"The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window."
- Stephen King
Penn & Teller: Exposing Bullshit or Spreading It? Part 6
The Cast of Charactors.
In the past three days, I have tried to show that the scientific bases for mass extinction and global warming are sound. I have yet to talk much about the show itself.
As I said in the beginning, there are points that I absolutely agree with. I agree that the environmental movement (as opposed to environmental science) is simply chocked full of nuts. I agree that the environmental movement carries with it other agendas (such as antiglobalaztion). I agree that they are sadly misinformed about environmental science. I agree that the last thing a lot of environmental groups want to do is bring science to the table, because it will upset their carefully constructed propagandize house of cards.
Unfortunately, I can say the same thing about Penn & Teller.
The proof is in the pudding so they say, so lets take a closer look at two of the people Penn and Teller decided to use to buttress their position that everything is alright in the ecological world.
Bjørn Lomborg - Author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World" Cambridge University Press 2001
Boy if you needed proof that Penn and Teller did not give a hoot for environmental science, there would be no better place to start than Bjørn Lomborg.
Bjørn Lomborg is an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus. He has a Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. I should not have to mention that a Ph.D in poly-sci does not make one a real scientist, at least, not in the way we understand the word (if someone can show me true scientific law involving politics I would be interested in hearing about it). Bjørn wrote a book in 2001 called "The Skeptical Environmentalist" in which he claimed to have done a reanalyzation of environmental science. He also claims (which I very much doubt, but more on that later) that much to his surprise he found that the environment was not nearly as bad as environmentalist would have you believe. In spite of the gloom and doom "litany" that every school child learns things are actually getting better:
There is a need to challenge our usual conception of the collapse of ecosystems, because this conception is simply not in keeping with reality. We are not running out of energy or natural resources. There will be more and more food per head of the world’s population. Fewer and fewer people are starving. In 1900 we lived for an average of 30 years; today we live for 67. According to the UN we have reduced poverty more in the last 50 years than we did in the preceding 500, and it has been reduced in practically every country.
Global warming, though its size and future projections are rather unrealistically pessimistic, is almost certainly taking place, but the typical cure of early and radical fossil fuel cutbacks is way worse than the original affliction, and moreover its total impact will not pose a devastating problem for our future. Nor will we lose 25 50 % of all species in our lifetime, in fact we are losing probably 0.7%. Acid rain does not kill the forests, and the air and water around us are becoming less and less polluted.
Needless to say it was number one with a bullet on the Libertarian and Right-Winger hit list! The book garnered respectable articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Economist. Of course this was when the book first came out, and none of the writers were scientist.
Critical thinking and hard data are cornerstones of all good science. Because environmental sciences are so keenly important to both our biological and economic survival--causes that are often seen to be in conflict--they deserve full scrutiny. With that in mind, the book The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press), by Bjørn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, should be a welcome audit. And yet it isn't.
As the book's subtitle--Measuring the Real State of the World--indicates, Lomborg's intention was to reanalyze environmental data so that the public might make policy decisions based on the truest understanding of what science has determined. His conclusion, which he writes surprised even him, was that contrary to the gloomy predictions of degradation he calls "the litany," everything is getting better. Not that all is rosy, but the future for the environment is less dire than is supposed. Instead Lomborg accuses a pessimistic and dishonest cabal of environmental groups, institutions and the media of distorting scientists' actual findings. (A copy of the book's first chapter can be found at www.lomborg.org)
The problem with Lomborg's conclusion is that the scientists themselves disavow it. Many spoke to us at Scientific American about their frustration at what they described as Lomborg's misrepresentation of their fields. His seemingly dispassionate outsider's view, they told us, is often marred by an incomplete use of the data or a misunderstanding of the underlying science. Even where his statistical analyses are valid, his interpretations are frequently off the mark--literally not seeing the state of the forests for the number of the trees, for example. And it is hard not to be struck by Lomborg's presumption that he has seen into the heart of the science more faithfully than have investigators who have devoted their lives to it; it is equally curious that he finds the same contrarian good news lurking in every diverse area of environmental science.
We asked four leading experts to critique Lomborg's treatments of their areas--global warming, energy, population and biodiversity--so readers could understand why the book provokes so much disagreement. Lomborg's assessment that conditions on earth are generally improving for human welfare may hold some truth. The errors described here, however, show that in its purpose of describing the real state of the world, the book is a failure.
In fact, the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty received four complaints against Lomborg's work based on the articles in Scientific America. They opened an investigation in 2002. Their ruling was sure to upset Lomborg's fans:
DCSD's position
On the basis of the material adduced by the complainants, and particularly the assessment in Scientific American, DCSD deems it to have been adequately substantiated that the defendant, who has himself insisted on presenting his publication in scientific form and not allowing the book to assume the appearance of a provocative debate-generating paper, based on customary scientific standards and in light of his systematic onesidedness in the choice of data and line of argument, has clearly acted at variance with good scientific practice.
Subject to the proviso that the book is to be evaluated as science, there has been such perversion of the scientific message in the form of systematically biased representation that the objective criteria for upholding scientific dishonesty-cf. Danish Order No. 533 of 15 December 1998-have been met. In consideration of the extraordinarily wide-ranging scientific topics dealt with by the defendant without having any special scientific expertise, however, DCSD has not found-or felt able to procure-sufficient grounds to deem that the defendant has misled his readers deliberately or with gross negligence.
In accordance herewith and subject to the proviso that the book under review is to be evaluated as science, DCSD has arrived at the following
Ruling:
Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty.
In view of the subjective requirements made in terms of intent or gross negligence, however, Bjørn Lomborg's publication cannot fall within the bounds of this characterization. Conversely, the publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice.
Jerry Taylor - Director of National Resource Studies, Cato Institute.
Well what can one say about anyone from the Cato Institute. Once again Penn & Teller could not have made their contempt for science any more clear.
Jerry Taylor holds a B.A. from the University of Iowa in (of course) Political Science. His Biography describes him thus:
Holds that evironmental(sic) pollution is not a result of market failure, but is instead a result of government's failure to recognize and provide for the legal means to protect private property. "The government manages fragile public lands as efficiently and sensitively as it delivers the mail," claims Taylor.
Taylor's main claim to fame is an article he wrote in 2002 entitled "No Apologies:Affirming SUV driving". (National Review Online December 18, 2002) that Penn & Teller link to on their "Bullshit" website. We will take a closer look at this article, and Jerry's claim that the current corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard is "directly" responsible for the deaths of 1,300 - 2,600 motorists a year. But first a few words about Cato.
The first thing you need to understand about Cato is that they do no primary research themselves. Instead they rely on other people's work, which unfortunately they tend to misrepresent. Basically they are editorial writers. Cato is not a scientific organization but a political one. As such, all papers have to be looked at with a most critical eye. For a hint of just which direction they lean just check out who contribute money to Cato (Via MediaTransparency.Org).
An excellent example of this is this passage of Jerry's article "No Apologies":
Finally, there's the constant admonition from the self-righteous that SUVs are choking the life out of our "Big Blue Marble" and that only mindless materialism, greed, and self-absorption explains the lack of concern SUV drivers have for others. What goes unacknowledged, however, is that America's romance with SUVs coincided with tremendous improvements in air quality. Since 1980, ambient concentrations of carbon monoxide have dropped 61 percent, leaving only two small towns in California in violation of federal winter smog standards. Likewise in 1984, half of America's cities were in violation of federal summer smog standards, with those cities averaging 12 violations a year. By last year, however, only 14 percent of America's cities were in violation of those standards, with those cities experiencing but four violations a year. Sulfur dioxide emissions (the cause of acid rain) fell by 31 percent since 1980; lead emissions by 94 percent; and small particulate matter (perhaps the most dangerous air pollutant) by 50 percent. Clearly, SUVs and the environment can coexist nicely.
Just where is Jerry getting these numbers? I don't know because I could not find them. One of the marks of shoddy scholarship is a failure to credit sources. By not showing us the source of these numbers, Jerry can hide all sorts of information. For example, the bald assertion that "ambient concentrations of carbon monoxide have dropped 61 percent" fails to tell us why this might be true. One would expect that the Clear Air Act of 1970 might have had something to do with it, but of course it would not do to credit government with doing something good. That would be a clear contradiction of the tenets of Libertarianism which states that anything government can do, private industry can do better! That SUVs are not the most efficient method of transportation is even admitted by the Ford Motor Company:
May 13, 2000 | In a surprising announcement on Thursday, the Ford Motor Company publicly acknowledged what many people have known for a long time: Sports utility vehicles contribute more to global warming, emit more polluting exhaust and endanger other motorists more than standard cars.
In a report to company shareholders, Ford Chairman William C. Ford, the great-grandson of Henry Ford, said that the company recognized the environmental impact of SUVs, which account for one-fifth of the company's sales, and was seeking technological solutions to address it. But he said that the company would continue to build SUVs to keep up with the strong market demand.
Ford told reporters he did not want his company to end up in the court of public opinion being linked with tobacco companies, which continue to manufacture a product that causes serious health damage (and have suffered enormous financial judgments against them). He pointed out that Ford had voluntarily kept tailpipe pollution emission well below legally permitted levels, and had voluntarily put bars below the bumpers of its Ford Excursion -- which weighs twice as much as a Jeep Grand Cherokee and gets 10 miles to the gallon in the city -- in order to diminish harm to other cars in collisions, though safety laws did not require the bar.
You can read Jerry's reply to this farther down in the article. You will note that once again Jerry does nothing more than make assertion after assertion:
It's not entirely clear that fuel consumption has hurt the environment. Petroleum is growing more abundant, not more scarce, and auto emissions are not a real threat to public health. We've had massive gains in urban air quality at the same time so many SUVs are on the road.
without any evidence to back it up.
One more before we leave Mr. Taylor in that Libertarian paradise he populates. In this Cato Institute News Release from March 12, 2002: "Cafe Defeat Saved Lives, Scholar Says" Jerry makes this startling statement:
...the National Academy of Sciences reported last year that the current (CAFE) standards are directly responsible for the deaths of 1,300 - 2,600 motorists a year.
Wow! Could this be true? Could it be that CAFE could be responsible for that many deaths?? Well it turns out that NAS was not nearly as sure of this and Jerry apparently was:
To improve a car's fuel economy, one of two things must happen: The efficiency of the powertrain must be increased through new technologies, or the amount of work required by the engine to move the car must be lowered, usually by lessening wind resistance or by reducing the car's size and weight. But one risk of downsizing is that smaller cars involved in crashes with larger vehicles tend to have higher numbers of fatalities. The committee estimated that the downsizing of automobiles in the 1970s and 1980s - whether a result of CAFE standards or other market-driven needs -- may have contributed an additional 1,300 to 2,600 fatalities in 1993. However, this area is quite controversial among analysts and the report includes a dissenting opinion written by two committee members. They believe that the relationship between fuel economy and safety is not yet fully understood, and a reduction in vehicle weight need not adversely affect safety. The committee feels more analysis in this area is warranted and calls on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to conduct further research.
In fact, the NSA was very careful not to blame CAFE for the reduction in the weight of automobiles. Take a look at this from Chapter 2:
"Isolating the effects of CAFE from other factors affecting U.S. light-duty vehicles over the past 25 years is a difficult analytical task."
In fact, in the paragraph where you find the 1,300 - 2,600 fatalities figure, you will find no mention of CAFE:
"The April 1997 NHTSA analyses allow the committee to reestimate the approximate effect of downsizing the fleet between the mid-1970s and 1993. In 1976, cars were about 700 lb heavier than in 1993; light trucks were about 300 lb heavier, on average. An increase in mass for cars and light-duty trucks on the road in 1993, returning them to the average weight in 1976, would be estimated to have saved about 2,100 lives in car crashes and cost about 100 fatalities in light-truck crashes.
The net effect is an estimated 2,000 fewer fatalities in 1993, if cars and light trucks weighed the same as in 1976. The 95 percent confidence interval for this estimate suggests that there was only a small chance that the safety cost was smaller than 1,300 lives or greater then 2,600 lives."
Nor are these numbers without critics as the NSA press release made clear.
Don't believe me however, you can read the whole report here.
I have not mentioned Patrick Moore, but it is not because I agree with him, or because I am scared of him. There are areas where Moore and I agree on and areas where we don't. But in order to do a good job, this article will gain lengths unheard of in the Bloggersphere. If people are really interested I will more than happy to write about Dr. Moore in the future. After all, he is as compromised as the other two guests I mentioned...
In article "Skeptical About the Skeptical Environmentalist" Richard M. Fisher had this to say:
On a more serious note, I wish I could conclude by saying that Lomborg's book has had some benefit to science, perhaps by way of emphasizing the need for robustness in modeling, or the need for critical evaluation of data. As it happens, those already are central tenets of scientific inquiry, as they have been throughout the history of environmental debate. All that Lomborg has accomplished is to try, without much success, to expose the soft underbelly of science. That underbelly is the uncertainty that invariably accompanies the initial investigations of natural and physical phenomena. That's why the study of problems like global warming is so easy to attack. There is now general consensus that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but the uncertainty among studies as to its scope and speed provide more than enough ammunition for those determined to seek weaknesses in the arguments, and thus dither away while the problem intensifies. - Skeptical Inquirer, November/December 2002, 49-51
Some of the same complaints listed here can be leveled at Penn & Teller. Their show on environmentalism could have been good. If they really wanted a debate (after all, Penn says that there should always be debate) "Bullshit" would have served the public better by getting a few top notch scientist on to discuss the issues. Instead they got the weirdest people they could find (implying that anyone concerned about the environment is just as weird) to represent the ecological side, and a bunch of spin-meisters to represent the anti-environmental side. What was really hurt in all this is environmental science. And that is a damn shame.
Penn & Teller: Exposing Bullshit or Spreading It? Part 5
Is it true that no one knows if the world is warming, cooling, or just going through a cycle?
Penn & Teller was wrong about mass extinction. They were also wrong about scientist believing we were heading into an ice age. So far not too good. The next claim we are going to look at will be Penn's statement that no one knows if the earth is heating up, cooling down, or just going through a natural cycle.
Scientist across the board agree on two things. The first is that the earth is warming. The second is that mankind is responsible for that warming. The scientific evidence is just as strong for global warming as it is for evolution. And it is just as perverse for the skeptic to deny global warming as it is for the Christian to deny evolution!
Global Warming
Did you know the idea that burning fossil fuel could raise the temperature of the earth is not a new theory? "This issue is one that's been scientifically agreed upon as a fundamental fact for more than a century," says University of Washington atmospheric scientist Robert Charlson in "The Scientist Magazine" (See Global Warming Researchers Say They Need Breathing Room By Scott Veggeberg. You will need to register, but hey it's free.) In 1861 the first good description of the greenhouse effect was given by the renowned natural philosopher John Tyndall in the paper "On the absorption and radiation of heat by gasses and vapours, and on the physical connection of radiation, absorption, and conduction"(Philosophical Magazine, Series 4, 22: 169-194, 273-285) In 1896 a Swedish researcher, Svanta Arrhenius, published "On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground" (Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Series 5, 41: 237-276). The thesis of these papers were that as humanity burned fossil fuels such as coal, thereby adding carbon dioxide gas to the Earth's atmosphere, we would inevitably raise the planet's average temperature. Although Arrhenius' work had a thorough mathematical basis, it initially received little recognition. It was not until the 1930's when it was found that there actually had been warming in the United States and North Atlantic for the past half-century, that the "greenhouse" theory of global warming started to take off, thanks in a large part by amateur meteorologist G.S. Callendar. Callendar wrote about the potential effects of anthropologic CO2 emissions for a period of nearly three decades. Then in 1957 Roger Revelle and Hans Suess published what is considered the seminal paper of global warming "Carbon dioxide exchange between atmosphere and ocean and the question of an increase of atmospheric CO2 during the past decades" (Tellus 9: 18-27) It was in this paper that the oft quoted words of Revelle resides:
"human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future. Within a few centuries we are returning to the atmosphere and oceans the concentrated organic carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of years. This experiment, if adequately documented, may yield a far-reaching insight into the processes determining weather and climate."
Revelle and Suess called on the scientific community to monitor changes in the carbon dioxide content of waters and airs as well as the rates of production of plants and animals. Changes in the earth's albedo, the extent of polar ice and changes in sea level, and atmospheric temperatures were also sought. All of this, that has come before, has contributed to our understanding today of global warming.
So is the earth warming up? Is man responsible for this warming? The answer is yes, and yes.
Yes. Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.6°C (plus or minus 0.2°C) since the late-19th century, and about 0.4°F (0.2 to 0.3°C) over the past 25 years (the period with the most credible data). The warming has not been globally uniform. Some areas (including parts of the southeastern U.S.) have, in fact, cooled over the last century. The recent warmth has been greatest over North America and Eurasia between 40 and 70°N. Warming, assisted by the record El Niño of 1997-1998, has continued right up to the present, with 2001 being the second warmest year on record after 1998.
Linear trends can vary greatly depending on the period over which they are computed. Temperature trends in the lower troposphere (between about 2,500 and 26,000 ft.) from 1979 to the present, the period for which Satellite Microwave Sounding Unit data exist, are small and may be unrepresentative of longer term trends and trends closer to the surface. Furthermore, there are small unresolved differences between radiosonde and satellite observations of tropospheric temperatures, though both data sources show slight warming trends. If one calculates trends beginning with the commencement of radiosonde data in the 1950s, there is a slight greater warming in the record due to increases in the 1970s. There are statistical and physical reasons (e.g., short record lengths, the transient differential effects of volcanic activity and El Niño, and boundary layer effects) for expecting differences between recent trends in surface and lower tropospheric temperatures, but the exact causes for the differences are still under investigation (see National Research Council report "Reconciling Observations of Global Temperature Change").
Here is a special link from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, just for Penn, who seems to think that since the hottest summer on record was way back in 1998, things must be getting back to normal!
Global Temperature Trends: 2002 Summation
The 2002 meteorological year is the second warmest year in the period of accurate instrumental data (since the late 1800s). The global surface temperature for 12 months from December 2001 through November 2002 is 0.51°C above the climatological mean (1951-1980 average) in the GISS analysis, which uses meteorological station measurements over land and satellite measurements of sea surface temperature over the ocean.
Figure 1 shows that the warmest temperature occurred in 1998, while the third warmest year was 2001. As this figure shows, there has been a strong warming trend over the past 30 years, a trend that has been shown to be due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. El Niños, in which warm water spreads over the tropical Pacific Ocean, are one major cause of fluctuations about the long-term trend. There was a very strong El Niño in 1998, while a weak El Niño has existed for the last several months of 2002. The fact that 2002 is almost as warm as the unusual warmth of 1998 is confirmation that the underlying global warming trend is continuing.
Geneva, 19 December 2000--The year 2000 was much like those of the 1990’s, some areas of the globe experienced extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme rainfall and extreme drought while many others experienced near normal conditions, but when averaged together the global climate continues to be warmer than normal.
Global Temperatures in 2000: Similar to 1999- Warm Trend Continues
The global average surface temperature is likely to be about 0.32°C above the climatological average for the period 1961-1990. This is similar to 1999, which was the 5th warmest year in the past 140 years, according to records maintained by Members of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The warmer years were 1998, 1997, 1995 and 1990. The ten warmest years have all occurred since 1983, with eight of these occurring since 1990. The year 2000 has continued the run of warm years in spite of the persistent cooling influence of the tropical Pacific La Niña.
As a new century begins, the global mean temperature is 0.6°C above those at the start of the 20th century. The year 2000 will be the 22nd consecutive year with the global mean surface temperature above the 1961-1990 normal
So Penn & Teller are simply wrong when they say that no one knows if the planet is warming up. Scientist, at lest, know that it is.
That mankind is responsible for this trend is also without question, Once again from the NOAA FAQ:
What is the greenhouse effect, and is it affecting our climate?
The greenhouse effect is unquestionably real and helps to regulate the temperature of our planet. It is essential for life on Earth and is one of Earth's natural processes. It is the result of heat absorption by certain gases in the atmosphere (called greenhouse gases because they effectively 'trap' heat in the lower atmosphere) and re-radiation downward of some of that heat. Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas, followed by carbon dioxide and other trace gases. Without a natural greenhouse effect, the temperature of the Earth would be about zero degrees F (-18°C) instead of its present 57°F (14°C). So, the concern is not with the fact that we have a greenhouse effect, but whether human activities are leading to an enhancement of the greenhouse effect.
Are greenhouse gases increasing?
Human activity has been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mostly carbon dioxide from combustion of coal, oil, and gas; plus a few other trace gases). There is no scientific debate on this point. Pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide (prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution) were about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv), and current levels are about 370 ppmv. The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere today, has not been exceeded in the last 420,000 years, and likely not in the last 20 million years. According to the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), by the end of the 21st century, we could expect to see carbon dioxide concentrations of anywhere from 490 to 1260 ppm (75-350% above the pre-industrial concentration).
So when Penn & Teller are tell you that no one knows wether or not the globe is warming, they are engaging in Bullshit.
For those that are really interested in the science behind Global Warming here are some resources:
For a look at the greenhouse "skeptics" argument I can't recommend a website any higher than Jim Norton's excellent Anti-environmental myths page. I have used this resource extensively and Jim deserves full credit.
Penn & Teller: Exposing Bullshit or Spreading It? Part 4
Did the so-called "imminent" ice age of the '70s mean scientist are wrong about Global Warming?
So Penn & Teller were wrong when it came to mass extinction. In spite of their inability to "hear" about such an event. But what about Global Warming? Certainly they must be right about that one.
Well in a word no.
Penn & Teller dispute global warming with a reason that is just as stupid their reason for disputing mass extinction. See, back in the seventies scientist predicted that the earth was on the verge of entering a new ice age and they were wrong about that. So they could be wrong about global warming. The truth is that scientist don't know if the earth is heating up, cooling down, or just going through a regular cycle of heating and cooling. So all this panic about global warming is a lot to do about nothing.
The only problem with this is that it is wrong from beginning to end.
Global Cooling
Let's take a look at the theory of global cooling first. Indeed there was this idea that the world was facing an imminent ice age spread by the popular press as a result of the book, "The Cooling" by Lowell Ponte. If Libertarians had made the complaints about global cooling that they have for global warming, they would have been on to something. See, the problem with using this as an example of science gone wrong, is that very few scientist bought into it.
There are really two theories for global cooling. The first is called Milankovitch hypothesis or the orbital forcing model, named for Yugoslavian metrologist Milutin Milankovitch. In 1920 Milankovitch proposed that small changes in Earth’s orbit, precession, and inclination affect the heat balance and modify climate. For a detailed look at orbital forcing click here. The most telling part of the page is this:
Although the Milankovitch theory is well-grounded astronomically, it remains controversial. The theory predicts different effects at different latitudes, and thus its use as a predictor of global (or at least hemispheric) climate change is not unambiguous. The exact mechanisms by which the relatively modest variations in the Earth's orbit and axis direction might result in such large effects as the ice ages are not well established. The theory's popularity has tended to vary depending on the type of long-term climatological data that has been available and the method used to establish a time scale for the data.
The 21,000-year perihelion cycle and the 41,000-year obliquity cycle do in fact appear to be present in the climatological record. But the dominant climate cycle that is seen has a period of about 100,000 years. Although this coincides with the period of change in the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit, the theory outlined above does not predict that we should see this period directly - the effect of eccentricity should appear only as a modulation of the 21,000-year perihelion cycle. The mechanism by which the Earth's orbital eccentricity could affect the climate in such a direct and important way is not known, although recent evidence (published in 2000) indicates that atmospheric carbon dioxide may play a leading role in amplifying the orbital effect. However, some researchers still have doubts about the association between the 100,000-year climate cycle and orbital variations. Thus, many questions remain about long-term climate variations and their relationship, if any, to astronomical causes.
The other problem with orbital forcing, at least as a candidate for the theory of an "imminent" ice age is that the cycles we are talking about are thousands of years. So much for imminent (I should not have to point out that when dealing with cycles of such length, and the inability to exactly predict a astronomical forcing event, we could be talking about + or - five thousand years and still be comfortable).
The second theory is the aerosols model, which supposed cooling in response to a massive increase in the aerosol loading of the atmosphere. The theory states that particulates reflected sunlight into space, thus preventing heat from reaching the earth. Here we come back to Lowell Ponte and his book "The Cooling"
Lowell Ponte is host of a national radio talk show heard on approximately 220 stations and via Internet Audio at TalkAmerica.com. He is a columnist and book reviewer for the David Horowitz website FrontPageMagazine.com.
[...]
Lowell has also worked as futurist and techno-terrorism specialist in a Pentagon-consulted think tank; author of a best-selling book about global climate change (The Cooling, published by Prentice-Hall and used as a text about Enmod, Environmental Modification Warfare, by the Department of Defense); publicist in a Hollywood public relations firm; and consultant to corporations and governments. He holds the equivalent of a Masters Degree in International Relations and a Ph.D. in English.
Interesting credentials there eh? He is Ph.D in English. I admit I don't know what the hell the "equivalent" of a Masters Degree in International Relations is, perhaps someone could help me out. Sounds all the world to me like "A person who has worked in the field but does not hold a degree" but I could be wrong. One thing I know for sure is that Mr. Lowell is not a scientist.
Yet as funny as Mr. Lowell's credentials are, the bottom line as always is "Is his book right?".I admit that I have not read the book itself, it is hard to find these days. But an excellent critique of the book by William Michael Connolley a climate modeler for the The British Antarctic Survey is here. I will quote certain passages but I urge you to go and read the whole thing.
We get a taste of just how scientific this book is going to be by page 70, when Lowell makes the startling statement that gravity is weakening in the universe, and that this is proved by the moon moving away from the earth at 4 cm/year. It boggles the mind. Nor does it bode well that the person that wrote the preface, Reid Bryson, seemed to disagree with Lowell on many points...
Bryson's preface is rather odd, because it indirectly contradicts much of what is in the "science" sections of the book. Lets read it, shall we:
"The Cooling will be controversial, because among scientists, most of the matters it deals with are hotly debated. There is no agreement on whether the earth is cooling. There is not unanimous agreement on whether is has cooled, or one hemisphere has cooled and the other warmed. One would think that there might be consensus about what data there is - but there is not. There is no agreement on the causes of climatic change, or even why it should not change amongst those who so maintain. There is certainly no agreement about what the climate will do in the next century, though there is a majority opinion that it will change, more or less, one way or the other. Of that majority, a majority believe that the longer trend will be downward. Nevertheless, it is an important question, as this book points out, and it is time for some of the questions to be settled. Lowell Ponte has summarized the data and theories very well, and has reasonably concluded that a rapid change in Earth's climate is possible, perhaps even likely, within the next few decades, and that this would have serious consequences for mankind."
OK, lets stop there for a moment and compare this to what Ponte has to say:
Opening words of chapter 1: "Our planets climate has been cooling for the past three decades. Most experts agree on this, for it has been carefully measured by scattered monitoring stations throughout the world. Climate in the southern half of our planet has been warming rapidly, according to the few measurements available. But in the hlaf(sic) of our world north of the equator, where most human beings live, the annual mean atmospheric temperature has plunged by 0.7 oC, more than enough to offset the southern warming and to lower the average temperature of the whole planet by 0.5 oC."
Some disparity with Bryson, I hope you can agree. Looking at Pontes words further, note how, despite asserting that there are few southern measurements, he is nonetheless happy to assert that the globe as a whole is cooling. Where he gets the 0.7 oC cooling is a mystery: he cites no source; the graph reproduced in appendix 1 of the book shows a cooling of possibly as much as 0.4 oC. [Somewhat later, p45, the 0.5 global warming is qualified as "according to available measurements".]
This failure to acknowledge uncertainty is not something trivial, to be passed over rapidly. It is crucial. Bryson's central point, that people are not really sure what's going on, was a good one to make at the time and thoroughly justified by hindsight.
I have to admit that the whole brouhaha over global cooling reminds me of the book "The Jupiter Effect" written in 1974 by astronomers John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann. It was also all the rage in the seventies. Gribbin and Plagemann predicted all sorts of dire disasters due to the planets lining up on one side of the sun:
Briefly, the authors proposed the following bizarre chain of events: When the planets are aligned on one side of the sun, the tidal forces create sunspots which create solar flares which create streams of solar particles which enter the earth's upper atmosphere which changes the weather which slows the rate of the earth's rotation which triggers earthquakes. Got it?
Among other unpleasant happenings would be the modification of rainfall and temperature patterns and the disruption of radio communications. Of course, the increased solar activity would also produce spectacular auroras.
It was nonsense, as pointed out in the article above the 1982 "alignment" of the planets was anything but. The smallest angular separation of the four major planets--Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune--was greater than 60°! Hardly a line!
Yet no one blames astronomers in general for the stupidity of Gribbin and Plagemann. When a new astronomical theory comes along, no one says "Hey, what about that time back in the 70's when astronomers thought that the earth was going to be destroyed by gravity? Silly astronomers don't know what they were talking about". And remember, Gribbin and Plagemann were astronomers, which is more than can be said for Lowell.
So did scientist believe that the earth faced an imminent ice age? The answer has to be no. More important than wether Lowell's book is correct, or wether Milankovitch's cycles cause glaciation, is that no climatologist writing a scientific paper for a peer reviewed journal made the claim that there was an imminent ice age. If you can find one, I and several others would love to know about it.
Penn & Teller: Exposing Bullshit or Spreading It? Part 3
P & T attempt to shoot down Environmental Science using Libertarian Logic
As I started writing this, I found it was going to be a lot longer than I thought. So I am going to split it into several parts, once again to make sure that you don't get too bored with the subject. Unlike the show on ETS and the one on GM crops, which were only 15 minutes, this one took the whole half hour. Because of the greater length, there was much more bullshit to combat than in the other two shows.
Aside from that, environmental science, like most other science, is poorly understood by the general public. One thing that P & T and I agree on is that misinformation abound within the environmental movement. The organized part of the movement does seem to be controlled by a bunch of granola eating, new age idiots and that can be very frustrating. But understand this...just because regular people that are concerned about the environment are misinformed, it does not follow that environmental science is wrong.
Much like the creationist, Penn & Teller use scientific uncertainty to argue that this means the science itself is invalid. An example of this is when Penn talked about the 1970's theory that we were heading into an ice age. Well if we thought the globe was cooling in the 70's, and now we think that the globe is heating in the 2000's, then it must mean that those crazy scientist are loony! How dare those scientist get it wrong in the 70's, this must mean we can't trust them. Believe me when I say that this is a very strange argument for a skeptic to make. A true skeptic knows that science makes no promises and nothing is written in stone. Science is in a constant state of change. If you want certainty, I suggest you try religion. They always have the answers (even if that answer is "You Can't Understand The Mysterious Process") and they are always 100% right, even when they are 100% wrong. I should also mention that the 70's theory mentioned above was subscribed to by no climatologist. That's right, not one...but more on that later.
Once again P & T grabbed the most..ahem...colorful spokespeople to argue the case against them. Of course, in fairness to P & T, they also got a bunch of nobodies that agreed with them. The one group that lacked a voice on the show were actual scientist. Instead they brought in one of the most discredited authors around, one of the founders of Greenpeace who was not happy with the political direction the group eventually took, and a libertarian from Cato who's main claim to fame was writing a discredited article in support of driving SUVs!
Now if P & T had just wanted to claim that the environmental movement is filled with well meaning but cracker brain people who don't know science, I would have had no problem with the show. But they took two steps farther than that. They decided to dispute the current mass extinction and, of course, global warming.
Mass Extinction:
Did you know that the idea that species go extinct is a fairly new idea? It has only been about 200 years since we discovered what fossils were. In 1799 Thomas Jefferson, while studying the remains of a giant sloth, said that "If this animal has once existed, it is probable on this general view of the movements of nature that he still exists", and recommended that Lewis and Clark keep their eyes open for such a creature on their explorations.
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) is the man that is responsible for the idea that fossils came from animals that died out.
Without a doubt, Georges Cuvier possessed one of the finest minds in history. Almost single-handedly, he founded vertebrate paleontology as a scientific discipline and created the comparative method of organismal biology, an incredibly powerful tool. It was Cuvier who firmly established the fact of the extinction of past life forms. He contributed an immense amount of research in vertebrate and invertebrate zoology and paleontology, and also wrote and lectured on the history of science.
Of course, the prevailing view to this point (and even among some people today) is that no animal had ever died out, God's perfect plan simply did not allow for such sloppiness. It took time for scientist to accept the idea of species extinction.
The background level of extinction known from the fossil record is about one species per million species per year, or between 10 and 100 species per year (counting all organisms such as insects, bacteria, and fungi, not just the large vertebrates we are most familiar with).
[...]
The typical rate of extinction differs for different groups of organisms. Mammals, for instance, have an average species "life span" from origination to extinction of about 1 million years, although some species persist for as long as 10 million years. There are about 5,000 known mammalian species alive at present. Given the average species life span for mammals, the background extinction rate for this group would be approximately one species lost every 200 years. Of course, this is an average rate -- the actual pattern of mammalian extinction is likely to be somewhat uneven. Some centuries might see more than one mammalian extinction, and conversely, sometimes several centuries might pass without the loss of any mammal species. Yet the past 400 years have seen 89 mammalian extinction, almost 45 times the predicted rate, and another 169 mammal species are listed as critically endangered.
Our planet has been shaken by five major extinctions in the four billion year history of life. The first, 450 million years ago, occurred shortly after the evolution of the first land-based plants and 100 million years after the Cambrian Explosion of animal life beneath the seas.
The second extinction spasm came 350 million years ago, causing the formation of coal forests. Then the Earth experienced two mass extinctions during the Triassic period, between 250 and 200 million years ago. The fifth mass extinction, probably caused by a giant meteor collision, occurred 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, and ended the reptilian dominance of the Earth. This led to the current mammalian domination of the Earth.
"It's the next annihilation of vast numbers of species. It is happening now, and we, the human race, are its cause," explains Dr. Richard Leakey, the world's most famous paleoanthropologist. Every year, between 17,000 and 100,000 species vanish from our planet, he says. "For the sake of argument, let's assume the number is 50,000 a year. Whatever way you look at it, we're destroying the Earth at a rate comparable with the impact of a giant asteroid slamming into the planet, or even a shower of vast heavenly bodies." The statistics he has assembled are staggering. Fifty per cent of the Earth's species will have vanished inside the next 100 years; mankind is using almost half the energy available to sustain life on the planet, and this figure will only grow as our population leaps from 5.7 billion to ten billion inside the next half-century.
Penn & Teller don't believe that we are in the middle of a mass extinction event. Their evidence? We make a fuss about species that are about to go extinct, we have all sorts of early warnings when a species is about to go extinct. Hell it makes news when a species is about to go extinct. Have you heard of any species about to go extinct? You haven't? Well, there you have it! Bah!
This is plain stupid. This in no way proves that a mass extinction event is not happening, all that it proves is that people are unaware of it and/or the media is not reporting about it. This becomes particularly ironic when you consider that the ignorance of the general public is one of the things that concern scientist:
The American Museum of Natural History and Louis Harris and Associates, Inc., in conjunction with the opening of the Museum's new Hall of Biodiversity, developed a nationwide survey titled Biodiversity in the Next Millennium. The survey reveals a startling gap in understanding between the scientific community and the general public concerning a current crisis in sustaining "biodiversity" - the variety and interdependence of the Earth's plants and animals.
At one point the producer that interviewed Nina Fascione, Vice President of the group Defenders of Wildlife asked her why should we care if species are dying out. Ms. Fascione did not answer for a few seconds, then the show switched to something else, so we will never know if she actually answered, but her expression pretty much said it all. She had the look of a person who was asked the stupidest question of all time. Or perhaps it was just my own surprise at the stupidity of the question. But since she did not answer, why don't we allow the American Museum of Natural History a chance:
Scientists believe some of the most important effects of this dramatic species loss are:
Serious impairment of the environment's ability to recover from natural and human-induced disasters.
Destruction of the natural systems that purify the world's air and water.
Reduction of the potential for the discovery of new medicines.
Increased flooding, drought, and other environmental disasters.
Substantial contribution to the degradation of the world's economies, thereby weakening the social and political stability of nations across the globe.
Every single species and subspecies of great ape on the planet now teeters on the edge of dying out, part of the acceleration of the dinosaur-style mass extinction now under way.
In all, 11,167 species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction, according to the 2002 version of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, which is to be released today in Switzerland. It is the world's most authoritative catalogue of those on the brink of vanishing from the planet's genetic pool.
The number, an increase of 121 species just since the last count in 2000, provides clearer evidence than ever before that the Earth's life forms are set on a course toward the sixth mass extinction in the planet's history, on a par with the one 65 million years ago that extinguished the dinosaurs.
"This is further affirmation of a very significant and dangerous trend," said Achim Steiner, director-general of the Swiss-based IUCN (World Conservation Union).
Scientists believe that the current rate of extinction is between 1,000 and 10,000 times the rate biologists would expect under normal conditions. Extinction is normal in biological systems, but very rare, often as low as one or two species a decade. The overwhelming reason species are dying out so fast is that humans are making their living spaces uninhabitable or are killing them outright.
There is virtual unanimity among scientists that we have entered a period of mass extinction not seen since the age of the dinosaurs, an emerging global crisis that could have disastrous effects on our future food supplies, our search for new medicines, and on the water we drink and the air we breathe.
April 20, 1998. The American Museum of Natural History announced today results of a nationwide survey titled Biodiversity in the Next Millennium, developed by the Museum in conjunction with Louis Harris and Associates, Inc. The survey reveals that seven out of ten biologists believe that we are in the midst of a mass extinction of living things, and that this loss of species will pose a major threat to human existence in the next century.
According to these scientists' estimates, this mass extinction is the fastest in Earth's 4.5-billion-year history. Unlike prior extinctions, this so-called "sixth extinction" is mainly the result of human activity and not natural phenomena.
Among the findings revealed by the survey, scientists identified the maintenance of biodiversity - the variety of plant and animal species and their habitats - as critical to human well-being; they rate biodiversity loss as a more serious environmental problem than the depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, or pollution and contamination. The majority (70%) polled think that during the next thirty years as many as one-fifth of all species alive today will become extinct, and one third think that as many as half of all species on the Earth will die out in that time.
[...]
Further, the survey revealed that, in strong contrast to the fears expressed by scientists, the general public is relatively unaware of the loss of species and the threats that it poses. The public is less likely than scientists to understand that a mass extinction is now occurring, less likely to appreciate that the current loss of species is mainly due to human activity, less likely to identify loss of plant and animal species as one of the most important environmental and societal threats we face today, and less likely to recognize that the loss of biodiversity will pose a major threat to humanity in the next century. Reflective of this, the public is also much less likely than scientists to think that society should increase its efforts to prevent further loss of biodiversity: While three out of four scientists take this view, less than half of the public feels this need.
I include the last paragraph because P & T's claim that there is no mass extinction going on because you have not heard of any species going extinct...and as we all know, the American Public really pays attention to news of that nature.
There are all sorts of articles out there with such alarming headlines as
and this just scratches the surface. Hey, if Penn and Teller have not heard of our current rate of extinction, it is because they have been dancing around with their fingers stuck in their ears singing "Li Li Libertarian" at the top of their lungs. If they are ignorant of the importance of biodiversity on this planet, then it is because they choose to remain ignorant. Reality is not based on Penn and Teller's ability to "hear".
I hope that you enjoyed your Easter weekend. Though it is true that I don't have a religious bone in my body, I still enjoy the time I get to spend with my family.
I am feeling much better today. Thanks to those that sent email (and comments) wishing me a speedy recovery. It's always nice to know that people care.
We have some additions to the blogroll. First up is "Rick's Rants" Rick Roehlk's look at current events. He is hot and heavy on the War on Iraq and I highly recommend giving it a read. I have not written nearly enough on the subject, but I think you can tell from the blogs I recommend just what my feelings are (and such statements as "this is an illegal war of aggression").
Next is Random Thoughts. Another lefty communist pinko blog that I enjoy reading immensely. The mysterious Susan (who seems to have a thing for Classic Cars and Horse Racing) can say in a few short paragraphs what usually takes me two pages to explain. I really envy that.
Last, but certainly not least, Roger Ailes joins the throng. And no, not that Roger Ailes. Roger is fast becoming an influential blogger in his own right, and I would be surprised if readers of this blog were not already familiar with his writings.
I am working on the Penn and Teller article, but to tell the truth it is a lot harder going than the first two. I get about four paragraphs into the sucker and descend into incoherence. I have started numerous times with no success. It is hard for me to believe that P&T would be so careless with basic fact. In spite of that I still think that the article will be ready by tomorrow.
While I am in the explaining mood, I got a couple of emails asking me why I did not spend more time critiquing "Waco: The Rules of Engagement". Even though I have watched the film three times now (It was on Starz "True Stories" channel four or five times this past weekend) I find it incredibly hard to watch. All it does it make a sad situation even sadder. My attention wanders, I find other, more interesting things going on, and the next thing I know, I have missed a quarter of the movie. Considering how careless the film is with their major piece of evidence (the FLIR movies) I don't really think I am missing too much.
I usually don't update over the weekend. For a magician the weekends are usually really busy. But today I feel I have to. For today is the 10th anniversary of a period that will be forever etched in my memory.
The raid upon the Mt. Carmel Compound was a sad sad situation. What makes it worse is this persistent idea that the U. S. Government deliberately killed the people in the compound. Let me make this as plain as I possibly can...the ATF and FBI were completely incompetent when it came to the siege. However, no matter how grievous their mistakes were, this is a long way from saying that they wanted the people in the Compound to die.
Below is a reprint of an article I wrote in response to "Waco: The Rules of Engagement". At the time I had not seen the film, but had heard a great deal about it, especially the "evidence" of the forward-looking infrared (FLIR) video camera. Since then I have seen the film and my worst fears were confirmed. It pretty much whitewashes the tales of child abuse that most concerned the people of Waco (those that even knew that the compound existed). Look, Vernon Howell admitted that he had sex with children as young as 12, and had children with children 13 and 14 years old. Vernon Howell admitted that he beat children and could quote chapter and verse from the bible for justification to do so. It is absolutely amazing to me that there is a segment that believe that Vernon Howell was some harmless religious nut. The events of April 19, 1993 should be answer enough for that. Independent arson investigators confirmed that the fires started in three different places in the Compound, that the three fires started more or less simultaneously and the high unlikelihood that three simultaneous fires would break out accidentally. Couple that with the audio tapes of people in the compound saying such things as "Spread that fuel around" and it's pretty clear just who is responsible for those deaths.
Vernon Howell, The Branch Davidians and Me
How Long Will it Take Waco to Live David Koresh Down?
First posted on Wednesday 06/05/02
This is very long, but it is also personal so hopefully you will forgive me.
I find it hard to believe that after all this time, there are still people out there that think that Vernon Howell (aka David Koresh) was murdered by the ATF and FBI. It is sickening in a way that is hard to describe to people who were not there, and I should know. I was there. At the time the AFT stormed Mount Carmel I was going to school at Texas State Technical College, approximately six miles from the compound. So close that the school was used as the staging area for the FBI and ATF. In fact, I even got to meet Mr. Howell and I can assure you that he was as nutty as a fruit cake but more about that in a moment. Let's start at the beginning.
The Branch Davidians are an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, which in turn is an offshoot of the Millerites. William Miller was a farmer in New York. He prophesied that on October 22, 1844, the world would end and that Christ would come to reign for a thousand years. A million followers believed him and gave up all their worldly possession to follow him. However much to their disappointment (in fact, it is called "The Great Disappointment, though I am not sure why we should be disappointed) the world didn't end. Miller redid his calculations and came up with an alternate date, but that didn't work out too well either. His third time he made sure that the prediction was comfortably in the future where he would not have to answer for being wrong yet again (he was).
The Branch Davidians got their start as "The Shepherds Rod". In 1929 Victor Houteff publicly announced his personal interpretation of the Bible which pivots on Micah 6:9 and the phrase "Hear ye the rod." Houteff believed Seventh-Day Adventist doctrines and teachings were inaccurate and he called for reform (Duh!). The SDA did not appreciate that and so Houteff started his splinter group. In 1935 Houteff founded the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas.
In 1955 Houteff died, leaving his wife in charge. She did no better than George Miller himself. Florence Houteff predicted that the time of God's judgment would fall on April 22, 1959 because the 1,260 days of Revelation 11 would be completed and on that day God would intervene in Palestine. Followers began to assemble at Mount Carmel, on April 16, 1959, prepared to move to the Holy Land.
When Florence's prophecy did not come true, intense splintering began within the group. Admitting her errors, Florence dissolved the Davidian Seventh-Day Adventist Association in 1961 and sold Mount Carmel to Ben Roden in 1965. Ben Roden changed the name to The Branch Davidians SDA. Roden declared himself the fifth angel (Revelation 9:1), in the same vein as Houteff, who had declared himself the fourth angel (Revelation 8:12). He lead the Branch until his death in 1978, whereupon his wife, Lois Roden, assumed the role of the sixth angel (Revelation 9:16). She was regarded as a prophet and thought to possess new insight into the "femininity of the Holy Spirit".
Vernon Howell joined the group in 1981 and Lois expressed her belief that he would be the group's next prophet. However, George Roden, Lois's son, forced Howell and his followers out of Mount Carmel in 1984. In 1987 Roden dug up the body of Anna Hughes and challenged Howell, the man who was able to raise Hughes would lead the Davidians. Howell promptly contacted the McLennan County Sheriff's Department to arrest Roden for corpse abuse. Officials could hardly believe what Vernon was telling them so they demanded proof in the form of a photograph of Hughes' body. Well that is all Vernon needed to hear. Howell rounded up seven followers, dressed them in camouflage fatigues, and proceeded to sneaked into the Compound on Nov. 3, 1987. They armed themselves with assault rifles and as a result, a fire fight broke out. According to the Waco Tribune Harald:
Deputies, notified by neighbors, broke up the skirmish. They filed charges of attempted murder against Howell and his followers. Although the Branch Davidians claimed to be carrying weapons for protection, they had put 18 bullet holes into the small tree Roden hid behind. In 1988, Roden was sent to jail for contempt of court, a charge which stemmed from a series of obscene documents he filed with the court. With him behind bars, Howell took control of Mount Carmel and the Branch. In 1990, Vernon Howell changed his name to David Koresh (Koresh is a form of Cyrus). He chose this name from Isaiah 45, which states that Cyrus "was the only non-Israelite who was given the title 'anointed' or 'a messiah' or in Greek, 'a christ'." Koresh regarded himself as the Lamb from Revelation 5, and took it upon himself to open the seven seals and interpret the scroll (Revelation 5:2). If he could accomplish this task, Koresh believed, he would bring about the second coming of Jesus Christ.
I had my own run in with Mr. Howell in the summer of 1990. As you might know one of my hobbies is playing guitar, an interest I shared with Vernon. We met in the only rock bar in Waco at the time. It was off West Waco Drive and called Innervision. We were introduced by a mutual friend (who will remain nameless) who thought it would be really funny to set a religious fanatic against a skeptic. In fact we had a pretty good conversation as long as we talked about rock and guitars. Just before I left he asked me about my religion. I thought he was kidding and made some smart ass reply which I don't remember. He suddenly stood up and with eyes that literally spun around in the socket screamed at me "Don't you know who I am? I am the Messiah!". Ok, I thought as I backed out the door.
I did not think about the guy till February 28, 1993
People of Waco knew that Vernon was abusing kids. He made no secret of the fact that he had multiple wives, some as young as 12. We also knew of the physical abuse that the children suffered out there. People in the area complained for years, trying to get something done, but the answer was always the same. "They are a religion, and as such they are protected". It was not until charges of assault weapons being bought by the Davidians that the ATF decided to get involved, much to the disgust of those that thought kids were a bit more important than guns.
I will never forget that Sunday. I got a phone call from my mom telling me to turn on the TV. I should not need to go over all the events of those 51 days but I assure you they were horrible. I was going to school at Texas State Technical College, which was used as the staging area for the assault. We had seen dozens of Texas State troopers coming on the campus Saturday night but had no idea why. By the next day half the campus was blocked off, causing great inconvenience to those of us trying to attend school. Whole sections of the labs for the tech I was taking (Laser Electro/Optics) were blocked off and anyone that got too close was threatened by a guard wielding a machine gun. When the FBI decided to use light and loud music in an attempt to keep the Davidians up all night, they also kept the students up all night. By the end of the siege we were all heartily sick of the federal presence on our campus.
Did the ATF make mistakes? You bet they did. One of the biggest was the primary assault. Anyone in Waco could have told the agents that they could have waited Vernon out. Vernon was a rabid jogger, it would have been very easy to wait outside the Compound and arrest him as he was jogging. With Vernon safely away, the rest of the Davidians would not have put up a fight. It has to be remembered that Vernon had "prophesied" that the end time would start with a federal raid on the Davidians. The feds were incredibly sloppy, one agent sharing with the local paper, the Waco Tribune-Herald, that the raid was going to take place. Once they settled in to wait Vernon out, they did just about everything they could to play into Vernon's hands. However, it's a long way to say that because they screwed up they wanted the people in the compound to die, or that they caused their deaths. But like everything else, the proof is in the pudding. So is there any proof that the Feds were responsible for the deaths of those men, women and children that had the misfortune to follow Vernon Howell?
Well the most impressive evidence seems to be contained in the film "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" The main claim is that the film of the forward-looking infrared (FLIR) video camera that was taken on April 19 showed the feds shooting into the compound. This has been completely debunked by Ian Williams Goddard at his excellent web page "The Waco FLIR Flashes". Turns out that what most people took for gunshots were actually reflections of other objects. Some people seem to be impressed by the fact that film won an Emmy and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. For a quite different view of the film click here.
Then there is the use of CS gas in the compound. There were claims that the gas caused people in the compound to be incapacitated and that is why they failed to leave. This is very unlikely. Tanks were used to poke holes in the compound before the gas was used. The wind that day was fierce, according to Frontline's "Waco: The Inside Story" "thirty-mile winds gusting to 31 miles per hour caused the gas to quickly dissipate and FBI listening devices showed that the gas seemed to have little effect on the adult occupants during the six hour assault." (see FAQ) The wind was also a huge factor in how fast the compound went up in flame.
What happened during those 51 days in Waco Texas was a national tragedy. It is made worse by those that would use shoddy research and even shoddier evidence to try to prove that this was an attempt by the U.S. government to murder a bunch of harmless religious freaks. Well there was nothing harmless about Vernon Howell. He was a child abuser, a child molester, and a religious fanatic that is the only one responsible for the deaths at Mount Carmel.
For more about Vernon before the raid see the Waco Tribune-Herald Series "The Sinful Messiah"
Note: Minor editing to make it more up-to-date and readable.
Well it looks as if I will be writing an article on Penn and Teller's Bullshit at least one more time. I watched the show on environmentalism, and it was by far the worse. I hope to have it up Monday...Tuesday at the latest. I am feeling much better today, so perhaps I can spend Sunday doing the research...
For those that get Showtime, there should be rebroadcast on Sunday at 9:00pm CDT.
Once again I must apologize for lack of update. So much to write about...so many interesting things going on, but I can't comment on them because I am sick with what I think might be the flu. I have a high temp, and I will spare you the rest of my symptoms.
So since there is nothing interesting going on here, please spend some time at the excellent blogs listed on the right side of your screen. They all have something to say, and they are all good.
Looks like there is one more article to be done on Penn & Teller's show "Bullshit". This Friday they will be doing a show on "Environmental Hysteria", and if it is anything like the shows on ETS and GM foods, it should be just chocked full of bullshit. Damn shame. If you get "Showtime" and you can watch the show I invite you to do so. See how much bullshit you can detect. Maybe we can even have a contest....
Sometimes I have a perverse attraction to intractable problems. I will become aware of some tragic situation, usually of the man against nature variety, and puzzle over it for days, sometimes weeks. The most recent episode occurred in regard to a young woman who was severely disfigured after the car she was a passenger in was hit by a drunk driver and caught on fire three years ago. Though two emergency medical technicians who happened by tried to release Jacqueline Saburido from the crushed vehicle, they were unable to do so. She suffered third degree burns over 60 percent of her body. She is one of the first burn victims to have her story become widely known.
A new ad campaign, engineered by Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing in Austin, may be the most effective effort yet at grabbing the attention of teenagers -- thanks largely to the brave efforts of Jacqueline Saburido.
Saburido was horribly burned in a fire that started after the car she was riding in was hit by a drunk driver. Two others in the car were killed, and Saburido, a native of Venezuela, has made a painful recovery. The ad campaign pulls no punches -- her scarred, disfigured face is featured prominently in posters.
Saburido, a student from Venezuela, has been struggling back toward normalcy ever since. However, acquiring normalcy is not possible for her. She was burned so severely her hairless head resembles a rubber mask stretched tightly over a human skull. She is nearly blind in both eyes and has lost her ears, lips and much of her nose. The last third of her fingers has been amputated. A burnt away muscle segment makes one of her arms pretty useless. The only unscathed parts of her body are her lower legs and feet. Doctors would like to operate on them by transplanting some muscle to her arm and perhaps transferring her toes to her fingers.
I developed some familiarity with the horrors of burn cases while doing research and writing briefs for a personal injury law firm. So, I was not as shocked by Jacqui's story as people new to the world of abrasive baths, skin grafts and pressure garments would be. What bothers me is not so much that the treatment for third degree burns is so painful, but that the outcome is so limited. Yes, she is alive, but her quality of life is dubious.
Some years ago there was talk of a new synthetic skin substitute that would have made some of Jacqui's suffering unnecessary and allowed her to retain more of her body and features. "The FDA approved Dermagraft-TC and two artificial "interactive" burn dressings for use in treating third-degree burns. "
The treatment she and other deep burn victims currently receive cannot replace much of the missing skin. The body attempts to shrink to fit what is left. That, and poor blood circulation, results in loss of extremities and sometimes limbs. Also, there is not sufficient skin left for grafts. Cadaver skin can only be used as a temporary dressing because the body rejects it. The skin substitute never reached its forecasted potential. Most of Jacqui's burns were probably too deep to benefit from it, anyway.
Partial-thickness burns, or second degree burns, are those in which there is damage to the epidermis (the upper layer of the skin) and the upper portion of the dermis (the lower layer of skin). However, a portion of the dermis remains intact. Partial-thickness burns are the most common type of burn injury requiring medical attention. These burns frequently result from household hazards such as scalding from hot liquids, faulty heating pads or misuse of ignition fluids.
Nor has 'farming' the patient's own skin been as successful as hoped.
In addition to artificial skins is cultured skin. Doctors are able to take a postage stamp-sized piece of skin from the patient and grow the skin under special tissue culture conditions.
The process is often too slow.
So, the most obvious solutions aren't possible.
Some folks would focus on the crime and punishment aspect of Jacqui's case. The 18-year-old who caused the accident was sentenced to seven years and will likely serve only about five years in prison. Two people were killed and three injured in the accident, one, Jacqui, very seriously. The drunken driver was the only one to walk away intact. Still, wishing he had paid a higher price seems futile to me. Five years or forty years, two young women are still dead and another is in a desperate situation.
For now, Jacqui's best option may be to focus on regaining as much of her sight as possible. If she receives the cornea transplants and other eye surgery she needs, she will be able to navigate the world without being accompanied at all times. However, what she considers her 'real life,' riding her jet ski, driving and preparing to run her father's air conditioning company, may never restart. Her problems are . . . intractable.
Jacqueline Subarido's story is best told in the newspaper in the city where the accident occurred.
Check out the email conversation that has heated up the the Seminole County Republican Executive Committee (SCREC) e-mail list. You can read the bill, the Dignity for all Sudents Act for yourself here.
I received this from the Eagle Forum lobbyist last week and it is of concern. As a retired NYC Police Officer I can say without hesitation that laws that place restrictions on free speech and give special protection based on sexual preference are a disaster. They will be doubly so in our school system. Lets not bring New York's stupidity to Florida. Contact Senator Constantine and ask him to pull the bill. It is within his power to do so as Chairman.
URGENT ALERT
On Wednesday April 9 at 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 Senate Bill 1498 will be heard in the Senate Education committee. This bill needs to be killed!! PLEASE CALL LEGISLATORS IMMEDIATELY!!!!
Our opponents had 200 letters to the chairman of the committee and we had 2 in his stack. Please help us with this bill!!! Please read the explanation of this bill by Liberty Council. It is shocking what they want to teach our children. The sponsor of this bill is also the sponsor of the ERA sponsor Senator Gwen Margolis.
This bill pertains to harassment, discrimination, and violence in Florida schools. This is the " Dignity for All Students Act" Many school districts have been fighting this as it gives homosexual students, teachers and school employees special protection from harassment because of their sexual orientation. See attachment from Liberty Council below for more facts. We need for you to contact the members of the committee and ask them to kill this bill.
[cut of article]
While reading this I want you to bear in mind that it is the left that are the real homophobes. Because we don't like Andrew Sullivan and he's, you know, gay.
I was made aware of the Senate Bill 1498 (Dignity for all Students Act) that will be brought to your table for review on Wednesday the 9th.
As a new immigrant and a proud and unapologetic U.S. citizen, I urge you to protect my freedom of speech, of thoughts and protect the expression of my sincerely held religious beliefs. Don't let others deceive you and restrict the speech of Americans simply because its content is displeasing to them.
Don't enact this law. Don't allow this well crafted title "Dignity for all Students Act" deceive you.
Don't let it become a weapon used against my children should they ever express disagreement towards someone's sexual activities when it is made known to them (in all courtesy of course).
Don't allow this Great Nation to become a place where my family and friends would be oppressed and ostracized because we express our disagreement in a public forum such as schools.
Say no to Senate Bill 1498.
Where can my family go if this land starts restricting my family's freedom of expression, thought and religious beliefs?
Please, kill 1498
Thank you for upholding the Constitution
But remember, it is the left that are the real homophobes. Because we make fun of Andrew Sullivan's hypocritically placing ads for bare-back sex (sex without a condom) while at the same time calling for gay men to tone down their lifestyle and act more like married couples.
I agree with everything you said but.........
What a puzzle. We have a Republican Governor and plenty of republican representatives and we end up with bills like this even being considered..... while education is cut. We have complete boards ofeducation that are elected Republicans and our education system is tanking, and you can't blame it on anyone else but those we have elected.The kids that are over there fighting for us could not afford a college education, and if they remain in the military a decent living. The disgrace is ours..pure and simple. This bill shouldn't even be considered..........and, it's about time we understood that the most important thing we can do to insure the sovereignty of our nation is to provide the best possible education for every child !! That's my proposal for a " Dignity for all Students Act".
Keep in mind that it is the left that are the real homophobes. Because when Mike Taylor, a Republican, ran for the U. S. Senate seat in Montana, there was an ad asking questions about fraudulent Student Loans while he ran a beauty school. That must mean the left thought he was gay!
While it is true that our Party has elected a good majority of principled Republican lawmakers and elected officials in our Sunshine State, they still need to receive words of encouragement. It is always refreshing for our lawmakers to feel the support from their constituency especially when the time has come to make a righteous decision.
Read on and see the amount of pressure they are facing on a regular basis. While they'll be doing the right thing by killing 1498 on Wednesday, professional agitators will be stirring kids in our public schools that very day:
BREAK THE SILENCE ON THE UPCOMING S0-CALLED DAY OF SILENCE
On Wednesday April 9, 2003 the daily routine of public schools throughout America will once again come to a halt as thousands of middle and high school students and their teachers take a vow of silence to demand acceptance and approval of the homosexual lifestyle.
"Day of Silence" participants are instructed to refuse to speak during the entire school day. At the end of the day, students, teachers and administrators participate in "Breaking the Silence" festivities, often including guest speakers touting the homosexual lifestyle. Last year more than 100,000 students in 1,900 schools took the vow of silence. This year, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has put together a team of 14 teenagers throughout the country to regionally coordinate Day of Silence activities.
You can do something in response. You should contact your local schools to find out whether Day of Silence activities will take place at the school, and if so, to voice your opposition of "gay" activism in the schools. For those schools that insist on participating in the event, you can use the Day of Silence as an opportunity to speak out about the truths of homosexuality.
Cast your mind back. It is the left that are the real homophobes. Because....er.....because...can someone explain it to me again?
Some other thoughts for you to consider for not supporting this bill:
HB0019 and its companion bill SB 1498 include language providing for "punitive measures" (line 7) "Punitive measures" as result of an act of violence such as "battery," Assault" etc. perpetrated in a school setting. The use of this terminology and the punishment encompassed is quite different to what usually and under other circumstances may have been considered as "fighting in school". The remedy applied does not match the "crime" and in some cases may be very detrimental to a child future. "fighting in school" may be considered as an act of violence or a crime and the "punitive measures" applied will be similar as the ones applied to a crime.
Review the School Discipline Code, and the terminology incorporated therein. Some behavioral conduct is defined using the same definitions and language use in the Code. These definitions are applied not only to high school and middle school kids but also to elementary school kids. The age factor and the discretion allowed is subject to interpretation.
Also take a look at line 126 and 129 that provides for the State Board of Education to adopt rules to implement and monitor compliance and providing for technical assistance to educational institutions in identifying among other things harassment's, discrimination etc. --- very powerful and fearful powers subject to interpretation.
Also examine the provisions on line 145 and 145 of the Bill which grants the schools the authority to implement a character-development program in secular nature to stresses such character qualities not only as attentiveness, patience, and initiative but also, honesty, citizenship, patriotism etc. Thes e character qualities are to be stresses and tough by parents, not by anybody else.
Moreover, line 149 and 150 mandates that by the beginning the school year 2004-2005 , the character development program shall be required in grades K to 12
But it's the left that are the real homophobes. Ain't they?
I agree but, the object right now is to kill the bill not amend it, so get your members to contact the legislators if you can. Thanks.
Er....what was the point I was trying to make? I seem to have forgotten...something about the left and real homophobes?
Seriously.
Charming ain't it? Projection is a psychological term that means taking aspects of your personality and/or behavior and placing it on someone else. That way you can hate the personality/behavior without fear of hating yourself.
Sometimes, I think that the Republican Party is nothing but projection.
I challenge any right winger to come up with a liberal or Democratic position on this bill that mirrors the rancid hate above.
Note: I removed all the names from the mail and the Eagle Forum article and some duplicate lines. Other than that, nothing has been changed.
It is a busy day, so I am not writing much, but I did want to take the time to point out we have three new blogs on the blogroll.
First up is Silver Rights a new blog by Mac Diva. Where she finds the time to do all that writing is a mystery, I suspect she has a bubble of no-time somewhere. She pops inside, does all the writing she needs for the day, pops out and not a second has passed. Hell it takes me hours to write something. I simply don't see how....
Make no mistake, her writing does not suffer at all from her prolific ways. She is a daily read of mine, and she should be of yours too!
Next we have Stupid Evil Bastard another skeptical blog that, in addition to deploring the silly superstitions we humans just love to believe in, takes a close look at politics. I have spent a couple of days reading there and it is good stuff. I really appreciate the skeptical blogs that deal with politics because more than ever these days, we need to be more skeptical of politicians.
Last, but certainly not least, is Karmalised. another great anti-war, blog. I have not had as much time as I would like to check out archives (just found it last night) but what I have read so far appeals. Give it a try.
So that's it for now. I hope to get something with a little more meat out today but you know what they say about the "best laid plans".
For those interested, I posted both articles below on the Penn & Teller webboard. You can find the article on ETS here and the article on GM crops here.
Feel free to jump right in, I have no intention of getting involved in that Libertarian sewer over there. The quality of debate has gone way way way way down. Not surprising at all considering how well Libertarians debate. If they present any argument at all, it is usually one of their own choosing (when they are not busy slinging insults). No I did my time on Usenet and had a belly full of non-relevant points. Perhaps one day I might actually meet a Libertarian that has thought about their position, but I ain't hopeful!
I expect most of them will miss the point of my articles in any case.
Penn & Teller: Exposing Bullshit or Spreading It 2?
P&T resort to some tasty Bullshit on their own on the subject of Genetically Modified Crops.
As I said, I was not happy when I saw the show on ETS, but at least I could see some wiggle room. After all, there are non-smokers that do act as if inhaling one puff of smoke into their lungs will kill them. And yes, it is true that most non-smokers have much more to fear from air pollution than they do ETS. It was galling to hear them make such absolute statements about a science they clearly did not bother to learn about, but hey we all make mistakes. Even I. So I decided to cut them some slack. Being a smoker myself, I admit it is not a subject I am particularly passionate about.
But last Friday, they really took the cake. The first half of the show was excellent, putting to rest the idea that fad diets do anything more than make you fatter. But when they started talking about Genetically Modified (GM) crops, the bullshit got so high, I thought I was gonna need hip boots.
Before we start, lets quickly define what GM crops, food and seeds are. Simply put it is any seed that has had it's DNA changed, either by altering the DNA strand itself, or by inserting a totally different gene into the strand.
The first strawman to come up the pike was there is not enough food grown in the world to feed everyone, so we need GM crops. Wow, this is total bullshit. Worldwide food amounts have nothing to do with most causes of starvation. Let me repeat this, food amounts have little to do with people starving. The causes of starvation are complex, to blame it all on a "lack of food" can only be called..well, bullshit. Yet that is exactly what P&T did on Friday night.
It is not only lack of available food that causes starvation but, and more importantly, political, social, and economic reasons as well. For example Lars Bondestam of the Center of Interdisciplinary Studies of the Human Condition, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden had this to say in the paper "Hunger and Society" From the introduction:
The causes of starvation can be divided into two categories: basic and direct causes. Basic causes are always non-natural and most often policy-dependent, i.e., they are created by man, either by the person directly affected (the one who starves), or more often by characteristics inherent in the economic structure (mode of production) or by external penetrating forces. In the absence of basic causes, the direct ones are less harmful; i.e., the force of the effect of direct causes depends on the existence of basic ones. So, for instance, a crop failure due to drought (direct cause) has less disastrous consequences in more egalitarian societies than it does in class societies with a high degree of exploitation (basic cause). An implication of this approach is that the effects on nutrition (including the effects on food production, supply, distribution, and prices) of certain events can be predicted much better than is often acknowledged. However, this requires an acceptance that political and economic realities have something to do with human survival.
The early-warning systems (EWS's) which are being used in some countries to warn of disasters usually ignore these realities. The information collected is always related to natural phenomena and usually includes data on rainfall- areas particularly deficient in precipitation are identified. The data rarely include political causes of starvation. This weakness in the EWS's is perhaps understandable, but it can be fatal. Another drawback, related to the former, is the lack of economic analysis in the process of data collection. Hence, the technically advanced and impressive EWS of Ethiopia in 1977 failed to predict the 1978 famine in time. An economic analysis of a particular society does not have to be as complicated and costly as is often indicated by various experts. Indeed, analyses which are too sophisticated and pretentious are rarely ready before famine is a fact.
Hunger is most severe in the poor and developing parts of the world. Fifty percent of the world's hungry people live in just five countries: India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Malnutrition and starvation in Africa have reached epic proportions due to the drought and civil wars. In Somalia, one-quarter of children under five have died this year due to starvation. The problem also affects developed countries. Many of the urban poor and homeless have little access to food or resources to obtain food. In the U.S., there has been a 71% increase since 1983 in families seeking emergency food assistance.
