What the World Thinks

It comes from this post reminding us of what it was like in World War II when we had so much respect from the rest of the world that people would surrender rather than fight us:

"One of America's strengths was that people looked up to the US. In WWII soldiers would give up to the US on purpose, because they knew that they would be treated fairly. How do I know this - my grandfather who fought for the Italians was one of them. Imagine that power. You are so highly regarded that your enemies would rather give up to you than fight you."

This is the high ground we've given up for the sake of inefficient, intellectually lazy torture techniques, and it is clear looking at that chart which candidate the world is more likely to believe will get us back on the high road where we belong.

Manhattan-sized Ice Shelf Breaks Away

In the latest event to be rationalized away by the AGW denialists, a 4,500 year old ice shelf, roughly the size of Manhattan, has broken away from Ellesmere Island in northern Canada.

"Ellesmere Island was once entirely ringed by a single enormous ice shelf that broke up in the early 1900s. All that is left today are the four much smaller shelves that together cover little more than 299 square miles.

Martin Jeffries of the U.S. National Science Foundation and University of Alaska Fairbanks said in a statement Tuesday that the summer's ice shelf loss is equivalent to over three times the area of Manhattan, totaling 82 square miles — losses that have reduced Arctic Ocean ice cover to its second-biggest retreat since satellite measurements began 30 years ago.

'These changes are irreversible under the present climate and indicate that the environmental conditions that have kept these ice shelves in balance for thousands of years are no longer present,' said Muller.

During the last century, when ice shelves would break off, thick sea ice would eventually reform in their place.

'But today, warmer temperatures and a changing climate means there's no hope for regrowth. A scary scenario,' said Muller.

'The Markham Ice Shelf had half the biomass for the entire Canadian Arctic Ice Shelf ecosystem as a habitat for cold, tolerant microbial life; algae that sit on top of the ice shelf and photosynthesis like plants would. Now that it's disappeared, we're looking at ecosystems on the verge of distinction,' said Muller."

Read the full story here. 4,500 years. Digest that for a moment. Something that was around 2,000 years before Jesus is going to be gone. And there are still people who deny it is happening.

Palin's Knowledge Comes from Osmosis? A New Low in Political Argument

Just when I thought the Republican speculate-now-and-get-facts-later-maybe technique had gone as low as it could, Here comes Frank Gaffney to set it even lower. In it he tells us, among other chestnuts, that Sarah Palin's military knowledge was acquired by osmosis. Think I'm kidding? Read the article, where Gaffney speculates over and over again about what Palin might know, while never giving us any solid evidence of what she does know. He tells us that Russian aggresiveness has increased, Alaska would be a possible target, and that we have some of our top air defense systems stationed in Alaska. Somehow he thinks this justifies a lot of speculative "should"s and "would"s with regard to Palin's knowledge of these systems:

"Governor Palin would not only be intimately familiar with that facilities’ vital role in protecting U.S. territory. She would also appreciate its importance in the projection of American power in Asia and beyond as much of the nation’s long-range transport aircraft supplying our military operations around the world transit through Elmendorf. Every Commander-in-Chief should have such insights. "

I thought the Democrats were the party of "woulda, shoulda, coulda", but apparently in the absense of any actual evidence that Palin understands anything about F-22 Raptors, people like Gaffney see no problem with speculating wildly about having what they want to have.

But wait, it's not speculation, it's the new Republican biology, where one gets knowledge by a wholly novel method:

"As that state’s governor, Sarah Palin would know more by osmosis – if nothing else – about the necessity for U.S. anti-missile systems than either Messrs. Obama or Biden."

I read that sentence five times before deciding that it wasn't a joke, and Gaffney actually means it. Osmosis. We are being asked to assume that a former beauty queen knows more about the necessity of military systems than a long time senator who chaired the Foreign Relations Committe, based on the assumption that she gained knowledge by osmosis. Saturday Night Live couldn't top this. What's next, telling us she gets knowledge by virtue of being in the presence of someone knowledgeable?

"Having managed her state’s department responsible for oil and gas exploration and exploitation, having negotiated a long-delayed natural gas pipeline through Canada to the Lower 48 and having been married for nearly two decades to a blue-collar worker in Alaska’s North Slope oil fields, she knows more about the subject than all three of the others on the two parties’ tickets put together."

I'm sorry Frank, but one does not get knowledge by osmosis, nor by shagging someone. And one does not put someone into potentially the most demanding and powerful position in the world based on wild, baseless, laughable speculation. OK Mr. Funt, its time to come out and let us all in on the joke now...

Mickey Mouse, Cars, and Evolution

In the letters section of a recent NY Time article on evolution, an otherwise deluded writer made a valid point:

"David Campbell uses the evolution of Mickey Mouse as a Darwinian argument. Mickey Mouse did not become cuter through millions of random mutations of film stock and errant cartoonists’ strokes. He became cuter through “intelligent design.” Cartoonists, deliberately guided by intelligence, altered his features, and evolved him."

This is a common argument made against analogies to evolution, and it is one of the few creationist arguments that have some merit. Pictures of Mickey Mouse, or designs for cars, or any similar analogy, lacks the crucial element of imperfect replication without which evolution cannot function. Of course, this also applies to common creationist canards like Hoyle's 747 in a junkyard. However there is an even better way to use these examples to dismantle ID arguments: emphasize the borrowing of ideas.

Mickey Mouse is indeed intelligently designed, as are car models. And as we know, designers often watch other designers to see what they are doing. Let Ford invent a new and better way to design wheels, or a steering wheel, or a fuel pump, and soon every car maker will be making them the same way, at least as far as our copyright laws allow. When computer animation became available, all the cartoon characters got a makeover. When stereo systems shifted from vinyl to CDs, it happened across the industry, practically all at once. Ditto for pretty much anything human designers make.

But this is exactly what we do NOT see in the natural world. When a new feature appears in the octopus lineage, say a better lens for its eye, that feature does not suddenly appear in the human and bird lineages. The bacterial flagellum did not pop up all over the place, nor did the immune system, or the bombardier beetle's explosive defenses, or any of the natural examples ID proponents like to point to as examples of intelligent design. They appeared just as evolutionary theory predicts: in one place, in a certain way, in an incremental step from where that lineage was.

This is the line of attack we should use whenever evolution-deniers bring up examples of man made objects as examples of intelligent design. In every way that intelligently designed objects differ from evolved ones, those man made examples differ from the natural world.

Palin's Idiocy: So Much Material, So Little Time

The more we learn about Sarah Palin, the more incompetent, clueless, and downright disingenuous she appears. From a survey of gubernatorial candidates in 2006 we get these mind boggling answers from the would-be vice president:

"Q: Will you support the right of parents to opt out their children from curricula, books, classes, or surveys, which parents consider privacy-invading or offensive to their religion or conscience?

A: Yes. Parents should have the ultimate control over what their children are taught."

In other words, ignorant parents should have the right to shackle their children with the same ignorance, according to Palin. To hear her talk, one would think the purpose of a public school system is just as a babysitter so the parents can go to work. Public schools exist, in part, to allow children to get exposure to the best knowledge available, rather than be limited to what their parents know, or find unobjectionable.

"Q: Will you support efforts to raise or lower the mandatory age of education? Why or why not?

A: No, again, parents know better than government what is best for their children."

Palin either has serious reading comprehension problems, or she is blatantly pandering to the Parents Uber Alles wacko wing of society with this nonsense answer. Her stated position would imply a desire to raise the mandatory age, thus effectively eliminating it. Further, Palin reveals the typical ignorance among those with such views of the skill and expertise involved with being an educator. What, might we ask, is the basis for her claim that parents know better than professional educators how to educate? Do parents know better than professional engineers how to engineer? Do they know better than professional painters how to paint, or better than professional plumbers how to plumb? Of course not.

"Q: Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

A: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance."

It is downright frightening that a public servant in high office could be this ignorant of our history. I guess it explains why she thinks anyone off the street knows as much about educating as professional educators do. Nonetheless, someone needs to tell Ms. Palin that the Pledge was written in 1892, by a socialist no less, and the "under God" phrase was added in 1954. The founding fathers were long dead before it ever existed.

Palin is a clueless parrot of neo conservative and Dominionist talking points. She is not qualified to be Vice President of the United States

Is Palin a Dominionist?

Quite disturbing reading here. That's just in case her laughable qualifications, science denialism, and senile running mate weren't sufficient to dissuade you from voting for her.

Why We Should Save New Orleans

As Gustav closes in on New Orleans, the discussion rages about how to help the people there, to what extent, and to what extent they should be expected to help themselves. In a broad sense, I think these questions miss the roll New Orleans plays in our national consciousness. In the King's court, you have your financial advisor, your minister of health, your foreign minister, your general, and your fool. The fool creates nothing, fights no one. His role is to entertain, to make everyone laugh, feel merry, and to rest from their burdens.

New Orleans is our fool. New York may be bigger, Los Angeles cooler, but when we think about having the most fun, nowhere matches New Orleans. The music, the food, the Mardi Gras madness are like nothing else on this continent (I'm not sure about Carnival in Brazil). It's where adults can still go for some good clean dirty fun. Of course they are not as prepared as they should be. Of course they can't completely help themselves. The fool grows no crops, and mans no gun.

We have to save New Orleans, for we have nothing like her to take her place if she is gone. Besides, without New Orleans, Louisiana becomes a cross between Mississippi and Arkansas. Ugh, nuff said.