Letters to the Editor
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SEXUAL PERSONNAE drinking game
Can this woman not pen a single article without multiple plugs of her book "Sexual Personnae"??? The ps If there were a drinking game based on her writing, hitting this plug would definitely be a "chug!".
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Not Camille's best showing
One thing about Letterman's hosting of the Academy Awards years back was how his humour didnt translate well into a large audience format, being more at home one-on-one with guests or a studio audience. I had the same feeling with the letters format in this, Paglia's most recent column.
Her natural verve thrives in the long narrative form uninterrupted by questions, which seemed to diffuse or distract her vision. She is the world's greatest living philosopher in the classical sense of possessing a unifying worldview that blends our great traditions of thought with the undercurrents of nature that threatens to obliterate it all in a heartbeat.
The letters format seem to cool down her hot media, as there is an implied interaction seems more like a television transmission than cinematic projection, and Camille is definitely a diva of the big screen.
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Somebody's Lying - And It's Not Me!!!
Lynx,
Your cynicism is below me.
Dr. Locrian,
I'm sorry, Sir, but you are wrong. The question of what the "right" temperature is has come up - do you know what it is? Or does it "change"?
Look: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/
We're being fed a web of cult-inspired lies, on a whole slew of issues, and those pushing the lies deserve the anger put forth to defend them. I can't wait for this to bust open because then - and only then - will the American people, finally, reclaim their destiny and our sense of ourselves as a nation.
The Duke rape Case is over, and the players - rich, white, and male - are completely innocent.
Come on, Folks, I'm a black man asking:
What other outright lies are Americans buying under the cultish veil of PC thinking?
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Lyle A. Austin. A climatic norm?
Well there isn't really any such thing as a historical climatic norm. The earth is dynamic, not static. There is no such thing as a state of balance. The climate and composition of the atmosphere have changed throughout the life of the planet.
It is always good to be sceptical, but we should be informed as well. The global warming sceptics should remember that Earth's atmoshpere was likely oxegenated by the respiration of microbes, thus allowing for the development and spread of multi-celled organisms such as ourselves. If the gaseous releases of these tiny creatures could essentially facilitate the terraforming of the earth, then why is it hard to understand that the persistent release of large amounts of another gas (CO2) could further change the earth. CP should read about the acidification of the oceans as well, this is fairly easily demonstable, is the direct result of carbon emissions, and it is likely that it cannot now be stopped. So, bye, bye coral and other sea creatures with calcium based shells.
It is important to remember the big picture, though: There will always be life on Earth...until there is not. And I don't know what that means....
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JM Walker
what prevents one from accepting provisional likelihood of a theory while maintaining a healthy scientific skepticism?
There's nothing preventing you. You can be wrong all you like. What should stop you? When it isn't healthy. At this point, saying things like
virtually all of the major claims about global warming and its causes still remain to be proved.
is simply irresponsible and an attempt to muddy the waters. This paragraph
Climate change, keyed to solar cycles, is built into Earth's system. Cooling and warming will go on forever. Slowly rising sea levels will at some point doubtless flood lower Manhattan and seaside houses everywhere from Cape Cod to Florida -- as happened to Native American encampments on those very shores. Human habitation is always fragile and provisional. People will migrate for the hills, as they have always done.
Is simply wrong in nearly every way. It is shortsighted, simpleminded and damaging if anyone takes her seriously.
There is nothing wrong with healthy scientific skepticism, after all it is part of the scientific method. What is wrong is ignoring science and claiming your own opinions to be superior based on nothing more than wishful thinking. Her skepticism isn't scientific in the least, it is a parroting of right-wing talking points designed to protect profits another year.
But I support Camille's choice to be skeptical, and apparently that makes me a Rightist
You might not be a "Rightist", but by supporting her right to speak as an authority in matters where she hasn't the faintest clue, you're supporting the Right. You are correct, I have no idea what supposed political strain you adhere to. I simply see what you're supporting here and the Right would approve.
Nobody with his or her head out of the sand doubts that global warming is happening or that humans don't contribute. That is not the issue.
Then what do you think the issue is? If you re-read thtat quote I posted, that sure seems like what she's debating. She's saying humans aren't causing climate change, it is natural and either way, humans will just move to the hills. I'd love to see where she has hills that'll accomodate all the people that'd be displaced. The truth is, she doesn't care either way. The vast majority of people that'll be affected will be poor and not American so they can go hang.
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Clarifications on global warming
(1) Al Gore is right that there is scientific unanimity on anthropogenic global warming if you take peer-reviewed publications as the relevant figure of merit.
(2) The ice core data from Greenland and Antarctica provide the crucial differentiation between naturally occurring climate cycles and the effects of humans in the most recent 200 years. The data
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/283/5408/1712
show that carbon dioxide and methane increases lag temperature increases by 600-1000 years in each of the natural cycles, whereas in the last 200 years, the carbon dioxide has increased to levels unprecedented for the past half-million years, and temperature increases have followed; the CO2 leads temperature now. This is easy to understand: in the long natural cooling cycles, carbon is stored in peat underground and in methane hydrates underwater. When temperatures rise due to earth orbital orientation changes, these reserves of carbon decompose, release gas, and boost the heat retention, resulting in even higher temperatures - a classic positive feedback loop. And it's the temperature that drives the system, so it has the phase lead. Now, in the past 200 years, we humans have removed very deep deposits of carbon - oil and coal - and burned them, boosting the greenhouse gas load beyond anything in the history contained in the ice core data. And we have measured the recent temperature changes, with increasing accuracy as time goes on, and the mean temperature is rising, following the CO2 and methane. This phase relationship is the smoking gun.