The American Scholar is on a roll with provocative climate change-related essays in consecutive issues. The summer issue has a brilliant coverline, “The Earth Doesn’t Care if You Drive a Hybrid,” touting this essay by Stanford physicist Robert Laughlin. People on opposite ends of the climate debate will likely find much to agree and disagree…Continue Reading…
Lawrence Wright has a short piece in The New Yorker this week–a commentary on America’s latest culture war. For those not familiar with Wright, he’s the the author of the masterful, 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning (for non-fiction) The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. I mention it because last night I happened to…Continue Reading…
We all know rational, intelligent people that honestly believe the most absurd things. I know someone who thinks she was abducted by aliens. On a related note, I also know someone who swears he saw a UFO in Miami Beach. And he was with his mother, who saw it too. I know another person who…Continue Reading…
Before I head off for a late summer vacation, I’d like to point out two notable op-eds appearing in today’s NYT. One is by Nicholas Kristof, who, after mentioning opposition to the Islamic center in lower Manhattan, goes on to discuss “earlier waves of intolerance in American history,” not out of hatred or bigotry, but…Continue Reading…
I wonder if Marc Morano sees the irony in his repetitive and highly exaggerated banner headlines, such as the one screaming across the site today: Meltdown of the Climate ‘Consensus’–‘Global Warming Establishment Takes a Body Blow’ The best thing is that this header is literally ripped from the New York Post. Yup, it’s a done…Continue Reading…
James Lee, the demented guy who was killed after taking hostages at the Discovery channel headquarters, is turning into quite an illuminating inkblot in the blogosphere. Exhibit A is this headline from Anthony Watts: When warmistas attack Exhibit B would be the majority sentiment that flows from that post’s comment thread, of which this one…Continue Reading…
The September issue of Scientific American has a bunch of interesting articles, including this introductory essay on why humans always seem to be fearing one doomsday or another. Here’s the irony: You might think that the enterprise of science, with its method and its facts, would inoculate us against the most extravagant doomsday obsessions. But…Continue Reading…