Monthly Archives: March 2012

Politics

The “Liberal” Me

Am I a liberal? Have I become one?

That may seem like a ridiculous question to the three people who read this blog and are, on balance, to the left of me. But it’s been on my mind a bit lately. I am constantly accused of being a RINO or an out-and-out liberal on conservative sites. Friends and family often describe me as “so liberal”. And every time Obama screws up (about once a week), I get a message or an e-mail or a comment asking if I’m happy that I voted for him (which I didn’t; I voted for Barr). The current GOP primary race — in which none of the candidates really appeal to me — has only exacerbated this since I spend most of my time pointing out why each of the candidates is a terrible choice.

Thinking about it for a while, however, there may be something to the criticism. There are a handful of issues on which I’ve moved “left” in the last decade or so. But I do not see these as some sudden wellspring of liberalism. They are my fundamental conservatism and libertarianism refined. As I become more aware of the complexity and debate over certain issues, I find my libertarian/conservative philosophy leading me to views that I consider to be fundamentally conservative, but are no longer considered dogma by the GOP, least of all their collection of media dog washers.

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Civil Liberties, Cool Stuff, Humor, Politics

Rocket Man Linkorama

  • A tour of ancient Rome.
  • I’ve commented enough on the Sandra Fluke business at the other site and on Twitter. But here’s one last piece on the lack of outrage when conservative women are smeared — sometimes by supposed feminists.
  • These ads for a symphony are startlingly beautiful. I love modern photography.
  • A little profile of one of the more important First Amendment defenders out there.
  • And now … the least helpful review on Amazon.
  • And 100 reasons not to go to grad school.
  • My wife says she likes to exercise every day, but I don’t believe her.
    • News

    Dear Comment Spammers

    See, the thing is that I can see what URL you are coming from. So your “you’re so awesome” comments that attempt to link your sites/services don’t fool me. And no comment gets through here unless it’s either approved by me or comes from someone who has previously had an approved comment. So all your spam commenting does is occupy about the ten seconds of my week it takes to go through askimet’s queue and delete everything. Five seconds if I’m in a hurry. And maybe every two weeks.

    I love askimet.

    'Culture', Cool Stuff, Humor, Politics, Science and Edumacation

    Thursday Linkorama

  • I agree that most of these words need to die. Mancave, especially.
  • God rest the real heroes of WW2.
  • Fricking Australia, man.
  • Fascinating, if somewhat tedious evolution of the Eroica symphony.
  • Why Putin won the election.
  • Amazing before and after photos from the collapse of communism. You will rarely see the failure of that economic “system” so well demonstrated.
  • A nice story about the newest woman to join Forbes list of billionaires.
    • Science and Edumacation

    34 Years of BS

    Several blogs have recently posted an image that purports to show 34 years of deforestation of North America.

    It’s bogus. And whoever put it together — I can’t find the composite on the NASA site — has been deliberately deceptive.

    The first image dates from 2001, not 1978. You can find it here in wikipedia. It was taken on July 29 — summer for the Northern hemisphere. Check the cloud patterns and you’ll see it’s the same image. The second image you can find here from January of this year from the new Suomi satellite. And for those of you keeping up, that means it’s a winter image.

    So this is not an image of deforestation at all. It doesn’t cover 34 years. And it’s not even from the same satellite. And I didn’t have to use any of my NASA insider skills to figure out how the deception was done.

    If you want to know the facts about deforestation, try wikipedia. In the US, forests declined about 25% from 1600 to 1900. Since then, they’ve been stable due to protection, better management and sustainable logging practices in which new trees are planted as old ones are cut down.

    This is bullshit. This is Paul Ehrlich level bullshit. I’m angry about it, not only because of the pollution of the debate but because of the political abuse of some beautiful images NASA has produced.

    Update: Just to clarify why I was immediately suspicious of this image. One, I keep up with environmental issues so I knew the facts on deforestation already. Two, as a professional, I immediately noticed the difference in angle of the Earth in the two images, indicating the first was taken in summer and the second in winter. NASA can orient these images any way they want, since they are composites. But they angle them as they are shown to reflect the difference in seasons.