An earlier version of a home page headline for this article misstated the location of a supervolcano that drives geological activity. It is beneath Yellowstone National Park, not Yosemite.The article went up yesterday, and the correction is dated today.
Meanwhile, on the subject of the NYT and science, there's an editorial with the headline: "Mr. Trump Nails Shut the Coffin on Climate Relief." It's just such an offputtingly dramatic title. I understand that they mean that the government effort to provide relief from climate change is dead, but death is not enough. It had to be "nails shut the coffin." Yeah, coffin metaphors seem scary — and perhaps seasonally apt (near Halloween) — but there's nothing that's a metaphorical body inside the coffin. Relief is an abstraction. And "climate relief" doesn't even make sense. We will always have a climate. We just have preferences about what kind of climate we like best.
Sorry, I'm just complaining about a headline. The editorial itself says "climate change." And it doesn't mention a coffin. It says "dead." Here:
In March Mr. Trump ordered Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to repeal the Clean Power Plan, which was aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. Mr. Pruitt, a climate denier closely tied to the fossil fuel industry, was only too happy to oblige — boasting to an audience of Kentucky coal miners on Monday that the plan was dead and that “the war on coal is over."So what's dead — ironically — is a war. "War" was a metaphor, the other side's metaphor.
Kill war. That sounds like a slogan on a 1960s placard. But I don't think I've seen that slogan. I've seen "Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity."
IN THE COMMENTS: There's some discussion about how that 60s slogan was exactly worded. I've searched around a bit and I'm guessing that it all started with this image, for which I don't have any background information (other than the guess that the bombing in question was Nixon's bombing of Cambodia, which we heard about in 1970):
Posts
152 comments:
I understand that they mean that relief from climate change is dead,
How can there be relief from climate change? The climate has been changing for billions of years, and will continue to change for billions of years.
Mr. Pruitt, a climate denier
Good grief, what an insultingly idiotic term of derision.
My memory is that the way I put it originally (and I was the one who thought of it back in 1967) was:
"Fighting for peace is like f**king for virginity."
Better balance that way. If you want to talk about killing, try:
"Killing for life is like f**king for virginity."
Just sayin' - you have a right to be wrong and disagree.
Can we build more prisons for climate deniers?
Anybody who doesn't know the supervolcano is under Yellowstone, not Yosemite, should not be writing about climate or any other "science."
I guess the only excuse is that is it so far from the Hudson River out in terra incognita.
"An earlier version of a home page headline for this article misstated the location of a supervolcano that drives geological activity. It is beneath Yellowstone National Park, not Yosemite."
In an article on solar power a few years ago, the NYT reported that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
But the NYT is fabulous!
Layers and layers of fact checkers.
""I understand that they mean that relief from climate change is dead"/How can there be relief from climate change? The climate has been changing for billions of years, and will continue to change for billions of years."
Yes, I was aware of that problem as I was writing the post but concerned about stacking up complaints to the point of becoming obscure.
I've changed the wording to "I understand that they mean that the government effort to provide relief from climate change is dead..."
"I've seen 'Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity.'"
I've seen "Girls say yes to boys who say no."
Trump saved us billions by getting rid of the Clean Power Plan and pulling out of Paris.
Electricity prices in Germany are double that of the USA.
One of his biggest accomplishments.
I've also seen "Ladies first."
""Fighting for peace is like f**king for virginity.""
Yeah, I agree that seems more like the original form of the slogan. I used what I ran into on the internet (on mugs and T-shirts).
The double "F" alliteration is better. But then you don't have the word "kill" (which was what I was looking for, in "kill war").
Yosemite, Yellowstone, what's the difference?
Before they nailed the coffin shut, did they cut off its head and drive an oaken stake through its heart ?
Fighting for peace is like fucking Harvey Weinstein for stardom.
23.
"fucking Harvey Weinstein"
24
"Mr. Trump Nails Shut the Coffin on Climate Relief."
So we never have to hear about it again? The issue is over? Wow, that Trump's got the powerful mojo.
a climate denier
This is a funny shorthand. I have a vision of Mr. Pruitt standing in the rain without an umbrella.
The Times are noun-phrase-deniers.
@Meade - Let's go for 20,000!
"In March Mr. Trump ordered Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to repeal the Clean Power Plan, which was aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. Mr. Pruitt, a climate denier closely tied to the fossil fuel industry, was only too happy to oblige — boasting to an audience of Kentucky coal miners on Monday that the plan was dead and that “the war on coal is over."
That's terrible writing. How does something that terribly written get published? Here's a five minute re-write without changing the tone (For example, without changing 'climate denier,' a loaded, B.S. term to, 'climate change skeptic' or using whatever preferred term Pruitt likes. Though, 'climate denier' is a terrible phrase anyway since I doubt Pruitt denies there is a climate.)
"In March, Mr. Trump ordered the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to repeal the Clean Power Plan. The Clean Power Plan was aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants."
"Mr. Scott Pruitt is the administrator of the EPA and a climate denier. He has close ties to the fossil fuel industry and was only too happy to oblige Mr. Trump. He boasted to an audience of Kentucky coal miners on Monday that the plan was dead and that 'the war on coal is over.'"
Look how much cleaner that is. Why doesn't the NYT have an editor?
"We just have preferences about what kind of climate we like best." Yes, in the sense that we prefer a particular kind of climate to live in, where we live.
But, as far as I know, climate alarmists do not have a general standard to identify the right global climate and thus to explain why the global climate in 1600 or 1900 was better than it is now or is likely to be in 2100.
Laments about climate change typically reduce to: 1. humans are screwing the planet 2. particular communities in particular places are hurt by [flooding/storms etc.] 3. change is bad 4. governments don't have enough power to force people to live the way alarmists think they should.
The absurdity here is that Climate Change is not science, but is rather sciency. It isn't science because it doesn't have falsifiable hypotheses. Rather, it is what is left over from Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) having essentially been falsified. Climate Change is essentially its proponents saying that they have all these nice models and if they don't accurately predict global warming, then maybe they have to predict something. Maybe. Not sure what they might predict, but that doesn't matter. What is important apparently is beggering the country in a massive display of virtue signaling. You know this is the game because so many of their press lackeys and political supporters slip back and forth in the same article, even same paragraph, from global warming to climate change, and back. Well, which is it? Are we talking about the earth warming, or some aspect of the climate changing (which is what it continually does, regardless)?
"Fighting for peace..."
The problem with that wording is that it doesn't specify physical violence. You can fight in a verbal argument. You can fight in court. People say "fight for peace" all the time, like in the song "I Come and Stand at Every Door" (memorably played by The Byrds):
I come and stand at every door
But no one hears my silent prayer
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead
I'm only seven although I died
In Hiroshima long ago
I'm seven now as I was then
When children die they do not grow
My hair was scorched by swirling flame
My eyes grew dim my eyes grew blind
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind
I need no fruit I need no rice
I need no sweets nor even bread
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead, for I am dead
All that I ask for is for peace
You fight today, you fight today
So that the children of this world
May live and grow and laugh and play
There are lots of chambers of ignorance and idiocy beneath the news organization knows as The NY Times (professional scribblers).
Now that the business model is under severe duress, it’s just more visible
The Fugs had a song called "Kill for Peace." Kill, kill, kill for pace / near and far and very middle east.
The Fugs were Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg. Sanders later wrote "The Family," a bestseller about the Manson group. "Fug" was the euphemism Norman Mailer used in his 1947 novel "The Naked and the Dead" -- which dreadfully dates it. But this novel made him huge.
People that think President Trump has been totally incapacitated by the feckless Republicans have not been paying attention.
At some point in this century, when I wasn't paying close attention, the usual suspects all changed their Lie from "Anthropogenic Global Warming" to "Climate Change". Was there a theory to go along with that? It also seems that was when they stopped saying "Weather Is Not Climate". And of course, they abandoned the "Greenhouse Effect". That one was because some people with physics training pointed out that greenhouses work by restricting convection, not radiation. But if "climate Change" is not "Global Warming", then it must be "Global Warming and Cooling", right? Why are we supposed to be worried about that? I don't get it.
Now that volcano sounds like it might be trouble.
Yosemite, Yellowstone - at this point, What difference does it make?
I read that article about Yosemite Volcano eruption complete with a Fake Map showing Fake plumes of Fake Destruction in California. But we are so used to Fake News that it was a ho hum moment.I thought it must be the Big Lie School's final project test for new CIA operators that got published by accident, or a Crisis Actors School new script.
People say "fight for peace" all the time
Onward Christian Soldiers.
Matthew Sablan said...
"Look how much cleaner that is. Why doesn't the NYT have an editor?"
Actually, they just fired most of their copy editors. I believe Mr. Slim's observation was
"We don't need no steenking editors!"
I read that article about a coming Yosemite Volcano eruption, complete with a Fake Map showing Fake plumes of Fake Destruction arising in California. But we have become so used to Fake News that it was a ho hum moment.I thought it must be from the Big Lie School's final project test for new CIA operators and it got published by accident. Either that or a Crisis Actors School new script for review.
People say "fight for peace" all the time, like in the song "I Come and Stand at Every Door" (memorably played by The Byrds):
Adaptation by Pete Seeger (1962)
Note: Eventually, before he died in 2014, Pete Seeger apologized for his support of the USSR.
"Freeman Hunt said...
"Mr. Trump Nails Shut the Coffin on Climate Relief."
So we never have to hear about it again? The issue is over?"
Well, they still bitch about aerosol sprays depleting the ozone layer, and that hasn't been true since 1987 when CDC's were banned from use. So what do you think?
The leftist overreaction to this is comical: "This decision fails Americans for generations to come.", said Kamala Harris--a US Senator, with a law degree.
As if the next president can't reverse Trump in exactly the same way he reversed the Obama EPA rule. Besides which, the Supreme Court put a stay on enforcement of the rule pending resolution of all the lawsuits fighting it.
That could blanket most of the United States in a thick layer of ash and even plunge the Earth into a volcanic winter
That Yosemite volcano is the solution to all our climate denier problems NYT!!!
That's terrible writing. How does something that terribly written get published/
All the NYT editors have to be just like the guy James O'Keefe dug up, Nicholas Dudich.
Mr. Pruitt, a climate denier
Agreeing with others, this is the dumbest insult ever.
No one denies that there is such a thing as climate. Maybe on the moon there isn't climate, but on Earth we have climates. We have many climates all at the same time. a region with particular prevailing weather conditions
Climates change all the time and have done so for Billions of years. (in Carl Sagan's voice)
Anybody who doesn't know the supervolcano is under Yellowstone, not Yosemite, should not be writing about climate or any other "science."
It is an understandable mistake. After all they both start with a Y.
The problem with that wording is that it doesn't specify physical violence. You can fight in a verbal argument. You can fight in court. People say "fight for peace" all the time, like in the song "I Come and Stand at Every Door" (memorably played by The Byrds):
Utterly revolted by the major current overuse of "fight," as in all the bullshit instances you just described, Althouse.
People that think President Trump has been totally incapacitated by the feckless Republicans have not been paying attention.
I see no notice today so far that he has restored the individual insurance market by Executive Order, just like he predicted the other day.
The use of clubs and occupational groups to buy group insurance is back. Those were the first victims of Obamacare.
I wonder who will try to sue to stop him ? Pelosi ?
"Killing for peace" was pretty much the Khmer Rouge's program.
At least they didn't say the volcano was under Jellystone Park....
What is really anti-science is the idea that there is a CO2 dial that you can turn to change the climate. If you set it at 350 ppm then the earth’s climate will never change and we will live forever in Camelot.
"Kill for Peace" by the Fugs in 1965 was a pretty well-known song. They were stars of big anti-war demonstration in which the Pentagon was supposedly going to be levitated. Certainly The Realist, East Village Other and Village Voice covered the Fugs and Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg all the time. They were funny.
Richard said...
"It is an understandable mistake. After all they both start with a Y."
They also both end in e and have e,o,s and t in the middle, plus m looks a lot like n, so they are basically identical.
Please be a little careful with "climate change." The world climate does not just change, or "fluctuate" as I read in the Journal the other day, but changes in cycles that are predictable just by the record of the past millenia and eons even if we had no idea of what the cause(s) might be. But we do know what several of the factors that cause these cycles are that come from our knowledge of astronomy and Newtonian physics; we just do not know - at least for sure - what might cause non-cyclical events, such as the onset and end of ice ages (not to be confused with glacial periods within an ice age).
The most important word in the article is one the Times gets right. The word is "plan":
Clean Power Plan
not
Clean Power Act
There is no Clean Power Act.
"Pruitt, a climate denier..." will be corrected to "Pruitt, an adherent of the scientific method..."
Watch for the correction, I'm sure it's coming.
Trump greets Gaia in the Oval Office wearing only a bathrobe and rips open the thin hymen of the Paris Accords while promising Gaia full employment in his next project.
Use of the word "denier" when "skeptic" would be more appropriate but still invidious, condemns the entire piece as unscientific and not worth wasting time reading.
Whenever I see someone who raises questions called a "science denier" I know I don't have to waste my time by reading on because the author is just spouting his religion at me. Not just on climate, either.
Whenever I see someone who raises questions called a "science denier" I know I don't have to waste my time by reading on because the author is just spouting his religion at me. Not just on climate, either
The foundation of science is skepticism. Real scientists encourage people to find mistakes in their research and to test their theories.
The very first time I heard "...is like screwing for virginity", the very next comment totally destroyed that argument. It was, "Where do you think virgins come from?"
“It is an understandable mistake. After all they both start with a Y. ”
Yes. So does Yemen.
"Meade said...
“It is an understandable mistake. After all they both start with a Y. ”
Yes. So does Yemen."
Ypsilanti would have been funnier.
A climate denier? Wow!! Someone must be totally against science to completely deny the existence of a climate.
"Real scientists encourage people to find mistakes in their research and to test their theories."
It's called "The Null Hypothesis."
The left has never heard of it.
Gotta love that reference to "Climate Relief."
Unquestioned assumptions:
- The climate is warming [indisputable]
- man-made CO2 is contributing to that warming [not seriously disputable that it does; very much disputable that it is the main driver, the dial that Richard refers to above]
- Obama-era EPA mandates were going to bring us Relief if that dastardly Trump and his minion Pruitt didn't cancel them [absurd]
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
Michael Crichton
"Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity."
Yes, that might be the birth mother to todays slogan: "I'll give a blow job to any male that votes for Hillary"
Ain't Progressive progress great?
"Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity."
The Left is so silly! Where's the context, stupid?
In WWII we killed a lotta Germans to get peace in Europe. Most sane people think the cost (killing) was worth the value (peace).
"Shoes for industry!"
"Nails the coffin shut". So. Finally the truth is revealed. The Climate Change Relief Industry is in the League of the Undead - either zombie or vampire - and thus a profound threat to the living that must be kept imprisoned forever. Whew. I thought we would never get there, finally a sensible metaphor. I hope Trump used a wooden stake and a few cloves of organic garlic.
"In WWII we killed a lotta Germans to get peace in Europe. Most sane people think the cost (killing) was worth the value (peace)."
It's like that idiotic poster that was all over the place in the late '60's: "War is bad for children and other living things."
Yeah, well, so was Hitler. So was Stalin, who was not in a war when he starved millions of Ukrainians.
Those hippies were closer in time to WWII than we are to the '60's and yet they acted like it had never happened.
Ken B at 11:35: Perfect.
It is interesting that rescinding the Clean Power regulations could likely negate the need for Indiana Michigan Electric to raise rates by 20% this year. One of the major moves I & M has in mind is to capture the Clean Coal Technology and Environmental Compliance Cost Recovery projects into the company's base rates. Suddenly the burden of upgrading its Rockwell, Indiana coal-fired generation plant goes away. Further if the company gets out of its piddly efforts at killing birds at three owned wind farms and four ugly solar facilities being built, it will free capacity at Rockwell where electricity will cost far less to generate. And just as suddenly, the Rockwell plant, complete with its 1038 foot smoke stack, is a super-star, not a boat-anchor.
"Shoes for industry!"
"Shoes for the dead!"
Curious George said...
"Meade said...
“It is an understandable mistake. After all they both start with a Y. ”
Yes. So does Yemen."
Ypsilanti would have been funnier.
10/11/17, 11:25 AM
AT THIS POINT, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?!?!?!?!?!?
“It is an understandable mistake. After all they both start with a Y. ”
At least it wasn't Yucca Mountain.
I thought it was "fighting for peace is like a fish fucking a bicycle."
Hmmm. I might just have my leftist memes mixed up.
Michael K pontificated...
Anybody who doesn't know the supervolcano is under Yellowstone, not Yosemite, should not be writing about climate or any other "science."
Anyone who thinks there is one "supervolcano" and uses anecdotes as evidence should never criticize anyone else's science analysis or reporting. Ever.
It is beneath Yellowstone National Park, not Yosemite.
Not to make excuses for the fNYT, but some of the research they refer to and link to is from the "Bishop Tuff giant magma body", which is a "supervolcano" about 50 miles from Yosemite; it erupted about 750K years ago, Yellowstone's about 600K.
Every war that's ever been fought was fought for peace: When the war is over, and you've won, then there's peace.
Of course you may lose the war, in which case there may be a different kind of peace, one that you don't like. And even if you win the war, even a war to end war, the peace may not last very long.
How to connect these observations to f*cking for virginity I don't know.
"Ypsilanti would have been funnier."
Or Yonkers.
Act Trump is putting nails in the coffin of Obamas war on Americans.
I seem to recall NY Times Science story which stated that the refraction of light was patented by 3M.
This sort of glitch wouldn't bother me as much if I believed they were trying to be right.
Fernindande checks in with another non sequitur.
Anyone who thinks there is one "supervolcano" and uses anecdotes as evidence should never criticize anyone else's science analysis or reporting. Ever.
Indeed. The Long Valley supervolcano abuts Yosemite directly to the east.
Not to make excuses for the fNYT, but some of the research they refer to and link to is from the "Bishop Tuff giant magma body", which is a "supervolcano" about 50 miles from Yosemite; it erupted about 750K years ago, Yellowstone's about 600K.
The whole west coast of North America had drifted south of the hotspot that created the Bishop Tuff, which is why Mount St. Helens and Mt. Shasta aren't in California.
Turn in your mitre, Pope Fernandinande.
The climate changed with social, economic, and scientific progress. Positive progress. No longer will people defer to flat-earth quasi-scientific agreements and liberal conflation of logical domains. The NYT is bitterly clinging to the political myths that heralded the prophecy of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming and renewable, sustainable, green profits.
Speaking of PP, the coffin is not closed, the collateral damage from female chauvinism and social liberalism is progressive. The tell-tale hearts beat ever louder.
Before they nailed the coffin shut, did they cut off its head and drive an oaken stake through its heart ?
No, it wasn't carbon neutral.
They could have used deadwood, but it would ruin my joke.
Inspirational.
Elective abortion for human rights is like fucking for social progress.
Ypres wouldn't have worked
"You gave us desolation and called it peace." Can't remember who said that or the first part.
"They make a desert and call it peace" is attributed to Tacitus.
The whole west coast of North America had drifted south of the hotspot that created the Bishop Tuff, which is why Mount St. Helens and Mt. Shasta aren't in California.
Um, no. West coast volcanoes are the product of Juan de Fuca Plate slipping under the Cascadia Subduction Zone. And Mt. Shasta is most certainly in California.
Are you sure you don’t work for the New York Times?
There was a super-volcano in my dog yesterday.
I remember this one time, in band camp, when a sousaphone player emitted a super-volcano eruption over someone getting in her space.
Then there's that Marvel character, Super Volcano, who has no gender or sex but whose super-power is the ability to spout poetry like a...like a...I dunno.
Are you sure you don’t work for the New York Times?
FIGHTIN' WORDS! :)
The Left in the 60's used to chant:
"Make love, not War!"
My chant was, Make Love and War!
I enjoyed the "coffin" editorial in the Times. The tone of the piece is that of an aggrieved teenager when things aren't going his way. It is a staff editorial so it's fair to assume that it was edited by Mr. James Bennet who was briefly famous earlier this year when he testified in the Palin defamation case against the Times that he couldn't have had malice in his heart because he never read the Times.
Anyway, fortunately for us, and courtesy of Chip Ahoy, we have representational video of the moment Mr. Bennet heard the nails being hammered.
He mad.
Congress could pass a law making CO2 emissions fall under the EPA's purview.
Somehow, though, they won't actually do that.
(Because it's ineffective, harmful posturing that won't have any real positive effect even if we simply accept the IPCC models as completely accurate.
Since it's not harmful feel-good posturing, no go.)
At least they didn't say the volcano was under Jellystone Park....
That would have been a Boo Boo.
I remember this one time, in band camp,
The whole movie was a setup for that marvelous punchline. I did a spit take at the same time our hero did.
Breathing coal plant particulates + oxy = severe drain bramaged Trump voter. Sad :^(
Howard, can I assume you are then in favor of nuclear power ?
:)
I agree with your sentiment about signals of trustworthiness. In our society, it's difficult to judge the qualifications or skill of many professionals in whom trustworthiness is of the essence.
Unfortunately, docs, dentists, hospitals, lawyers, real-estate agents, climate scientists and the like are inclined to hide the important information regarding their intelligence, education and attention to detail. As a result, I pay close attention to their grammar, which I feel is a good proxy for those qualities at least, and I usually reject anyone who says "absolutely!" instead of "yes," "the problem is is that" [as does Obama], "chance for rain" instead of "chance of rain," "media has" or "data is" or who uses the "singular they." Who should hire a realtor who says "relator"?
"You are judged by the words you use" and until these professionals start showing their credentials openly, their speech serves as a decent proxy. Good way to screen friends and a potential mate, as well.
"Yes. So does Yemen."
Most of journalism: "There's a super volcano in Yemen too?"
Bruce Hayden wrote: "It isn't science because it doesn't have falsifiable hypotheses. "
Exactly.
That makes Climate Change a religion.
Count me in as an apostate.
Bay Area Guy said...
The Left in the 60's used to chant:
"Make love, not War!"
My chant was, Make Love and War!
10/11/17, 2:16 PM
Reagan's quip about the hippie protesters who chanted "Make Love not War" was that they didn't look like they could do either.
>In our society, it's difficult to judge the qualifications or skill of many professionals in whom trustworthiness is of the essence.
It's scary stuff. It would be nice if we could all have informed opinions, but nowadays so much is in the hands of people you just have to trust. You know your doctor went through long training, but do you really know he knows what he's doing?
Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man. If someone can spend thirteen years of his life with bears, and at the end of it knows dick-all about bears, where does that leave us?
tcrosse (1:22pm):
Not attributed to Tacitus: he wrote the words (solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant) in his biography of his grandfather (Agricola, section 98) and attributed them to the Caledonian (=Scottish) leader Calgacus.
Oops:
Not section 98, the end of section 30 - don't know how that happened. The date of the speech is 83 or 84 A.D., and Tacitus probably made up the words he puts in Calgacus' mouth.
"Freeman Hunt said...
"Yes. So does Yemen."
Most of journalism: "There's a super volcano in Yemen too?"
Rest of journalism: "There's a Yemen National Park?"
Tacitus probably made up the words he puts in Calgacus' mouth.
No True Scotsman would utter such a thing.
"27 year olds who literally know nothing," as Ben Rhodes said.
Doc Mike: Yes, nuke is the way to go. The US needs to take the restrictions off of breeder reactors. Natural gas is a perfect bridge fuel to get the US de-carbonized without killing the economy. I am also in favor of developing clean coal technology, however, that is not economic compared with CH4. Coal should stay in the ground, just like medical mistakes.
If you kill all your enemies you will have peace. Virginity is a different kettle of fish.
The thing about the band camp punchline is that it only works because Alyson Hannigan said it, at a time when she was still Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the funniest moments in movie history.
""You are judged by the words you use" and until these professionals start showing their credentials openly, their speech serves as a decent proxy. Good way to screen friends and a potential mate, as well."
How do you rate people in other disciplines? With doctors, I ask my doctor friends to rate them. But if you don't have a bunch of such, people you have known for decades (since college), what do you do? As a patent attorney, I may be able to assess the credentials of other attorneys decently well, but I can guarantee, from past experience that most other attorneys don't do well assessing the quality and competence of patent attorneys (for example, they look to traditional indicia of attorney competence, when competence in engineering is often more important - Harvard LS is much less predictive of competence than an MIT undergrad and 5 years of actual engineering, and SCOTUS clerking is irrelevant, while Fed Circuit clerking is a plus).
That said, I see why looking at an attorney's verbal acuity might be predictive of competence, but I am much less convinced when it comes to other fields. One big problem is that looking at verbal ability disadvantages those who are not native English speakers. Moreover, for many verbal and mathematical talent often not the same. A good example of this was GW Bush, whose SATs were lopsided in the mathematical direction - AlGore sounded smarter, but turned out to be extremely weak when it came to scientific ability (barely passing his two bonehead undergrad science courses, and still, to this day, not understanding why his books and movies have been so ridiculed for their "science"). Do you want a doctor with an 800 verbal and 600 math SATs, or 600 verbal and 800 math? My vote is for the higher math scores, suggesting that critical thinking is more important in the practice of medicine than elequence.
Hey if I am one of those "layers and layers of fact checkers" at the NYT, why are you throwing me shade? Yellowstaone? Yosemite? They both start with the letter "Y" don't they?
@Bruce Hayden,
Do you want a doctor with an 800 verbal and 600 math SATs, or 600 verbal and 800 math? My vote is for the higher math scores.
I vote for a doctor with great math scores. I also vote for a Supreme Court Justice with great math scores, or at least one, like Breyer, who has distinguished himself in math and science in the past.
All the rest are nothing more than a bunch of humanities majors who seem to be altogether deficient in STEM and Economics. That is certainly true of those before Gorsuch, as I've pointed out on this very blog numerous times, and seems to be true of Gorsuch as well.
You are a lawyer, it appears. Don't you think Justices who have no clue about STEM should be disqualified? For now, the chief qualification for nomination to the SCOTUS bench is that you be either Roman Catholic or Jewish and a wishy-washy humanities major with weak qualifications in STEM or Economics.
Why did they used to nail coffins shut? Because they had trouble telling if someone was really dead. Those in a coma or very very slow pulse were sometimes taken for dead and then before or even during their funeral they would wake up, absolutely freaking people out. They obviously didn't embalm. This fear of the dead coming back led to nailing the coffin shut but also to alarms like a tube connecting the coffin to a bell above ground. The could pull a rope and ring the bell.
The only way [hear me, Cookie?] there will ever be world peace is under a dictatorial one-world government. I doubt many people would favor that but I've met a few.
Now what's all this about a volcano in Yugoslavia ?
"Don't you think Justices who have no clue about STEM should be disqualified? "
No, but it would be good to have a couple of Justices who knew some science.
Too many science types, and engineers for that matter, are Asberger's variants who know nothing else. I tell engineer jokes around other engineers.
They can now officially change the name to the Environmental Destruction Agency.
Pruitt's job is not to worry about coal jobs. Plenty of industries in the past were economically important, until they were found to kill people, and then the economy moved on to something safer. Lead pipes, lead paint, leaded gasoline, etc. Pruitt is actively antagonistic to the agency he has been installed at and is too compromised to carry out its mission. It's like putting a felon in charge of the prisons bureau. A junkie in charge of the DEA.
The state of Republican "governance" is abysmal - and was always destined to become this bad.
How can there be relief from climate change? The climate has been changing for billions of years, and will continue to change for billions of years.
The job of government is not to figure out a way to expedite a return of the earth's climate to the boiling hot soup that was only inhabited by microbes, or really any other state that jeopardizes our ability to grow crops or maintain our massive coastal populations. Talk about dislocation! What percentage of your nation's economy is centered on the coasts, numbskull? Why is the DOD taking it seriously if it's such a non-issue?
The cost-benefit tradeoff of "saving" a dying industry vs. saving our coastal economies and agricultural capacity is so obvious that only a Republican would be dumb enough to fuck it up.
Another fact free comment by Ritmo.
It's called "The Null Hypothesis."
The left has never heard of it.
I've heard of it.
Favorite application: Assume Michael K does not really exist.
He seems like a nullity, after all.
Null hypothesis disproved: Links between having an atmosphere and having a climate exist on every celestial body discovered in the known universe. Asteroids = no climate. Moon = no climate. Mercury = no climate. Venus = climate. Earth = climate. Mars = climate.
You can keep extending the series, if you like. Because apparently the pattern is obvious to anyone who is not paid to vote right-wing.
Another fact free comment by Ritmo.
Another interpretative disaster (interpretation-free) comment by Dr. Dumbfuck.
Check this out, dummy:
Pruitt's job is not to worry about coal jobs. FACT.
Plenty of industries in the past were economically important, until they were found to kill people, and then the economy moved on to something safer. FACT.
Lead pipes, lead paint, leaded gasoline, etc. EXAMPLES ILLUSTRATING THE TRUTH OF SAID FACT.
Pruitt is actively antagonistic to the agency he has been installed at and is too compromised to carry out its mission.
HE HAS BROUGHT LOSING SUITS AGAINST IT 14 TIMES. SOUNDS LIKE HIS ANTI-EPA ANTAGONISM IS A FACT TO ME.
It's like putting a felon in charge of the prisons bureau. A junkie in charge of the DEA. OPINION.
Sounds like you're the one having trouble coming up with facts. What's the matter? Does no one pay you for or even bother to listen to your opinions, or something?
The Credentialed Class is worried about shattered rice bowls and their phony-baloney jobs.
"Establishing more restrictive government control over personal energy use in North America (not Asia, no sir) to achieve a global GHG target by a Must-Meet Deadline (changed twice) so that a proposed global mean temperature in 2100 may be less than predicted by 0.2 degrees ... by their own oft-disputed models ... is like fucking for virginity. In the ear"
Get me two pieces of cardboard please.
The inconsistency of letter form and spacing on the woman's sign disappoints me.
I am Laslo.
Dont let the little things drag you down.
It was a different time. There were no "Proper Spacing on your Protest Placards" workshops yet. That would be later on, when someone needed to monetize sharing their life experiences with new millenial aspirants.
Think of the adventures that woman had! I know you can!
I should resist the temptation to wave a red flag at Ritmo.
Poor thing. A boiling cauldron of anger, hate and envy,
You really should read, Ritmo. Would you like me to give you a reading list ?
You're not getting off the hook that easy, KK.
Why do you hate facts so much? Why are so stupid and dishonest as to think that you can pretend to deny what facts even are?
OK. I guess no reading list.
It would do you good, assuming you can read.
Goodnight Mrs Calabash.
Let's say you're a virgin, and/or your prospective partner's a virgin. In that case, refraining from fucking will merely preserve the amount of virginity in the world.
Now let's say you and your partner are not virgins. In that case, refraining from fucking will not have any effect at all on the amount of virginity in the world. You could fuck all day and night, and virginity wouldn't be harmed in the least.
Now let's consider one of the natural consequences of fucking -- producing kids, who are virgins when they're born, increasing the amount of virginity in the world.
Which is to say, if we accept the truth of the sign, we're seeing an actual argument for bombing; creating new peace where there currently is none.
Seriously, people need to learn how to think logically.
You can't even read a sentence, shit-for-brains. Let alone tell the difference between a fact and an opinion. Why would I care for a "reading list" from you?
You're like the annoying teacher who knows less than his students, but still has the annoying "knows best" attitude.
Whatever you're reading, it sure as hell isn't making you smarter.
Why toothless, I wondered why the affectation, I'm reminded that the left is stuck in amber circa 1975, the burns series brought that back:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/opinion/was-vietnam-winnable.html?mcubz=0&_r=0
Hey Ritmo,
So did you go to Paris yet? I really must get these people to send me out sometime. Staff meeting today mentioned new business in Australia, wow! I'm still holding out for the Paul Hogan shrimp.
Listen, never mind the bollocks, talk to me. You should see reason here.
Pruitt's job is not to worry about coal jobs. FACT.
This is not correct. Secretary Pruitt's job involves balancing environmental protection with the resource needs of mankind. It must be so. America mustn't choke itself to death as California, out of at best a misguided ideological notion of pure idealism, seems to be trying to do.
Plenty of industries in the past were economically important, until they were found to kill people, and then the economy moved on to something safer. FACT.
The point of the original post was that facts, in a NYT article in the Science section, are rarer than good-smelling French virgins. This illustrated by a ludicrous error in the first piece, followed by a second article whose blatant partisanship is the paper's right to perpetrate on us, perhaps, but whose fact basis is entitled to be doubted.
But I digress. I suppose you are on about coal? Coal is a precious resource, too precious to burn in my opinion, though still competitive because it is an efficient and effective source of energy, due to its valuable constituents both elemental and molecular.
It also happens that American coal is the best, cleanest burning type of coal. China would do themselves and the world a great deal of environmental good if they stopped using their Brown sulfur heavy nasty cheap bituminous coal and deferred a little of their trade overbalance into American anthracite coal supplies. How about dem apples?
...
Lead pipes, lead paint, leaded gasoline, etc. EXAMPLES ILLUSTRATING THE TRUTH OF SAID FACT.
Lead is still big business:
Worldwide Supply of and Demand for Lead
Currently, approximately 240 mines in more than 40 countries produce lead. World mine production was estimated to be 4.1 million metric tons in 2010, and the leading producers were China, Australia, the United States, and Peru, in descending order of output. In recent years, lead was mined domestically in Alaska, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, and Washington. In addition, secondary (recycled) lead is a significant portion of the global lead supply.
World consumption of refined lead was 9.35 million metric tons in 2010. The leading refined lead consuming countries were China, the United States, and Germany. Demand for lead worldwide is expected to grow largely because of increased consumption in China, which is being driven by growth in the automobile and electric bicycle markets.
Lead Production and Reserves
Country Production Reserves
USA 400 7,000
Australia 620 27,000
Bolivia 90 1,600
Canada 65 650
China 1,600 13,000
India 95 2,600
Ireland 45 600
Mexico 185 5,600
Peru 280 6,000
Poland 35 1,500
Russia 90 9,200
South Africa 50 300
Sweden 65 1,100
Other 330 4,000
Total 4,100 80,000
Data is in thousand metric tons.
Data from USGS Mineral Commodity Summary, January 2011.
President Trump has attempted to appoint skeptics and the heterodox in some areas where the status quo in not working for America. I am utterly unconvinced that the EPA should just keep on the way they're going.
I don't mean in their high ideals of environmental purity, I mean their bureaucratic empowered and entitled conviction of their absolute might combined with their innate or acquired Notions of what is right, being what they like, because what they like is right.
And the high ideals don't work out in practice. What has been accountability at the Animas River disaster for, at best, EPA's fantastic blunder? I would have said the EPA was full of Sierra Club assholes, but I never would have thought they were incompetent at it. If they ever weren't, now they are.
You're ready to accept that? Are you ready to accept the quality of service at the VA? Do I need to retell those tails? Trump's guy is also kicking ass over there apparently. You know Trump is a mixed bag, but right or left, man, right now he's the oneflipping over the tables in the casino.
And they're all rigged!
Now We Know!
Take fucking advantage of it, dude. Strike while the iron's hot!
Stop hacking the president with ticky-tacky s*** just because you can. To me it's like you're Russian saying that in the middle of a fight only a fool stops to part his hair. Or as the Klingons say, only a fool fights inside a burning house. By the way my dear fellow, some days you're a fool for fighting.
But when each of us decides that today, just today, we're not going to call the other guy an asshole, maybe not just straight off, one can get to talking and exchanging views. You've got the recipe on the stove, Toothy, you just got the heat too high.
I expect no peace will ever be possible between you and the good Dr Kennedy. Which is a Pity because I like both of you.
Secretary Pruitt's job involves balancing environmental protection with the resource needs of mankind.
Bullshit. Mankind doesn't "need" coal. Not more than it needs agriculture and its countries' coastal economies.
What did they "save" with this shit? Like, 12 jobs or something?
Why did he leave the resource needs of the horse and buggy industry behind?
If a lead industry is in need, it's not in safe consumer products. Except in countries where the government can kill you without due process anyway. Funny how that works. Tyrannies aren't concerned with whether they kill you by firing squad or by poisoning with the products of the industries they favor. Ever tried melamine in your milk?
Kennedy's a bitch who feels a need to tell everyone he's the smartest guy in the room. Even when he's full of shit (as usual) and just throwing irrelevant pot shots to save face. Sorry to say, but it's true.
"Mr. Pruitt, a climate denier closely tied to the fossil fuel industry, was only too happy to oblige . . . "
Climate denier. Might they have some editorial policies about unproven epithets? Or a sense that argument by insult does not persuade the unconvinced? Or is it actually just an article designed to make their base audience feel good about itself?
And who of us is not "closely tied" to the fossil fuel industry? We all depend on the energy it generates for nearly everything.
I would have said the EPA was full of Sierra Club assholes, but I never would have thought they were incompetent at it.
You know who's incompetent at something? Scott Pruitt! He brought suit against the EPA FOURTEEN TIMES and LOST!
He couldn't even bring a case with grounds against it in courts of law. EVER. So he just took it over.
It's the ultimate guy who can't work his way to the top so he just destroys the company anyway.
TTR: "Mankind doesn't "need" coal."
Mankind (in Bob Uecker voice): "juuuuust a bit "outside"'
The same EPA, that was conducting business through faux accounts, whose employees included a fellie who thought in should 'crucify' a utility. Just because he could.
When William shawcross was young hecwrote a book basically exonerating the khmer rouges behavior, and placing all the blame on the Nixon adminstration
How long have humans been on the earth?
For how long have their industries relied on coal as the only/primary fuel?
For how long have they farmed or concentrated their industries on coasts?
The EPA that is funded without tax dollars and the complainants like the nrdc it al, and other part of the dentin org are as well.
With tax dollars, the fellie returned to the center fir American progress
How long have humans been on the earth?
Around 200,000 years. And for most of them, until the Earth began to warm, we wandered around in small packs of hunter-gathers picking lice off of each other.
For how long have their industries relied on coal as the only/primary fuel?
Hmm..at least 3,000 years..but if you mean modern industrialization, say 250 years. And during those 250 years, the population of the world has soared, starvation all but been eradicated, life expectancies at all time highs and standards of living raised beyond belief in most places. Worldwide poverty is at an all time low. So by any objective standard, industrialization, and any concurrent warming, has been great for humanity.
For how long have they farmed or concentrated their industries on coasts?
What? Very little of the world's agriculture is located near the coast, neither is most industry.
For how long have they farmed or concentrated their industries on coasts?
What? Very little of the world's agriculture is located near the coast, neither is most industry.
In most places, coastal land is far too valuable for either farming or industry.
Lead's big use is in lead acid batteries, which are the usual type used in autos and trucks. Recycling lead is nasty, and there have been a few scandals in the US. Glass from CRT's is full of Lead. I am not sure there are any lead smelters left in the US, due to environmental issues. Just checked, last one closed in 2013. And Lead is used in many bullets.
Lead solder was used in plumbing until the 1980's.
I was surprised to read about the use of lead pipes for drinking water in the US. That surprised me. Banned in 1986.
Lead paint has been outlawed in the US since 1978. It's a headache if you have an older house, and to remove it. Along with all the disclosures.
Lead Gasoline may have a relationship to violence, and one of the reasons for the reduction in violence has been it's banning. Charlie Stross mentioned this. And many countries still use leaded gasoline, hmm...
This story should be required in all colleges...
The Last Article by Harry Turtledove
A short story on what would happen if India was invaded by the Nazi's, and Gandhi response, and how the Nazi's would respond. The author of the story is by Harry Turtledove, he has a PhD from UCLA in history and is known as the master of alternate history.
The theme of this story is summed up at the end, as Gandhi realizes that his pacifism worked because the British were at least capable of being ethical, although they didn't always act ethically. The Nazis, on the hand, were by definition unethical, and so had to be met with force.
http://turtledove.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Article
https://www.amazon.com/There-Will-Be-War-VII-ebook/dp/B075W4F58G/
TTR: "Mankind doesn't "need" coal."
Mankind doesn't need steel either. A primary component of which is coke. A coal product. There are other products made from the results of the coking process that are used in other industries. For a guy whos all about science you sure don't know much about it.
Mankind doesn't need a lot of things if we want to go all in on the naturalistic fallacy.
"Mankind doesn't need a lot of things if we want to go all in on the naturalistic fallacy."
They spent almost a million years without anything but fire and that was a big deal.
Lefties think civilization is the default state of existence.
Electricity comes out of the wall and other leftist fantasies.
The Los Angeles city council voted to boycott Arizona a few years ago after SB2010. Their staff had to tell them that 25% of LA's electricity came from Arizona, and coal by the way.
Still. The funniest image in a long time was the hundreds of environmentalist protestors in their plastic kayaks protesting the launching of an oil platform.
Bless their hearts.
" It is beneath Yellowstone National Park, not Yosemite."
Yes, well, at least they didn't say it's under Jellystone Park.
Really, asking for good science coverage from newspapers is asking too much. It's not just that journalists lack the aptitude and interest to take real courses in science or statistics, but that their arrogance keeps them from paying a few dollars to a STEM grad student to at least do a quick sanity check on their material before it's published.
Is this worse now than ever? Well, no, probably not. The politicization of journalism is far worse, but journalists' coverage of science has been horrible forever.
>but journalists' coverage of science has been horrible forever.
Dr. Bond was particularly scathing about the Times in his journal based biography, Papa Topside.
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