Letters to the Editor
Prof Bravus
Published Letters: 7 Editor's Choice: 2
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Al Gore is not climate change...
[Read the article: Stormy weather]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...and climate change is not Al Gore. Just a reminder for all of us. He's done great work in publicising the issue, but identifying it too closely with him means that 'skeptics' can feel as though they've made a significant point about climate change when they point to Gore's heating bills. Climate change is much, much bigger than one ex-VP.
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Good to see we can manage
[Read the article: Opus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]..to take an occasion to get outside seeing ourselves as the centre of the universe... and use it to make peurile snipes at each others' religious and other beliefs. I think the correct and appropriate response to the size of the universe is just to STFU for a while, which I shall now do.
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This is one of the consequences
[Read the article: If you think they hate us now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...of a system and a party and a mentality that values 'strength' - defined as ignorant, anti-intellectual, cryptoracist faith in brute force - above every other attribute. The spectacle at the Republican debate of the candidates competing in a 'brutality auction' of who would treat most harshly the prisoners in Guantanamo (who have already had their rights unconscionably trampled and who, in the proposed hypothetical, would have zero relevant intelligence).
When machismo is the key value, and thoughtfulness is actively discouraged, why is there any surprise when these are the candidates thrown up (image intentional)?
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Lost my way
[Read the article: If you think they hate us now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...in a sentence. ;) I meant to say that spectacle of the brutality auction at the debate was symptomatic and instructive.
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I think most of us
[Read the article: If you think they hate us now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...in the rest of the world (I'm in Australia) have held that line for a long time: we don't like America or its actions in the world or its foreign policy, but we like most Americans.
But seriously guys, if you vote in another Republican I have to say we're going to have to start rethinking that. I mean, part of democracy means the people are responsible for the actions of the leaders they elect.
We're smart enough to know that it only takes 51% (sometimes less, heh) to elect a President, so I guess we can say 'we like just fewer than most Americans'... but the friendship is getting seriously stretched.
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@Anonymous
[Read the article: In meth we trust]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not expert on current US drug terminology, but 'base' sounds close enough to 'freebase' to suggest that what you'd be getting is crack cocaine rather than something from the (meth)amphetamine family. Different drug, much higher addiction potential, probably similar effects.
More generally, thinking about where and how street drugs were made and what they were cut with (meth sometimes being precipitated out of solution with lead salts, as one example) is always much more of a deterent for me than the specific drug itself.
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Erm, and if it is crack...
[Read the article: In meth we trust]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...it probably won't enable dancing all night, since it's a fast short hit rather than a long slow one.