From an article by Christopher Booker in the U.K. Telegraph, cited in ICECAP, we read, "(In) a surreal scientific blunder [sic] ... NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science [GISS, Hansen's notorious Warmist platform] (has) announced that last month was the hottest October on record." This despite "plummeting temperatures" worldwide, while GISS's rival National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ranked October as only the 70th warmest globally since 1894 (114 years).
An "astonishing discovery" by Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit (who originally debunked Mann's hyper-fraudulent "Hockey Stick" graph) reveals that this "glaring anomaly" results from the fact that GISS's data "were not based on October readings at all (!). Figures from ... (September) had simply been carried over and repeated two months running."
Anyone who continues to grant Warmists such as Hansen, recipient of $700k off-the-books payouts by Soros among others, the slightest ethical or scientific credibility deserves a corresponding "carbon credit" deficit bestowed in person by Al Gore on behalf of bottomlessly corrupt official Washington. But then, we ain't seen nuttin' yet.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Paramilitary Stormtroops
From a half-hour BHO TV blitz last night (Wednesday, October 29th), reports are that a Banana administration would budget near a trillion dollars (!) to finance a "National Civilian Defense Force" equipped and trained to military standards. This would not be a citizens' militia, nor a National Guard adjunct under State Governors' command, but a full-fledged uniformed Federal paramilitary force, organized by Platoon, Company, Battalion et al.-- a force-structure parallel to but apart from all existing U.S. military units.
"Uniformed civilians:" Unquestionably, politicized stormtrooper battalions, brownshirts tasked with enforcing extreme-left diktats by Presidential order (meaning BHO) in defiance of any legislative or judicial --read, Constitutional-- prerogative. These would typically be black or Hispanic slum dwellers, recruited for gang-member/street-fighting skills, rewarded not only with public paychecks but with drugs and opportunities for looting "white" central cities and surrounding suburbs for which BHO and his glowering wife have always expressed abhorrence and contempt.
Marrying extreme-left Red Guards with fascist street-thugs is BHO's recipe for race war, the very "helter-skelter" sought by Manson's hippie murderers endorsed by Banana intimates such as Ayers and Dorhn, Farrakhan, putrid Black Supremacists in the Wright mode. Under cover of offering employment and training to oppressed minorities, prominently including illegal immigrants, assembling an NCDF 250,000-strong would take no more than months, say by end-2009 at latest.
The primary mission of this criminal army would be to ensure that no free election ever endangered dictatorial rule by BHO and his adherents. From the Presidential Cabinet to Congress and the Courts, not to mention academic, corporate, and media venues, any slightest opposition would result in "disappearances" familiar to Statist demagogues from Buenos Aires to Peking and BHO's church-burning cousin Odinga in Nairobi, Kenya.
Far-fetched? Like many a grisly creep before him, BHO has laid out his plans and the vile tyranny behind them in articles, books, interviews and theses over near a quarter-century. Given a complaisant and complicit far-left Congress, we submit there are no limits to this creepy dissimulator's destructive ambitions. Voices already call for America's incumbent Administration to resign months before Inauguration Day, the better to hasten the onset of unchecked Rule by BHO Diktat, enforced by his own private army of looting, racist thugs.
Great bridges may stand centuries above roiling streams. But lose one or more strategic bolts, down they crash into the current, washed away as if they'd never been. So too, the American Experiment, even now a mere 220 years a-borning. Down your quiet suburban street will march a singing company of camouflage-wearing, black tee-shirted NCDF recruits, glorying in brutal assaults their Leader and Messiah, BHO, advocated in Kenya less than a year ago.
"Uniformed civilians:" Unquestionably, politicized stormtrooper battalions, brownshirts tasked with enforcing extreme-left diktats by Presidential order (meaning BHO) in defiance of any legislative or judicial --read, Constitutional-- prerogative. These would typically be black or Hispanic slum dwellers, recruited for gang-member/street-fighting skills, rewarded not only with public paychecks but with drugs and opportunities for looting "white" central cities and surrounding suburbs for which BHO and his glowering wife have always expressed abhorrence and contempt.
Marrying extreme-left Red Guards with fascist street-thugs is BHO's recipe for race war, the very "helter-skelter" sought by Manson's hippie murderers endorsed by Banana intimates such as Ayers and Dorhn, Farrakhan, putrid Black Supremacists in the Wright mode. Under cover of offering employment and training to oppressed minorities, prominently including illegal immigrants, assembling an NCDF 250,000-strong would take no more than months, say by end-2009 at latest.
The primary mission of this criminal army would be to ensure that no free election ever endangered dictatorial rule by BHO and his adherents. From the Presidential Cabinet to Congress and the Courts, not to mention academic, corporate, and media venues, any slightest opposition would result in "disappearances" familiar to Statist demagogues from Buenos Aires to Peking and BHO's church-burning cousin Odinga in Nairobi, Kenya.
Far-fetched? Like many a grisly creep before him, BHO has laid out his plans and the vile tyranny behind them in articles, books, interviews and theses over near a quarter-century. Given a complaisant and complicit far-left Congress, we submit there are no limits to this creepy dissimulator's destructive ambitions. Voices already call for America's incumbent Administration to resign months before Inauguration Day, the better to hasten the onset of unchecked Rule by BHO Diktat, enforced by his own private army of looting, racist thugs.
Great bridges may stand centuries above roiling streams. But lose one or more strategic bolts, down they crash into the current, washed away as if they'd never been. So too, the American Experiment, even now a mere 220 years a-borning. Down your quiet suburban street will march a singing company of camouflage-wearing, black tee-shirted NCDF recruits, glorying in brutal assaults their Leader and Messiah, BHO, advocated in Kenya less than a year ago.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Elections
Federal elections are held the first Tuesday in November in even-numbered years; Presidential elections occur in years divisible by four. This practice dates from 1845, superseding diverse voting schedules set from mid-September through early November, a source of multiple-State voting and other rampant frauds.
Early November was chosen because harvests were in and winter storms were not yet a risk to travelers; Tuesdays, because Federal polls were usually in County Seats, typically a day's round-trip for rural residents for whom Sunday was a sabboth-day of rest.
Tax filings are due in April because that gives the maximum six months to Election Day, when voters heeding promises to spread-the-wealth have half a year before the tab comes due. Should that change to (say) mid-October, incumbent politicians could face an electoral backlash endangering their hard-earned 10-hour weeks, 4 - 6 months time-off when out of session, multiple health, travel, pension and other self-awarded benefits.
"Nothing is changed, John Brown-- nothing is changed" (Stephen Vincent Benet). Credit Eugene Volokh's Volokh Conspiracy for suggesting this reprise.
Early November was chosen because harvests were in and winter storms were not yet a risk to travelers; Tuesdays, because Federal polls were usually in County Seats, typically a day's round-trip for rural residents for whom Sunday was a sabboth-day of rest.
Tax filings are due in April because that gives the maximum six months to Election Day, when voters heeding promises to spread-the-wealth have half a year before the tab comes due. Should that change to (say) mid-October, incumbent politicians could face an electoral backlash endangering their hard-earned 10-hour weeks, 4 - 6 months time-off when out of session, multiple health, travel, pension and other self-awarded benefits.
"Nothing is changed, John Brown-- nothing is changed" (Stephen Vincent Benet). Credit Eugene Volokh's Volokh Conspiracy for suggesting this reprise.
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Village Blacksmith: Aliens
The Village Blacksmith: Aliens
Aliens may have missed the boat for now, but Dystopian Dreamboy will be out there broadcasting a beacon to show them the way.
Aliens may have missed the boat for now, but Dystopian Dreamboy will be out there broadcasting a beacon to show them the way.
Blowin' in the Wind
Welcome to "Anonymous," who commented on a post below and is now good enough to say we may have some common ground. Your correspondent sincerely hopes so. My response: Attitudes don't interest me, at 68 years old and a survivor of the Tet Offensive. What politicians say matters only as an indication of what they'll do in office, and that judgment is a question of common sense. This election is not politics as usual. Obama is a threat to everything our nation stands for, and to our way of life.
Whether or not the Democrat candidate is a Muslim, there's no doubt he is a terrorist sympathizer endorsed by every totalitarian thug from Libya to Tehran to William Ayers. Elect him and he will gut America's defenses and open our government to our sworn enemies. Tens of thousands will die within six months; we only hope we and our families are not among them.
There is a reality out there, just as there was in the 1930s when Hitler was coming to power in Germany and Joseph Stalin was murdering Russia's kulaks by the millions. Obama broke U.S. law traveling to Kenya and campaigning for his cousin, Raila Odinga, a rancid Marxist gangster. They are birds of a feather. Odinga virtually makes war on his own people, who are black. Obama can't wait to make war on white Americans. That's not racist hate-mongering, that's just a rational expectation from the plain words of his mentors and spiritual advisors, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan. Anyone who empowers these fascist thugs will deserve what they get. Facts matter, and their agenda is crystal clear.
Abstraction notions of "fairness" and so on are fine, but there's nothing "fair" about slavery, and Obama wants to turn us all into "wards of the state." No civil rights, no control over our own
lives, no rule of law. He is on record saying the Constitution is flawed because it prescribes "negative freedoms" - what the government can't do to you. But if there's nothing the State can't do, then of course it can do anything. Some may look forward to such vile tyranny, or serfdom, as Hayek said, as an "escape from freedom." But they don't understand what this means. I've lived overseas and have felt the oppression Obama stands for. Once a regime like this takes over, it can last 1,000 years. Let's hope Americans stop it now. The crisis is upon us.
Whether or not the Democrat candidate is a Muslim, there's no doubt he is a terrorist sympathizer endorsed by every totalitarian thug from Libya to Tehran to William Ayers. Elect him and he will gut America's defenses and open our government to our sworn enemies. Tens of thousands will die within six months; we only hope we and our families are not among them.
There is a reality out there, just as there was in the 1930s when Hitler was coming to power in Germany and Joseph Stalin was murdering Russia's kulaks by the millions. Obama broke U.S. law traveling to Kenya and campaigning for his cousin, Raila Odinga, a rancid Marxist gangster. They are birds of a feather. Odinga virtually makes war on his own people, who are black. Obama can't wait to make war on white Americans. That's not racist hate-mongering, that's just a rational expectation from the plain words of his mentors and spiritual advisors, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan. Anyone who empowers these fascist thugs will deserve what they get. Facts matter, and their agenda is crystal clear.
Abstraction notions of "fairness" and so on are fine, but there's nothing "fair" about slavery, and Obama wants to turn us all into "wards of the state." No civil rights, no control over our own
lives, no rule of law. He is on record saying the Constitution is flawed because it prescribes "negative freedoms" - what the government can't do to you. But if there's nothing the State can't do, then of course it can do anything. Some may look forward to such vile tyranny, or serfdom, as Hayek said, as an "escape from freedom." But they don't understand what this means. I've lived overseas and have felt the oppression Obama stands for. Once a regime like this takes over, it can last 1,000 years. Let's hope Americans stop it now. The crisis is upon us.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Crisis of Socialism
Delayed since Orwell's time c. 1948, the Crisis of Socialism is now upon us. Something-for-nothing, the pyramiding of ever more volatile financial instruments atop tottering piles of "monetized" (unsecured) debt, now reveals itself for the Ponzi Scheme it is.
For some three generations now, those who experienced the 1930s Depression and survived World War II have engendered a "spread the wealth" mentality that stifles competition, innovation; radically compromises individual initiative and responsibility; blasts healthcare, pensions, self-reliant opportunity at their very roots.
Collectivist Statists must always revert to eating their seed-corn. When previous generations' hard-earned social capital --including education, merit-based employment, housing-- has finally been expended by wastrel "populist" (read Socialist) regimes, the surprise is that economic pies cannot be re-distributed because there are no pies.
Libraries of studies, centuries of cruel experience attest that National or International Socialisms (Nazism, Communism et al.) rapidly degrade to nihilistic death-cults sacrificing acolytes in high proportion on Statist altars glorifying class (Marx), race (Hitler), sectarian dogma (Reformation orthodoxies, today's secular alarmists, always militant Islam).
Must this be our "human condition," or may timeless Enlightenment ideals exemplified by America's founders, unique in history, somehow nurture individual aspirations that hold rapacious Socialisms and their atavistic, reactionary State at bay?
In matters of life-and-death it seems that Eliot's "hollow men," Hoffer's "true believers," benighted Islamists of every stripe will choose the latter. On the most basic level, if parents and children --families-- do not eventually band together in defense of Life, humanity will face a global Dark Age so destructive of civilized relations, so prolonged, that no new Renaissance ever will or likely even can emerge.
For some three generations now, those who experienced the 1930s Depression and survived World War II have engendered a "spread the wealth" mentality that stifles competition, innovation; radically compromises individual initiative and responsibility; blasts healthcare, pensions, self-reliant opportunity at their very roots.
Collectivist Statists must always revert to eating their seed-corn. When previous generations' hard-earned social capital --including education, merit-based employment, housing-- has finally been expended by wastrel "populist" (read Socialist) regimes, the surprise is that economic pies cannot be re-distributed because there are no pies.
Libraries of studies, centuries of cruel experience attest that National or International Socialisms (Nazism, Communism et al.) rapidly degrade to nihilistic death-cults sacrificing acolytes in high proportion on Statist altars glorifying class (Marx), race (Hitler), sectarian dogma (Reformation orthodoxies, today's secular alarmists, always militant Islam).
Must this be our "human condition," or may timeless Enlightenment ideals exemplified by America's founders, unique in history, somehow nurture individual aspirations that hold rapacious Socialisms and their atavistic, reactionary State at bay?
In matters of life-and-death it seems that Eliot's "hollow men," Hoffer's "true believers," benighted Islamists of every stripe will choose the latter. On the most basic level, if parents and children --families-- do not eventually band together in defense of Life, humanity will face a global Dark Age so destructive of civilized relations, so prolonged, that no new Renaissance ever will or likely even can emerge.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Harry Leroy at Agincourt
On October 25th, 1415, St Crispin's Day, English long-bowmen under King Henry V defeated French chivalry at the Battle of Agincourt. Shakespeare's immortal composition of "Harry Leroy's" address to his outnumbered troops lives on 593 years later: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers..." Mayhap in these parlous times, beleaguered citizens could use a dose of Harry's spirit, withal the confidence to prevail against great odds in a far better cause:
"And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day."
Fight the good fight, ever keep the Faith.
"And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day."
Fight the good fight, ever keep the Faith.
Communist Takeover
Democrat Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama denies that he is a Communist. Yet his mass manipulations, vote fraud, personal corruption, socialist policies, and contempt for the U.S. people and their Constitution would finally succeed in subverting the American experiment in liberty and justice for all under the rule of law. This Manchurian Candidate has no respect for American traditions and is probably not even a U.S. citizen.
As Rome entered on its road to disintegration, ushering in a Dark Age that lasted for 1,000 years, Cicero, one of his country's greatest patriots and statesmen, wrote, " A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is formidable, for he is known and carries his banners openly against the city, but the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through the alley and heard in the very halls of government itself. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist." (Quote from "The American Spectator.")
George Washington agreed. And when asked what form of government the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia had agreed to propose, Benjamin Franklin replied, "A republic - if you can keep it." We're about to find out how strong the ideal of democracy is, when a band of traitors has snuck inside the gates.
As Rome entered on its road to disintegration, ushering in a Dark Age that lasted for 1,000 years, Cicero, one of his country's greatest patriots and statesmen, wrote, " A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is formidable, for he is known and carries his banners openly against the city, but the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through the alley and heard in the very halls of government itself. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist." (Quote from "The American Spectator.")
George Washington agreed. And when asked what form of government the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia had agreed to propose, Benjamin Franklin replied, "A republic - if you can keep it." We're about to find out how strong the ideal of democracy is, when a band of traitors has snuck inside the gates.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Aliens
Aliens were supposed to be here yesterday
Not that I read the Daily Star or even believed this for more than a second, I discovered it while browsing Fark.com and contemplating economics. The part that stands out, especially in these uncertain financial times, was that the bookies stopped taking bets after they reached a point were their liabilities exceeded the amount they could easily pay off. Let's consider this for a moment.
Bookies unlike banks clearly aren't going to get bailed out and probably have an even tougher time of getting loans, thusly we can say bookies do not carry much if any moral hazard. Although I am unfamiliar with the gambling laws of the U.K. and most other countries, I feel it would be safe to assume that it is a heavily regulated industry, at least the legal portion. In the U.S. casinos and legal gambling institutions are required by law to have available enough cash to cover every bet they take or chip they play. That being said, we all know that casinos and bookies play the odds and the odds are in their favor usually. Obviously the odds of an Alien encounter are astronomical, pun intended.
So here is my question, because legal bookies are heavily regulated and forced to cover their bets, make them act more responsible? or because no one will bail them out?
Perhaps I am making too broad a generalization, but it would appear to me that this would be in conflict with Adam Smith's invisible hand, thusly banks and finincial instituitons need more regulation, or decrease moral hazard?
Not that I read the Daily Star or even believed this for more than a second, I discovered it while browsing Fark.com and contemplating economics. The part that stands out, especially in these uncertain financial times, was that the bookies stopped taking bets after they reached a point were their liabilities exceeded the amount they could easily pay off. Let's consider this for a moment.
Bookies unlike banks clearly aren't going to get bailed out and probably have an even tougher time of getting loans, thusly we can say bookies do not carry much if any moral hazard. Although I am unfamiliar with the gambling laws of the U.K. and most other countries, I feel it would be safe to assume that it is a heavily regulated industry, at least the legal portion. In the U.S. casinos and legal gambling institutions are required by law to have available enough cash to cover every bet they take or chip they play. That being said, we all know that casinos and bookies play the odds and the odds are in their favor usually. Obviously the odds of an Alien encounter are astronomical, pun intended.
So here is my question, because legal bookies are heavily regulated and forced to cover their bets, make them act more responsible? or because no one will bail them out?
Perhaps I am making too broad a generalization, but it would appear to me that this would be in conflict with Adam Smith's invisible hand, thusly banks and finincial instituitons need more regulation, or decrease moral hazard?
Monday, September 8, 2008
The Moose is Loose
GOP VP Candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gets up at 3:00 AM to hunt moose. Today the moose in her sights is Democrat Presidential Candidate Barack Hussein Obama-Soetoro. The Internet has now coined a new word: to be "moosed" means that Gov. Palin has hit her target.
She certainly has. Obama, the Left's lying Marxist stealth candidate, who is probably a non-practicing Muslim and may not even be an American citizen, is down ten percentage points against the McCain-Palin Republican ticket. More and more negative facts are now coming out about Obama and his buffoonish running mate, Sen. Biden. The Village Blacksmith predicts that McCain and Palin will destroy both Dems in the upcoming Presidential debates.
We expect a major Republican victory in November. Question is to what extent it will carry over to the Congressional elections. Dems will probably keep control of the House and Senate, but let's just see. They are so slimy, and so wrong, and so opposed to America's interests on virtually every issue that it's just possible a majority of voters will indeed vote for the real change this country needs.
She certainly has. Obama, the Left's lying Marxist stealth candidate, who is probably a non-practicing Muslim and may not even be an American citizen, is down ten percentage points against the McCain-Palin Republican ticket. More and more negative facts are now coming out about Obama and his buffoonish running mate, Sen. Biden. The Village Blacksmith predicts that McCain and Palin will destroy both Dems in the upcoming Presidential debates.
We expect a major Republican victory in November. Question is to what extent it will carry over to the Congressional elections. Dems will probably keep control of the House and Senate, but let's just see. They are so slimy, and so wrong, and so opposed to America's interests on virtually every issue that it's just possible a majority of voters will indeed vote for the real change this country needs.
Amethyst Initiative
Most people know by now that many college Presidents and Chancellors have signed on to a movement calling for a reduction of the drinking age. With the name Amethyst coming from the Greeks mythology where said stone would protect the Greeks from there own drunkenness. Important to note as this will affect the Greek communities at these institutions directly, but before we get to that let's take a look back at 1984 and see how this began.
The National minimum Drinking Age Act passed Congress in the summer of 1984 any state that did not adopt 21 as the minimum drinking age was deprived of 10%, now 5%, of the highway funds it may attain.
In 1987 South Dakota challenged the constitutionality of the Act in South Dakota v. Dole naming Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole as the defendant as her office was responsible for enforcing the legislation. S. Dakota, a state where at the age of 19, teens could purchase beer with only a 3.2% alcohol content. The Act was challenged on the grounds that it violated the 21st amendment, which repealed prohibition, and the 10th amendment, preventing federal regulation of states. However the Supreme court upheld the act 7-2, saying that withholding highway funds was only to pressure states, and did not compel them and that the 21st did not garuntee the right for persons 18 to drink.
So then what? Teens stayed away from alcohol until 21? Obviously not, it went underground and then it eventually became a problem for the Universities to deal with. Institutions were blindsided by reports of students dieing from alcohol poisoning, violence and sexual abuse related to drinking, the current National Inter-Fraternal Council President says he deals on average with 20 issues a week relating to the above. Being that the most Greek communities dominate or are a large part of the social scene, and most have a limited self-governing system--meaning that they enforce and can make their own laws but answer to the University and subsequently take their cue from the University's Administration--Universities only course of action besides handing out leaflets, was to then regulate the Greeks. It worked for a time, they asked the Greeks to have only BYOB parties, to register them with the respective Greek offices, have lists of all who are attending complete with birthdays and limit the amount people can bring in to parties.
During this time, however, a new binge drinking culture began emerging at Universities one that still remains today. Universities were in a difficult position, they couldn't stop students from drinking, but still were confronted by drinking related incidents. The breaking point and realization that this was a serious problem came not in 2004 when Middlebury Pres. John McCardell, Jr. wrote a notable article in the New York Times, but later in 2007 when the Dean of Students and 2 school officials from the University of Ryder in New Jersey, were charged in relation to a student's death at a fraternity from drinking, he had a BAC of .426. The Mecer County Prosecutor who filed the charges had this to say "The ramifications of this for colleges and universities in New Jersey, and across the country, is that it will send some kind of message that the standards of college life, when it relates to alcohol, need to be policed carefully." The message was heard and Universities realized that not only were their actions were not working but more improtantly the age limit was ineffective. Soon if they are not talking with their students and drinking they will be talking to the police.
The National minimum Drinking Age Act passed Congress in the summer of 1984 any state that did not adopt 21 as the minimum drinking age was deprived of 10%, now 5%, of the highway funds it may attain.
In 1987 South Dakota challenged the constitutionality of the Act in South Dakota v. Dole naming Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole as the defendant as her office was responsible for enforcing the legislation. S. Dakota, a state where at the age of 19, teens could purchase beer with only a 3.2% alcohol content. The Act was challenged on the grounds that it violated the 21st amendment, which repealed prohibition, and the 10th amendment, preventing federal regulation of states. However the Supreme court upheld the act 7-2, saying that withholding highway funds was only to pressure states, and did not compel them and that the 21st did not garuntee the right for persons 18 to drink.
So then what? Teens stayed away from alcohol until 21? Obviously not, it went underground and then it eventually became a problem for the Universities to deal with. Institutions were blindsided by reports of students dieing from alcohol poisoning, violence and sexual abuse related to drinking, the current National Inter-Fraternal Council President says he deals on average with 20 issues a week relating to the above. Being that the most Greek communities dominate or are a large part of the social scene, and most have a limited self-governing system--meaning that they enforce and can make their own laws but answer to the University and subsequently take their cue from the University's Administration--Universities only course of action besides handing out leaflets, was to then regulate the Greeks. It worked for a time, they asked the Greeks to have only BYOB parties, to register them with the respective Greek offices, have lists of all who are attending complete with birthdays and limit the amount people can bring in to parties.
During this time, however, a new binge drinking culture began emerging at Universities one that still remains today. Universities were in a difficult position, they couldn't stop students from drinking, but still were confronted by drinking related incidents. The breaking point and realization that this was a serious problem came not in 2004 when Middlebury Pres. John McCardell, Jr. wrote a notable article in the New York Times, but later in 2007 when the Dean of Students and 2 school officials from the University of Ryder in New Jersey, were charged in relation to a student's death at a fraternity from drinking, he had a BAC of .426. The Mecer County Prosecutor who filed the charges had this to say "The ramifications of this for colleges and universities in New Jersey, and across the country, is that it will send some kind of message that the standards of college life, when it relates to alcohol, need to be policed carefully." The message was heard and Universities realized that not only were their actions were not working but more improtantly the age limit was ineffective. Soon if they are not talking with their students and drinking they will be talking to the police.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Lord Mayor of London
The new mayor of London, England, is a an attractive, intelligent, urbane conservative in the Thatcher-Reagan mold. Boris Johnson is also an American citizen, born in the U.S.A. That makes him eligible to become President of the United States in 2012-2016. We can't wait.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
He Speaks!
Herewith snippets from a refreshingly pithy "Open Letter to Environmentalists" by John Coleman, KUSI meteorologist, founder of TV's "Weather Channel" (May 4, 2008):
"(Your) war against fossil fuels has (degenerated) to a massive scare campaign. ... (Your) science is wrong: There is no significant man-made Global Warming under way, and ... your computer projections of weather chaos are (seriously) flawed.
"(Abandon) this Global Warming frenzy ... stop screaming, 'The sky is falling!'. It is not."
"Weather chaos"-- the modeling problem goes deeper far than that. By mathematical definition, no complex, chaotic system can ever be "modeled" to yield valid projections. In fact, the more complex the model, the less realistic its forecasts become. Climatologists continually "tweaking" inputs and processes guarantee that their creations will diverge from Nature at accelerating rates.
Rational, secular worldviews apparently cannot accept certain fundamental limitations. As Coleman hints, that does not alter Nature's way one whit.
"(Your) war against fossil fuels has (degenerated) to a massive scare campaign. ... (Your) science is wrong: There is no significant man-made Global Warming under way, and ... your computer projections of weather chaos are (seriously) flawed.
"(Abandon) this Global Warming frenzy ... stop screaming, 'The sky is falling!'. It is not."
"Weather chaos"-- the modeling problem goes deeper far than that. By mathematical definition, no complex, chaotic system can ever be "modeled" to yield valid projections. In fact, the more complex the model, the less realistic its forecasts become. Climatologists continually "tweaking" inputs and processes guarantee that their creations will diverge from Nature at accelerating rates.
Rational, secular worldviews apparently cannot accept certain fundamental limitations. As Coleman hints, that does not alter Nature's way one whit.
January 2009
Election results from the May 6 Democrat primaries in Indiana and North Carolina give Indiana to Clinton by a small margin, and North Carolina to Obama by a crushing 14-points. MzBill's Indiana "triumph" is certainly attributable to Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos," without which she would probably also have sunk considerably lower in NC. We look forward to the demographic breakdown of Obama's victory, since NC has a large black population. In the general election this fall, decent white voters will overwhelm blind black racists.
Indiana and North Carolina reinforce our perception that most people can't stand the Clintons, and that Obama's appeal beyond ultra-left, hate-America, race-conscious Democrats is limited. Now, however, we think it unlikely that Clinton will generate strong enough popular support to cause the Democrats' August convention in Denver to Scrap the Sheik and Switch to the B-tch. Unless something truly horrific engulfs Obama (such as outright treason with Muslim Iran, of which we consider him not only capable but predisposed), this odious incompetent will campaign against Republican John McCain.
John McCain, Bob Dole redux with the difference that many Republicans can't stand him, will win the Presidency. His margin will be small but sufficient. Obama will continue to divide the country, but his black nationalist, socialist agenda will have been exposed and discredited. So McCain will mouth the oath of office this January (we don't believe a word he says).
We see two positives. At least McCain has the respect of the armed forces and will defend America by force if necessary. His Supreme Court appointees will show some evidence of having read the Constitution and respecting the rule of law. McCain's not smart enough cut tax rates, and he's a global warming dupe who can't wait to turn the U.S. over to illegal immigrants. But he's better than Obama. Imagine Louis Farrakhan as Secretary of State.
Indiana and North Carolina reinforce our perception that most people can't stand the Clintons, and that Obama's appeal beyond ultra-left, hate-America, race-conscious Democrats is limited. Now, however, we think it unlikely that Clinton will generate strong enough popular support to cause the Democrats' August convention in Denver to Scrap the Sheik and Switch to the B-tch. Unless something truly horrific engulfs Obama (such as outright treason with Muslim Iran, of which we consider him not only capable but predisposed), this odious incompetent will campaign against Republican John McCain.
John McCain, Bob Dole redux with the difference that many Republicans can't stand him, will win the Presidency. His margin will be small but sufficient. Obama will continue to divide the country, but his black nationalist, socialist agenda will have been exposed and discredited. So McCain will mouth the oath of office this January (we don't believe a word he says).
We see two positives. At least McCain has the respect of the armed forces and will defend America by force if necessary. His Supreme Court appointees will show some evidence of having read the Constitution and respecting the rule of law. McCain's not smart enough cut tax rates, and he's a global warming dupe who can't wait to turn the U.S. over to illegal immigrants. But he's better than Obama. Imagine Louis Farrakhan as Secretary of State.
The Great Divide
Political consensus holds that Hillary's 4-point squeaker in Indiana yesterday (Tuesday, May 6) was "entirely due" to Republican cross-over votes (credit Limbaugh's "OpChaos"). Drudge Report has MzBill "lending" her campaign some $6-million (of clandestine Saudi contributions) to stagger on, though Obama's extreme-left media partisans unanimously ordain this vile anti-Semite, Black Supremacist, rancid entitlement snob [standard lexicon] of necessity the D-rats' nominee.
Does MzBill expect that the Banana will surface additional Ayers, Rezkos, Wrights --terrorists, crooks, fringe-kook pulpiteers-- so that D-rat superdelegates will topple towards her in exhaustion when Big O's negatives become impossible? Must Obama's "skinist" constituency, no matter how betrayed, nonetheless turn out in force come November to extend their hate-America franchise?
Writing in "American Thinker", one Taru Taylor puts Obama in context of Tuskegee's Booker T. Washington (1880) vs. the demagogic agitator W.E.B. DuBois (1903). Washington's proudly self-reliant, bootstrap Americanism stands in brutal contrast to DuBois' "slave mentality" of perpetual resentment, promoting poverty and ignorance as cheap-junk excuses for socio-cultural malaise. As Taylor puts it, DuBois' black "Talented Tenth" rule over their benighted brethren as "elitist parasites who inhabit a Limbo between White bourgeois heaven and Black proletarian hell." [Taylor is talented, and black.]
Tough stuff, apropos to Jackson, Sharpton, Wright. BTW is not contrary to DuBois, but in stark contradiction-- they share no common ground. A century and a quarter past Tuskegee, we know where the Banana stands. Whose side are you on?
Does MzBill expect that the Banana will surface additional Ayers, Rezkos, Wrights --terrorists, crooks, fringe-kook pulpiteers-- so that D-rat superdelegates will topple towards her in exhaustion when Big O's negatives become impossible? Must Obama's "skinist" constituency, no matter how betrayed, nonetheless turn out in force come November to extend their hate-America franchise?
Writing in "American Thinker", one Taru Taylor puts Obama in context of Tuskegee's Booker T. Washington (1880) vs. the demagogic agitator W.E.B. DuBois (1903). Washington's proudly self-reliant, bootstrap Americanism stands in brutal contrast to DuBois' "slave mentality" of perpetual resentment, promoting poverty and ignorance as cheap-junk excuses for socio-cultural malaise. As Taylor puts it, DuBois' black "Talented Tenth" rule over their benighted brethren as "elitist parasites who inhabit a Limbo between White bourgeois heaven and Black proletarian hell." [Taylor is talented, and black.]
Tough stuff, apropos to Jackson, Sharpton, Wright. BTW is not contrary to DuBois, but in stark contradiction-- they share no common ground. A century and a quarter past Tuskegee, we know where the Banana stands. Whose side are you on?
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Children's Day
In Japan, May 5th is designated "Children's Day". Alas, since 1981 (27 years) the popping of rice-wine corks has been distinctly muted.
"All Aboard!" the Tokyo Express to demographic oblivion. Every year since Reagan's inauguration, the number of Japanese aged 14-years or younger has progressively declined. As of April 2008, grade-schoolers numbered 17,250,000, down 130,000 (-.75%) from a year earlier. This is a record low, the fewest kiddies since statistics first tabulated pre-adolescents back in 1950.
Worse yet, Japan's Internal Affairs Ministry reports that the ratio of flaming youth to total population has now shrunk to 13.5% over 34 years from 1974-- another record low, which shows no signs of any rebound. At 1.3% (13 per 1,000), Japan's fertility rate falls well below the standard 2.1% (21 per 1,000) required to sustain a population. By 2050, the Ministry estimates that Japan's native workforce could shrink by a third, to some 42.3-million if demographic trends continue.
Japan is not alone in facing catastrophic population shifts. Continental Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, also exhibit extreme negative birth-rates. Africa, Asia, Latin America, are by no means immune... drawing on polygamous sinkholes, even Lands of Araby show frissons of concern.
What is it about the Modern Era of free-market peace-and-prosperity in developed countries since the 1950s that fosters (sic) abandonment of home and family, long thought humanity's most basic urge? Mayhap a new Darwinian selection-process gathers steam, whereby functional parents willing to forego material gratifications for the benefit of their posterity will "go forth and multiply", inherit the Earth by virtual default.
What Igor Shatarevich has called "The Socialist Phenomenon" (Harper, 1975), foreword by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, puts "something for nothing" generations in perspective. Living well betimes, at nightfall they leave not even Names. "That which ye sow, that shall ye also reap"... who cannot bring himself to sacrifice for others, our precious Little Ones, deserves oblivion. Protest they may, but those evading the most fundamental biological necessity partake a Culture of Death of which they themselves are the first victims.
"All Aboard!" the Tokyo Express to demographic oblivion. Every year since Reagan's inauguration, the number of Japanese aged 14-years or younger has progressively declined. As of April 2008, grade-schoolers numbered 17,250,000, down 130,000 (-.75%) from a year earlier. This is a record low, the fewest kiddies since statistics first tabulated pre-adolescents back in 1950.
Worse yet, Japan's Internal Affairs Ministry reports that the ratio of flaming youth to total population has now shrunk to 13.5% over 34 years from 1974-- another record low, which shows no signs of any rebound. At 1.3% (13 per 1,000), Japan's fertility rate falls well below the standard 2.1% (21 per 1,000) required to sustain a population. By 2050, the Ministry estimates that Japan's native workforce could shrink by a third, to some 42.3-million if demographic trends continue.
Japan is not alone in facing catastrophic population shifts. Continental Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, also exhibit extreme negative birth-rates. Africa, Asia, Latin America, are by no means immune... drawing on polygamous sinkholes, even Lands of Araby show frissons of concern.
What is it about the Modern Era of free-market peace-and-prosperity in developed countries since the 1950s that fosters (sic) abandonment of home and family, long thought humanity's most basic urge? Mayhap a new Darwinian selection-process gathers steam, whereby functional parents willing to forego material gratifications for the benefit of their posterity will "go forth and multiply", inherit the Earth by virtual default.
What Igor Shatarevich has called "The Socialist Phenomenon" (Harper, 1975), foreword by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, puts "something for nothing" generations in perspective. Living well betimes, at nightfall they leave not even Names. "That which ye sow, that shall ye also reap"... who cannot bring himself to sacrifice for others, our precious Little Ones, deserves oblivion. Protest they may, but those evading the most fundamental biological necessity partake a Culture of Death of which they themselves are the first victims.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Curse of the Climatologists
Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) advocates have taken waterline hits lately-- what's a good Grant Recipient to do? Consider:
-- On April 21st, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (a slave to realism, due to satellite launch protocols) "confirmed that an impending (natural) phase-shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO, PDS)" will likely result in significantly cooler global temperatures from 2010 to 2029 (two decades).
-- On May 1st, Germany's Leibnitz Institute of Marine Sciences (LIMS) reported that Gulf Stream circulation in the North Atlantic ("Meridional Overturning Circulation", MOC) has entered an unambiguous down-phase, a cyclical decline "associated with cooler North Atlantic temperatures for up to eighty years" (through 2080 - 2090). This pattern, says the LIMS, explicitly resembles an earlier 40-year MOC prevailing from 1940 - 1979.
To arms! AGW's true believers rally their pseudo-scenarios in two ways. First, as Britain's Hadley Center (for climate studies) states, "(we expect) that man-made [anthropogenic] global warming will superimpose itself on natural (climatic) variations"-- i.e. that .009% CO2 emissions (one part per 100,000) will swamp atmospheric/oceanic factors determining planetary temperatures over 8 - 10+ decades. Ya think?
Second, AGW types increasingly rely on fudging temperature statistics dating from the 1950s and before: By claiming that original records somehow understated temperature readings during the last cooling phase (1940 - '79), Warmists lower their statistical base so that today's numbers appear relatively higher (warmer) in cyclical context. Comments Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit, who fingered this ploy in debunking Mann's notorious "hockey stick" graph in 2002, "Not only is there no natural or statistical evidence requiring such (downward) adjustment, but resort to shameless historical re-writes has characterized non-objective, politicized climate advocacy for many years."
Indeed, Warmists' phony Consensus continues to unravel. Critics increasingly dispute AGW propaganda in detail, expose the ludicrous presuppositions underlying their aggregate scenarios. To wit:
As of May 2, 2008, the U.K Telegraph relates that "IPCC models [the UN's risible Kyoto warmsters] admittedly do not factor in any actual events (!), such as strength of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic or cyclical El Nino warming in the Pacific" (!!). That said, it follows that AGW scenarios do not (cannot?) address standard solar-radiation factors (sunspots, Maunder Minimums, etc.), geophysical or plate-tectonic climate elements-- outside their taxaholic bureaucratic enclaves, anything at all. What's that you say?-- your grant's away!
Reviewing a Nature Journal article by Hadley Center Warm-worts, the eminent Dr. Roger Pelke baldly noted: "If global cooling over the next few decades is consistent with (current warming) predictions, then so too is everything." Yet in the NYT, one Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, asserts that "Too many think that Global Warming means monotonic, relentlessly escalating temperatures worldwide." But if "warming" is not global, shows no consistent upside patterns... then as Pelke says, neither will anything, including a major cooling shift. (Pelke means, an end of the Interglacial Holocene going back 10,000 years.) Whatever his purported credentials, NCAR's Trenberth might benefit from a remedial course in freshman logic.
We write at length, not expecting any audience but because cyberspace has the great virtue of preserving everything. Years from now, when AGW extremism has gone the way of Ehrlich's "Population Bomb" (1969), these Blacksmith comments will cheerfully remain. We post at one remove, of course... unlike Steve McIntyre et al. we claim neither expertise nor much originality. But independent private citizens assessing facts in place of "mere opinion", citing Nature's reality in opposition to cultists' drivel, is surely no bad thing.
Arbitrary, agenda-driven "climate models" promote circular-reasoned academic computer programs. Absent all "actual facts," designed to validate flawed suppositions in advance, these elaborate fantasy-exercises are entitled to no respect whatever. Such foolish fads cannot persist indefinitely
-- On April 21st, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (a slave to realism, due to satellite launch protocols) "confirmed that an impending (natural) phase-shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO, PDS)" will likely result in significantly cooler global temperatures from 2010 to 2029 (two decades).
-- On May 1st, Germany's Leibnitz Institute of Marine Sciences (LIMS) reported that Gulf Stream circulation in the North Atlantic ("Meridional Overturning Circulation", MOC) has entered an unambiguous down-phase, a cyclical decline "associated with cooler North Atlantic temperatures for up to eighty years" (through 2080 - 2090). This pattern, says the LIMS, explicitly resembles an earlier 40-year MOC prevailing from 1940 - 1979.
To arms! AGW's true believers rally their pseudo-scenarios in two ways. First, as Britain's Hadley Center (for climate studies) states, "(we expect) that man-made [anthropogenic] global warming will superimpose itself on natural (climatic) variations"-- i.e. that .009% CO2 emissions (one part per 100,000) will swamp atmospheric/oceanic factors determining planetary temperatures over 8 - 10+ decades. Ya think?
Second, AGW types increasingly rely on fudging temperature statistics dating from the 1950s and before: By claiming that original records somehow understated temperature readings during the last cooling phase (1940 - '79), Warmists lower their statistical base so that today's numbers appear relatively higher (warmer) in cyclical context. Comments Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit, who fingered this ploy in debunking Mann's notorious "hockey stick" graph in 2002, "Not only is there no natural or statistical evidence requiring such (downward) adjustment, but resort to shameless historical re-writes has characterized non-objective, politicized climate advocacy for many years."
Indeed, Warmists' phony Consensus continues to unravel. Critics increasingly dispute AGW propaganda in detail, expose the ludicrous presuppositions underlying their aggregate scenarios. To wit:
As of May 2, 2008, the U.K Telegraph relates that "IPCC models [the UN's risible Kyoto warmsters] admittedly do not factor in any actual events (!), such as strength of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic or cyclical El Nino warming in the Pacific" (!!). That said, it follows that AGW scenarios do not (cannot?) address standard solar-radiation factors (sunspots, Maunder Minimums, etc.), geophysical or plate-tectonic climate elements-- outside their taxaholic bureaucratic enclaves, anything at all. What's that you say?-- your grant's away!
Reviewing a Nature Journal article by Hadley Center Warm-worts, the eminent Dr. Roger Pelke baldly noted: "If global cooling over the next few decades is consistent with (current warming) predictions, then so too is everything." Yet in the NYT, one Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, asserts that "Too many think that Global Warming means monotonic, relentlessly escalating temperatures worldwide." But if "warming" is not global, shows no consistent upside patterns... then as Pelke says, neither will anything, including a major cooling shift. (Pelke means, an end of the Interglacial Holocene going back 10,000 years.) Whatever his purported credentials, NCAR's Trenberth might benefit from a remedial course in freshman logic.
We write at length, not expecting any audience but because cyberspace has the great virtue of preserving everything. Years from now, when AGW extremism has gone the way of Ehrlich's "Population Bomb" (1969), these Blacksmith comments will cheerfully remain. We post at one remove, of course... unlike Steve McIntyre et al. we claim neither expertise nor much originality. But independent private citizens assessing facts in place of "mere opinion", citing Nature's reality in opposition to cultists' drivel, is surely no bad thing.
Arbitrary, agenda-driven "climate models" promote circular-reasoned academic computer programs. Absent all "actual facts," designed to validate flawed suppositions in advance, these elaborate fantasy-exercises are entitled to no respect whatever. Such foolish fads cannot persist indefinitely
Friday, May 2, 2008
Pacific Decadal Shift
As of May Day, NASA has announced that due to a "Pacific Decadal Shift " (PDS), the years 2010 - 2029 will likely represent a global cooling phase. Of course, this looming PDS is but one climatological factor out of many, nor does NASA provide context or perspective on any related non-PDS episodes. But this scenario accords well with alternating warming/cooling phases of increasing frequency from 1890, the end of a 500-year Little Ice Age from the late-middle 14th Century (about AD 1350).
Over fifty years, 1890 - 1939, Earth experienced an extreme warming rebound. From 1940 - 1979, forty years, patterns turned noticeably cold (remember Newsweek's notorious glacial alarmism?). Then over thirty years, 1980 - 2009 has devolved a relatively milder stage, though satellite data indicates not warming but a stable climate regime from 1996/98. So NASA's 20-year extrapolation (2010 - 2029) precisely fits a 120-year old pattern.
Alas, cycles of ever-higher frequencies, greater amplitudes must end when global thermostats crash by simultaneously switching on and off. After an inchoate period of conflicting, rapid shifts through (say) 2069 (thirty years from 2029), quite possibly our Holocene Interglacial will become one with Nineveh and Tyre as Ice Time proceeds on cyclical schedule for 110,000 years. We're overdue by 1,500 years already.
Global climate is "chaotic" in Lorenz's fractal-geometric sense (non-random, but strictly indeterminate). Nature, objective reality, cares nothing for skewed computer models, which by mathematical necessity are useless anyhow. But cycles are cycles, whatever elements or factors they entail. We've warned the kids, as this 21st Century wears on, to seek out lower latitudes. By 2029 if not before, the weight of "cooling" evidence will be undeniable.
Over fifty years, 1890 - 1939, Earth experienced an extreme warming rebound. From 1940 - 1979, forty years, patterns turned noticeably cold (remember Newsweek's notorious glacial alarmism?). Then over thirty years, 1980 - 2009 has devolved a relatively milder stage, though satellite data indicates not warming but a stable climate regime from 1996/98. So NASA's 20-year extrapolation (2010 - 2029) precisely fits a 120-year old pattern.
Alas, cycles of ever-higher frequencies, greater amplitudes must end when global thermostats crash by simultaneously switching on and off. After an inchoate period of conflicting, rapid shifts through (say) 2069 (thirty years from 2029), quite possibly our Holocene Interglacial will become one with Nineveh and Tyre as Ice Time proceeds on cyclical schedule for 110,000 years. We're overdue by 1,500 years already.
Global climate is "chaotic" in Lorenz's fractal-geometric sense (non-random, but strictly indeterminate). Nature, objective reality, cares nothing for skewed computer models, which by mathematical necessity are useless anyhow. But cycles are cycles, whatever elements or factors they entail. We've warned the kids, as this 21st Century wears on, to seek out lower latitudes. By 2029 if not before, the weight of "cooling" evidence will be undeniable.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Take Us to Your Leader
Per an article by Nick Bostrum in MIT's "Technology Review" (April-May 2008):
In the late 1940s, when the UFO craze was just starting, Enrico Fermi of the Manhattan Project was asked whether he credited UFOs as driven by extraterrestrial intelligence. Fermi was not interested in UFOs as such. Instead he asked, if Visitors are with us, "then where are they?"
The real question is, Where have they been? Martian microbes, huge creatures plumbing 50-mile deep oceans on Enceladus are one thing-- high-tech extraterrestrial civilizations are another. By Clarke's Law, sufficiently advanced technologies are "indistinguishable from magic". What matters is a scientific/technological culture, not whether it evolved from (say) giant squid or insectivorous arthropods.
Our Milky Way Galaxy is some 100-thousand light years in diameter, comprising 100-billion stars. But Virgo, the great galaxy centering our Local Group, contains 3-trillion stars, thirty times the Milky Way's, with billions of large globular clusters disposed around a disk ten times our size (one billion LY diameter). Virgo is 65-million LYs away, so what we see coincides with the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) boundary, when the Chicxulub meteor-strike in Yucatan extinguished the dinosaurs forever. On a scale of 1-inch = 100,000 LYs, Virgo is some 54 feet (650 inches) beyond the Milky Way... the (visible) Universe itself extends some 2.25 miles, to 45th Street from the base of Washington Square Arch in Greenwich Village.
Anyhow, to answer Fermi, we assume that "stars like dust" are veritable swamps of (by definition) extraterrestrial life. But by the statistical "principle of mediocrity", whereby any given sample or even set of samples tends to cluster around a mean, high-tech alien civilizations will likely rise and fall in isolation: Separated by 25,000 LYs in space, easily 100-million years of time.
Even should instantaneous teleportation or some quantum-physical effect render such a culture capable of journeying anywhere, at any time, chances are that, first, exploration would be defeated by sheer number [Carl Sagan]; or second, that no contact could occur because within that space/time reference-frame there would be nothing to contact.
Suppose the Black Ships did land in Central Park tomorrow. Our first question should not be "Who are you?" or "Where are you from?" but "Why are you here?"
When Captain James Cook landed in Hawaii in 1776, native cultures perished; by 1890, 80% of the aboriginal habitants were gone. In 1944, Admiral Chester Nimitz's fast-carrier fleet touched stone-age Fiji: Within a generation, the islands had joined the UN, prospered under Australian territorial administration-- from cannibalism to Big Macs by 1970s.
Who then are our Starfarers? Frankly, we'd rather wait another 500 years or so before we have to ask the question.
In the late 1940s, when the UFO craze was just starting, Enrico Fermi of the Manhattan Project was asked whether he credited UFOs as driven by extraterrestrial intelligence. Fermi was not interested in UFOs as such. Instead he asked, if Visitors are with us, "then where are they?"
The real question is, Where have they been? Martian microbes, huge creatures plumbing 50-mile deep oceans on Enceladus are one thing-- high-tech extraterrestrial civilizations are another. By Clarke's Law, sufficiently advanced technologies are "indistinguishable from magic". What matters is a scientific/technological culture, not whether it evolved from (say) giant squid or insectivorous arthropods.
Our Milky Way Galaxy is some 100-thousand light years in diameter, comprising 100-billion stars. But Virgo, the great galaxy centering our Local Group, contains 3-trillion stars, thirty times the Milky Way's, with billions of large globular clusters disposed around a disk ten times our size (one billion LY diameter). Virgo is 65-million LYs away, so what we see coincides with the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) boundary, when the Chicxulub meteor-strike in Yucatan extinguished the dinosaurs forever. On a scale of 1-inch = 100,000 LYs, Virgo is some 54 feet (650 inches) beyond the Milky Way... the (visible) Universe itself extends some 2.25 miles, to 45th Street from the base of Washington Square Arch in Greenwich Village.
Anyhow, to answer Fermi, we assume that "stars like dust" are veritable swamps of (by definition) extraterrestrial life. But by the statistical "principle of mediocrity", whereby any given sample or even set of samples tends to cluster around a mean, high-tech alien civilizations will likely rise and fall in isolation: Separated by 25,000 LYs in space, easily 100-million years of time.
Even should instantaneous teleportation or some quantum-physical effect render such a culture capable of journeying anywhere, at any time, chances are that, first, exploration would be defeated by sheer number [Carl Sagan]; or second, that no contact could occur because within that space/time reference-frame there would be nothing to contact.
Suppose the Black Ships did land in Central Park tomorrow. Our first question should not be "Who are you?" or "Where are you from?" but "Why are you here?"
When Captain James Cook landed in Hawaii in 1776, native cultures perished; by 1890, 80% of the aboriginal habitants were gone. In 1944, Admiral Chester Nimitz's fast-carrier fleet touched stone-age Fiji: Within a generation, the islands had joined the UN, prospered under Australian territorial administration-- from cannibalism to Big Macs by 1970s.
Who then are our Starfarers? Frankly, we'd rather wait another 500 years or so before we have to ask the question.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Churchill Agonistes
Endlessly quotable, a Ulysses of adventure, Winston Churchill continues to fascinate all comers. Apropos our current literary project, we find the Great Commoner described in Aristotelian terms: "(Churchill's) great virtue lay in choosing well."
Fight or flight?-- courage (says Aristotle) is a moral virtue, prudence an intellectual one. Active yet contemplative, Churchill excelled at both: "By precept and example, he wove thought and action seamlessly, heroically together." Aristotle asserts that "magnanimity", greatness of soul and spirit, is humankind's great excellence.
Of all Americans, we think Abraham Lincoln most sanctifies Aristotle's insight. (Washington too, in different contexts.) Yeats wrote, "The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the Life or of the Work." Perhaps for we mere mortals... but Churchill, Washington and Lincoln attained magnanimity as of Mahatmas, "a beauty of the spirit that transfigures you and me."
One could do worse than meditate these matters. "And will a' not come again?"
Fight or flight?-- courage (says Aristotle) is a moral virtue, prudence an intellectual one. Active yet contemplative, Churchill excelled at both: "By precept and example, he wove thought and action seamlessly, heroically together." Aristotle asserts that "magnanimity", greatness of soul and spirit, is humankind's great excellence.
Of all Americans, we think Abraham Lincoln most sanctifies Aristotle's insight. (Washington too, in different contexts.) Yeats wrote, "The intellect of man is forced to choose perfection of the Life or of the Work." Perhaps for we mere mortals... but Churchill, Washington and Lincoln attained magnanimity as of Mahatmas, "a beauty of the spirit that transfigures you and me."
One could do worse than meditate these matters. "And will a' not come again?"
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