It has been some time since my last posting...
I noticed today that it had been a while since I posted last and I started to reflect upon why there had been a lull in my need to vent and express outrage at the insanities and inanities of the world. In part it is because I do not teach in the summer and I can work from home, but it is also because I have taken the past few days to just relax, read fiction for pleasure and focus on family events -- not a formal vacation, but not work-centered either.
In this state of relaxed reflection, I realized that nature runs pretty well by itself, unaltered and unfettered, and that unplugging yourself from the media, the news, all politics and gossip, removes a tremendous amount of white noise that does little but generate stress and tension in the normal course of things.
From this realization came the recognition that all policies, laws and rules are just controls intended to manipulate and structure lives and activities to the benefit of those effecting the control, those who seek to manage the lives of others in accordance with their preferences and wishes.
Some rules and controls are obvious and largely non-contentious: they reflect a degree of common respect and trust between citizens. But then there are the others, the policies, the procedures, the imposed requirements, that are not there from any universally recognized principle and benefit but from a proscribed, ideological preference.
One of my favorite movie makers is Robert Redford. His comment was that when he started making movies he thought the world was basically sane and he made films about the little pockets of insanity. Later, he said he realized the world was basically insane and he switched to making films about the the little pockets of sanity.
Well which perspective is correct? You can judge from this sampling of recent news events and posts:
- It is the mark of shrieking authoritarianism to look upon dissenting views not simply as wrong or foolish, but as criminal. Throughout history inquisitors and censors have sought to silence sections of society by labeling their words as "dangerous" and a threat to safety and stability (on dissenting views on climate)
- ...the unfortunate thing is radical environmentalists and their agenda have become pervasive. They've captured the momentum and are convincing governments that "the end is near" if we don't do something. The plans they put forward are so radical and oppressive that they're economically ruinous.
- Today’s Western politicians seem incapable of setting agendas, and instead merely respond to the world, hoping that crisis (environment, terror, pandemic, etc) and being in bed with NGOs will lend them legitimacy.
- ...the appeal to physics is used as an argument against economic growth and technological development. It is principally a criticism of capitalism, which requires growth and is, therefore, inherently environmentally destructive. It is worth repeating a point we made at the time. The objection to capitalism on the grounds that it contradicts physical laws is a departure from prior objections to capitalism from the Left and is not a criticism of the kind that we would expect the Left to produce.
- what are the physics of climate?
- perhaps its just a cult.
- When Gore can pull off what King Canute could not and repeal the laws of physics that govern how things work in the real world, I'll listen to him.
- Minister, how many more years of no-warming will it take before you accept that the global warming theory on which you’ve based your huge carbon cutting scheme is actually wrong?
- Someone please help me out here. Everyone is yelling about fixing the "climate crisis", but I still can't find it - the crisis, that is....The really sad fact is that the site calling itself "Real Climate" suppresses simple observations of what our actual real climate is really doing at the present time. It is run by a NASA employee whose own CV suggests he is partially responsible for creating the climate models which have thus far failed miserably to predict anything accurately. Only in America can we work and pay our taxes so they can be spent supporting our own government employees who in turn churn out false predictions of future planetary meltdown and frighten us all into rushing into massive Carbon Taxes which will in reality not affect the future climate one whit but which might lead to an economic meltdown of our economy.
- You can say what you like about Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but say anything reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous about a climate change scientist and you will be punished.
- The ripple caused by a few heretics a couple of years ago is turning into a tsunami against the costly fraud of CO2 induced AGW.
- These are the seven graphs that should make you ask: What? Has global warming now stopped?
- The refusal to make publicly available any and all data relevant to the papers used in the IPCC reports would indicate to any logical thinker that there are some very large and well known flaws in the processing of that data. The type of flaws indicated by this blank refusal usually only come about when the results are determined well in advance of the actual research.
Hopefully, this blog provides for you a pocket of sanity within an otherwise crazed and insane social and political environment.
But be aware, our sanity is another's insanity. Which gives purpose to all our lives: if everyone thought the same, who would need to engage their mind on a daily basis?
