At Boing Boing, Maggie Koerth-Baker does an excellent job of retelling the myth that global climate change deniers adore. That's the myth that scientists widely feared global cooling in the l970's. According to the standard version of this story, everybody in the 1970s thought that the Earth was actually getting colder, and that we were inContinue reading “Why deniers cling to the “global cooling” myth: a theory”
Category Archives: thinking out loud
The older you get, the more unemployed you are likely to be
Or, as Matty Iglesias puts it, perhaps (we can hope) overstating it: "There will be no recovery." The Pew Center, graphing census data for the visually oriented, appears to have the stats to back him up, at least for the long-term unemployed: In short — the older you get, the more unemployed you are likelyContinue reading “The older you get, the more unemployed you are likely to be”
Socrates, Environmental Working Group: Eat Less Meat!
The Environmental Working Group brought out a report recently that definitively showed the high cost of meat. Not the cost in the store, but to the planet, and to our health. (Indeed, the one statistic I wish the report had that it didn't would be the full calf-to-plate cost of meat.) Much remarked was theContinue reading “Socrates, Environmental Working Group: Eat Less Meat!”
If Murdoch is disgusting, what is the NSA?
Ted Rall points out that when it comes to spying, Rupert Murdoch is a piker: Not much of an exaggeration, unfortunately. It's old news that the NSA is monitoring your email. Heck at a recent launch of a satellite from Vandenberg AFB this year, I asked a public information officer how many satellites this yearContinue reading “If Murdoch is disgusting, what is the NSA?”
Harry Potter: the early Isherwood version
Back in the l930's, Christopher Isherwood published a fascinating quasi-memoir about his years at university called Lions and Shadows. Isherwood was a brilliant student, but — surprise, surprise — an outsider. With a fellow student named Chalmers he formed a sort of secret literary society opposed to what they called "the poshocracy." Isherwood and ChalmersContinue reading “Harry Potter: the early Isherwood version”
Americans increasingly doubt global warming: Harris Poll
A Harris poll on disasters released yesterday shows that fewer Americans than ever believe in global warming: just 44%, down from 75% ten years ago. Harris tries to see the positive in this, pointing out that: These numbers do not suggest, however, that a majority now do not believe in global warming—just over one-quarter say theyContinue reading “Americans increasingly doubt global warming: Harris Poll”
A new American class: the involuntarily retired
Our local daily newspaper has an excellent story on a new class of unhappy Americans: the involutarily retired. Kim Lamb Gregory introduces the idea with a study, and then grounds it in Ventura County reality: "We are witnessing the birth of a new class — the involuntarily retired," said a report called "The Shattered American Dream."Continue reading “A new American class: the involuntarily retired”
The Grand Canyon of the Colorado: l901
From Our National Parks, published in 1901: No matter how far you have wandered hitherto, or how many famous gorges and valleys you have seen, this one, the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, will seem as novel to you, as unearthly in the color and grandeur and quantity of its architecture, as if you hadContinue reading “The Grand Canyon of the Colorado: l901”
Financial analyst: “Pack up and move to the virtual world”
A highly regarded financial analyst tells us not to worry about rising commodity prices, because the developing world is moving away from products made of the real world. Rick Bookstaber writes: Given our evolved interests a few decades hence, most of us will be spending a fraction of our income on consumption. There just won'tContinue reading “Financial analyst: “Pack up and move to the virtual world””
As men become weaker, movie heroes get stronger
That's according to a Harvard psychologist quoted in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. “As men have lost more economic power, more social power, they’ve wanted to look more pumped up,” [Emily] Fox-Kales said, pointing to the recent recession that disproportionately hit male-dominated jobs like construction and manufacturing. “Muscles have become an accessory, like pickup trucks.” TheContinue reading “As men become weaker, movie heroes get stronger”
Kit Stolz 