It’s another sign of the ongoing implosion among the carbonistas: the nutter comments come out as reality hits their big dream.
Noam Chomsky — linguistics professor, proves that a professorship doesn’t stop you saying silly things, and manages to spin a “vote for the conservatives” as a ticket to destroy the human race. I mean, how do you raise the stakes (of the spin) from here? What tops that? Perhaps by 2012 we will hear how those wrong votes could be taking out not just homo sapiens and polar bears, but all life on Earth?
As election campaign slogans go I don’t think it will catch on: “Vote for us or everyone dies”…
The dumb-punter-voters are too stupid to make good decisions. Democracy has failed. “Chomsky” ought to choose our leaders. Of course.
Thus the Anointed speaks.
— JN
From Climate Depot and Marc Morano
Noam Chomsky: GOP election amounts to ‘death knell for the human species’
Professor Noam Chomsky has suggested that the election of a GOP Congress amounts to a “death knell for the [human] species.” Chomsky, in an interview posted on The Nation’s website, lamented the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives and gains in the U.S. Senate may spell doom for the human race.
“The latest election, a couple of days ago, you could almost interpret it as a kind of death knell for the species,” Chomsky, an emeritus professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in the video published on The Nation’s website on January 5, 2011. (Chomsky’s remarks appear at about 12:50 into the video. Chomsky’s comments were picked up by the website Haunting the Library. See full report here.)
Chomsky goes on to explain that the election of Republicans who reject man-made global warming claims posed “a danger to the survival of the species.” “We’re essentially saying, ‘Let’s kiss each other goodbye,’” he added.
Chomsky was echoing the beliefs of Microbiologist Frank Fenner about human extinction. See: Humans could go extinct within 100 years, says renowned scientist — Fenner believes it’s already too late to save the human species from overpopulation and climate change
Other man-made global warming activists have predicted similar doom for humans. See: Flashback 2007: Green Guru James Lovelock Predicts Global Warming Doom: ‘Billions of us will die; few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in Arctic’ — Note: Lovelock later reversed himself: See: Lovelock in 2010: ‘We haven’t got the physics worked out yet…I think the public are right. That’s why I’m soft on the sceptics. Science has got overblown’
Also see: Climate Depot Factsheet on Inconvenient History of Global Warming ‘Tipping Points’ — Hours, Days, Months, Years, Millennium — Earth ‘Serially Doomed’
Chomsky expressed anger that society was rejecting the man-made climate fears and he dismissed the views of skeptical meteorologists as just “pretty faces that present the weather forecast.”
The Nation video also featured global warming and Peak Oil activists Bill McKibben, Nicole Foss, and Richard Heinberg.
Watch full video of Chomsky’s remarks here. (chomsky@mit.edu)
For more see: Haunting the Library’s January 21, 2011 report: Warmists Step Up Attacks on Democracy – Chomsky: Election of Republicans “Death Knell for Humans”
Bob Fergusson of SPPI points out the Chomsky’s remarks appear at about 12:50 into the video.
Thanks Peter D.
The science is toast and the politicians are running away from yesterday’s fad. It’s the end. Time for some denial/anger transients.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/the-death-of-the-agw-belief-system/
Pointman
20
Chomsky – wasn’t he that nutter who was railing against the fact that “whole tracts of the internet were being closed off by big business”? – I think he was referring to the practice of companies firewalling their networks to protect themselves from hackers.
He’s definitely an example of an anointed one. He has no qualms about going off half cocked about topics he can’t understand.
The only death knell the new senate poses is a death knell to the views of conspiracy theorist nutters like chomsky…..
20
Vote 1 Ray Cosmic.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article1107174.ece
10
Isn’t it funny that Venezuela’s proven oil reserves have INCREASED 26% this year, and that is after producing 100’s of millions of barrels of oil every year for the last 30 years. It’s a similar picture for Iraq, Iran, Norway, Brazil- the list goes on and on. Globally, oil reserves have increased every year since records began, on top of all the oil we burn every day. And yet these people still bleat on about PEAK OIL?!?
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=103299
10
The temperatures that climate science is strictly following is dropping like a stone and the AGW theory is history.
Yet these guys are going to keep this farse up no matter the lives at stake.
Wake up boys, the public is really questioning Climate Science credibility along with all the other science.
10
Good old Noam Chomsky. This guy is so bad off you can only feel sorry for him. He hasn’t made a rational statement in years.
I started counting up all the failed disaster/end-of-the-world prophecies I could remember but I ran out of fingers. I was too lazy to take my shoes off.
An internet search, even excluding the word bible, will come up with thousands of hits. The end of the world or the end of the human race has fascinated us for a long time. Here is just one such list of failed predictions.
The poor man is to be pitied.
10
The general rule as I was growing up was to respect your elders, honor your grandparents/parents, etc…
Then I hit college. In just our department, we had one proven full-professor kleptomaniac (there was video of him stealing from the physics underclassmen issue room). We had another full professor who was so bad at teaching that once when a student asked him a direct and cogent question during a lecture, he immediately changed the subject to what was on NOVA the previous night, and then continued his lecture. He never even attempted to answer the question. We had a department chair who thought that the non-calculus based lower-division physics courses were too hard, and sought to turn them into something more-akin to a liberal arts class where students talk about how to solve problems, instead of solving them. We had one full-time lecturer who was basically a full activist for the local U.S. Congressman, and was regularly spouting off about how everything was the fault of “those damn liberals”. We had several professors whose only goal was to maximize free time and units taught while doing as little teaching as possible. We had another professor that failed one girl from the same class three times, and every single one of us male students knew it was because he simply didn’t like women. We knew some of our test scores were worse (or should have been worse) than hers. There wasn’t much we could do about it.
I learned very quickly that old professors at colleges can be some of the most despicable people in the world. I now reserve judgement on 99% of people I meet.
10
This “demolition” by Donna Lamframboise fits in with recent threads by Jo
http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/ipcc-nobel-laureates-lack-scientific-credibility/
10
I thought we were all supposed to maintain a more civil discourse now? By casting this as a Human extinction event, life or death, Chomsky wouldn’t be inciting violence, would he? Leftists get their shorts in a twist when anyone even remotely connected with the Tea Party mentions something about defending liberty, but they don’t see anything wrong with this?
(They have already incited one leftist nutter to try to shoot up The Discovery Channel, because they “weren’t doing enough about climate change”. )
I guess you only have to be “civil” if you disagree with them.
Of course, Chomsky’s OK with genocide even, if it is done by the “right” people. I doubt that inciting nuts to knock off Republicans would bother him at all.
10
As a member of the human race, I’ll take my chances on surviving. What I DON’T want is a bunch of hyper-educated idiots attempting to manage anything AT ALL!
If they can’t cope in the real world that is their problem. If they need a modern day example of what can and will happen if they mess with democracy and my Constitution, I can provide those examples.
10
No need to wade through Chomsky’s writings — there is available a good simulation, called the “Chomskybot”. Simply keep refreshing the page to get your hit of brand new impenetrable jargon with vanishing levels of meaning (just like the original).
10
In fact, I think that’s a picture of the “Chomskybot” at the top of the article.
10
This is the same clown who supported Pol Pot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Noam_Chomsky
10
Uh Oh here is that ‘D’ word.
“Chomsky credits the Khmer Rouge dictatorship with saving up to a million lives”
http://www.paulbogdanor.com/deniers.html
10
Bob,
Chomsky is only too familiar already. The description of the Chomskybot reminds me a lot of the buzzword computer an old boss used to have. If you wanted to impress the customer turn the two dials and words would show up in two little windows in the cardboard “computer”. They were chosen so that they would appear to make sense when written together, at least if you were careful. That’s about all there is to Chomsky.
He’s very dangerous in this day when the fight is getting so vicious and out in the open. But he’s still just a pathetic fool nonetheless.
I’m somewhat surprised that he hasn’t been mentioned here on JN before. But he seems to have just discovered that he can blowviate about the Republicans in connection with global warming. Or maybe I just missed earlier nonsense from him about it.
I don’t think I’ll waste my time on the bot.
As Mark D. said…well I don’t need to repeat it, you can read it at post 10.
10
Forgive me if I bow out of further discussion. Wallowing in the vacuous raving of this truly pathological man is not on my agenda.
10
I know I’m completely out of my tree here, but is there anyone out there that might qualify for the following position.
It would be nice to have somebody inside the ABC news room.
10
I was given a copy of one of Chomsky’s books and read it from start to finish. This was during the early 1990’s, if memory serves me. His writing style reminded me of Stephen J Gould’s (American palaentologist) or Harry Pearson’s (Editor of the Absolute Sound Magazine) styles – ponderous, beautifully crafted and written, but ultimately devoid of any substantial meaning. Well, there was a point to their writing and it was well hidden among the forrests of prose, but beautifully written. It’s probably the origin of the perjorative “The Chattering Classes”.
I gave the book away, needless to say.
10
Jo Lalond @ #5
That’s because CAGW is a belief system, and kept alive by constant discussion by the chattering classes. I’ve suddenly realise that a lot of geological theory, especially fossil fuel and plate tectonis, fall into the same category – products of technical verbosity – but not really based in scientific fact. So too with CAGW since it’s a product of the same mindset. It’s assumed true because most say it is so.
10
Ahoy Louis
I would have thought a bloke who spends as much time in the field as you probably do could find a better purpose, lighting a camp fire perhaps.
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Ahoy Bob
Unfortunately it is a fair bet there is a “filtering” regime with multiple choice questions & interview to keep the ranks of the foot soldiers & heralds pure (the Watermellon Australia Policy ).
10
Chomsky, like Germaine Greer, will make bizarre comments on any subject whatever just for the pleasure of reminding us he still breathes.
10
Chomsky makes the mistake that so many Americans are making these days – he doesn’t realise the whole balance of wealth and power has changed dramatically in the past 20 years. He says that the US, being the world’s richest country, must lead the way. China couldn’t care less what the US does as they are now the No1 world power. Just check this photo to see how things have changed. Shanghai in 1990 compared to Shanghai in 2010.
http://twistedsifter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/shanghai-then-and-now-1990-vs-2010.jpg
10
Bit of a shame that he got all wrapped up in things way outside his field of expertise. His web site has some decent reads:
http://www.chomsky.info/
I am the first to admit that I have read a few of Chomsky’s articles (on the site) and he makes a lot of good points about politics, society and the media. Take for example his thesis that neither political party properly represents the electorate in the USA anymore. It is fairly hard to debate that point… US politicians are beholden to special interest groups which, more often than not, will not have views which align with that of the general public.
What I find amusing with Chomsky is that he has celebrated democratic elections in countries where questionable leaders/parties have been elected but now he bemoans the outcome in his own country. Sorry mate, but you can’t have it both ways.
As for climate change, he is better off not commenting at all. He would be better served spending an afternoon a few buildings across campus chatting to Prof Lindzen.
Chomsky, like Sowell, is someone to be taken in small doses… each have their good points, but both have fallen prey to their own hubris IMHO. Whenever anyone tells you the answer is really straight forward on anything to do with economics, climate or politics you can rest assured they do not fully comprehend the situation or are deliberately dumbing it down for the reader for reasons you can only speculate upon…
10
PS> That video was laughable BTW… peak oilies are as bad as Ehlichians, Malthusians, Club of Romers and CAGWers…
10
They’re certainly #1 in population and pollution (also executions). I’m not worried, but China’s rulers are — as the population begins to see what is possible they are becoming much less tolerant of the “old men” autocracy running the country.
John Stewart had an interesting comment on China and the US tonight:
“When a country owes you a billion dollars, they have a problem.”
“When a country owes you a trillion dollars, you have a problem.”
10
Pattoh @ #20
Book burning I leave to the ‘socialists’; they are very good at it.
10
Australia has its own share of psychos in high places.
10
Louis
Sadly the reality of heating costs in the UK has reportedly resulted in pensioners in particular actually burning books ( cycled out of library circ etc. ) for warmth. At least North Sea Gas doesn’t give off too much particulate load.
10
Pattoh @ #29
Cripes, I wonder how John Brignell (he of the Numberwatch) is coping in your part of the world – I hope he doesn’t have to resort to burning his remainders (books) to cook food or to keep the home warm.
I wonder if the London Geological Society realises that under all those coal deposits in the UK, one might find “oil”…. but that means raising the heresy of Abiotic Oil theory and the LGS, being thoroughly Lyellian in outlook, would be incapable of thinking this. Not even their post normal scientists could.
A tragedy indeed to be sitting on so much energy and not the wit to do something to use it.
10
Bob Malloy @ #17
To get that position one would need to be a green hermaphrodite.
10
Global Tipping Point Competion? – This would be a great new Tipping Competition – pick the winner this year 2011, Shortest tipping point. Longest tipping point – maybe no tipping point by any of the AGW or IPCC people? Prize could be a CO2 injection.
Noam Chomsky has placed his bet on 100 years – I’m going for 9010???
http://climatedepot.com/a/7115/Laugh-Riot-190year-climate-tipping-point-issued–Despite-fact-that-UN-began-10Year-Climate-Tipping-Point-in-1989
10
After reading what Prof Chomsky has to say as well as some of the comments, I think I have a new, if rather odd insight on this debate and the role the main stream media play in it. For several years I was a Boy Scout Leader and when you take 11-15 year old boys to the back woods with knives, matches, flammable liquids and ignition devices you’d think that disaster would be continually lurking around the corner and it probably is. The one thing that helps the leaders prevent the worst of these disasters is that when the boys are going to do something dumb, they tend to be very vocal about it. In fact the dumber and more dangerous the idea, the louder it will be expressed.
Now look at the global warming debate in this context and the role the mainstream media is playing. Skeptics have long complained that the MSM only gives credence to the alarmist side of the arguement and that the most shrill and threatening scenarios get the most press in the media. Fortunately, the bulk of the voting public is not as brilliant as the academic scholars and are incapable of following the wild rationalizations of some in academia. So when a thinly supported academic extrapolition gets to the point that it will affect public policy and cause real economic damage, there is a mechanism (an election) for changing the direction of public policy.
So in the future when I see an absurd MSM story about how climate change can be used to rationalize anything, I will trust in the wisdom of the voting public to act in its own self interest. After all its the crazies like Prof. Chumsky that provide the real clarity to us all.
10
Sean2829 @ 33
I liked your post but I have one suggestion where you note:
I have observed that what the “bulk of voting public” may lack in technical brilliance, is offset by superior abilities detect bullshi_. Chomsky and the other Doomsayers will only make fools of themselves in the eyes of the average voter.
The bigger worry is the reasonably well educated that actually fall for what Chomsky says because they have lost their bullshi_ detecting abilities having been washed out by their education.
10
Bulldust @ 24
Actually it is really straight forward as long as you are not trying to get something for nothing and eat your cake and have it too.
The so called complexities come from the attempts to violate the Three Laws of Thermodynamics and the evasion of the fact that magic is inoperative in this universe. All such attempts end up being variations on stealing accumulated wealth and sacrificing innumerable victims in the name of anti-reality fantasies.
It is as straight forward as: Reality is real and any attempt to act otherwise will have immediate and significant consequences – all the time, every time, every where, and every when. After that, things do get a bit more complicated.
10
Bulldust @24,
Here’s a little food for thought (in spite of having said I would bow out):
It’s very easy to find people who can point out the problems. They come a-dime-a-dozen from all directions, left, right and center.
What’s a little harder to find is someone who knows how to solve those problems. They’ve been in short supply for all of human history. Most of the worst problems are probably unsolvable, being built into human nature. If I remember correctly, personal self interest ranks quite high on the list of primal human priorities.
I don’t want to labor over the point but Chomsky is only one of many complainers. And he does it in the most outrageous way possible almost all the time. Frankly — and with apologies to Jo — I don’t think he deserves so much attention.
10
Louis @ 30
I must admit to ignorance of John Brignall & Numberwatch so I googled it. That gave me the best laugh I have had in a long time & it is now registered in “favourites”. Thankyou!
Further I am happy to say my part of the world (Central NSW) is covered in sacred carbon sequestering woody weeds & pisolites. No snow here.
Lyell’s Principals takes pride of place on my shelf as well.
10
Meanwhile Monckton has written an opinion piece in the Australian that shows that our spending/wasting billions $ will only reduce global warming by 0.001C
Perhaps some of the maths experts here would like to check out his calculation.
He also covers a fair bit of the CAGW fairy story as a summary, let’s hope he causes a stir and stops Aussies from being crucified on the alter of this mad new cult.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/earths-climate-crisis-aint-necessarily-so/story-e6frg6xf-1225992476627
10
I wish to show a system wide failure that has lead up to a crisis that has never been experienced before. This failure is putting lives in danger due to inaccurate and systematic errors brought on by a system that encourages inaccuracy.
The United States government set up a grant system that encourages the global warming theory through these grants for climate scientists. This in turn has set up a peer-review system for publishing that generated an
10
I wish to show a system wide failure that has lead up to a crisis that has never been experienced before. This failure is putting lives in danger due to inaccurate and systematic errors brought on by a system that encourages inaccuracy.
The United States government set up a grant system that encourages the global warming theory through these grants for climate scientists. This in turn has set up a peer-review system for publishing that generated an “old boys club” of reviewing materials for publishing. The United Nations and the IPCC gained from this through their own agenda of more funding and greater control of climate related issues.
Temperature data and models on temperature data was gathered through many sources and formulas were created so that the gathered information could generate a pattern. This pattern then is used for generating a viable prediction based strictly on temperature data.
This data also uses oscillations of ocean temperatures with the currents of oceans.
Climate science and meteorology are completely different in scope as climate science is long-term prediction and meteorology is short-term predictions.
This type of system then ignored any and all climatic physical events that were not temperature measured.
In the 1970’s the ocean surface salinity (salt) started to change which was passed off as a global warming event through evaporation and NEVER explored any further.
Recent changes to the ocean show that this was far from what science thought it was.
The salinity changes were an atmospheric event of pressure rather than evaporation. A vast amount of evaporation would have to occur to produce the same rest of increased salt. If anything the salt should have been diluted more due to the slight increases in ocean levels from the melting Arctic and glaciers. This event of increased surface salt inhibited the solar penetration of what would normally be absorbed in the ocean and circulated. Ocean circulation heat disappeared and thought may have gone deeper not connecting the salt changes on the ocean surface. It takes 30 years for equatorial water to circulate to the Arctic.
The current oceans waters around the equatorial regions have been cooling and spreading (even though it is receiving full solar penetration) and the warm ocean currents are currently in the Arctic. This has generated vast amounts of evaporation due to the dense cold air that is moving across them and has put most of the northern hemisphere landmass under cloud cover. This has changed the circulation system in the northern hemisphere to become colder and has generated a great deal of precipitation. Meteorologists are noticing climate patterns never seen before and temperature dropping globally. A great deal of flooding is due to the massive amount of water vapor currently in the atmosphere and these changing weather patterns.
Here are the reference sites that back up my research;
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?cid=897&pid=12455&tid=282
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/ensosea-levelsea-surface-temperature-page/
http://uk.weather.com/mapRoom/mapRoom?lat=10&lon=0&lev=1&from=global&type=sat&title=Satellite
The satellite map shows almost all of the northern hemisphere landmass to be covered in cloud cover when using the animation feature.
As you can see, these concerns are warranted.
10
another scientist claims global warming caused Brisbane floods.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/23/3119109.htm?section=justin
10
Imagine one kilometre of atmosphere that you want to clean up. For the sake of the discussion, imagine you could walk along it.
The first 770 metres are Nitrogen.
The next 210 metres are Oxygen.
That’s 980 metres of the 1 kilometre. Just 20 metres to go.
The next 10 metres are water vapour. Just 10 metres left to go.
9 metres are argon. 1 metre left out of 1 kilometre.
A few gases make up the first bit of that last metre.
The last 38 centimetres of the kilometre – that’s carbon dioxide.
A bit over one foot.
97% is produced by Mother Nature. It’s natural. It has always been in the atmosphere otherwise plants couldn’t grow.
Out of our journey of one kilometre, there are just 12 millimetres left. About half an inch. Just over a centimetre.
That’s the amount of carbon dioxide that global human activity puts into the atmosphere.
And of those 12 millimetres Australia puts in .18 of a millimetre.
Less than the thickness of a hair. Out of a kilometre.
So in every kilometre of atmosphere, complete with green-house gases regulating the climate – in every kilometre reflecting back and retaining the sun’s heat on earth, just .18 of one millimetre is contributed by Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions.
10
This so called “professor” “Peter Grace is now ON MY HIT LIST!!
HERE IS HIS EMAIL ADDRESS:-
pr.grace@qut.edu.au
Email him and tell him some home truths!!!!!!!
Here is a link to his COCONSPIRATORS:-
http://www.isr.qut.edu.au/about/staff/
Add them to your hit list of email addresses!
This is the NEFARIOUS ORGANIZATION that they are employed by.
Institute for Sustainable Resources (isr)
http://www.isr.qut.edu.au/about/
SOB’s TRAITORS to their fellow Australians the lot of them!!
They should hang their heads in shame for promoting FRAUD!
10
NEWS (?): Bias at the Beeb? It’s written through the BBC’s very DNA, says Peter Sissons
Entertaining commentary from one of their longest serving Newsreaders, in the Mail today.
Even the Alonymous Gore gets a mention.
10
Before the AGW alarmist scurry away and hide they should be chased and charged with several criminal offences before it’s all forgotten and smothered by the next scam. I know it won’t happen because the people in general have been fed with so much false and corrupted information on AGW it will take decades before the truth is revealed and understood by all.
10
After reading the recent article on “The Anointed”, I now find it no surprise that Noam Chomsky is a linguistics professor (thank you Louis).
I believe to garner public support science should strive to communicate complex issues in simple terms so that the average person understands how the science relates to them personally.
Strange that these experts of communication and English language expression (The Anointed ) are failing to communicate to the common man the ‘solid’ science behind CAGW and why we should sacrifice our current and future prosperity for it’s cause. You would think someone of Chomsky’s expertise would be able to avoid hyperbole if his arguments were on solid ground.
Thankfully it seems the AGW gig is up and the anointed will soon need to find another cause to put us under their spell.
10
Noam Chomsky was one of the exciting, underground voices of the American left in the 1960s; in the era when ASIO was watching them, I would visit Leftist bookshops as I was entering adulthood around 1970 to find his highly-prized writings about the evils of the CIA in overthrowing Third World governments like Chile’s. It was very subversive to even want to access such hard-to-get research information and I am indebted to Professor Chomsky for providing it. However, Noam Chomsky is still reading word-for-word the anti-American socialist manifesto he learned in the 1960s – a manifesto that now uses climate change doctrine to attack capitalism. The rest of us grew up.
10
Aren’t the enviro nuts the ones who want the Earth’s population reduced to a half billion from today’s seven billion?
10
Peer review?
Apparently it is meaningless.
If they didn’t look at his data or his methodology, what DID they look at?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/02/parliament_climategate/page2.html
“Jones said that during the peer review process, nobody had ever asked for raw data or methodology.”
10
PS: Of course I should have said I was reading Chomsky in the mid-’70s. Chile’s Allende wasn’t overthrown until 1973.
10
Percival Snodgrass: @43
I just spent some time examining the ISR. It has a staff of 23 hanging off the tit. Last year they published 1 paper.
in 2009 they also published 1 paper!
Without climate change they would have no research.
10
I’ve read enough of Chomsky’s work that if he told me the sky was blue, I’d go take a look to see what color it really was.
10
Are you sure that’s Noam Chomsky in the picture? Maybe he and Wilson “Iron Bar” Tuckey are twins?
10
Doesn’t matter much what he looks like John, he can still be infantile and as mad as a hatter.
Anyhow tell us where Monckton is wrong and then tell us how we Aussies can make even a Bee’s dick of difference even if we are madly delusional enough to try.
Remember China and the developing world are emitting faster than the flatlining developed world are reducing, so it’s simply false to say we can fix CC.
In other words fixing or tackling CC is really arithmetically impossible, even for the mad cultists who believe in this nonsense.
10
Noam Chomsky. I was hoping it was a different Noam Chomsky. But I fear it is the same one who influenced Queensland (and Australian)linguistic education many years ago. I was teaching and suddenly all the rules regarding language teaching changed. The idea that reading and writing had to be taught was tossed out. It was said that since children learnt to listen and speak without help before grade 1 then all you had to do was “immerse” children in books and, PRESTO, they would read and write by grade 1. It was also called learning ‘by osmosis’. I believe Noam Chomsky had a great deal to do with pushing this method. NOW, at last, it has been thrown away and replaced with older methods including grammar, Latin and Greek roots, spelling tests, sounding, phonetics, etc. He also seems to be an “expert” on all kinds of items. In fact, one could say he probably thinks that what he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing.
10
janama:
January 23rd, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Percival Snodgrass: @43
I just spent some time examining the ISR. It has a staff of 23 hanging off the tit. Last year they published 1 paper.
Title
Impacts and adaptation response of infrastructure and communities to heatwaves: the southern Australian experience of 2009 an initiative of NCCARF – National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, funded by the Commonwealth Government of Australia.
———————
So what did people do in response to the heatwaves? I’ll bet they bought more air conditioners and more electricity need to be generated.
I wonder what these cretins got for a piece of garbage like this?
We need a severe clean out of academia. Maybe 5% of them are worth feeding. The rest are mere highly paid child minders.
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John Brookes @ #53
Actually, John, I had him down as Ian Carmichael – post mortem.
10
Stan, nobody has the time to do any of that stuff in peer review. All peer review is for, really, is to assure the editor that he or she won’t print something that the journal’s readership thinks is dumb, “obviously” wrong, or offensive. Scientific journals can’t afford to offend the readership — at the prices they charge, it doesn’t take much of a boycott to have a serious effect. This was used by the UK scientists (re: Climategate) to keep editors in line.
The best peer review can do is to make sure that prior work is adequately referenced, and there are no glaring mathematical mistakes (to the reviewer’s knowledge, that is — Michael Mann’s reviewers didn’t know any more about statistics than he did).
The worst it can do, of course, is to maintain an “Old Boy’s” grip on what gets published.
What you really want is an independent audit. The necessary auditing of climate science is now being done by unpaid amateurs and retired scientists. It’s not going well for the alarmists, who are resisting it with all they can muster.
10
Chumpsky is angry that we won’t buy his theory and predictions. Angry … like a little school child gets angry when the bully takes his hat and tosses it in a tree.
The Lefties do throw tantrums when they can’t prove their point or back it with facts or evidence. When the BS doesn’t do the job all that’s left is … well … a tantrum and some dire threats …
The left has nothing. I repeat … NOTHING.
Their stupidity has been and still is being tried in several places and it has or is failing absolutely everywhere.
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Well – I reckon you ought to listen to the guy.
Why – only the other day I saw a man in the street wearing a sandwich board saying: ‘The end of the world is nigh’…
Made me think…
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Mike Borgelt @56,
The problem is that academic and the Hollywood types live in a similar world where they can imagine solutions to problems but never be forced to live in the world they’d create. They can even imagine problems without being challenged. They’re never under any requirement to produce something beyond the fantasy level of the movie screen in both cases, so there’s never a reality check.
I taught for 17 years at the Community College level and the divorce between reality and academic thinking was sometimes quite stunning. It was highly politicized in the sciences for sure — global warming settled, no debate possible; the student newspaper bought this, hook, line and sinker. And in the name of academic freedom you could literally teach your own opinion if you wanted to. To be fair, not everyone was this way. But some of the worst were those who were active in the teacher’s union.
The challenge for education — from kindergarten on up to the Ivy League — is not to throw out the bad apples. It’s to get back accountability to the right people. If we toss out the bad apples but don’t manage the accountability problem we’ll just have more bad apples.
My own thesis is that life has gotten far too easy in Western Civilization so the result of bad decisions could be put off for along time. But the result is still there and is rapidly catching up with us. And as things get tougher people begin to wake up. Those who have been spending billions of our money and looking to enslave us with their Marxism and man-made energy poverty are starting to look like part of the problem. I think they will be their own undoing. We should help them along wherever we can.
I don’t know how far it will go. But I see it starting even in the tragic floods in Australia which by what I read on JN, have moved a lot of people to start seriously questioning government’s inattention to its responsibilities.
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Update by Haunting the Library:
Layer upon layer of brazen deception is the alarmists’ stock-in-trade.
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OT: Could I ask a question re: the recent Indian research on cosmic rays and the climate? (I’m not a troll, I would really like to understand but I think I must have something arse-about.)
A couple of recent papers have suggested that 40% of the effect attributed to the mystical “forcings” could be because of decreasing cosmic rays due to increasing solar activity over the past 150 years. But at the moment we have a quiet sun, so therefore the heliosphere should be less effective, thus more cosmic radiation (which from memory has been observed by NASA), therefore this effect would currently be lessened. Am I missing something?
Thanks in advance.
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There are no bounds to the villainy of the alarmist industry.
“Climate change: Dogs of law are off the leash”
for now.
Conversely, turning the litigation tables on alarmists may well be just around the corner. For example, to what extent were flood mitigation strategies ignored on the strength of the Queensland Government’s report predicting drought, not floods?
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Graham @62,
They will have to lie and cheat to show any damages. But of course that won’t stop them.
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Words of wisdom:
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/
Full article here: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/greens-be-dammed-we-need-protection/story-fn6bn88w-1225992915021
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Bit off topic but relating to electric cars. I see that GM is producing a hybrid car for $40,000US. Although the $AUD is almost equal to $USA cars are much cheaper in USA. So to buy the VOLTA would here probably be $70,000AUD. GM will not sell at cost. The Toyota Prius is sold at below cost in order to create volume sales. Anyway, the Volta can go about 100km on battery before the gasoline engine takes over. Then it is plugged in at home for 8 hours overnight. Notice that we are being asked to reduce power as much as possible between 4PM and 8PM. I notice TV stations don’t advertise this too much as obedience would destroy their existence. Bearing that in mind if, somehow magically all Australians were given a Prius or Volta, imagine the enormous drain on electricity supply between say, 10PM and 6AM!!! I don’t believe the car manufacturers or the politicians, especially the Greens, or most people have given much thought to this. Unless a huge increase in coal or nuclear power is aimed for then all the cute ideas using electric power will fade into oblivion.
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I have given up buying the West Australian Newspaper all except for Monday for the Can You Help Column. This due to the amount of BS on Climate Alarmism in the West. Unfortunately there is an Opinion Piece in today’s edition on page 21. It is by former Labor state Minister Alannah Mactiernan. It is entitled “Time to face the harsh reality of climate cost”
She gets stuck into Tony Abbott and sticks up for Bob Brown. Hopefully Alston will see it.
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Chomsky has had good points on power politics and social issues and he probably have been attractive for many young people, they usually like it when there are easy prompt answers. But when people continue to have this simplistic view when aging there is something wrong, usually the world and how it works comes more complicated with more knowledge. Chomsky seems to have dead sure and easy answers on just everything, just because he knows or knows somebody that knows. He has become an old fool whit not much knowledge of the world we live in now and not just on global warming.
Chomsky from the interview:
“Two sides is presented as objectivity, as there was two sides.
One side is 98% of scientists who know anything the other side is Senator Inhofe and a couple of stragglers and that’s the two sides … they leave out a third side which is the substantial number of climate scientists who believe that the consensus predictions is much too optimistic, including some of the leading scientists right here who recently run what they called the most extensive modeling ever done that concludes that its far worse than anticipated and their own results is an understatement cause they don’t take in to account such things as effects of methane after the permafrost disappear and so on …”
Richard Lindzen is a professor of Meteorology at MIT, could that have something to do with Chomskys attack on meteorologists as just pretty faces reading scripts and was of no more use on the Climate Change issue as the opinion of your barber.
Chomsky on AGW 1998:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dYQ_mt6W80
Back then there where at least 6 bad scientists on the “other side” taking up 50% of the media. And there was dome and glom about Europe getting in to a new ice age due to disruption of the Gulf Stream and other fantastic dome predictions.
An more recently talk by Chomsky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdAFV1l5qPI&NR=1
This time the two sides in the AGW debate is 99% of the scientists and the other side is Rush Limbaugh, Sara Palin and Senator Inhofe.
—————————–
Richard Lindzen and Hadi Dowlatabadi debate the issue in a adult manner as serious scientists:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJwayalLpYY
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A. Layman: Don’t know about any research in India, but in Denmark, Here is a summary of Svensmark’s work on the relationship between cosmic rays, clouds, and climate — with links to the papers and other data.
Basically, the idea is that when the Sun is relatively inactive, it’s magnet field doesn’t do as good a job of shielding Earth from medium energy cosmic rays. These charged particles then are able to make it into the lower atmosphere of the Earth where they create ionized particles that seed water droplet formation and hence clouds. Cosmic cloud seeding.
Since the Sun is currently fairly inactive, we would expect more cloudiness, and hence cooling temperatures by this hypothesis. I would like to see if the current albedo measurements are also increasing, but don’t have a site that updates them — I will look.
Bob
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elsie@67:
Is that your real name? The popularity of Elsie as a female name peaked in 1895 in the US, and then declined to almost zero, but started to make a bit of a comeback 5 years ago. But I’m guessing your older than 5.
Anyway, enough of the smalltalk. The government would be only too happy if people would charge their electric cars from 10pm to 6am each night. During this time power usage is low, and power station capacity is underutilised.
What governments and power generators hate is anything which uses power at peak periods – because this means they have to build new power stations. It has been suggested that electric cars with some battery capacity left could actually feed power back into the grid during high power usage events (e.g. really hot days). Not sure if its a good idea.
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A. Layman @#63
From one layman to another!
Further to BobC @#70, cosmic rays and cloud formation is addressed, for example, by Prof Ian Plimer in his text heaven+earth (Dec 2009). Just to give two excerpts, one specific and, for the benefit of alarmists, one general:
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How could anything cogent come out of this (Gehry’s Stata Centre MIT, where Chomsky has offices)?
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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/earths-climate-crisis-aint-necessarily-so/story-e6frg6xf-1225992476627
I had my say but they didn’t want it.
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Thanks Bob and Graham.
That’s how I read it as well. I’m just wondering how the currently quiet sun fits in. Presumably we should expect the “rear end” to fall out of the warming once the lag sorts itself out and more lower atmospheric clouds form?
It’s just that I’m involved in a discussion with a rabid warmist re: the fantasy of the forcing and I can’t bring this up without a reasonable handle on it. It’s a bit of a beer and skittles affair, but he’s got something of a superiority complex so I need some help in this respect.
(Made sure I didn’t put any bad words in this time as I think this must be why I was in waiting to be moderated purgatory for hours after I posted.)
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Aw hell, he looks a lot like Woody Allen. Which really crushes me coz I’m a really big fan of Woody…
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Some ways to challenge those who think nothing else counts except CO2:
1) Solar cycle length correlation to global temps (seems to be related to the geomagnetic field — the Sun’s effect on Earth’s magnetic shield — but can be reconstructed from historical data): Solar Activity and Climate
Since we’re just had a very long cycle (#23), the prediction is for continuing and increasing cooling. The Warmistis claim that this correlation has been recently (1970+) broken, but that took some serious manipulation of the data (also, see here, here, and here). Regardless, the amount of cooling predicted by this correlation will be impossible to hide, as the CAGW alarmists are finding out. (People freezing to death in the UK, while the MET proclaims “the hottest year ever” doesn’t help their credibility.)
2) CO2 models are “politically fit” to the data, and don’t stand up to logic or the many peer-reviewed studies done before the current “1000’s and 1000’s of years” meme had taken hold. Here and here are good reviews of the state of the real science and knowledge vs. the models. The conclusion that the data really supports? Humans might be responsible for 5% of the CO2 in the air, but it will be very difficult to impossible to advance that to 10-15%. Response time of the atmosphere (up or down) is ~ 5-10 years, not 100s to 1000s.
3) The entire claim for cutting Human emissions of CO2 is based on the supposed predictive ability of the AGW hypothesis and the models representing it. We’ve all see how “good” the models are at predicting the last several year’s climate (NOT!), but peer-reviewed studies have shown that the AGW models have no predictive skill that is distinguishable from chance (also, see here). The warnings are therefore politically motivated and scientifically bogus.
4) What about CO2? How much have Humans actually affected it? CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has been increasing by 0.5% per year for 50 years (Mauna Loa data). This implies CO2 concentrations will double in about 140 years. At the same time, Human CO2 output tripled. There is no evidence that Human emissions have had any effect on the rate of atmospheric increase.
How much effect does a doubling of CO2 have? The direct calculation of the effect of doubling CO2 shows an energy increase of 3.7 W/m^2 at the ground. NOAA’s estimate of total greenhouse effect — 35 deg C for 150 W/m^2 — implies a climate sensitivity of 0.233 deg C/W/m^2, or 0.86 deg C per CO2 doubling.
So, the current state of the science is that CO2 is on track to double in 140 years, and that will cause less than 1 deg C of warming. Everything else is rank speculation, or “projections” from computer models that have shown no predictive skill.
The alarmists are driven by politics, not science or data.
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BobC @#77
A good thing, too. Numerous experiments with CO2 enrichment demonstrate that
Free Air Carbon dioxide Experiments (FACE) are continuing around the world, including Australia. FACE experiments and results are described in this lecture from 14:05, with Conclusions at 49:38.
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Thanks again, Bob.
This is the Indian study I referred to before:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/21/cosmic-rays-contribute-40-to-global-warming-study/
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Had an anthropology professor who used to refer to him as “Chimpsky”.
http://thetruthpeddler.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/latest-data-confirms-a-global-cooling-trend/
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Power generators hate high peak usage? John, you regularly come up with nutty statements but that must take the cake. Next you will be telling me that fishmongers hate Good Friday.
To be fair though, some power generators are government owned and thus they are really in the business of both generation and distribution, while pretending to “sell” to themselves and “buy” from themselves. However, ignoring that anomaly, the private power generators are perfectly happy to see spot prices slam through the roof during peak periods.
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“John Brookes”, given the INANE and PUREILE comments that you espouse one can only conclude that YOU were the one at school who was asked to sit in the corner wearning the pointed hat with the letter D annotated on it!!
Stop making a FOOL of yourself.
People laugh AT you and not with you!
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Mr Obama has just punted his equivalent of Mr Combet, a Ms Browner, into touch, with no help from Mr Chomsky or any mastodons from the GOP.
OK, technically she is resigning. Just before Mr Obama’s state of the nation address. Hmm.
Interesting events happening in the US. The EPA head Ms Jackson must have a few things to think about right now.
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As election campaign slogans go I don’t think it will catch on: “Vote for us or everyone dies”…
You think so? How about “Vote for the bank bailout or we’ll declare martial law”
Please don’t underestimate these villans.
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They could steal an idea from the National Lampoon’s Marketing Gimmick.
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No, no, how ridiculous, just homo sapiens and polar bears. And corals. Yes, polar bears and homo sapiens and corals. That’s it. Plus tree frogs. “Voting for conservatives will destroy all humans, polar bears, tree frogs, and corals.” … Mustn’t forget the salmon. Yes, now, “Voting Republican will unequivocally completely destroy all salmon, humans, tree frogs, corals, and polar bears.” Good. Of course, bighorn sheep too…
Ahem. “Voting for unequivocal conservatives will irrefutably destroy all bighorn sheep, humanity, polar frogs, salmon, bears, and tree corals!” No… No… Let me begin again…
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Re: “Vote for us or everyone dies”,
It worked for Capone in Chicago. But it couldn’t happen again; Chicago has been cleaned up. They all moved to Washington.
Oooops!
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You all have seen these, haven’t you?
Shearman, David J. C, and Joseph Wayne Smith. 2007. The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy. Westport, Conn: Praeger Publishers.
hauntingthelibrary. 2011. IPCC Green Doctor Prescribes End to Democracy to Solve Global Warming. Opinion. hauntingthelibrary. January 5. http://hauntingthelibrary.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/ipcc-green-doctor-prescribes-end-to-democracy-to-solve-global-warming/
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Dixie; That’s going to be a hard sell — “Listen up, everybody! We have to scrap all your freedoms and convert to a Communist dictatorship right now to save the Earth!”
What do the authors say about the well-known fact that the various dictatorships around the world have (and have had) the absolute worst environmental records, while the liberal democracies have the best?
(My guess is that they say nothing — hoping you are ignorant.)
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BobC
What do the authors say about the well-known fact that the various dictatorships around the world have (and have had) the absolute worst environmental records, while the liberal democracies have the best?
Isn’t it amazing how quickly the environmentals have forgotten the filthy industries that were hidden behind the Iron Curtain? Even Greenpeace had to shut up when the true state of the East was revealed – okay, so they only shut up for five minutes, but still.
After years of accusing capitalism of reckless and deliberate pollution the greens were forced to accept that Marxism and absolute state control weren’t so good for Gaia either.
A competitive workplace, while it has its drawbacks, does at least encourage the quest to improve. Part of that is the search for more efficient alternatives.
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There is too much ad hominem amongst sceptics. It is futile. And it is weak. Too much: ‘Chomsky’s a nutter’ when he’s not. He is a brilliant dedicated totalitarian who hates life in the West. Since this is the best society, and is thus an extension of the life principle, he hates life.
Between 1976 and 1980 he actively defended the Khmer Rouge death camp of Cambodia, the most monstrous regime seen on this planet since pre-historic times. Anyone who can do this has lost all sense of a common human morality. He has turned his back on humanity – ‘evil be thou my good’. To accuse him of being crazy seriously underestimates both him and his followers. It is a tactical failure, as, I am sorry to say, are serious factual arguments about CO2 etc. Chomsky is not interested in facts. He is interested solely in the overthrow of the West. This is an argument about morality. ‘Groupthink’ is now enjoying its greatest revival since the days of the NSDAP; and Chomsky is one of its core thinkers.
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I don’t know, Kolnai … If that’s not a definition of a “nutter”, I’m not sure what is. We could go moralistic and call him evil, I suppose; but what makes someone dedicate his life to evil? Being a nutter, maybe.
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Serious factual arguments about AGW are only a tactical failure if the goal is to convert Chomsky and others as fanatical as he. I believe, however, that the vast majority of humans are much more concerned about the quality of their lives than about destroying human civilization. Factual arguments let them see how they are being manipulated by the anti-humans and will win the day eventually.
If there ever were a majority of humans that thought like Chomsky, there would be no rational recourse. Fight or flight would be the sole option.
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@88,
Unequivocally NO! Come back when you have an actual problem to show me. Democracy has not failed and freedom is something you will regret losing if you let it slip out of your hands. Oh, I forgot, you only intend to take mine. You’ll keep yours will you not?
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Pooh Dixie @ 88 Thanks for the link. I sometimes wonder if it good for my health to read such stuff.
While visiting at your link I found this all too disturbing story too:
http://hauntingthelibrary.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/reuters-republican-party-actively-caused-climate-collapse/
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Bob C
‘Evil’ I believe to be an objective force, which may be socially formed. The error is to see indivudals, (such as Hitler) as ‘iredeemably evil’. Such people are good swimmers in a current of evil ideas which pre-date their earthly existence. The Greeks called this ‘miasma’.
Currently, from what I can make of things, ‘fight or flight’ is worryingly acceptable. The totalitarians were fast off the mark to blame ‘The Right’ for the attempted assassination of Rep. Giffords. This lasted exactly one day and was dropped when it became clear that the muddled Loughner might have been left-wing. The Right went into overdrive, but characteristically ignored inconvenient truths. For example, some T-Party supporter websites explicitly threaten violence; and Palin’s ‘cross hairs’ map is the work of a political illiterate. Violence is in the air….
So I plead for a return to rational polite argument. Labels (‘warmist’ ‘troll’, ‘sceptic’ etc.) are handy summaries for a point-of-view. Nothing more. ‘Totalitarian’ I use when there is an all-out attack on truth, or the threat of violence if one disagrees (The ‘Denier’ label seems to cover both these bases). Neither political side is doing well in this particular contest.
The fight must be taken to Chomsky and his ilk on their level. They swim in totalitarian waters. When he recommended the supression of vital truth (as in 1977) he should have been challenged far more ruthlessly than he was. If there had ever been a charge of ‘aiding and abetting war crimes’ Chomsky would certainly be found guilty. So he is no more ‘mad’ than Mussolini, another brillant mind inured in left-wing ideas (ideas still accepted in large part by today’s left). How this pressure should be brought to bear, I do not know. But calling him crazy means he comes over as a kind of Chevy Chase without the laughs. Challenging Chomsky and like-minded thinkers to open debate, without passing judgment on their psychiatric credentials, is the only road to truth.
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“Conservatism” (in the US) today is what used to be called “Liberalism” (sometimes “Classic Liberalism”) in the past — the belief that personal, political, and economic freedom is the best political philosophy, subject only to laws; fairly enforced and created by elected representatives of those who live under them. This philosophy is relatively new in Human civilization, and has transformed Human life for the good in the last 200 years.
Totalitarians have been with us forever. The only new thing is that they now call themselves “Liberals” (or “Progressives”), and keep trying to make the astonishing claim that liberty has failed and we must therefore revert to serfdom (about as un-Liberal a stance as you can imagine). Since they are unable to point to any real historical advantages of serfdom, they limit themselves to sniping at (and trying to manufacture) problems with freedom.
The Founders of the American Revolution understood that personal liberty would always be under attack by totalitarians, and that the threat of violence — both implicit (an armed populace) and explicit (conditional threats: “If you do that…”) is an effective brake on totalitarian ambitions.
This is why totalitarians of the 20th century were always careful to disarm the public (“for their own good”, of course) before proceeding with serious democide. (Link and link.)
An inconvenient truth for totalitarians trying to take cover behind calls for “civility” (essentially: “Don’t disagree with me!”) is that the Founders were quite explicit about the possible need for citizens to defend their liberty from government action by means of violence, and the need therefore for the citizens to be adequately equipped to do such.
In Jefferson’s opinion, Liberty is gained by, and must be maintained by (at least the threat of) violence. This is because tyrants will use violence by choice. Libertarians are no threat if you leave them alone — this is not true of totalitarians.
We have reached the absurd position today that people who put quotes from Thomas Jefferson (“The tree of Liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants”) on signs at demonstrations are labeled “Terrorists”. So be it.
Palin, BTY, understands this far better than the self-styled political “elites”. If you are against labels, why do you call her a “political illiterate”? (I know — it’s because you are right. “Civility” is only for the other guy, who is wrong 😉 )
Just when was that time? I can’t remember it and I’ve been following politics for > 50 years. (And if the contest is indeed between good and evil, as you suggest, that time will never happen.) Forcing civility into one part of the debate (say, on TV) only causes incivility to become worse elsewhere. The Left’s current “civility” tactic is equivalent to: “If you don’t accept our premises and frame the debate the way we want, you are a terrorist and guilty of murder!” Where’s the civility in that?
But they aren’t interested in debate, and won’t participate. I wouldn’t forget the power of ridicule — and showing over and over that they are delusional and are trying to pass lies as truth (like this website does) helps paint them as ridiculous.
So did C. S. Lewis. I thought this was absurd when I read his books at age 12. Since then, though — I have found this hypothesis to explain a lot, and I haven’t been able to falsify it…
His protagonists didn’t engage in polite debate.
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Bob C
We are in substantial agreement. I did not mean to be offensively rude when I called Palin ‘illiterate'(but do you not find some of her comments and actions at least disconcerting?). However, I believe the ‘cross hairs’ image to be at least an ‘own goal’, which adds greatly to the totalitarian myth machine’s stock of images. Much more seriously, as I have intimated,it seems to me to be an invitation to violence; and her enemies were quick to see this advantage. How about ‘strategic error’?
‘They’ have all the big guns,a corrupt media and state subservient universities; and ‘we’ do not. But ‘we’ know one thing that ‘they’ have forgotten: The truth can make you free. In a situation where free elections are still held, where there is any sort of debate about law and order, AGW etc. advocating violence is unacceptable. And ad hominem argument is never acceptable.
Your enthusiasm for liberty is a powerful force for good.
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I wholeheartedly agree, with one exception (explained below).
I’m not offended in the slightest. The answer to your question is “yes”, but that is true of all politicians I’m aware of. What I like about Palin is that I’m pretty certain she would come down on the side of Liberty — a certainty I have about precious few others in the political arena.
Advocating violence is illegal in the US (and most everywhere else), and can get you arrested and imprisoned. The Left has (in the US) traditionally argued for a narrow interpretation of advocation. Now that is is in their (temporary) interest, however, they have come about 180 degrees: What is the “stick” behind the “civility” schtick is an attempt to define the use of combat rhetoric as “advocating violence” — to actually criminalize strong disagreement. (Disagreement with Progressives, that is — Progressives can use combat rhetoric whenever they want: President Obama’s “If you bring a knife, we’ll bring a gun”, & etc. Should make for some colorful debate in Congress, if any of the proposed gag bills make it that far.)
After 8 years of the most extreme anti-Bush rhetoric you can imagine (marchers carrying posters depicting his decapitation, etc.) and 2 years of Obama’s tough talk, it is amusing to see the Progressives practically trip over themselves trying to rally around the new meme of “civility”. (Not quite as crazy as the mass stampede from “anti-war” to “pro-war” on the day that Germany invaded Russia, but the same Keystone Cops style.)
But about civility in political speech (and my disagreement with Kolnai): As a number of people familiar with US history have pointed out, political speech in the US has never been civil. A local political science professor has suggested (in an op-ed I can’t find a link to), that violent political speech has, in the US, largely substituted for actual political violence. Attempting to suppress freedom of speech (and other freedoms) in the US is highly unlikely to result in less violence, and certainly not less political violence, which is extremely rare. (The Arizona shooter is clearly insane, not a political actor.)
The legitimizing of political violence, in certain circumstances by the Founders (John Adams: “The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.”), along with the ability of the citizenry to carry it out, has been a strong deterrent to such circumstances ever arising.
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Sorry; Messed up my first link. Here is the link to the ACLU’s brief on the “Right to advocate violence”.
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Re: BobC: January 28th, 2011 at 6:52 am
I try not to be. 🙂 Sometimes fail.
Please let me assure you (and everyone else) that my posting was not advocacy. Just as “Post-Normal Science” hid in the weeds until CAGW proponents had applied it, so tyranny will spread beneath the surface of public notice.
We have a saying over here in the colonies:
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Never crossed my mind.
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Actually, I think we’ve misinterpreted Noam’s comment. He was ENDORSING the GOP!
What part of the 10.10.10 message did Mr. Civility Kolnai not grok?
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/10/sick-green-psycho-stars-want-to-kill-your-children/
Our Green elites believe that the extinction of human civilization would be the best thing for Gaia since whatever killed the dinosaurs off occurred. Or at least a good mass culling of hoi polloi would Green things up a bit.
http://www.vhemt.org/
So senile old Chomsky WANTS you to vote Republican. Register now. Join a tea party. If not, then they’ll have to resort to Plan B, which is to release Ebola virus to kill off 90% of the Earth’s human population.
No joke. Sadly. It’s not a joke.
http://www.pearceyreport.com/archives/2006/04/transcript_dr_d.php/
Jackasses are moaning about Super-villain Sarah targeting them for electoral defeat, while allowing their own intelligentsia to plot explicit wet dreams of global genocide?
* * *
Oh, and here’s some good masturbation material for Kivil Kolnai:
–Tracy Morgan, formerly of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” banters with basketball sportscasters on the TNT cable network. (TNT is part of the Turner Broadcasting System subdivision of Time Warner.)
I’m sure Germaine Greer and her mob were outraged at this vile objectification. No?
That’s Lefty civility for you. American style. 😉
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703956604576110100251027150.html
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BobC sez:
“Advocating violence is illegal in the US…”
Really? Must be a pretty narrow definition or you’d have to build a few more prison latte cafes and theaters.
See above.
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Here’s the American Civil Liberties Union’s brief (in 1931) on what they think should constitute “advocating violence”. Their view is that anything short of actually hiring a hitman should be protected (slight exaggeration).
They stood by this position during the Bush years. It would be amusing to ask what their current position is.
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Hi, BobC,
Speaking of Bush—for you Civilbilly Lefties that would be “Bush-Hitler”—here’s another example of how civil our most delicate citizens can be:
–note from reader Marc Segan to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto on Jan 31, 2011.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703439504576116060973774794.html
The Progressive Left, especially in America, has become so deranged that it would be almost impossible to do a parody of them. Fortunately, it’s not necessary because they daily strive to set new standards in unadulterated hypocrisy.
—from the Washington Post, Jan 31, 2011
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-turn/2011/01/the_uncivil_left.html
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Wes George
‘Mr Civility’, eh?
I’ve just watched a piece of tendentious dishonesty called Meet the Climate Change Sceptics’ which was entirely hypocritical and stereotypical. A BBC production! At the start, a truly foul email calling warmists ‘c***s’ was shown, setting the tenor for this faux ‘dialogue’. Interview with Trenberth, no mention of Chris Landsea (etc). It is difficult to keep your temper after such bad faith (it goes way beyond the usual hatchet stuff for slime). But the email quote handed victory on a plate, as does Glenn Beck et al (who are in it) with ‘I’ve got a gun’ (etc).
Why not stop the personal attacks in favour of action? One point the programme made which surpised me was its claim that Monckton’s viral stopped Copenhagen in its tracks. But this medium is cheap, and very effective (the only honesty in the whole show?). Surely there must be decent journos out who are up for a good idea with a camera? What about a war trial for ‘Ole Naom’ for a start? Might even invite him along…heheheh.
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Interesting.
What I have seen in my years, the ONLY groups that actively promoted and/or caused “demonstrations” and such were Leftist groups. From anti ELF, to anti logging, to anti establishment, to anti Republican to any “anti” thing you can imagine it was always over a Leftist issue. This was first seen (by me) in the anti-war hippies and such circa 1968. Any digging into why and whom was behind the methodology, you’ll come up with a fresh copy of “rules for radicals”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals
Also from wiki about Chomsky:
The Left loves to brag about higher moral values such as non-violence and equality, but in practice they are not at all good at it. Just look at who got arrested in St. Paul during the last Republican convention.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4660503.ece
And read how left skewed the LA times reported the story: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/09/rnc-protests.html
Peaceful if possible but violent if necessary……..
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Mark D
‘Anarcho syndicalist’ eh? Lemme see….who painted his flag black ‘cos it was the anarchist colour? An’ who set up the first syndicalist state? Why, heck, that’d be our old friend with the rubber truncheon and the genital torture machine, Benito Mussolini. Yep, tha’s him orright..
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