September 6, 2010
Y2Kyoto: The "P" In IPCC
Stands for "plagiarism".
McMichael’s Planetary Overload arguments rely on a Greenpeace report about global warming. His book frequently cites articles in non-peer-reviewed publications such as New Scientist and Scientific American. McMichael is, in other words, an environmentalist whose day job happens to involve the study of public health. He has no expertise in most of the topics his book discusses.
He is, of course, entitled to his personal opinions. But was he the best choice to lead an IPCC chapter? Let’s rephrase that: if one wished to deliberately stack the deck, to ensure that a certain perspective would dominate the climate bible’s first health chapter, would someone who had expressed views similar to McMichael’s not have seemed like the perfect candidate?
There is a straight line between what the UN’s 1995 climate bible told the world about health issues and what McMichael had already written in his 1993 book. Although Planetary Overload isn’t included among the 182 references listed at the end of the health chapter, entire passages of the climate bible were lifted directly from it.
Related! "Pachauri admits the IPCC just guesses the numbers"
Reader Tips
The 1958 wide screen extravaganza South Pacific was an adaptation of the highly successful Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical, set during WWII, which centered around the culturally-conflicted romance between a French Plantation owner who had fled his country and a Navy nurse from Arkansas stationed on the unnamed South Pacific island.
Tonight's amusement en route to the Tips, a musical number from one of the film's subplots, sees a wily, scheming, and avaricious Tonkinese peddler named Bloody Mary trying to pressure U.S. Marine Lt. Joseph Cable into marrying her daughter Liat. Bloody Mary would later attempt to emotionally blackmail Cable by informing him (in a calculated, premeditated rage, before storming off with her daughter in hand) that Liat will now have to marry an older Frenchman instead, but first she guilefully tries to appeal to his dreams of an idyllic existence on the neighbouring, mist-shrouded island of Bali Hai, where the mother and daughter live, by encouraging him to keep dreaming, to distract himself with pleasant thoughts, and to keep talking Happy Talk.
You are invited, as always, to provide your Reader Tips in the comments.
September 5, 2010
On the Matter of Sherlock Holmes
For those who may be interested in or may be fans of Sherlock Holmes,
Doyle's writings thereto, and/or portrayals by Arthur Wontner (1932),
Reginald Owen (1933), Basil Rathbone (1939), Douglas Wilmer (1965),
Peter Cushing (1968), and/or Jeremy Brett (1984), I have collected links
to the original texts of the four novels and the 56 short stories, plus (at
last count) 55 complete web-available movies and shows starring said
actors (including many of the Rathbone and Brett cases), into a newly
available Sherlock Holmes entry at the Sagacious Iconoclast.
Move Over, Demon Sheep
(In case you missed it - "Demon Sheep")
"But then it dawned on me..."
I was thinking, as I typically do, about the dire situation of America and exactly what measures could be taken to fix it.
To me it's very simple;
Eliminate corporate taxes
Streamline regulation
Have a constitutional amendment that would limit fed, state and local spending and tax collection to a cumulative 15% GDPand a bunch of other things, but in short unleashing the private sector, the animal spirits and the productive capacity of human nature to grow us out of this recession and dwarf our debt woes.
I Can See Nancy Pelosi's Botox Tracks From My House
... to the message about Palin we’ve been getting the rest of the week, especially from that scathing Vanity Fair profile, and it’s starting to become increasingly difficult as we approach November to tell apart the real Palin from the smear campaigns, or the real Palin from the propaganda. But it also means the entertainment value of all three are increasingly exponentially, and if Palin continues to crank out apolitical and light-hearted moments like this one, she’ll only make it harder for those on the left to continue to find her irritating and noxious.
Reader Tips
There's no beating around the bush in tonight's amusement en route to the Tips: when our Romeo cuts straight to the chase, it's bada bing, bada boom, mission accomplished. Playing in front of some seriously rhythmically-challenged Caucasoid dancers in a British TV studio, here's Mississippi-born bluesman John Lee Hooker delivering the circumlocution anti-particle called Boom Boom.
The comments are open for your weekend Reader Tips.
September 4, 2010
Y2Kyoto: We Don't Need No Stinking Twisty Bulbs
A reader reminded me that I had promised to send defunct CFL bulbs to my Congressman, so I’ve dug the latest failure out of the kitchen trash can and will send it off to Jimbo in Washington, labeled “hazardous waste’. Blogging may be suspended while I arrange bail.
For Canadians, the process is different:
1. Address your package to a non-existent recipient
2. In the "from" corner, write: 219-2211 West 4th Avenue
Vancouver, BC V6K 4S2
3. Drop it in a mailbox without adding stamps.
But you didn't hear that from me.
From the comments; "what can I mail the good Dr. if I refuse to have those twisty bulbs in my house?"
A brick is nice.
They're illegal, the war was not
Letters to the editor, published and not:
Iraq, deserters, and the war’s legality
How Many Bottles Of That Do You Go Through A Week?
h/t Dave S.
Reader Tips
I'm not sure if tonight's musical selection is a actually a gospel song, as some claim, or if it's an earthbound invitation, almost an admonition, to live, and to get off one's high horse and face the proverbial music down here on the ground. It doesn't really matter; any way you slice it, it's a heartfelt invitation to communion, and an affecting and very human master stroke of a song. From his 1999 album Mule Variations, here's Tom Waits singing Come On Up to the House.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
September 3, 2010
When Canadians Were Introduced To The Concept of Multiculturalism
.... most thought it meant "more pavilions at Folkfest".
Distinguished Lecture, Documentary & Interview Symposia
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PotashCorp
Will pensions hook up with a Chinese sovereign wealth fund to outbid BHP? Who knows what they've got cooking on this deal? And what about PE funds? The risks are high but the returns are equally attractive. Stay tuned, things are heating up in the commodity space.
I've been slow to this story, but here's a round-up of commentary at Zerohedge to get you started.
Those Moderate Muslims!
A well-known Australian Muslim cleric has called for the beheading of Dutch anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders, a newspaper said on Friday. [...] The Sydney-born Muhammad has gained notoriety for, among other things, calling on young children to be radicalized and blaming rape victims for their own attacks.
Prince Edward Island Department Of Justice And Safety
Wendy Cukier, call your office.
(Bumped)
Reader Tips
Who Do You Think You Are? is an ongoing BBC documentary television series that shows celebrities, most of them British, undertaking to trace their family trees using public archives, DNA testing, and information from tracked-down distant relatives. Sometimes the results are intriguing - one TV personality learned that he was a descendant of William the Conqueror - and sometimes the family tree is full of run-of-the-mill folk who left behind no real information about their lives save for their occupation. Tonight's amusement en route to the Tips features a spoof of the show in which writer/comedian Alexander Armstrong (who in real life is the aforementioned descendant of William the Conqueror) of the comedy team Armstrong and Miller searches, with an understated combination of pride, eagerness, and trepidation, for biographical details about his ancestors.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
September 2, 2010
Now They Tell Us
The director general of the BBC admitted Thursday that his organisation had been guilty of a "massive bias to the left"...
I'll be taking the remainder of the day off to gather my shattered assumptions.
Yet, Strangely
...the same does not hold true for Cree. h/t
CBC: Not Whitewashed Enough!
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
ABC News, Sept 1st - A radical enviornmentalist who took three hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters while wearing what police may be explosives was shot and killed by officers, police said. [...] In a rambling manifesto on Lee's website, believed to have been written by Lee, the writer rails against "disgusting human babies," "parasitic infants," and says people should "disassemble civilization." The manifesto also calls on Discovery to "broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet."
CBC News, Sept 1st - Police described the gunman as having "concerns" with Discovery's programming, but would not elaborate. The concerns appear to be of an environmental nature.
"Green" - it's the new Muslim!
Reader Tips
Tonight's amusement en route to the Tips is a cover of a beautiful, melancholy song written in 1945 by French Poet Jacques Prevert and Hungarian-born composer Joseph Kosma. From a 1977 recording made in Milan, Italy, here's Jazz trumpeter Chet Baker and Ruth Young duetting on a nicely languorous version of Autumn Leaves.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
September 1, 2010
Y2Kyoto: Angry Green Party Rhetoric Fuels Violence
I hope Diane Francis is happy with herself.
Update! This didn't take long.
Y2Kyoto: We're Winning
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Chicago Climate Exchange website;
CCX Members are leaders in greenhouse gas (GHG) management and represent all sectors of the global economy, as well as public sector innovators. Reductions achieved through CCX are the only reductions made in North America through a legally binding compliance regime, providing independent, third party verification by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA, formerly NASD). The founder and chairman of CCX is economist and financial innovator Dr. Richard L. Sandor, who was named a Hero of the Planet by Time Magazine in 2002 for founding CCX, and in 2007 as the "father of carbon trading."
Chicago Climate Exchange website;
Iraq
Through Through The Looking Glass;
The truth about Iraq is that, for all the tragedy and the loss, the U.S. military performed a miracle. After nearly seven years, a constitutional government endures in that country. It is too often forgotten that all 23 of the writs for war passed by the Congress in 2002 — from enforcing the Gulf I resolutions and stopping the destruction of the Kurds and Marsh Arabs, to preventing the Iraqi state promotion of terrorism, ending suicide bounties on the West Bank, and stopping Iraq from invading or attacking neighbors or trying to acquire WMD — were met and satisfied by the U.S. military. It is also too often forgotten that, as a result, Libya gave up its WMD program; Dr. Khan’s nuclear franchise was shut down; Syria left Lebanon; and American troops in Saudi Arabia, put there as protection against Saddam, were withdrawn.
Remembering Back to School
... when six years ago the peace of Muhammad was unleashed:
more @ Cjunk
Update: Pam on the raping of little girls. ht Rose
His grandparents are overwhelmingly white
Newsweek magazine's Ben Adler writes...
(Glenn) Beck says he and his overwhelmingly white followers are the inheritors and protectors of the civil rights movement.
...as if, despite the last 800 years or so, it's a self-evidently ridiculous thought.
Reader Tips
WBC heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, a gentle, multilingual, well-spoken man with a doctorate in sports science, is a hugely popular public figure in the Ukraine. When he began toying with the idea of running for the office ofUkrainian president, his brother Vladimir, the WBO, IBO and IBF heavyweight champion, and also a Ph.D., warned him that while everybody in the Ukraine adores him now, half of the people in the country will suddenly dislike him at the moment he runs for office.
Vladimir's advice was sound, for nothing on earth - save certain comments threads on blogs - is a contentious as professional politics. In tonight's amusement en route to the Tips we span the globe to look at contentious moments in parliamentary politics, starring, in no particular order, the parliamentarians of Bolivia, Mexico, Taiwan, Korea, Sri Lanka, Russia, India, and, last but not least, the Ukraine, where Vitali (aka "Dr. Ironfist") would certainly have tipped the balance of power had he been a parliamentarian.
Kumbaya. You are invited, as always, to provide your Reader Tips in the comments.
