September 23, 2005

BBC News on the tenuous hurricane - global warming link

I noticed a good article from BBC News that concisely explains why scientists are reluctant to jump aboard the hurricane - global warming bandwagon. (Also see this CNN story.) One problem is a lack of data:

"The problem is," observes Julian Heming, "that we can only look back about 35 years with satellite data; before that the record is somewhat unreliable, and 35 years isn't long enough to draw a definite conclusion.

"Before global satellite coverage, we're pretty sure there are gaps in the record; storms would start at sea and die out at sea, so we never knew about them."

Another problem is the cyclic nature of hurricane formation:

"Activity is naturally very variable in terms of frequency, intensity and regional occurrence; in the Atlantic, there are active phases and not so active phases, and currently we're in the middle of an active phase."

There are other variables to account for, too - like other climate cycles and the spots where hurricanes land.

It is interesting, though, that one study found a rise in the number of intense hurricanes over the last 30 years:

The leader of that research project, Dr. Peter Webster, believes there may be a link to climate change.

"What I think we can say is that the increase in intensity is probably accounted for by the increase in sea-surface temperature," he told the BBC News website, "and I think probably the sea-surface temperature increase is a manifestation of global warming."

So it seems the jury's still out. I'm convinced of the reality of global warming, but I agree with those scientists who aren't sure about whether it's the cause of recent hurricane patterns. Hurricane formation is affected by the same incredibly complex sets of factors that affect all global weather. I think many people make a mistake in simplistically applying global warming to existing weather patterns. The reality of "climate change" is that it will change weather patterns in some unpredictable ways. Even with our advanced models and analytical tools, we don't have a complete grasp of how the weather works in "stable" conditions (if there are such things). Add in a major shift in global temperature and it turns into a total guessing game. That unpredictability is one of the most unsettling things about global warming.

(As an aside, if your computer has spare processor cycles you might consider joining climateprediction.net.)

23 Sep 23:36 | Link | Category: Current Events, Science

Cosmos on The Science Channel

Starting on Tuesday the 27th, The Science Channel will be airing Cosmos, Carl Sagan's 25-year-old classic of popular science television. If you've never seen it, make sure to tune in to all the episodes. It's one of my favorite TV series of all time. You can also buy the complete set on DVD. (This will prove me to be a huge nerd, but I got the DVDs for Christmas a few years ago and was completely thrilled.)

23 Sep 21:03 | Link | Category: Science

September 19, 2005

Back to the moon

If you were paying attention to the news today, you probably heard that NASA unveiled plans to return humans to the moon by 2020 (other sources: here and here). The price tag is a relatively inexpensive $104bn. It's an interesting story, but I'm so short on time this week I don't have time to comment. I'll just say this: interesting. (Profound, eh?)

In related links, I noticed one at Cynical-C to Interactive Moon Maps. You can zoom in to regions of the moon and look at the various features. It reminds me of when I was a kid and my local library had a moon globe that I thought was just sooo cool.

19 Sep 14:15 | Link | Category: Science

September 18, 2005

The Ten Stupidest Utopias

Jeremy Adam Smith wrote up an article about what he considers the ten stupidest utopias. (He lists everything from Plato's Republic to the Postwar American Suburb to the Internet.)  Interesting reading.

(via Waxy)

18 Sep 19:52 | Link | Category: Misc. Tidbits

Photography Links

I've forgotten to post any 'photography links' lately. Here are a couple:

18 Sep 19:49 | Link | Category: Photography

Religion Joke

According to folks on this site, this is the funniest joke about religion:

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: "Stop. Don't do it."
"Why shouldn't I?" he asked.
"Well, there's so much to live for!"
"Like what?"
"Are you religious?"
He said, "Yes."
I said, "Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?"
"Christian."
"Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?"
"Protestant."
"Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"
"Baptist."
"Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"
"Baptist Church of God."
"Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?"
"Reformed Baptist Church of God."
"Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?"
He said: "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915."
I said: "Die, heretic scum," and pushed him off.

(via Steel White Table)

18 Sep 19:38 | Link | Category: Humor

Caricatures

For some excellent celebrity caricatures, check out Sebastian Kruger's work.

18 Sep 19:35 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment

September 17, 2005

Current Playlist

Another month, another disjointed hour of listening...

Calexico - The Ballad of Cable Hogue >>
Jorge Ben - O Namorado Da Viúva >>
Beulah - What Will You Do When Your Suntan Fades? >>
Supergrass - She's So Loose >>
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Me and Mia >>
Lupine Howl - Vaporizer >>
Arcade Fire - Neighborhood 3 (Power Out) >>
Bloc Party - Plans >>
PJ Harvey - We Float >>
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues >>
The Twilight Singers - Papillon >>
Teenage Fanclub - My Uptight Life >>
Luna - Rhythm King >>
Yo La Tengo - I Heard You Looking >>
 

17 Sep 15:07 | Link | Category: Music

September 13, 2005

Just take everything down to Highway 61

Steve Dougherty spends some time on the "Dylan Trail" in Highway 61, Visited, a travel article for the New York Times. (Let's hope it stays up for a while before they start charging for it.) Interesting stuff for any of you fellow Dylanphiles. (via Ghost In The Machine)

Also, while I'm talking about His Bobness, I should mention that PBS will be airing Martin Scorsese's documentary "Bob Dylan: No Direction Home" September 26-27. I think you can also buy it on DVD, but at the moment I'm too poor for such luxuries.

13 Sep 19:30 | Link | Category: Music, Travel

Kurt Vonnegut

A clip of Kurt Vonnegut's appearance on Bill Maher's show is now available online.

He's also going to be on The Daily Show tonight, so tune in.

Update: The Daily Show appearance was better than the other one. I'll post a link when it shows up online. Also, here's the list of "liberal crap" he didn't have time to read. It includes: "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. The hell I can't! Look at the Reverend Pat Robertson. And he is as happy as a pig in sh*t."

13 Sep 18:40 | Link | Category: Misc. Tidbits

September 12, 2005

Laser Art

Check out this flickr photo set that resulted from pointing a laser into a digital camera.

12 Sep 13:43 | Link | Category: Photography

September 10, 2005

Another ironic twist on "freedom"

Four years after 9/11, 10,000 people will march in Washington in a patriotic "Freedom Walk" sponsored by the Pentagon. (I know the Pentagon was hit on 9/11, but is it really appropriate in any way to have a military-themed rally on Sept. 11th?)

Some fun facts about the Freedom Walk (from the Daily News and WP):

  • The walk has Defense Department backing
  • Anyone who did not sign up for the event by yesterday will not be allowed to enter the fenced-in route from the Pentagon to the National Mall
  • Those who try to join the march without registering and refuse to leave will face arrest by the U.S. Park Police
  • The route will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it closed and "sterile"
  • The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force of several hundred on duty and along the route, on foot, horseback and motorcycles and monitoring from above by helicopter.
  • It's billed as a memorial to victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks AND a show of support for those serving in the military
  • It will be topped off with a concert by country singer Clint Black, known for his pro-troops anthem, "Iraq and Roll"
  • The tight security is necessary to ensure the safety of VIPs, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
  • One restricted group will be the media, whose members will not be allowed to walk along the march route

Sounds like freedom to me!   (Aside from the lack of synchronized marching, of course.)

Look, I understand the reasons for the security precautions, but what does it all say about the state of our country? And how much more ideologized can "freedom" possibly become in the U.S.?

10 Sep 23:48 | Link | Category: Current Events, Opinion & Thoughts

September 6, 2005

"Unselfconscious depravity"

We all know the 'elites' are out of touch (or worse). Unfortunately, many of the stories illustrating this turn out to be highly embellished accounts or popular myths. Consider Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake," or George H.W. Bush's amazement at seeing a supermarket scanner for the first time in 1988.

But the latest one from Barbara Bush turns out to be true, and this time it's not as out-of-context as her "beautiful mind" gaffe or as ridiculously improbable as, say, her son's supposed "Do you have blacks, too?" quote.

Barbara Bush really did say that things are working out "very well" for evacuees from New Orleans. It would be fine if she had actually said, "Considering that these people were already destitute and this disaster took their community, their homes, and perhaps their friends and family, things are working out very well." But read this (emphasis mine):

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I've talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I'm hearing - which is sort of scary - is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality."

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

Ah, plutocracy.

The "scary" comment could be interpreted several ways, but the rest... I don't know. You can link to an audio clip here and see what you think. I know I shouldn't care one whit about flippant comments from some former first lady, but still... in a tiny way, I think it highlights how far the "ruling class" is from the harsh realities that face so many in this country and around the world.

I liked Patrick's post on the matter at Making Light. (The comments there are also good, as usual.)

06 Sep 12:18 | Link | Category: Current Events

September 4, 2005

Katrina TV clips (or, "Are the talking heads growing backbones?")

Very shortly after Katrina hit, I was watching CNN's coverage and veteran reporter Jeanne Meserve gave a highly and unusually emotional report, breaking into tears several times (download an MP3 here). Since then, I've noticed quite a bit of atypical behavior from reporters. One of the most notable trends is that many reporters and anchors seem to have lost their normal "professional reserve" and started to stand up to the bullshit they constantly receive from guests (and each other) on the air. (I'm sure the trend will not continue, but I must admit it's nice to imagine a world in which stonewallers aren't accommodated by brainless newsanchors. Anyway...)

Slate looks at this phenomenon and has a nice roundup of examples in The Rebellion of the Talking Heads, but here are some of my personal favorites:

While I'm listing TV clips, watch Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard on Meet the Press (4 MB QT).

Finally, watch Bob Schieffer's scathing "personal thought" segment (1.3 MB WMV) from Face the Nation:

"There is no purpose for government except to improve the lives of its citizens. Yet as scenes of horror that seemed to be coming from some Third World country flashed before us, official Washington was like a dog watching television. It saw the lights and images, but did not seem to comprehend their meaning or see any link to reality. As the floodwaters rose, local officials in New Orleans ordered the city evacuated. They might as well have told their citizens to fly to the moon. How do you evacuate when you don't have a car? No hint of "intelligent design" in any of this. This was just survival of the richest. By midweek a parade of Washington officials rushed before the cameras to urge patience. What good is patience to a mother who can't find food and water for a dehydrated child? Washington was coming out of an August vacation stupor and seemed unable to refocus on business or even think straight... Since 9/11, Washington has spent years and untold billions reorganizing government to deal with crises brought on by possible terrorist attacks. If this is the result, we had better start over."

(An aside: The feds clearly dropped the ball, but why aren't we hearing more condemnations of officials in New Orleans, the State of Louisiana, and other cities & states for being so terribly underprepared?)

04 Sep 16:59 | Link | Category: Current Events

Katrina = God's Mercy or God's Wrath?

You knew it would happen sooner or later... folks far and wide have started to explain that God either saved them from the storm or caused the whole damned thing. Check out this synopsis from "AgapePress" for both views:

But the seminary leader says he is able to discern God's hand in the situation.

"Imagine what would have happened if [New Orleans] had taken a direct hit," he tells BP. "The levee did not break until after the storm was clear and the winds had died down and the rescue workers were able to get out." Had the levee given way during the hurricane, he says, "untold thousands of people" would have been killed.

As puzzling as it is that so many people believe that an all-knowing, all-powerful deity plays such games (rather than being either completely in charge or completely uninvolved), at least that guy is trying to look at the situation positively.

Rev. Bill Shanks, by contrast, takes this despicable view:

Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.

The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as "Southern Decadence" -- an annual six-day "gay pride" event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week -- God's judgment would be felt.

"New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

I don't even know how to respond to that.

04 Sep 16:43 | Link | Category: Current Events

A few more Katrina links

A few new links:

04 Sep 16:34 | Link | Category: Current Events

Katrina

The finger-pointing and second guessing started immediately after Hurricane Katrina dissipated and we all got a sense of the scale of the destruction and suffering. In a way, I hate to join in because I do feel that such discussion (especially in the wake of a natural disaster) should wait until relief efforts have been successful and the wounds have at least started to heal. However, there are links I'll lose and thoughts I'll forget if I don't post them now, and I suppose it's never too early to start figuring how to more effectively prevent/handle disasters in the future. Anyway, let me preface the rest of the with this link: Hurricane Katrina Help Center - information on volunteering and donation.

I think one of the biggest questions on everyone's mind is how the hurricane could wreak such havoc in a Western nation - indeed, the wealthiest nation on the planet. I think many people are forgetting just how powerful this storm was and how quickly it developed. However, it's worth noting the lack of preparation.

Terrible predictions of what would happen to New Orleans in the event of a strong hurricane have been made for years - just check out this extensive Wikipedia entry. The levee system has a been a disaster waiting to happen for decades, and for just as long experts have been aware that without major changes, New Orleans would face flooding if any of the levees failed. (Look at this elevation diagram.) The politicians - whether because they have selective memories or are lying outright - would like us to think nobody knew what might happen. Bush has the gall to say "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." Completely wrong. Bill Clinton got in on the act, too: "I'm telling you, nobody ever thought it would happen like this."

It seems like scientists and planners are always harping on us about impending disasters... and because most of them don't happen in the short spans of time we humans tend to concern ourselves with, we just ignore them or pretend we were never warned in the first place. Even when similar disasters are recent, we refuse to accept the possibilities and probabilities of more disasters. Case in point: Last year was the worst hurricane year in decades. Experts started writing scenarios like this: What if Hurricane Ivan Had Not Missed New Orleans? (an eerily accurate prediction of Katrina). Interestingly, federal hurricane control and funding for New Orleans - which had already "slowed to a trickle" - was the lowest ever in 2005. I doubt extra funding would have helped in time for this hurricane, but the point is that our priorities have been dreadfully out of order (and getting worse) for a long time. Particularly damning: "In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article." And this, from June, 2004: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Also damning is the fact that officials in New Orleans were well aware of the risks of such a hurricane and failed to have an adequate evacuation plan in place. They knew New Orleans had one of the highest poverty rates of any major U.S. city, and they knew that 27% of households - 120,000 people, did not have private transportation, one of the lowest percentages of any major U.S. city. Yet they failed to have an adequate evacuation plan. (Then, FEMA director Michael Brown proves how out-of-touch officials are by saying much of the death toll will "be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings" - people who couldn't get out!)

There's lots more to talk about, but I don't have the time. Maybe I'll find time later to reflect on the way natural disasters shake up the stratified social order and expose the inequalities and deep dysfunction in our society that is normally hidden from view. There's also global warming's arguable effect on such natural disasters -- it seems that we're also blithely ignoring this most pernicious of threats. It's also interesting to note that the ballyhooed post-9/11 "homeland security" has been a complete and abject failure. Lots of topics to explore... too little time.

Anyway, here are a few extra links before I shut up:

I'll leave you with this heartwarming quote from Dubya (video):

The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

... and all the great orators simultaneously roll in their graves.

(See: This and this.)

04 Sep 12:00 | Link | Category: Current Events, Opinion & Thoughts

September 3, 2005

Katrina, part 2

A few days ago, I predicted "major disaster," but I had hoped it wouldn't be this bad. Check CNN's Katrina Help Center for ways to volunteer & donate.

I wrote up a longer post that I put in the 'thoughts' section because it was so long. (It includes a fair amount of finger-pointing - something I hesitate to do when people are still in the midst of tragedy - but I had to write something before I get busy and forget what I wanted to say in the first place.)

03 Sep 13:43 | Link | Category: Current Events