The conservative Media Research Council has announced the Best Notable Quotables of 2007. The winner is truly funny, and most are very instructive. However, another entry from the MRC, which arrived in my inbox a week later, caught my attention.

It appears sexism against Hillary Clinton has to become a big issue. Whether it’s idiots falling for deliberate trolling, or defenders who need foils for attacks they can’t handle, accusations of prejudice become the last refuge of political hacks.

The original of a curiously sanitised piece by Jonathan Tilove in the Seattle Times of 29 November was a little different from what’s posted there now. The original was published in an MRC email on 26 December, but has not yet made it to its rather primitive-looking website. The MRC says that in excerpt, it reads as follows:

Sen. Hillary Clinton is facing an onslaught of open misogynistic expression. Step lightly through that thickly settled province of the Web you could call anti-Hillaryland and you are soon knee-deep in ‘bitch,’ ’slut,’ ’skank,’ ‘whore’ and, ultimately, what may be the most toxic four-letter word in the English language….Thanks to several thousand years of phallocentric history, there is no comparable vocabulary of degradation for men, no equivalently rich trove of synonyms for a sexually sullied male. As for the word beginning with C? No single term for a man reduces him to his genitals to such devastating effect.

I say bollocks. What a prick. For start, this schmuck surely knows that the C word is commonly applied to men, without reference to either women or their degree of sexual sulliedness? And what tosser removes offensive language from an article after it’s been published? I’d also challenge this dickhead to search the “thickly settled province of the Web you could call anti-Bushland”, and analyse the epithets found there. Hint: they’re not “clear-eyed” and “rosy-cheeked”. Not even with witty sarcasm. In fact, I’d wager he’d find a fair few of a character that would offend his delicate sensibilities.

Besides, how anti-feminist of Tilove to think that Mrs Clinton is too fragile as a woman to tolerate the sort of ribald political rough-riding that typifies the more puerile corners of the interwebs.

There’s an interesting observation by Naledi Pandor, our education minister, in this story about the declining pass rate for matrics. The article notes that pass rates across the country have declined, year-on-year, but on a growing base. “The national pass rate this year is 65.2 percent compared to 66.5 percent last year, but 368 217 passed Grade 12 this year, a huge increase from the 272 488 who passed in 1998,” the story says.

“I find it strange that, despite the fact that more children have passed, we say we have done badly this year,” it quotes Pandor, in response.

But wait a second. The pass rate compares 2007 with 2006, while the matric population compares 2007 with 1998. This is a problem. So let’s complete the comparison. In 1998, the pass rate was only 51%. By that measure, 2007 is considerably better than 1998 in both absolute and relative terms, and shows an increase in the number of full-time students from 534 290 to 564 750. I couldn’t find the number of students who sat the 2006 exams, but approximate numbers in the media suggest a small improvement (of about 2 500, or 0.7%) in absolute numbers of matric passes between 2006 and 2007, despite the decline in the pass rate.

I’m no fan of our lengthy, superfluous and failing experiment in “outcomes-based education”. The pass rate should concern us, and the fact that it declined in the last three years is troubling. So, even more significantly, should matric standards. However, if schools are reaching more kids that previously didn’t go to school, perhaps the decline in pass rate isn’t indicative of declining quality of education. As long as it isn’t an excuse for failing to take the overall pass rate seriously, or a cover for a decline in matric standards, we should probably concede that Pandor’s department has achieved at least one thing: increasing the absolute number of successful matriculants South Africa produces.

Reaching any further conclusions, whether positive or negative, requires more complete data. If anyone knows where I can find such data, send me a link. I’d be interested to spend some time on it.

I’ve been a bit at a loss for something worthwhile to say about Benazir Bhutto’s assassination yesterday. I’ve long been worried about the future of Pakistan and its position in global politics, which is perplexing and complex. The only comment I had upon hearing the news was a short expletive that means nothing and says everything.

So perhaps her own words are the most fitting tribute:

The sanctity of the political process must not be allowed to be destroyed by the terrorists. Democracy and moderation must be restored to Pakistan, and the way to do that is through free and fair elections establishing a legitimate government with a popular mandate–leaders supported by the people. Intimidation by murdering cowards will not be allowed to derail Pakistan’s transition to democracy.

Far less encouraging is what she told the Wall Street Journal on a previous occasion: “The military regime needs the threat of al Qaeda and the militants to justify military rule, to justify the derailment of democracy … and also because it brings the money in. You see, if there is no threat, there is no money.”

If this is true — and there’s reason to believe it is — then Pakistan has not only lost a beloved political leader and agent for peaceful change, but also a real opportunity at ridding itself of the violence and destabilisation that Islamists and their terrorist cohorts inflict upon ordinary Pakistanis. Not to mention the nuclear threat they could pose, if they succeed. In its political analysis, the Journal calls Bhutto the Islamists’ biggest scalp since Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Don’t get me wrong. Benazir Bhutto was no saint. But one does not have to approve of a politician, or agree with all their politics and all their past actions, to mourn their loss to democracy. South Africans remember Chris Hani and the real fears of civil war and reprisal that followed his murder. Hani was no saint, but like Bhutto, he was a powerful force for peace and democratic change. My reaction to hearing of his death was, verbatim, the same as my reaction to Bhutto’s murder. At the risk of extending the comparison too far, I’d wager Americans remember JFK or MLK with similar sentiments.

Political assassinations are extremely painful, disturbing and unjust, no matter who the target is and what they stand for. I truly hope Pakistan will find peace and freedom through the crucible of their pain and grief.

Interesting article last week in The Times of London, noting the emergence of investments in lawsuits as an asset class.

[Investors] are starting to dabble in lawsuit investment, bankrolling some or all of the heavy upfront costs in return for a share of the damages in the event of a win.

The London-managed hedge fund MKM Longboat last month revealed plans to invest $100million (£50.5million) to finance European lawsuits. Today a new company, Juridica, floats on AIM, having raised £80million to make litigation bets.

Juridica will make investments in ongoing legal claims, mostly in the US, and loans to law firms to finance their costs in pursuing claims.

Profiting from other people’s lawsuits, a practice known as champerty, is illegal in some jurisdictions and risks accusations of ambulance-chasing, but Juridica is concentrating on backing business plaintiffs, where the practice is better established and more accepted. …

Pursuing legal claims can be frighteningly expensive. Plaintiffs have to commit management time and cash years into the future with no certainty of success. Getting an outside investor to share some of the financial pain can be very attractive. So can tapping their litigation experience. While most large companies are well resourced with in-house lawyers, few have litigation experience.

For MKM Longboat and Juridica, weighing up which cases to back and which to shun looks every bit as difficult as picking equity winners, if not more so. They will need to assess the strength of the case, the character of the defendant organisation, the size of the likely damages, the chances of being able to collect those damages and external risks such as political and legislative changes.

They also need to be able to drive a hard bargain with plaintiffs. Each deal will be structured differently and the terms of engagement laid down in advance, in an attempt to prevent later disputes.

Law firms in the US remain one of the few no-go areas for outside equity capital investment. They also appear a safe bet to prosper in the chilliest of economic conditions. No wonder capital is starting to seek out imaginative ways to try to piggyback on their good fortune.

The notion strikes me as a pretty good idea. A market in lawsuits would select lawsuits with merit, without stepping on anyone’s rights. It won’t buy verdicts, but will probably improve the chances of suits with merit by providing both resources and skill. It will expand access to expensive and difficult legal remedies for civil wrongs, and reduce the price of contingency fees.

In response to two comments on Marginal Revolution, jp notes that it will likely complement measures already extant to extend legal access to less well-resourced plaintiffs:

This could be a very good thing if it helps to deter predatory behavior against financially weak individuals.

Enormously valuable in cases where a party may be stronger on the merits but lacks the resources to complete the case. Sounds like a good investment.

Just to be clear, the contingency-fee mechanism and class-action mechanism in the States already speak to these concerns. If someone has a strong, valuable claim, s/he will have no trouble finding a good lawyer willing to fund his/her case in exchange for a share of the damages. Similarly, if a large number of people have been injured in a small way (at the individual level), there will be no shortage of lawyers willing to sue on behalf of a class, in exchange for a share of the judgment.

That being said, I can’t really deny that having a free market in lawsuits (as opposed to a market in which lawyers are the only buyers) would probably be more efficient economically.

I’m no lawyer, but one danger seems to me that it may compound the troubling impact on the economy of creative tort lawyers who are motivated by contingency fees to seek crippling punitive damage awards in favour of their client classes. However, I’m not convinced that commoditised champerty by investment companies will make this problem worse than it already is, and anyway, I’d rather do away with the notion of punitive damages, in favour of limiting claims to actual damages, to solve it.

A couple of weeks ago, prompted by a listing of my most popular posts, Nick van der Leek assailed the then most popular (scroll down to the blue text), 10 reasons to reject global warming, which was itself a response to a comment of his on a Maverick magazine column I re-published here.

He did this not very well, I might add, and I’ve been idly mulling a mild fisking. This Day of Goodwill Boxing Day seems as good a day as any for it.

He wrote:

NVDL: I recently read a blog which listed the blogger’s top stories. I recall this person’s top blog was something like 10 Reasons Not to worry about Global Warming, or 10 reasons Climate Change is a Hoax. That strikes as [sic] the sort of delusional drivel smoking companies came up with just before their advertising was phased out: 10 Myths About Smoking, Why Doctors Smoke, Smoking Is Sexy and Other Benefits.

Except that I didn’t write anything about smoking. Nor do I have a pecuniary interest in writing marketing material either for or against the global warming hypothesis. If you want to claim that I’m wrong by all means do so, but then respond to what I actually wrote rather than railing against red herrings.

I can imagine that these sorts of bogus and brain dead stories are popular.

You haven’t yet shown that my story is either bogus or brain dead. And to do so, you’d have to convince me that all 10 reasons I cited are wrong. As I pointed out in the original post, failure to do so for any one of them would mean my key argument stands. (The key argument being that there is insufficient reason to accept the necessity for governments to enforce, by law, tax or otherwise, standards of behaviour consistent with the theory of global warming.)

I can also write popular popcorn crap for example:

1) Why AIDS isn’t worth worrying about
2) How to succeed without a matric
3) Slag off your boss and win
4) How to cheat on your partner and get them to love you more than they do now
5) How to lose weight by eating more ice cream
6) Make more money by working less
7) How to succeed without really trying
8) How to lie to people without giving yourself away
9) 10 Reasons Not To Save
10) Why Fast Food Is Healthier Than Home cooked Meals

But I didn’t write any of that, now did I? I wrote 10 reasons to reject global warming.

There’s a reason people would want to read the above garbage, and it’s a simple one: they want it to be true, they want a lazy, easy approach to getting what they want. In the same way, we want to NOT worry about Climate Change, because that allows us to do squat all.

You’ve ignored the possibility that worrying about climate change and doing something about it might not have any benefits at all; it might be ineffective. Or it might have benefits, but impose costs that exceed those benefits. Or, worst of all, it might cause harm instead of reducing it.

A cost-benefit evaluation is a lot more complicated than “we don’t want to incur costs”. In order to justify incurring costs, one should first be convinced that some benefit will accrue, and second, that the benefit is likely to exceed the costs. Uninformed speculation about my motives might constitute an attack on my character, but it does not attack my arguments.

You telling them [sic] it’s true, and the fact that your drivel is popular doesn’t make it any less drivel, it just shows the extent of our delusion, the desperate buy in, and how the stupid infect one another.

I never made any claim about what the post’s popularity means. In fact, I agree with you: the popularity of drivel doesn’t make it any less drivel, just like the popularity of global warming alarmism doesn’t make it any more true. And, to quote Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda, don’t call me stupid.

Today I did a statistical scan of the Top Stories on [a particular] website for the year 2007. It wasn’t a story on Lucky, or Gift Leremi, or a newsy political story. No, it was this:

Women now ‘raping’ men

I’m still waiting for a single actual argument against a single point I made. Your point is?

My point is, although the populace may be entertained and moved and interested by tabloid junk, the information we disseminate (whether through talking, emailing or blogging) ought to be sensible, rational and constructive (as least to the extent that we are), and certainly not intentionally the opposite. When we do this, we do so to our collective cost. We spread mediocrity and deaden our sensitivities, our value for life and the living depreciates in favor of laziness.

And this does not apply to you? Is global warming alarmism “sensible, rational and constructive” just because you say it is? Well, I say it is “intentionally the opposite”. Shall we flip a coin to see who’s right, or shall we rationally weigh my ten arguments against your extended non-argument?

Are we prostitutes for popularity, like Peter Keating (living only for cheap fame and sucking up to the approval of the mob) as opposed to a deeper, more personal, more integral and integrated vision - such as Howard Roark’s (in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead).

You chose a very curious example here. Did someone hack your blog and plant a mine? I seem to recall that Howard Roark was not given to toeing the “consensus” line, opposed the forcible imposition by governments upon individuals of rules and restrictions demanded by a majority, and resented being told how he “ought to” behave. Yet this is exactly what you’re telling me to do. I never cited popularity in support of my arguments. By contrast, you’re appealing to a “consensus” view, and have done so on several previous occasions to support the assertion that we must radically change the way we live to conform to your ideas of decency (including, memorably, accepting not that we might need alternatives to oil, but that “the happy motoring era must end”).

Otherwise we get lost in a cycle that is neither intelligent or useful, and it says a lot about the human animal and our lot, or what our lot can conceivably be.

Wow, flew away on that thought tangent….

And in all that tangential wordage, you presented not a single argument disputing any of the 10 reasons I cited for rejecting global warming. That’d be nil down, 10 to go, then.

A frequent theme in political rants, both on the libertarian/anarchist right and the socialist/anarchist left, is the notion of the limited liability company. Usually, the concept of limited liability is defined however it best suits the argument, and usually to negative effect. For example, the film The Corporation (2003) was recently screened on SABC 1 in South Africa. As with most bulk-buy trash, it was a late-night broadcast, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open after an hour and a half of distortion, sly inference, slander, oversimplification, quasi-legal mumbo-jumbo, out-of-context quotation, innuendo, and general anti-capitalist drivel. I’m strong, but not strong enough for 145 minutes of Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein all together.

Still, I got the idea: The Corporation, portrayed with sinister madness through a montage of accidents, disasters, lost legal battles, famous frauds, cuts to Hitler and a clever theme of selected crude advertising footage from the 1950s, is evil and dangerous. Worse, you and I are just wide-eyed ingénues too stupid to defend our virtue. For that, we have heroes like Captain Moore, Gnome Chomsky and the Little Gnome. One of the major themes in the film was this notion of (cue dramatic crescendo)… limited liability. It was vaguely interpreted to imply a corporation and the evil people that comprise it — by which they mean everyone above the LOE (line of evility) that you’ll find on every HR (human resources) org chart at about the level of M/CM (middle and compromised management) — gets to deny liability for their actions. In essence, a limited-liability company charter, granted by the evil corporatist government, is a licence to exploit, harm and kill, and exploiting, harming and killing customers and employees is a great way to make money. Or so the illogic goes.

If this kind of thinking is appealing, because you’re either a right-wing anarchist who thinks governments are evil and therefore legal protections granted in corporate law are probably evil too, or you’re a left-wing socialist who thinks corporations are evil and have corrupted government in order to exploit the poor masses, it may be worth reading an excellent essay by Brad Edmonds, over at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, in which he discusses what a limited liability company is and is not, who is and isn’t liable, and on what legal, political and philosophical grounds the concept is based.

2007 turned out to be a pretty good year for George W. Bush.

Late last year, voters turfed Republicans out of Congress over either lack of spending restraint or dissatisfaction with progress in Iraq or both, depending who you ask. (Robert Novak: war; Alan Greenspan: spending; Rush Limbaugh: both, and liberals suck; Reason magazine: both, and government sucks.)

This electoral loss, which meant Bush could no longer rely on a compliant Congress to send him only bills he likes, merely reinforced the view that Bush now is a lame duck, unable to govern effectively. (CNN: Is Bush already a lame duck?; Lou Dobbs: Beware the lame duck; The Guardian: ‘Lame duck’ Bush faces struggle to push through new agenda; The Telegraph: Allies desert ‘lame duck president’; Dan Froomkin: How lame a duck?)

A few voices ran against the media herd, but looked like wishful thinkers. (Christian Science Monitor: Bush’s lame-duck advantage.)

But on Friday, Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, and Steve Huntley of the Chicago Sun-Times (apparently independently) noted that Bush hasn’t had a bad 2007 at all. Moore’s item is worth quoting in its entirety:

Bush on the Comeback Trail

Just as Newt Gingrich was the best thing that ever happened to Bill Clinton, so Nancy Pelosi has become a great political asset to George W. Bush. Mr. Bush is on a roll legislatively and even his poll numbers are inching up while Congress’s have sunk into the teens. There’s nothing like having a foil in Congress to rehabilitate a president. Just ask Harry Truman.

This time last year it would have been inconceivable that Mr. Bush would have a successful 2007, or that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Congress would have fewer than one-in-four voters approving their performance. I’ve made a list of Mr. Bush’s policy victories over the Democrats:

1. S-CHIP — Mr. Bush vetoed the Democrats’ bill expanding middle-class health care subsidies and Democrats were unable to override that veto.
2. Alternative Minimum Tax — Democrats passed AMT reform without the offsetting tax hikes they had threatened.
3. Energy bill — What was a monster at the beginning of the year is now just a fairly harmless CAFE standards bill. Environmentalists are fuming.
4. Hate Crimes Legislation — Mr. Bush blocked it. The Congressional Black Caucus is furious.
5. War funding — Mr. Bush prevailed without any pull-out date. At the start of the year this looked impossible.
6. The Budget — Mr. Bush mostly prevailed on domestic spending totals.
7. No new taxes — all of the Democratic tax proposals were killed, including tobacco taxes, hedge fund taxes and energy company taxes.

It pretty much looks like the White House ran the table. Merry Christmas, Madam Speaker.

As I’ve noted before, US economic and foreign policies matter most to me as a foreigner: whether Americans permit gays to be married, guns to be carried or God to be harried doesn’t keep me up at night.

During the 2004 presidential elections, I said to a friend that perhaps the US needs a presidential term under a Democrat, if only to remind the people in general (and Republican voters in particular) that the Democrats aren’t very good at low taxes, low spending, light-touch environmental regulation and effective foreign policy. Either a John Kerry in 2004, or a Hillary Clinton in 2008, would achieve this goal, and as a result, cement the longer-term rise of the GOP. It now appears that Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco leftist in charge of the ineffectual Democratic Congress, may have achievedachieve this in just two years. Especially if the Democrats nominate Clinton (admittedly, Dennis Kucinich would do too), my money’s on a Republican presidential election win just less than a year from now.

Update: Repaired a grammatic blunder in stating Nancy Pelosi’s term: either she “may have achieved it in just one year”, or she “may achieve it in just two years” — my phrasing was inconsistent, and the former may yet be undone by a sparkling Congressional performance in 2008 (when Martians may land and I may win the lottery).

It seems like yesterday, but it’s already over 13 years ago that a comet, Shoemaker-Levy 9, having been broken up into a couple of dozen fragments on its previous pass, spectacularly slammed into Jupiter. It was the first time ever such an impact had been observed, and it was visible not only from Earth, but also from the spacecraft Voyager 2, which had a close-up view. Last year, NASA launched a mission to slam a large fridge into comet Tempel 1. It was amazingly successful, producing an explosion captured and analysed by astronomers all over the world. Next month, the Mars rover Opportunity could have a ringside seat for a repeat performance by a a newly-discovered asteroid headed for Mars.

Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet had been discovered not long before by Canadian atronomer David Levy, and his more famous American counterparts, champion hunter of comets and asteroids Carolyn Shoemaker, and her late husband, astrogeology poineer and would-be moonwalker Eugene Shoemaker. To date, “the SuperGene”, as he was sometimes referred to, is the only person whose remains are buried on the moon. (Bill Hollenbach, an amateur astronomer with a self-built observatory at the Wondercave in the Cradle of Humankind, northwest of Johannesburg, pointed out where exactly the site is located in the comments to a previous post.) Two of the famous pictures of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact, one of the comet string, and another of the impact explosions, are alongside (click on them for larger versions).

The new asteroid, designated 2007 WD5, was discovered by Andrea Boattini of the Catalina Sky Survey. By astronomical standards, the event is very likely. The asteroid has a one in 75 chance of hitting Mars at about 13:00 South African Standard Time (11:00 GMT) on 30 January 2008, and that chance could increase early in January, when more observations of the asteroid’s orbit have been taken. If it misses, it will miss by less than four times the diameter of the earth.

2007 WD5 is estimated to be the same size as the object that is believed to have caused the Tunguska event in Siberia in 1908. William Hartman has created a fascinating page about Tunguska with paintings that reconstruct eyewitness accounts. Wikipedia has lots of links and theories — ranging from likely to lunatic — about the event.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Ron Baalke modified a Java-application by Osamu Ajiki, which permits you to plot and observe the orbits of WD5, Earth, Mars and Jupiter.

I’ve long said I’d prefer a nuclear reactor in my back yard to a coal-fired power plant next door, since the former is safe and clean, while the latter emits lots of smog and radiation. Looks like I could soon have one!

Noted on Slashdot is a remarkable story in Next Energy News about a tiny nuclear power plant, developed by Toshiba. Tiny, but developing 200kW nonetheless — enough to drive a workshop full of power tools, several computers, a pool pump, as many home appliances as I can afford, all the 100W incandescent lightbulbs my heart desires, and have enough left over to sell to the neighbours to cover the hire-purchase agreement.

The device measures two by six (by something, presumably) metres, which is roughly the size of a car. It will produce enough power for a cluster complex, a block of flats, or a city block. Says the news report:

The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.

And it’s not pie in the sky, either. Toshiba claims it will install the first units in 2008, and begin marketing the idea worldwide by 2009. If the price per kWh is to be relied on, a unit will cost about $3 million, or R21 million. That’s not cheap, but it’s not unreasonable either. And taking everyone who can afford a BMW off the national grid will be music to The Bolt’s ears.

This could put Gore Inc. (and the Gorebusters) out of business for good. It’s party time!

Three guesses where this quote comes from:

To many scientists and students of scientific history, there really is no such thing as a consensus.

Nope, it’s not the Wall Street Journal. It’s not TCS Daily. It’s not from the Climate Denialist and UFO Nutters Digest either. This is from a columnist/blogger at the New York Times, Andrew Revkin. He’s been among the more informative media voices, doggedly reporting both sides — and the middle — of the climate debate.

His piece notes a typically detailed and well-referenced minority report (intro here, full document here) released by Senator James Inhofe, ranking member of the US Environment and Public Works Committee. It documents the views of over 400 scientists who disagree with the “consensus” claimed by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (and its patron saint, Al Gore), and links to much peer-reviewed research work that undermines the orthodox views of “settled science”.

An excerpt from the introduction:

Even some in the establishment media now appear to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists. In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics “appear to be expanding rather than shrinking.” Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears “bite the dust.” In addition, many scientists who are also progressive environmentalists believe climate fear promotion has “co-opted” the green movement.

This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007. This new “consensus busters” report is poised to redefine the debate.

If 400 sounds like a consensus-busting number, but still paltry in comparison with the UN’s exagerated claim of 2 500 scientists that back the IPCC view, consider this:

Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, explains how many of his fellow scientists have been intimidated.

“Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media,” Paldor wrote.

Whichever side is right, in debunking the notion that the science is — barring a few extremist nutters and oil company shills — settled, Inhofe’s report is timely indeed. If they’re going to draft Gore, perhaps they could draft Inhofe to run against him. The campaign would be most entertaining.

Now here’s a great Christmas present! This is insanely funny. Okay, maybe just insane. Especially if your mark has seen Hostel. An offer on eBay for the following:

Drive Someone Insane with Postcards
When you care enough to send the very bewildering.

You are bidding on a rare chance to traumatize a treasured friend or relative with baffling, mind-numbing, mystery correspondence from abroad.

Here is the arrangement:

I will be spending the Christmas holiday in Poland in a tiny village that has one church with no bell because angry Germans stole it. Aside from vodka, there is not a lot for me to do.

During the course of my holiday I will send three postcards to one person of your choosing.

These postcards will be rant-ravingly insane, yet they will be peppered with unmistakable personal details about the addressee. Details you will provide me.

The postcards will not be coherently signed, leaving your mark confused, guessing wildly, crying out in anguish.

Read the rest of this entry »

I enjoyed this interview by Eric, over at the Tygrrrr Express, with John Podhoretz, the sometimes controversial but usually eloquent incoming editor of the neoconservative Commentary magazine, the publication his father Norman once edited.

In particular, his quip on uniting Americans is funny: “I, for one, have no interest in uniting with Michael Moore. I have no idea how to reduce the acrimony. People enjoy it more than they admit.” His view on Israel taking action against Iran’s nuclear programme also elicited a chuckle: “After Lebanon, I see no reason to have faith that Ehud Olmert knows how to find the men’s room.”