In a convergence of two topics near and dear to my journalistic heart, the Independent reports “Blair to give his blessing to new nuclear reactors as only way to cut emissions” Tony Blair is ready to give a new generation of nuclear power stations the go-ahead, Downing Street hinted last night. His expert on the …
Apparently I shouldn’t have been so quick to believe the tin foil hat study. Zapatopi suggests things may not be as they appear: There are serious flaws in this study, not the least of which is a complete mischaracterization of the process of psychotronic mind control. I theorize that the study is, in fact, NWO …
An amusing comment today from Roger Pielke Jr. about his experience as ringmaster of an on line debate over the relevance of the hockey stick climate reconstruction, placing himself squarely between warring tribes as he tried (with some success, I thought) to spark a useful discussion. I found it amusing to find myself being attacked …
Continue reading ‘Stuck in the Middle, Attacked by Both Sides’ »
A new paper by Jian Lu and Thomas Delworth argues tentatively for a link between greenhouse warming and drought in the Sahel.(Lu and Delworth, 2005) This matters, of course, far more than my usual hobbyhorse of drought in the southwestern U.S. Here when our water supplies run low because of drought, we suffer economic dislocation. …
Via Luis, Matt Asay discusses the King James Bible and free/open software. Until William Tyndale created his English translation, the Bible was Latin, the province of the priests (and even many of them only had access intermediated by the church): By making “public” the Bible, Tyndale enabled lay readers to discover Christianity for themselves, unmitigated …
Irony upon ironies. Ed Felten reports on the evidence that Sony’s profoundly troubling digital rights management software includes code from a number of GPL and LGPL programs. (It goes without saying that the programs do not comply with the GPL/LGPL.) In other words, the industry giant self-righteously arguing against the theft of intellectual property has …
Kevin Vranes, whose hockey stick post I discuss below, is part of a group of science policy bloggers at no/se/nada (well, it looks like the group is mostly Kevin). Added to the blogroll. Now that I’ve got a “science policy” section over there, Chris Mooney’s been added. I’ve shared my discomfort with his work, but …
Kevin Vranes pretty much nails it with an insightful analysis at Prometheus about the way the hockey stick debate has become such an odd sideshow: Inaction was the political response to the 2001 SPM* presentation of the hockey stick. The hockey stick both as science and icon could not have been more hyped. But They …
Now Michael Fumento’s editing his own Wikipedia page. Errr, I mean “Tracy Spenser” is editing Michael Fumento’s Wikipedia page.
Interesting piece by Sid Perkins (sub. req.) in the Oct. 29 Science News on the discovery of fossil sloths in Haiti and Cuba 4,000 years ago. In the longstanding debate between climate change and human hunting in the extinction of the big mammals in the Americas 10,000 years ago, score one for the humans with …