphibian declines — or traces of the chytrid fungus.
Protecting this amphibian treasure trove before it’s too late, the authors argue, makes Madagascar a top priority for amphibian conservation efforts. “In Madagascar,” the authors argue, “amphibian conservation efforts have the possibility of being pro-active, rather than reactive, or simply post-mortem.”
A new study shows how the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have consistently buried environmental news:
The report found that both the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times essentially buried environmental stories, as environmental news for both papers made up only 1 percent of the total front page....
Both papers had more front page stories on sports/entertainment/lifestyles than on the environment. 3.7 percent of The Wall Street Journal's front page was made up by entertainment and sports. While at The New York Times sports and entertainment appeared on the front page nearly seven times that of environmental stories with 6.9 percent. Health/medicine-related stories at The New York Times was more than seven times the environment with 7.3 percent. In both papers the environment nearly tied science/technology which was 0.8 percent at The New York Times and 1.1 percent at The Wall Street Journal.
This, of course, is merely a ploy to make it look as though they're not on Algore's climate hysteria bandwagon.
The Sietch Blog reports that "global production of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells increased 51 percent in 2007." Apropos of which, Berkeley, CA will soon be testing a clever way of increasing installation of solar panels:
Installing solar panels on your roof is like paying for 20 years of juice up front. There's no guarantee you'll recoup that money when you sell, and American families move every seven years on average. While it may be exhilarating to watch the utility meter spin backward, these basic facts make solar impractical for the masses. "People are willing to pay a premium to not be tied down," notes Cisco DeVries of Berkeley, California, who until recently served as the mayor's chief of staff.
But last year, DeVries hit upon a brilliantly simple idea. What if, he asked, the city financed residents' solar rooftops, then levied a 20-year tax assessment on their properties to pay for it? The debt would follow the home, not the owner, and in one fell swoop, the two greatest impediments to home solar would be history.
An inflatable solar panel provides plenty of cheap hot water:
For consumers, the SolarStore could provide a cheap source of domestic hot water; with an initial cost of under Â100 per product, trial data has shown that the system will pay for itself in only 6 months. This compares extremely favourably to conventional domestic solar hot water systems, which cost in the region of Â2000-3000 and have payback times of around 10-20 years. It is anticipated that the product will also be extremely beneficial in developing countries, where a reliable electricity supply can be a problem.
Inhabitat reports that volunteers from Engineers Without Borders "have developed a small wind turbine design that has the capacity to bring much needed electrical power to remote villages in Guatemala and provide an alternative to hazardous kerosene lighting."
George Monbiot has won my heart by making an impassioned plea for dirigibles:
Airships fly much lower than planes, typically at about 4,000 feet, which means their emissions of water vapour have very little effect on temperature. If they were powered by hydrogen fuel cells, they would be almost silent, greatly reducing the effects for people on the ground. Though they are much slower than jets, the cabin can be built much wider, which means that travelling by airship would be rather like travelling by cruise ship, but at twice the speed and using a fraction of the fuel.
I tend to be wary of biofuel stories, but Four Legs Good has sent me a link that's really pretty interesting:
A newly created microbe produces cellulose that can be turned into ethanol and other biofuels, report scientists from The University of Texas at Austin who say the microbe could provide a significant portion of the nation's transportation fuel if production can be scaled up....
Brown and Nobles say their cyanobacteria can be grown in production facilities on non-agricultural lands using salty water unsuitable for human consumption or crops....Glucose, cellulose and sucrose can be continually harvested without harming or destroying the cyanobacteria (harvesting cellulose and sugars from true algae or crops, like corn and sugarcane, requires killing the organisms and using enzymes and mechanical methods to extract the sugars). Cyanobacteria that can fix atmospheric nitrogen can be grown without petroleum-based fertilizer input.
Arizona is the 14th state to have adopted a Clean Car rule:
Under the Clean Car Rule, each automobile manufacturer is required to demonstrate that its fleet of passenger cars and light-duty trucks delivered for sale in Arizona on or after January 1, 2011, meets an average emissions standard for greenhouse gases. It will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles by about 32 million metric tons from 2012 to 2020 and will also reduce pollutants that contribute to ground-level ozone formation, a major issue in Arizona. Implementation of the rule is expected to reduce 5,505 tons of carbon monoxide, 892 tons of hydrocarbons, and 1,436 tons of oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) in 2018.
The BLM has closed 30,000 acres of the Clear Creak Management Area to off-road vehicles:
“It’s about time that the agency steps in to protect public health,” said Chris Kassar, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The EPA study confirms that asbestos levels and toxic dust kicked up by off-road vehicles is a much greater health hazard than previously thought, and the Bureau of Land Management is going to have to be very careful about how they manage this area in the future.”
New Jersey is backing away from its plan to close state parks:
Last month, Governor Corzine proposed to close several parks serving an estimated two million visitors each year and lay off 80 park workers in order to save the state roughly $4.5 million. Documents uncovered by PEER showed that DEP is forfeiting millions of dollars from not collecting owed rents and other payments from big corporations holding easements and concessions on park lands.
“I am glad someone finally listened to reason,” stated New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe. “Collecting rent is a basic step that should have been considered before announcing that parks will be closed to the public.”
A federal judge has once again ordered the EPA to obey the law:
The Bush administration has violated legal deadlines for updating the nation's clean-air standards on carbon monoxide, a federal judge in San Francisco has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White told the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday to follow a schedule that would allow a full scientific review, public comment and any proposed changes in the standard to take place by May 2011. The EPA had proposed a timetable that would extend through October 2012.
Estonians are using Google maps and GPS to locate trash as part of a national clean-up program:
"It has to be done, it can't stay here," said Mats Eek, 17, cleaning up a site in the middle of a forest near the central town of Turi, 100 km (62 miles) from capital city Tallinn.
He and the rest of his team worked to remove old metal, plastic, glass, bottles, and remains of farm medicals and household garbage hundred of meters from deep in a forest.
Iraq's National Museum has recovered 700 stolen artifacts:
Syrian authorities seized the items from traffickers over the years and handed custody last week to an Iraqi delegation in Damascus.
Mohammad Abbas al-Oreibi, Iraq's acting state minister of tourism and archaeology who led the negotiations with Syria, said he plans to visit Jordan soon to persuade its authorities to turn over more than 150 items.
A Brazilian judge has suspended construction of a massive dam on the Xingu River:
At 11,181 megawatts, the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River would be the world's third largest dam in terms of generating capacity. But the project has faced opposition from a coalition of indigenous groups, scientists, and environmentalists who say the dam will cause environmental harm by flooding large tracts of rainforest and blocking key migration routes for fish. To voice their concern over Belo Monte and other hydroelectric projects in the Amazon, more than 1,000 indigenous representatives are expected to gather in the city of Altamira from May 19-23.
And Unilever has selflessly called for a moratorium on destroying rainforests for palm oil:
Unilever's announcement comes shortly after a report from Greenpeace showed that the company's suppliers were destroying orangutan habitat and carbon-rich peatlands in Indonesia for oil palm plantations.
The USGS will make 36 years of Landsat imagery available on the Intertubes for free. Which is nice, but not nearly as interesting as the effort to reconstruct shredded Stasi documents:
Stasi employees started to destroy their secret files as the Berlin Wall fell. Initially they shredded them. But as the machines broke down under the strain, they were forced to tear documents by hand.
The waste was to be pulped or burnt, but "citizen committees" stormed Stasi offices across East Germany, seizing millions of files, along with 15,500 bags of torn-up documents.
"One of the main reasons why the citizen committees occupied Stasi offices was to prevent the destruction of these archives," said Andreas Petter, a chief archivist at the office now responsible for their preservation.
Since 1995, experts working near Nuremberg in Bavaria have been sifting through the bags, extracting the torn shreds, strata by strata, and taping them back together to reconstruct the documents.
Before visiting these sites, I suggest that you download and build your very own pinhole camera so you can take pictures of the screen. Better yet, you can use it to take photographs of the photographs of photographic negatives at Luminous Lint.
Also: Otherworldly photos of Chile's Chaiten volcano at BLDGBLOG, and this-worldly photos of NYC subway art by Grrlscientist.
While I don't necessarily recommend reading Rapture Ready, which is a sort of Gambling Times for the pro-apocalypse set, it can sometimes be very informative. This week, it address the "Oil in Israel Myth," which apparently stems from the assumption that if oil is a blessing from the Lord — which it must be, 'cause it makes people rich — then the blessed state of Israel must have lots of it, somewhere or other.
There are some who suggest that God didn't leave the Israelis out of the oil bonanza. The oil prize is there, waiting for someone to discover it.
Some Christians have said that prophecy suggests that oil wealth will come to the Jews. They point to a desire to steal Israel's oil wealth as what will trigger the Gog invasion. The prophecies in Ezekiel make no reference to oil being the reason for the attack.
In the past decade, several oil companies have been founded with the goal of finding biblical oil in Israel. None of them has had any success.
The author finds all of this silly for two reasons, and they're both very good ones.
First, "ancient Israel would have no need for oil." You can't really argue with this...unless you're the sort of pedant who'd point out that neither the Persian Empire, nor Texas circa 500 BC, had any obvious need for oil either. Or the sort of heretic who suspects that RR is basically accusing God of an inability to plan ahead.
Second, "if Israel were to suddenly hit the mother lode in oil, the material wealth would largely void the supernatural work that God has accomplished in this nation." The supernatural work, that is, of blessing Israel with material wealth. In other words, if the Jews became wealthy because God blessed them with oil, it would prevent us from understanding that "Israel's affluence can only be explained by God's grace." That's clear enough, isn't it?
It's a little unsettling how neatly this belief in the supernatural nature of Jewish wealth complements the bone-deep anti-Semitism of the Darbyist apocalypse. But in a spirit of charity, we'll put these speculations aside. RR goes on to describe how Christians have sometimes been inspired to finance the search for "Biblical oil" in order to fulfill a prophecy that was never made, but clearly should've been, given oil's great significance to man, and therefore to God:
Ness Energy International is one example. In the late 1990s, a Texas oilman by the name "Hayseed" Stevens was promoting the idea that a vast reservoir of oil was under that Dead Sea region.
Mr. Stevens based his conclusions on ideas that would make any respected geologist pull his hair out. He told people at a series of prophecy meetings that the earth contains a layer of hydrocarbons and that the southern part of the Dead Sea is the fountainhead of this oil reservoir. Stevens also said there is a plumbing system that would eventually drain the Arabian oil fields. Yes, all this time the Arabs have been stealing Israel's oil.
The undoing of Stevens’ eccentric theories came when he began drilling. After punching through a salt plug that was said to be capping the oil, nothing was found. I remember him sending out one update to reassure investors, saying that the drillers had found oil; but it wasn't the right kind oil they were looking for.
All of this is news to me, but both the theory and Rapture Ready's rebuttal strike me as the perfect illustration of American fundamentalism's bedrock economism. (You can read more on Stevens here; it's a fascinating story.)
As we've seen, God's conscientious withholding of oil from teh Jews reveals Israel's wealth as something that "can only be explained by God's grace." If that's true, at least one mechanism of His grace is not entirely a secret. Christian tourism is an important source of Israel's income; hundreds of thousands of Christians visit each year in order to walk along some arbitrary Via Dolorosa, and to visit monuments known to have been built near the probable site of temples that tradition says are very near to a place where buildings Jesus may have visited are reputed to have stood.
Many of these sites were made holy in order to meet the popular demand for holy sites (the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime). It's charming that Stanley Spencer depicted Jesus carrying the cross down Cookham High Street, but as Mr. Gradgrind observed, "You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them." The official Via Dolorosa may not be strictly accurate, but at least it's in Jerusalem.
And just imagine if you arrived in, say, Bethlehem, and no X marked the spot where Jesus was born. It'd be like drilling for the Lord's light sweet crude precisely where it ought to be, and coming up dry. God must be spared this embarrassment, if at all possible.
A site called Bible Walks exemplifies this selfless concern for God's good name with its page on Tell Hadar, which is thought to be the site of the miracle of loaves and fishes:
The topography of the site and the proximity to the major Roman road makes this tradition sound reasonable....A heavy rock has been placed in the parking lot to mark the site of the miracle.
A heavy rock, mind you; nothing less could assure us that this world is not our home.
(Illustration: Satellite image of the parting of the Red Sea, via BLDGBLOG.)
Carol Iannone takes a break from fretting over America's declining academic standards, and complains that biology's standards are too high:
Ben Stein's Expelled is entertaining and informative. Among the bracing clarifications the film provides is that Darwinian evolution is not even necessary for the study of modern biology and medicine; that Darwin and religion are at odds, as Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson has written; that the Nazis did indeed take Darwinian science as inspiration; and that science is even more fanciful about the origins of life than religion could ever be (one anti-Darwinian hypothesizes that organic life may have begun on the backs of crystals).
Iannone once spent some time debating NR's Anthony Dick on evolution. The paragraph above gives you some sense of how little she learned from it.
The claim that evolution (we'll ignore the cunning adjective "Darwinian") "is not even necessary for the study of modern biology and medicine" is remarkable not because it's such a brazen lie, but because Iannone is so careful to designate this imaginary biology-without-evolution as "modern." This is as exquisite a critical distinction as I've seen, and I'm sure it'll help to advance Iannone's reputation as a brave thinker of thoughts about things.
Hitler did indeed take certain useful elements of his era's "Darwinian science" as inspiration, when he wasn't being equally inspired by Goethe, Herder, Schopenhauer, Fichte, Hans Horbiger, Henry Ford, Karl May, Napoleon, occultism, Christianity, mythology, and anything else that appealed to his magpie mind. In Mein Kampf, he sets forth his method quite clearly:
A man who possesses the art of correct reading will, in studying any book, magazine, or pamphlet, instinctively and immediately perceive everything which in his opinion is worth permanently remembering, either because it is suited to his purpose or generally worth knowing....
What's "generally worth knowing," from the standpoint of a power-hungry ideologue, is precisely that which serves the purpose of gaining and maintaining power. It's immaterial whether Jesus died on the cross or not, so long as you can score political points by blaming the Jews for it.
If he were alive today, Hitler might well embrace Intelligent Design; it's by no means incompatible with pseudoscientific racism, it's vague enough to leave room for Odin as well as YHWH, and it's prone to a type of wishful thinking and paranoia that could easily have resonated with his own (if we weren't intended by some supernatural intelligence to discriminate against the Jews, how come they were designed to look Jewish?).
Current scientific thinking on race wouldn't be any more suited to Hitler's purpose than it is to, say, Charles Murray's; as manufactured anti-elitist causes go, ID would probably have been at least as useful as Horbiger's Welteislehre was in its day. This idle speculation aside, it's clear enough that Hitler had little interest in any scientific theory (or historical account, or philosophy, or religious dogma, or art) that he couldn't use to prop up opinions he'd already formed.
Iannone's final point, about science being more "fanciful" than any religion, is both gratuitous and, ironically enough, irreligious. This is much more significant than any of her "attacks" on evolution, the basic facts of which hardly need defending.
Iannone would like you to think that she worships an omnipotent god. At the same time, she wants to treat certain (potentially divine) origins and mechanisms of life as too "fanciful" to have any chance of being correct. But unless she's a Biblical literalist of a type that's really pretty rare in her circles, she's free to view any and every fanciful thing as revelation, from hummingbird beaks to animated hypercubes to crystal-mediated abiogenesis. The Lord works in mysterious ways, or so I've heard.
Her crowd generally avoids this more humble and affirmative approach, though, lest they be reduced to cheering science from the sidelines for the insights it provides into the Great Chain of Being, instead of challenging or usurping whatever authority its relatively objective successes have earned.
In other words, what's being defended here is not God's omnipotence or wisdom, or some other spiritual doctrine, but the drab materialism of political domination, which requires the basso profundo of divine thundering to ground and dignify the mandrake shrieks of authoritarian dimwits like Iannone.
To assume that this is actually a clash between belief and unbelief, or reason and faith, is basically to concede the argument to the Right before it begins (which is, unfortunately, a tactic at which the Left has excelled for as long as I've been paying attention). It's not about religion or science; it's about the need to capture or marginalize opposing sources of authority. The typical left/atheist outrage is already factored into this game, and is in fact one of the main justifications for playing it.
John W. Schoen, a senior producer at MSNBC, has forfeited a few moments of his valuable time in order to help a confused reader understand the workings of the Free Market:
If the feds can help with cutting interest rates why can't they do something that really affects everything? Like high prices of gas. How can a billion-dollar industry still be allowed to make so much and affect so many people? — Lori H., Dodge City, Kan.
There are measures the government could take to ease the pain at the pump, but it’s hard to see how the U.S. government could directly control the price of a global commodity like gasoline — any more than it could limit what you can charge for that big-screen TV you’re trying to unload on eBay. Gasoline prices — like all market prices — are set by a willing buyer and a willing seller. (You may not be a “happy” buyer right now, but your purchases are still voluntary.)
Absolutely correct. No one's holding a gun to Lori's head. If she doesn't want to buy gas at the current price, she has every right to sit at home in her counting-room, cackling over her doubloons and pieces of eight by the light of a tenpenny candle.
Sure, it's possible that she lives in one of those sprawling suburbs that were designed and sited on the assumption that gas would always be cheap, and that mass transit is a socialistic encroachment on the Liberty for which John Birch bled and died, and that only prostitutes and pedophiles would dream of walking anywhere. But if so, she can comfort herself with the fact that this, too, is the result of a voluntary buying decision on her part. She could just as easily live somewhere else, after all (the expense of moving to the Outer Hebrides is negligible when one considers the easy availability of peat).
So let's leave Lori to her malingering, and move on to bigger and better things. While in an unusually frolicsome mood the other day, I wrote a brief post on food deserts. Apropos of which, it's increasingly hard to find supermarkets in the NYC metro area:
The supermarket closings — not confined to poor neighborhoods — result from rising rents and slim profit margins, among other causes. They have forced residents to take buses or cabs to the closest supermarkets in some areas. Those with cars can drive, but the price of gasoline is making some think twice about that option. In many places, residents said the lack of competition has led to rising prices in the remaining stores.
These shoppers may not be happy right now, but whatever purchases they're able to make are, of course, voluntary. And lest we forget, many neighborhoods that lack supermarkets do have very affordable fast-food restaurants.
Granted, fast food is linked in some studies with poor health, but as Jot Contie of the California Restaurant Association says, "in the end, individuals control what, where and when they eat." People who'd rather have fresh vegetables than catsup packets, for instance, are perfectly free to hop in the the car and drive to the nearest supermarket. (If gas is too expensive, they can always eat invasive weeds...it's a nice way of giving back to one's community.)
There's also the fact that when a supermarket closes, it often creates entrepreneurial opportunities for local residents.
The larger point is that if consumer dissatisfaction were really widespread, multinational agribusiness would hardly be enjoying record profits:
Monsanto last month reported that its net income for the three months up to the end of February this year had more than doubled over the same period in 2007, from $543m (£275m) to $1.12bn. Its profits increased from $1.44bn to $2.22bn.
Cargill's net earnings soared by 86 per cent from $553m to $1.030bn over the same three months. And Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world's largest agricultural processors of soy, corn and wheat, increased its net earnings by 42 per cent in the first three months of this year from $363m to $517m. The operating profit of its grains merchandising and handling operations jumped 16-fold from $21m to $341m.
That's a lot of willing buyers, you'll agree. And given the fact that all this commerce is entirely voluntary, it's easy to see how fixing ADM's prices would be just as unfair as limiting the price you can charge on eBay for the belongings you need to sell in order to afford gas or grain.
You may not be happy right now, but at least you're free.
(Photo: "Food Protest in Mexico," via Treehugger).
