Ignoring Inconvenient Facts

Roger Pielke Jr. links to a report on a study that identified a remarkable ability of our brains to ignore inconvenient facts: The test subjects on both sides of the political aisle reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted, Westen and his colleagues say. Then, with their minds made …

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Infill

Reminded by Coco’s trenchant observations on the politics of impact fees, I’ve a question: of all those new home permits being issued in the metro area, what proportion is in multi-home developments, and what proportion is in single-lot infill around the city’s fringes? My anecdotes tell me infill is going gangbusters right now, but I …

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A Trifle

More evidence that the British own this language and we’re just borrowing it for a bit. From New Scientist, the story of a chap “who confused his guests at a dinner party by apologising for an astringent apple-based dessert, saying:” This pie is a trifle tart.

More On Arctic Warming

From GRL: Even though the arctic zone of continuous permafrost has relatively cold mean annual air temperatures, we found an abrupt, large increase in the extent of permafrost degradation in northern Alaska since 1982, associated with record warm temperatures during 1989–1998. Our field studies revealed that the recent degradation has mainly occurred to massive wedges …

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