Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Not Articulated Outright
This blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, likes to make observations about the yawning chasm that lies between the realm of what people do, and what actually would make sense. One of the ways we do that, is by examining the things people imply but don’t actually say on a word-for-word basis. In order for people to say things outright, in a forum that verifies their personal identities beyond a reasonable doubt, the things they say have to generate some respect — or, at least, not generate disrespect. Those things, there, have to be somewhat logical. But in order for people to produce gutteral sounds calculated to get people around them to think a certain thing, that thing doesn’t have to be logical at all. After all, by producing the gutteral sounds, the speaker isn’t actually taking any real responsibility. For anything.
That said, I have an observation to make. It’s about hot weather. In Northern California, my radio tells me we have broken twelve records in July. New York, meanwhile, is at or above the century mark. There are brown-outs. Blackouts. People without air conditioning. It’s a pretty hot summer.
You don’t have to wait very long at all, I see, to observe someone saying something about the hot weather we’ve been having…and then, you don’t have to wait very long for someone to say something about global warming. To hear someone put those two things in the same sentence, also, you can hear that several times a day. Even in the news. Many times a week you’ll hear someone “tease” a story about global warming, with a casual mention about how hot it has been outside lately — and then, cut to some egghead scientist guy who will reiterate what is known about “global climate change,” and what we’re still trying to find out. The implication is clear.
But I think everybody, in their heart-of-hearts, understands this is a sham. Because to hear someone actually string all the words together into a coherent sentence, a sentence that actually says something with gravity — “we are having a hot summer and it is because of man-made global warming that we are having it” — I don’t remember anyone actually doing this. Nobody on the news. No scientists. Not even man-off-the-street type strangers, looking for something to talk about.
Certainly, nobody with a name and reputation worth defending.
People won’t actually put the words together, and spew it out, presenting it as something in which they honestly believe. Not in a forum in which they care what people think about them. Not without that little chuckle on the end.
Spew out a lot of crap that motivates your audience to conclude on their own that this is what’s going on…that’s much easier. Much more common. Deep down, we all know it isn’t true.
Update 8/3/06: Oops. Pat Robertson, you wild and crazy guy you. Oh well, I do believe my exact words were, “nobody with a name and reputation worth defending.”
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Even if it’s a little inaccurate, it’s still a very thoughtful post! You’ve been bookmarked!
“Weather” is what is happening outside the window yesterday, today, or next week. When weather scientists attempt to predict the weather next week, they are using entirely different methods from when climate scientists are attempting to analyize climate.
My explaination would be more clear if I could remember the proper name for each of those specialities, because they are two completely different breeds of scientists.
Weather people study clouds, rainfall, wind -things of a recent nature. Climate people study ice core samples two miles down into the antartic ice shelf -things which will tell them what happened 100,000 years ago.
The thing to remember about *seasoned* scientists is that they tend to be very very understated with how they say things. A normal person would say, “OMG there’s a FIRE!” A scientist would probably say something like, “There seems to be an excess of heat over there, let’s have a conference to discuss research objectives.”
For the flat-earth-farkers: Some “scientists” get their funding from the oil companies, but they only get the money if the oil companies like the results. THESE are the “scientists” who dispute global warming, and their research is usually not ever accepted into peer-reviewed journals because they didn’t use valid research methods.
/fark won’t let me log on
- Dohnaughtbreeth | 08/05/2006 @ 01:28//says i need cookies enabled
///every other damn place lets me log on just fine
Even if it’s a tiny bit inaccurate, it’s still a very thoughtful post. You’ve been bookmarked!
“Weather” is what is happening outside the window yesterday, today, or next week. When weather scientists attempt to predict the weather next week, they are using entirely different methods from when climate scientists are attempting to analyize climate.
My pathetic explaination would be more clear if I could remember the proper name for each of those specialities, because they are two completely different breeds of scientists.
Weather people study clouds, rainfall, wind -things of a recent nature. Climate people study ice core samples two miles down into the antartic ice shelf -things which will tell them what happened 100,000 years ago.
The thing to remember about *seasoned* scientists is that they tend to be very very understated with how they say things. A normal person would say, “OMG there’s a FIRE!” A scientist would probably say something like, “There seems to be an excess of heat over there, let’s have a conference to discuss research objectives.”
For the flat-earth-farkers: Some “scientists” get their funding from the oil companies, but they only get the money if the oil companies like the results. THESE are the “scientists” who dispute global warming, and their research is usually not ever accepted into peer-reviewed journals.
/fark won’t let me log on
- Dohnaughtbreeth | 08/05/2006 @ 01:34//says i need cookies enabled
///every other damn place lets me log on just fine.