SansPretense

I just got back from a scientific meeting, and felt the need to reply to someone else’s post…

Alex Lockwood has linked to my previous post titled Limits to Free Speech, and has given a pretty thoughtful analysis of why free speech should be regulated. Of course, I disagree with him, and I’d like to provide a rebuttal.

Alex’s post is in the context of censoring the climate change debate. For the record, I am a climate change “skeptic” as the label goes. That’s not to say that I don’t believe the climate of the earth is changing. I just question the “proven beyond a reasonable doubt” claim that man is the primary factor behind changes that have been going on in very drastic ways for 5 billion years. Now, I’m not a climatologist, and, as a scientist (PhD candidate), I do appreciate the subtleties that one outside of a field may not appreciate as regard to the data and models. However, when I look at the data, I see a much closer link between solar activity and temperature variability than I do carbon dioxide levels and temperature variability. I won’t expand on that here, for it’s not the purpose of this post. All I will say is that if I and a bunch of non-climate experts were the only ones seeing such a link, I would dismiss it to my own ignorance. It’s the fact that many climatologists have come out to say the same things, among other facts like global warming in locations that have had very little human activity present there…you know, remote places like Jupiter, Pluto, Mars, a moon around Neptune, etc…I don’t feel like looking up the links now, but if you want the links to the news stories about these things, please say so in the comments and I will be happy to provide.

Here’s an excerpt from Alex (more after the fold)

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Since the closing scenes of Batman Begins, the anticipation for the sequel to Christopher Nolan’s take on the Batman hero has done nothing but increased. I have always held the opinion that Batman Begins wasn’t only the best Batman movie at the time, but will be considered among the best movies made. I’m not a comic book fan, so all I can do is compare the movies, and, without a doubt, Nolan’s take is much deeper and darker than the previously made movies.

His Batman movies are as much a character study as anything. Christian Bale’s version of Bruce Wayne is youthful, yet full of the inner torment that started with the violent death of his parents. Wayne’s butler, Alfred, played by Michael Caine, and “scientific advisor” Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) are superb in their archetypal roles as mentors. In the first movie, this is strongly contrasted against the mentoring role that Ra’s Al Ghul provided, teaching Bruce how to fight as a ninja, but with intentions that proved too extreme for the young man. In the end, Ra’s proves to be an enemy, not a friend, pitting his “solution” to fixing the problems of Gotham City against the idealism of Bruce Wayne’s alter ego. In Batman’s mind, the end does not justify the means.

Perhaps this is a hypocritical view for a vigilante taking the law into his own hands, and Bruce Wayne seems to realize this, for it is part of the central theme of sequel. The inner torment of Batman is thus set: how does one balance a dual identity without losing one’s self in the process? Alternatively, one can ask: which identity is the mask and which is the person? Is that even a fair question? Bruce Wayne, at the prodding of his butler, leads the flamboyant lifestyle of a young billionaire, throwing around money and women as commodities, while Batman is a man who greatly understands the other side of the coin. Having lived the life of a criminal (early in the first movie), Bruce Wayne has an ability to sympathize with the man on the street. Whereas Ra’s believes that all criminals deserve to die, Wayne, as Batman, believes in the notion of justice according to the law. His training under Ra’s has taught him discipline, lending a strong contrast to Wayne the billionaire.

I can keep going about the first movie, but the real intent of this post and review is to delve into the latest installment of the Batman series: The Dark Knight. Batman Begins was a great movie, but I find it difficult to compare it to the beauty of The Dark Knight. In this movie…(more after the fold)

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(Hey, at least I censored it.)

You know, I’m usually the one telling others that they are over-reacting, that the end of the world is not coming, the Saint’s ain’t gonna win the Superbowl, Hell isn’t freezing over, the Earth isn’t going to warm up so much that it explodes, and dammit, just because Miley Cyrus is acting like a typical 15-year old, and taking sexy childish poses of herself in a shower (with more to come for a price $$: I hope that bastard gets locked up for child porn…), she’s NOT a slut. I mean come on, people, give the girl a break. Who here doesn’t have embarrassing photos or videos floating around somewhere? Who here hasn’t done something they’re ashamed of, only to have it come back and haunt them later? Who here doesn’t have an ex that has dirt on you?…Well, you don’t count…Besides, her phone was hacked, according to the hacker (and assuming the photos aren’t fake). That should be considered theft of private property. Leave the poor girl alone…

Oh, yea, back to the topic at hand…I’m not the one to over-react and buy into the doomsday scenarios. But the more I read about the state of Western Civilization, the more it scares the living sh*t out of me. I’ve been reading, at a very slow pace, Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone. I mean, there’s no need to rush through the book, he says we have a few decades until the end of Western Civilization as we know it is here…these things don’t happen overnight, you know? To get an idea of what the book is about, check out the infamous excerpt that Steyn fixed up into an article for the Canadian Magazine Macleans (the equivalent of our Times magazine), titled, The Future Belongs to Islam. This very same article is going through litigation because it was considered to be hate speech by a certain group of people (see FreeMarkSteyn.com and my posts about it for more information - e.g., here, here, and here, for examples).

Now that’s the context. Here’s the article that I read this morning that really gets you thinking. I never knew who Howard Zinn was, but now I know. He’s an idiot. An intellectual idiot, but still an idiot. Yes, since I disagree with him, that makes him wrong, and therefore an idiot. Don’t try to tell me that I’m not always right. It’s been established on more than one occassion, that I am, indeed, 99.9% of the time, correct in my opinions. Sometimes my facts can be a bit shaky or exaggerated, in which case I correct them as soon as I learn that they are…not completely accurate. Anyway, back to Zinn. This guy from the Brussels Journal, a conservative blog, visited the northwestern US. Now, that was his first mistake. Sure, there’s a lot of beautifil scenery there, from what I hear, but when you go there, you have to put up with the idiots. So he named the area, “Zinnlandia.”

Here’s an excerpt (after the fold)

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Visit their website at M4GW.com. In all seriousness, there really are a lot more good benefits to global warming than bad…

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No, I promise, I’m not making a joke about the maturity and reasoning skills of liberal voters. I’m talking about the latest bill to try and get passed in Germany (hat tip Moonbattery):

Dozens of German politicians have tabled a new law to extend voting rights to babies, toddlers, children and teenagers.

The bill, which has won the cross-party backing of some heavyweight German politicians, would wipe away decades of “exclusion” and “discrimination” against minors, according to its supporters.

Currently the voting threshold in Germany is 18, with an exception in some states, where 16-year-olds are allowed to cast a ballot.

But that does not go far enough for the new law’s backers, who want to ensure voting rights from cradle to grave. If the bill gets adopted, babies will have the same powers to voice their opinion on government handling of macro-economic performance in a global downturn enjoyed by their parents.

Toddlers will be able to take a stand on issues such as whether German armed forces should be deployed abroad.

According to the head of the liberal Free Democratic Party ­ traditional coalition partner of Chancellor Merkel’s CDU party ­ the constitutional change would enfranchise 14 million people.

Yep. We need to enfranchise two year olds because, dammit, when they throw their temper tantrums, stamp their feet, break things, and lash out at their parents and authority figures, they certainly deserve to be taken just as seriously as their other liberal counterparts…

Of course, when you consider that toddlers aren’t that much less informed than many adult voters (hat tip to Five Feet of Fury), the only problem with extending voting rights is that the toddlers decision making abilities will give those who wish us to vote based on “feelings” and what the government can do for us will have a HUGE voting block.

So do you think McCain or Obama will have a better ability to reach out to the toddlers in this country? I’m pretty sure that McCain is too much of a cranky old man to bother…

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