Legislating from the Bench

Paul Clement arguing for the government in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood when asked by Justice Breyer who could craft the health exception in the notification now lacking in New Hampshire law, better, the legislature or the court? He said unequivocally: The court. That folks is legislating from the bench. Funny how what they ask is for their desires to be written by the court but others, not. Breathtaking hypocrisy 101.

By the way, Breyer was brilliant. Followed by Souter.

Higher Standard?

Au contraire. The Republicans run everything: they bought the ticket, they take the ride. Concur with Marshall.

The Myth of POD

As an experiment in 2000 I used the vanity publisher Xlibris for a fee of $0. Since then it has earned $47 in royalties. I've done nothing to promote it except advertise it online. Same with the second book from iUniverse which cost me $99. It has sold three copies. The idea of online only books is a complete dog that can't hunt.

The True Believer

The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: “I said to the President, ‘We’re not winning the war.’ And he asked, ‘Are we losing?’ I said, ‘Not yet.’ ” The President, he said, “appeared displeased” with that answer.“I tried to tell him,” the former senior official said. “And he couldn’t hear it.”

Chilling testimony reported by Seymour Hersh.

Republicans In Full Light

Cunningham gone, possibly up the river.

Bruce Willis Want's "Good News"

He's done wonders for Hailey, Idaho. Now so expensive locals have to leave town, but this, "Yon was at the soldiers’ ball with Willis, who got to know him through his internet war reports on www.michaelyon.blogspot.com. “What he is doing is something the American media and maybe the world media isn’t doing,” the actor said, “and that’s telling the truth about what’s happening in the war in Iraq.”

The truth according to Yon and Willis, is chronicling the rosy scenario devoid of the truth of confict. Nice work if you can get it, dwarfed by a bloody-minded reality.

Creation "Science"

This is a good paper on the famous Noah's Ark site on Mt. Ararat in Turkey from the Geology dept. at my alma mater CSUN. As some of my wingerville critics have tried to allege, albeit unsuccessfully, this is not a school for dunces by any stretch. Certainly a massive bureaucracy and somewhat dehumanizing but that's another matter. The scientists there are top notch and difficult to get past as a student. I can sure vouch for that.

An illustration of the degree to which caution was disregarded by supporters of the Noah's Ark hypothesis is shown by the mistaken identification of a metamorphosed peridotite with crinkle folds as either gopherwood bark or casts of fossilized reeds that supposedly once covered the Ark (Wyatt, 1994).1 Furthermore, if the Creationism Flood hypothesis were valid (Baumgardner, 1985, 1990), the "dead animals" represented by fossils in this limestone must have died in the supposed Flood, and these fossilized remains are found in channels that cut the supposed Ark. Therefore, the supposed Ark is older than the deposits of the supposed Noachian Flood, and this relationship in itself conclusively refutes the hypothesis that the structure is the preserved remnants of the Ark.

The conclusion is it is indeed a geological formation contrary to the creationist's claims. David Fasold the researcher and author of The Ark of Noah: New York, NY, Wynwood Press, 331 p. in 1988 was a retired Merchant Marine officer "fascinated with archaeology and biblical history." This is how one compares science with religious pseudoscience. That's what the evolution "debate" is about.

1. Wyatt, R. E., 1994, Discovered - Noah's Ark. Video documentary of research and field work, Wyatt Archaeological Research, 713 Lambert Drive, Nashville, TN, 37220.

The Poor Aftermath of Publishamerica

These poor people keep reviewing each other's latest vanity press book. POD novels are even more hopeless than travel essays. Here's the deal: if you send your manuscript to a real publisher and they accept it, then you get legitimate reviews down the line. That's not what this is. This, is a continual middle America circle jerk. It's completely sad. These companies like Zumaya and the like just aren't legitimate in the publishing world and everyone knows it but Kansas and Michigan apparently. The idea that you just go out and become a PA-style small press only without the deception factor, and only publish your friends and family is completely delusional. Self-deluded indeed. This is STILL not published or ready for primetime.

Note To CNN

Intelligent Design is not "shaking up" science as the announcement put it. "Should it replace evolution in the classroom?" Collins supposes. It's duping journalists reporting a false balance and that's all it is. ID is not valid in science. It's laughable, but like all these insidious fantasies it co-opts its way into mainstream thought.

Behe is nuts and he is indeed arguing for an idea almost everyone does accept: a creator God. Most who do will accept anything that seems to support this belief. So what do they do? Play the scientists with evolutionary proof in hand, unlike Behe, with a family on a Noah's Ark trip to a zoo. In other words, false balance, view from nowhere appeal to inappropriate authority. Unbelieveable. No wonder people are confused.

Harm De Blij

Great lecture from this professor and a great understanding of our geographic world on all levels, keeping with my current theme and book subject of global climate change.

Highest in 650,000 Years

According to the new ice core sample. Pound the table against these naysayer bloggers and their bogus sources. We're right and you're not.

"Anyone counting on an ice age to head off global warming, or hoping to justify human greenhouse-gas emissions as a useful attempt to head off the next ice age, will find no comfort in the ice-core record," Alley said.

And this via Glynn Wilson.

Protest

Is alive and well in my hometown of Waterville, Maine, but not without controversy.

Only One Problem

It was a lie.

James Bamford writes,

It is a belief John Rendon encapsulated in a speech to cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1996. "I am not a national-security strategist or a military tactician," he declared. "I am a politician, a person who uses communication to meet public-policy or corporate-policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager." To explain his philosophy, Rendon paraphrased a journalist he knew from his days as a staffer on the presidential campaigns of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter: "This is probably best described in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, when he wrote, 'When things turn weird, the weird turn pro.'"

Damage Done

"There is no doubt in my mind that we were lied to," writes Richard Reeves, "as some of us wrote or said before the war. So what? The problem now is getting out. We have lost, as students of history knew we would before we began. We are simply repeating 19th-century British history, and the ending will be the same. No amount of good intentions, democracy, bravery, technological superiority and torture can change the fact that the people we are fighting or trying to save have been there for thousands of years -- and they will still be there after we go back where we came from. The only question on the table is when we decide to get out."

That's about it.

Arctic Climate Report

This is a good comprehensive report put out by Cambridge University on arctic climate change and impacts.

Cheers

At thanksgiving or anytime. Wild Turkey, Cheers!

Dawkins on Design

Things look designed when the mess it took to get them to this point is left out of the picture; all the fits, false starts and remodeled adaptations like the Panda's Thumb.

Many people cannot bear to think that they are cousins not just of chimpanzees and monkeys, but of tapeworms, spiders, and bacteria. The unpalatability of a proposition, however, has no bearing on its truth.

A designer that goofs? It's a convenient lack of context as Prof. Dawkins outlines here .

In any developing science there are disagreements. But scientists—and here is what separates real scientists from the pseudoscientists of the school of intelligent design—always know what evidence it would take to change their minds. One thing all real scientists agree upon is the fact of evolution itself. It is a fact that we are cousins of gorillas, kangaroos, starfish, and bacteria. Evolution is as much a fact as the heat of the sun. It is not a theory, and for pity’s sake, let’s stop confusing the philosophically naive by calling it so. Evolution is a fact.

It is time to halt this confusion. Theories proven are fact.

Historical Fiction Fans

Jim Nelson is your man if this sea fare is of interest. Like me, a native Mainer, he knows sailing and the intricate history of our maritime culture. As one with mariners in my lineage, builders of the first ships north of Bath, and traders worldwide, this isn't an easy affair to write about. The reviews speak for themselves. He has Patrick O'Brian.

Cheney's Blather

Same old either or fallacy from the VP of darkness. It's either us or Zarqawi et al takes over. Unbelievably false assumption. We're targets and bad policemen and women. Let the Shiites now in charge deal with them. They hate Al Qaeda just as much as Hussein did and so do the Kurds. Again I highly concur with Gen. Odom on the PBS News Hour tonight talking to Ray Suarez.

What did they know in 2003?

Well, they knew where the doubt was, and ignored it as Sen. Bob Graham says. He was right then and now.

Sound Familiar?

"For example, Saunders quotes William Gray's off-the-cuff criticism of a study by Naomi Oreskes that demonstrated the existence of an overwhelming consensus in the peer-reviewed scientific literature on the reality of anthropogenic climate change (see our previous discussion of that study). Yet Saunders is unable to muster a single counter-example to challenge Oreskes' findings."

It's no accident since there aren't any, only wingerville false analogies and assertions of naysayer believers. This is the same circus of smears we see every day played out on the media stage.

False Balance

Very important essay at Realclimate on the false balance in science reporting. Don't miss it.

Revision?

The problem with this sort of atacking of the writing about ethnic groups in history from their POV, is that until now little of it occured or was even noticed the anti-ethnic bias was so great. Wall Street Journal types see this inclusion of storied ans some sort of false history, when it isn't false, it just is and hasn't been told. What the hell are they afraid of? Their image I'm afraid.

What the?

Whovever is doing this has got guts, but not good sense. That's a bad precedent for a Supreme Court hopeful I'd say.

How They Mislead

On the run up to war by implying certainty.

On science issues by reverting to the opposite conclusion, complete uncertainty. In both case the same untruths are supported through gray propaganda.

Cut and Run

What's wrong with that at this point? Nothing in my view, as Gen. Odom and Rep. Murtha have said. The idea that we stay forever in this fiasco is ludicrous. Pull out and support the Iraqi government. Only they can solve the disputes with their own people and the recruits from the neighbors. The idea that Iraqi insurgents will come to the US is ridiculous. A 9-11 redue is highly unlikely at this point, and, of course never came from Iraq in the first place. For that, a little scouting party in the borderlands of Pakistan is the order of the day. That's where the command is.

Framing Science

This is the current post at Realclimate. Journalists are hopelessly led around by interest groups promoting a false skepticism by using gray propaganda to create an atmosphere of total uncertainty, and thus negate a need for action on global warming. Those doing this are industry lobbyists with a vested interest in the outcome. As sources this is a conflict of interest, but the need of a reporter to get a speaking voice from both sides in a story leads to a false equivalency in the story. This is wrong and makes a bad press and even worse policy. Both fail.

O'Brien et al

A little background on the experts cited by naysayer wingerbloggers. It's as usual.
"FYI, O'Brien is the Florida State Climatologist and as such is a member of the American Association of State Climatologists, which if we go by the public statements of its members comes very close to being a skeptic/contrarian network. In addition to O'Brien, members include Pat Michaels (Virginia), Roger Pielke Sr. (Colorado) and George Taylor (Oregon). It's hard to locate the qualifications for many of them, but some are very much not climatologists despite the their titles (e.g. George Taylor, who has a masters in meteorology and whose peer-reviewed publications appear to be limited to Oregon-centric weather issues; this does not prevent him from calling himself a climatologist and taking a prominent public role as a climate expert, something he most assuredly is not). That said, the majority of state climatologists don't appear to participate in the public skeptic stuff, even though they must be constantly lobbied to do so by some of the other members."

Comment by Steve Bloom But then as we've seen they think Realclimate is political and only accept their own sources. Life is tough in the coccoon. Truth never makes it through the mental firewall.

So-called Pajamas Media

Here's an example cited by David Corn one of the few liberal bloggers joining this brainchild of novelist and screenwriter Roger Simon. I mention these admirable credentials as prima facie evidence of a background in fiction, not reporting. Michael Crichton is not doing very well in the factual reporting department either as I've shown, but here's more reason to suspect anything these ideologues write.

Corn writes, "The second top story on OSM is a piece on a "transvestite turbot, a sexually altered fish found off the coast of California. AP reports that scientists worry this was caused by sewage dumped into the ocean. But OSM points to blogger Mike Silverman who says the "strange mutation was likely caused by the California legislature voting earlier this ear to legalize same-sex marriage."

Let's see here scientists and sources for the AP, or this Silverman, who is? That's a real tough choice.

It's just this sort ignorant mocking of science that makes these wingervillains supect and not credible. If anyone can point that out it's Corn and Marc Cooper and I for one hope they will.

Response To Roper

People responded at realclimate to the assertion by Roper in the form of Dr. James O' Brien. As we could have predicted it's misrepresentation of the studies cited.

In closing the commenter notes,"Finally the statement " In order to double sealevel, one would expect to observe an increased rate of rise by 2002" pre-supposes a linear response. I'm just an amateur but even I understande the fatuity of such a supposition. It is entriely reasonable to expect non-linear behaviour in climate and it's facets. I'm not sure what doubling sea level actually means, but I wouldn't have thought that a doubling of rate of increase for this century over the last is inherently improbable.

Is this really a statement by "Dr. James J. O'Brien, Director, Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS)"? Because on face view I wouldn't let the man who made these statements near my plumbing let alone allow him to make climate predictions."

Yes it's him alright. "Furthermore I doubt if any worthy policy maker would rely upon an unattributed story in the Tallahassee Democrat, whatever that may be."

The Big Time

When you happen to be GM Roper an instructor and counselor at this small Texas school I guess you just go ahead and poke fun at us poor souls relegated to going to, and graduating from large, public universities like CSUN, if of course they happen to be in liberal California. Well, I have Arnold's signature on mine. Just think of the perfect storm of fate that took. I mean geez Edinberg Texas is what everyone shoots for.

I feel sorry for this old man. He chooses to lie about others' resumes based on accusations from wingnut blogs. I mean we know how well they check their facts. The idea is to smear and run. Manners of the left are lacking they claim over there in Roperville. Well, we've seen the manners exhibited by this crowd in the hinterlands and in Washington. The writing's on the wall, and it says oops, caught in the act of policy deception. Character assasination is the SOP for this crowd.

I've posted my whole career info right here for anyone to look for themselves, but the science courses, collateral field, and minors according to CSUN policy aren't listed on the diploma. That's the policy. The transcript tells the tale of 85 semester hours of biological sciences and a career as a field biologist spanning three decades working under three presidents of both parties. I'll stand on those grounds over a psychologist/instructor/counselor and bloviator when it comes to knowledge about science. Psychology is a social science and is very inexact. We've seen the result of that inexactness when trying to attack physical scientists in the employ of government agencies who have concluded global warming is real and in effect.

So, to put a finer point on this assault on truth in the manner of GM Roper is to compare Columbia U. and NASA (Dr. James Hansen) with a an instructor at U. Texas-Edinburgh. In this light CSUN (me) looks quite good.

The Skill of Publishamerica

Here's an unfortunate advertisement Shelly's Diarya Eh Gad. And they're filming it.

Warmer New England Winters

Those of us who remember the '60s will confirm that, but this is another indication of global warming. In science we don't declare this definitve as they do one local anomaly in winger world but it's certainly suggests the same trend as the rest of the GW data do. It's heating up folks.

On the Cover of the Rolling Stone

Science hero Dr. James Hansen of NASA responds to the charges of Michael "State of Fear" Crichton and FOX NEWS Steven Milloy the author of the Junk Science Judo column where he accuses Hansen of being 300 percent off on his 1988 global temperature predictions.

"But Dr. Hansen's predictions of global temperature increases have also been famously wrong," Milloy writes in his deriding column on The Rolling Stone environmental heroes. "While Dr. Hansen predicted a 0.34 degrees Centigrade rise in average global temperatures during the 1990s, actual surface temperatures rose by only one-third as much ( 0.11 degrees Centigrade) and lower atmosphere temperatures actually declined. At least the real Paul Revere was right -- the British did come."

Wrong. Dead wrong and as we've seen around here lately actually fraudulent.

"Actually, the predictions were right on the money. This misrepresentation probably came from Crichton's book, who took it from Pat Michaels, perhaps without realizing that Pat Michaels was being deceitful if not downright dishonest," Hansen says.
Hansen writes in an e-mail here in a paper written for the Senate hearings held by flat-earth senator James Imhoffe who uses Crichton as a defense against, get this, our own government climate scientists. As Hansen explains in the report he outlined three scenarios A-high, B-medium and C-low depending on variables and the predictions resembled his B prediction. Murphy tossed all but the least likely level of temperature increase and Crichton bit hook, line and sinker. Then come the propagandists.

This is the right wing in all their unsdeserved glory. Make that infamy.

Take a look.

On Sources

Wikipedia on this topic we've been fighting over: "Expertise
On many scientific, technical or social problems, different points of view may be held by different experts. This is especially the case, for instance, in areas of conjecture (e.g. estimating the future importance of global warming). Wikipedia should report all major points of views; however, it should do so in proportion to the credibility of the experts holding the various theses.

One measure of a view's importance is the credibility of the experts who hold that view. What makes an expert credible? Some criteria include:

The reputation of the expert, the reputation of the tradition within which he or she works, the reputation of the group or institution for which the expert works

*whether the expert uses the common methods of the field or completely different ones

*whether the expert has or has not failed to respond to criticisms

*whether the expert has reputable supporters of his or her claims"

Colburn House State Historic Site

Colburn House State Historic Site







This is a decent description at the Maine State Website. I'm trying to get it upgraded to National Historic Landmark now that the new nomination has been approved and implemented by the National Park Service.

Description

No, George Washington never slept here but he knew the owner. Two other people who figured prominently in the American Revolution did sleep in this house--Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr. Built in 1765, this colonial Federal-style house was home to
several generations of the prominent Colburn family.

In September 1775, Colonel Benedict Arnold led an expedition of more than 1,000 colonial soldiers up the Kennebec River to attack the British stronghold of Quebec City. The men came to the Kennebec from Massachusetts on board eleven ships which disembarked here at the home of Reuben Colburn, a member of the Maine Committee of Safety.


Colburn had helped spawn the idea of attacking British Quebec by way of the Maine wilderness and had supplied critical information to General Washington. On Arnold's arrival, Colburn had 200 wooden boats called bateaux waiting and the expedition used them to carry its provisions and military stores upstream toward Canada. This house was Arnold's headquarters and the launching point for his famous expedition against Quebec.


Colburn had also assembled a crew and built the boats within two weeks of General Washington's request to do so, but without enough seasoned lumber for the sizable task, the builders had to use green wood which was more prone to fail in the water.
Twenty of these craftsmen, including Colburn himself, then accompanied the expedition to Canada, carrying supplies and repairing the boats as they traveled.

Location Located along the Kennebec River in Pittston, Maine, just south of Gardiner on Route 27.

Operation Dates Open weekends in July and August.
Facilities Facility information is not available.
Access Rating Access information is not available.
Telephone Historic Site Specialist
Bureau of Parks and Lands
22 State House Station
Augusta, Maine 04333-0022
Related Sites Related site information is not available

The Wobbly Tent

"Republicans, meanwhile, have built a sprawling, wobbly tent in which libertarians, Christian moralists and suburban business owners all pretend to have similar goals. But as it was for the Democratic Party of 30 years ago, that tent is too flimsily constructed to stay up forever."

The poles are bent and sinking under the weight of policies oblivious to the result.

Two Questions

"What is the relationship between conservative and conservation? What is the relationship between liberal and liberty?"

These are pertinent. In the first case nothing. They only seek to conserve resources for their own to exploit and profit from then, move on to the next all at the public expense. It is robber baronism at its worst. We don't believe that is either moral or wise and the history backs us up. We are the conservationists, but the door is open.

On the second issue we were always the party of liberals since in 1775 liberal thought fought squarely on the side of freedom and liberty against tyrannical conservative England and their Tory backers. After victory the rift continued and does so to this day. Jefferson versus Adams and Hamilton.

I think Jimmy Carter's new book lays this out very well. The problems in the world today stem from regimes that are too conservative not too liberal. Liberalism from the West is the answer. That doesn't mean anything goes, only that nothing of value is eliminated by dogmatic ideology. Only by casting the biggest net can the best ideas emerge. The other side's position is too narrow and not open enough to find anything but its own relatives. In biology, that's the ticket to oblivion.

Postcards From Wingerville

I'm not going to devote more time to this latest flamefest that originated at Marc Cooper's. The arguments against global warming and it's consequences of the other side are prima facie fallacious and have no legitimate support based in peer-reviewed science. My sources are impeccable and nonpolitical. Realclimate is non political. Repeating they are 17 times fast won't make it real, but that's the way it is with ideologues. Short of lobotomies nothing can be done to change some minds.

Using my books and resume in a failed effort to discredit my career and knowledge on the subject is a sorry attempt of ad hominem circumstantial,[1] but has a history behind it: See Joe Wilson. This is the way these people operate as SOP.

I could call George Roper old, fat and bald, and relegated to teaching at a tiny insignificant backwater college in Texas, just as he has done insinuating my degree from CSUN is reason enough not to believe me, but I won't. It's immaterial to his argument. It's incorrect based on the case he makes. Stick a fork in it, this turkey is done.

[1] A second form of argumentum ad hominem is to try and persuade someone to accept a statement you make, by referring to that person's particular circumstances. For example:

"Therefore it is perfectly acceptable to kill animals for food. I hope you won't argue otherwise, given that you're quite happy to wear leather shoes."
This is known as circumstantial argumentum ad hominem." And what Roper means when he cites my vanity press book, while I argue against going that route.

The Heat Is On

This is a good time to bring Ross Gelbspan's book back to the front stage. All of the critics of GW are paid for industry shills spreading deliberate disinformation for money. That's their reasoning. In my line of work that eliminates them as credible sources. They problem with wingnuts is they're liars repeating lies by liars. Nothing they say is true about anything.

Beavis Logic

From comments: There has been no definitive scientific evidence that we have caused global warming. If you do a little research, you will find that there is a cycle that has recurred throughout the history of recorded weather and atmospheric trends during which the earth's atmosphere has been even "warmer" than it is currently and yes, ice has melted. Had this not been the case, we would still be in the ice age, which means we wouldn't be at all.

This isn't what these folks say: "Last week, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and 10 other leading world bodies expressed the consensus view that "there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring" and that "It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities". And just last week, USA Today editorialized that "not only is the science in, it is also overwhelming"."

This is a classic example of the "It's Natural" naysayer fallacy. False. This fallacy stems from the myth of global cooling. The last ten years are the warmest period in Earth's recorded history. 2005 is well on the way to being the warmest ever.

How do we know CO2 is increasing? Perhaps they haven't thought to consult Seth? No loss.

In other areas according to Crichton et al "glaciers in Iceland are advancing" thus the whole GW argement is a leftist plot as depicted in the novel. Yet, according to real sources all but one are decreasing.

Wingnut Science

The one so-called expert conservatives who are on the industrial take on the global warming issue go to is Steven Milloy a Cato member and FOX NEWS columnist. Through misinformation, out of context quoting, ad populum appeal, ignorance of the masses when it comes to science, and finally ad hominem attack, Milloy seeks to discredit climate scientists like Dr. James Hansen . While citing political bias on the other side, Milloy and the conservatives have nothing but politics on theirs.

The Washington Post has to give deference to the so-called skeptical minority of scientists who get their politics ahead of their facts. The key word is minority. There's a reason why they are: their reasoning is mushy. "It's complicated," they say. Not really.

Biology 101

I've been running into a lot of wildly misinformed people lately and we can safely assume for whom their bell tolls when it comes to voting. This site is a good primer on evolutionary theory, which is a fact, not a wild speculation like alien seeding of the Earth or Intelligent Design and other forms of creationism.

On global warming the link to realclimate.org is the gold standard for that issue.

When Writing History

You don't want reviewers to say this:

"In an attempt to refocus the reader after a sojourn down one of the fascinating but not always relevant alleys, Lefkowitz makes use of redundancy. So in a discussion about John Walker, we find on page 104 is written: His appointment was mentioned in the general orders for February 19, 1777: "John Walker Esqr. Is appointed an extra Aide-De-Camp, to the Commander in Chief, and is to be considered and respected as such by the Army. Then after two paragraphs of sketchy biographical information about Walker and his father, on page 105 Lefkowitz informs the reader: "Walker's appointment appears in the general orders dated Morristown, February 19 1777: "John Walker Esqr. Is appointed an extra Aide-De-Camp, to the Commander in Chief, and is to be considered and respected as such by the Army. Each quotation has its separate footnote."

Yeah I've combed my manuscript incessently making sure I didn't do this. Rumor has it this author is writing a book about the Arnold Expedition. It's unfortunate editors can't weed out this sort of mishap after acceptance. Since they do a number on me in rejecting my concept in general.

Looking for the Mohicans

Fish that is. This article in the LA Times is the sort of fare I write on searching for endangered fish. It's noble work and I believe it's necessary for the future of the planet.

Dems Win!

Bush trounced in NJ and Virginia .

Darwin Award

This year goes to....damn @#%$ envelopes...The State of Kansas! For their stubborn defiance of reality in voting to implement the teaching of ID in their schools. Can't you just here the whispers? They're from Kansas, don't tell them it won't do any good, the people are incapable of learning. You have to admire the effort though, but also the discouraging knowledge that searches for truth in Congress are in the hands of Pat Roberts. Ooh boy. Is that a house that just flew by the window? A winged monkey! Eh gad. The horror...horror.

On Memoirs

This nice euridite lady has to good take on the state of memoirists in American literature today. Amazing how teenage drunks and complete screwups like James Frey can sail to the top of the charts while folks who actually did something wallow in a vanity press wasteland. Or nowhere. As long as the subjects are tabloidesque they sell.

This is a trap for the amateur writer legimtately telling their personal travails and tales of woe like rape, incest, wife-battering, or the dull "picnics in the good ole days" type of small stuff that inhabits the vanity press rolls. As Mr. Smallwood told Tillie Arnold about her Ketchum memoir with Hemingway in it, "He could write one about Hemingway, but folks don't want to read about their move to Idaho from Iowa in the 1920s. They just don't," he said. She insisted for years and he wouldn't do it. She finally agreed. So he wrote it about Ketchum and Tillie, her husband Loyd and Papa in the 1930s and 40s. Celebrity sells.

My work, although technically memoir, really is travel reporting with me in it. Gonzo journalism of sorts sans the fictional identities. Still, it won't sell in today's vapid market because I'm not anyone yet and that trumps substance every time. Same thing with the Patriot on the Kennebec project. Memoir and family history is a sure rejection, even with George Washington and Benedict Arnold in there. That's why I've changed the title description and many other macro structural aspects of the history narrative. I had to potboilerize it to sell to the general readership. Damn shame really, but I shall overcome.

Arnold's Follies

The only prop I'm voting yes on is 79. The rest are pure conservative BS.

Evolution in Action

"But the most important point is this: viruses and other pathogens evolve in ways that we can understand and, to some extent, predict. Whether it's preventing a flu pandemic or tackling malaria, we can use our knowledge of evolutionary processes in powerful and practical ways, potentially saving the lives of tens of millions of people. So let's not strip evolution from the textbooks, or banish it from the class, or replace it with ideologies born of wishful thinking. If we do, we might find ourselves facing the consequences of natural selection."

Olivia Judson is an evolutionary biologist at Imperial College in London.

Lapdog In Wingerville

Do As I Say (Not As I Do) : Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy
by Peter Schweizer (Hardcover - October 25, 2005)

"But many of his charges are egregiously hyperbolic, as when he suggests that Cornel West is a "segregationist" because he bought a home in a largely Caucasian suburb. Schweizer clearly knows the limitations of his argument, since he backpedals from many of his most damning statements in his closing remarks. For all its revelations, in the end, this volume reads less like a critique of liberal philosophy than a catalogue of ammunition for ad hominem bloggers. (Oct. 25)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved."

Yeah ya think?

Update: I'm listening to this guy speaking at Heritage. His examples are fallacious false comparisons. My favorite is Michael Moore who lives in a tiny village in Northern Michigan with no black residents so this is hypocritical since he criticises urban housing policies. Give me a break. False comparison, wingerville context.

Extremism

Yes Jim but it's you and Alito that define such a label. Pro-wife? Gracious. In matters of procreation the wife rules supreme. If you don't like it, try it yourself and a sperm-and-egg repository. No one there will argue.

I posted this comment over there but I never know if they'll run thm or not. Sometimes I'm surprised.

Subject:
Re: Pro-Wife Extremism

Comment:
It's up to the wife. She may be extreme but then her pain and inconvenience are on another level compared to the husbands. What if he objects? and demands she give birth according to biblical decree? It's only extreme in Neanderthalian realms where "club em and lug em" still rules the day. One party lives there and it isn't mine.

Butthead's Logic

So GM Roper here thinks he can take on the global warming debate with this atrocious fighter in his corner. Pitiful. I've sent the argument to the folks he's playing against with these nuts. Update to come, but I know the answer already. I know it because I can tell what is propaganda and what is scientifically sound. So can the professionals at realclimate.

Here's the source for the sad deniers: A conservative think tank . Led by Dr. Fred Singer this bunch isn't even close to being credible. In fact it's a perfect example of the opposite of what they claim: the politicization of science. That's exactly what it is so, mission accomplished and only those wingerville residents will buy it. A damn shame that many of us are still that stupid in this day and age.

Saved by the Bell

ANWR that is.

Forgeries

So they are fakes, but for profit, not manipulation of US Intelligence. Huh?

PBS Board

"Last night, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced that disgraced ex-Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson has resigned from the CPB board of directors." It's a start. Conservatives should learn that propaganda is not equivalent to news.

Novelist Libby

Boy this thing Libby wrote sounds like a real tortured deal in 1903 Japan. Personally, I can't imagine having to write beastiality in a book. With a deer no less. I'm a wildlife fan but Christ, these people are seriously twisted. Republicans sure are a strange bunch. Put on the high and mighty routine politically and write depravity in their spare time. The hypocrisy just sucks the air out of the room. Just like the oval office these days.

And at $75 a copy, it's more expensive than The Curse of Lono which I think I still have a copy of. I hope.

A.N.W.R. Again

Same sorry argument from Sen. Stevens of Alaska. "It's a wasteland and not ahh...it's not beautiful at all." Oil exploration in the arctic is a grimy mess. It happens all year round. So what's the payoff? For us not much. Kaktovik already has good schools, and only 300 permanant residents. They're for it, because for them it would be a goldmine, just like it would be for the oil companies. But for us, just a loss I'm afraid. The calving grounds, now heavily concentrated in the 1002 area, after the Prudhoe Bay development to the west, would have nowhere to go if this happens. They wander around pipelines and roads in general but they won't drop calves near them. For that they go to ANWR. Now anyway.

Lean Right

When you lean right as Alito clearly does certain things will always be inevitable such as making women subservient to men just like the old days. That's what this decision means.