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August 31, 2007
"All the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated"
My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.
"Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society," by Freeman Dyson, edge, August 8, 2007
Hat tip to Arnold Kling
Posted at 07:27 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Research
August 28, 2007
Let's live in the past! Yeah, that's the ticket.
Imagine an egalitarian world in which all food is organic and local, the air is free of industrial pollution, and vigorous physical exertion is guaranteed. Sound idyllic?
But hold on… Life expectancy is 30 at most; many children die at or soon after birth; life is constantly lived on the edge of starvation; there are no doctors or dentists or modern toilets. If it is egalitarian it is because everyone is dirt poor, and there is no industrial pollution because there are no factories. Food is organic because there are no pesticides or high technology farming methods. As a result, producing food means long hours of back-breaking physical work which may end up yielding little.
There is - or at least was - such a place. It is called the past. And few of us, it seems, recognise the enormous benefits to humanity of escaping from it. On the contrary, there is a pervasive culture of complaint about the perils of affluence and a common tendency to romanticise the simple life.
"Towards an age of abundance: Ignore the critics of economic growth who claim that prosperity makes us unhappy. We need to win the war against scarcity once and for all, so that everyone can enjoy the benefits of longer, healthier and wealthier lives," by Daniel Ben-Ami, Spiked, August 2007
Posted at 07:57 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Narcissism , Stupidity , Technology
August 20, 2007
Counsels of St. Francis de Sales
Live + Jesus!
"If we keep ourselves very little, God will not fail to be glorified in our lowliness."
"Man needs God, and is hungry for His favors; God is full of all good things, and longs to give them."
Posted at 09:07 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Salesian Tonics
August 19, 2007
"Organizers of humanity"
"The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?"-- Frederick Bastiat (Wikipedia article)
Posted at 11:07 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Quotations
August 18, 2007
Apocalyptic environmentalism
So why do so many people in the developed world believe in apocalyptic environmentalism? The attraction of apocalyptic thinking is strong. One self-described survivor of millenarian environmentalism, novelist Eric Zencey, recalled in his 1988 essay, “Apocalypse and Ecology”:"There is seduction in apocalyptic thinking. If one lives in the Last Days, one’s actions, one’s very life, take on historical meaning and no small measure of poignance … Apocalypticism fulfills a desire to escape the flow of real and ordinary time, to fix the flow of history into a single moment of overwhelming importance.”
Daniel Cohen, author of the 1973 Waiting for the Apocalypse, believes that every generation grows up convinced that it is the last generation in history. However, the method by which the end brought about changes. For Cohen’s generation nuclear war was the agent of the apocalypse.“We believed passionately that there would be such a war, and like the early Christians we were sure that this Judgment Day would come within our lifetimes.”
Interestingly, unlike the Millerites, when prophesies of environmental doom fail, ecological millenarians do not experience a "Great Disappointment." As Daniel Cohen noted,"One clearly wrong prophecy, or even a whole string of them, rarely discredits the prophet in the eyes of those who believe in prophecy."
As DiCaprio's new film shows, a lot people still want to think of themselves as living at the hinge of history in which their lives will make all the heroic difference for all the time to come.
But the truth is that our ancestors bequeathed to our generation a world that is immeasurably richer, cleaner and healthier than the one they lived in. I haven't seen The 11th Hour yet, but I suspect that it is not going to recommend those policies that have in fact improved the state of humanity for the last two centuries. Of course, it must be admitted that along the way there were some mostly unavoidable side effects on the natural world that arose as hundreds of millions of people clawed their way out of poverty. That being said, I will be happily surprised if The 11th Hour comes out in favor of strengthened property rights, expanding globalization, increasing urbanization, and spreading modern farming techniques. It is exactly those trends abetted by democratic capitalism that are improving humanity's estate and will help preserve nature.
"DiCaprio's The 11th Hour: We are the Most Important Generation in History," by Ronald Bailey, Hit & Run, August 16, 2007
Posted at 08:27 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Ignorance , Narcissism , Nihilism
August 17, 2007
Youngest gets driver license
After more than 5,500 miles of behind-the-wheel experience in all kinds of weather, on all kinds of roads including the Beltway and the most dangerous intersections and interchanges she will use and encounter in DC, my youngest got her license.
I require at least 5,000 miles of driving with me, and it took her slightly more than 1 year to get enough miles and for me to feel as comfortable as a father will ever feel when a child gets their driver license for me to say, "You're as ready as you're going to be."
Next week, I'll send her to get the oil changed and the car washed. The week after that, to get the tires rotated and then an alignment.... And she will now drive to soccer practice, a double edged sword as I'll miss the time chatting.
Drive safe: buckle your seat belt, lock the doors, adjust the mirrors, put the cell phone away, and always observe the 2 second rule. God speed.
See Teenager Driving Contract.
Posted at 11:07 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: driving
August 13, 2007
Amazing - Electronic Photo Frame
Last Monday, I purchased a digital photo frame from Costco (Digital Spectrum 10.4" Digital Frame MemoryVue MV-1040Plus, on sale at my local Costco for $170, less than the online price). I finally got around to setting it up Thursday night about 8 pm. I was so impressed - AMAZED! actually - with the brightness and image quality that I went back to Costco that night and bought a 2nd one for home.
This frame does NOT need to be connected to a computer to work, just needs to be plugged in to an electrical outlet and many different types of camera memory cards will work with it, including USB flash drives. I am using 4gb and 8gb USB flash drives in mine, after downloading thousands of images on to them. It plays the photos in a slide show when turned on. We're using the Patriot 8GB Flash Drive, Model PSF8GUSB, from NewEgg.
Think about getting one of these digital photo frames for your self. WARNING - it is VERY distracting - I have to turn the one in my office off or I have a hard time getting anything done.
This would make a wonderful gift (my siblings and I are going to give our Dad one with an 8gb USB flash drive loaded with thousands of family photos - Shsssshhhhhh).
And if you need to get old photos and slides scanned on to DVDs, we recommend ScanCafe, which scans photos at 600 dpi and slides at 3000 dpi, performs automatic dust and scratch removal, lets you select only the images you want (online), and then returns your photos with a DVD containing your scanned images. Highly Recommended.
Amazon links:
Posted at 06:17 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Tools
August 12, 2007
Great fortunes
Not sure I agree but it is a pithy quote:
Behind every great fortune is a great crime.
-- Honoré de Balzac
Posted at 08:17 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Quotations
August 10, 2007
The sex of flies
From my Aunt Annie:
A woman walked into the kitchen to find her husband stalking around with a fly swatter."What are you doing? she asked.
"Hunting flies" he responded.
"Oh. Killing any?" she asked.
"Yep, 3 males, 2 females." he replied.
Intrigued, she asked, "How can you tell them apart?"
He responded: "3 were on a beer can, 2 were on the phone."
Posted at 04:17 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Humor
August 01, 2007
"Aristotle's Email – Or, Friendship In The Cyber Age"
In Book VIII of his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle categorizes three different types of friendship: friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure, and friendships of the good. Friendships of utility are those where people are on cordial terms primarily because each person benefits from the other in some way. Business partnerships, relationships among co-workers, and classmate connections are examples. Friendships of pleasure are those where individuals seek out each other’s company because of the joy it brings. Passionate love affairs, people associating with each other due to belonging to the same hobby organization, and fishing buddies fall into this category. Most important of all are friendships of the good. These are friendships based upon mutual respect, admiration for each other’s virtues, and a strong desire to aid and assist the other person because one recognizes their essential goodness.
. . .
Email has added a new wrinkle to Aristotle’s threefold schemata. Thanks to it, and the wonders of the internet in general, it is now easier than ever to stay in touch with people from throughout one’s life.
"Aristotle’s Email -- Or, Friendship In The Cyber Age," by Tim Madigan, Philosophy Now, May/June 2007
Posted at 10:47 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Tools