Category Archives: Social Commentary

Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Buy Local, Act Evil?

13 Comments

For some reason, this doesn’t totally surprise me:

In an experiment, participants were randomly assigned to select items they wanted to buy in one of two online stores. One store sold predominantly green products, the other mostly conventional items. Then, in a supposedly unrelated game, all of the participants were allocated $6, to share as they saw fit with an anonymous (and unbeknownst to them, imaginary) recipient. Subjects who had chosen items from the green store coughed up less money, on average, than their counterparts. In a second experiment, participants were again assigned to shop in either a green or conventional store. Then they performed a computer task that involved earning small sums of cash. The setup offered the opportunity to cheat and steal with impunity. The eco-shoppers were more likely to do both.

I never fail to be simultaneously amused and disturbed by the hypocritical self righteousness of the same leftists who criticize Christians for the same thing. I also like the way they accuse businessmen, who actually create the wealth in this country, of “greed” while being themselves very generous only with other peoples’ money. Michael Moore is the canonical example of someone who claims to love humanity, but treats actual people like manure.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

Take This Paradigm

23 Comments

…and shove it.

Narrow intellectual gatekeeping is omnipresent in academia. Want to know why the government wastes hundreds of millions of dollars on math and science programs that never seem to improve the test scores of American students?[3] Part of the reason for this is that today’s K-12 educators—unlike educators in other high-scoring countries of the world—refuse to acknowledge evidence that memorization plays an important role in mastering mathematics. Any proposed program that supports memorization is deemed to be against “creativity” by today’s intellectual gatekeepers in K-12 education, including those behind the Math and Science Partnerships. As one NSF program director told me: “We hear about success stories with practice and repetition-based programs like Kumon Mathematics. But I’ll be frank with you—you’ll never get anything like that funded. We don’t believe in it.” Instead the intellectual leadership in education encourages enormously expensive pimping programs that put America even further behind the international learning curve.

I hope that Climaquiddick turns out to cause people to question a lot of previously unquestioned institutions and authorities.

Business, Economics, General Science, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

The Science Is Unsettled

7 Comments

My thoughts on the climate-change fraud, over at PJM.

[Update a few minutes later]

All the news that’s fit to bury. I liked this: “If Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe are done tormenting ACORN maybe they can figure out how to pose as underaged climate researchers…”

[Update about 8:30 PST]

The ugly side of climate science.

[Late morning update]

Lord Monckton speaks: They are criminals.

[Early afternoon update]

Another “blue dress” moment for the media — the BBC has had some of this info for weeks.

[Update mid afternoon]

I like the comment that offered this code snippet over at McIntyre’s place:

void function fubar(void); {

if dataset == hockeystick then plot(dataset); else fudge(dataset);

return; }

I assume that it’s recursive, in that fudge calls fubar…

Humor, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Weird

Equal Rights For Illegal Aliens

4 Comments

What we have here is an interplanetary travesty of justice:

…if the plaintiff is not a person in that he is neither a human being nor a corporation, he cannot be a plaintiff as contemplated by the Rules of Civil Procedure. The entire basis of Mr. Joly’s actions is that he is a martian, not a human being. There is certainly no suggestion that he is a corporation. I conclude therefore, that Mr. Joly, on his pleading as drafted, has no status before the Court.

Careful, you’re going to make him very very angry indeed.

Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Science Fiction

29 Comments

…is it cool? Was it ever? It never seemed to be when I was a kid, but maybe that’s changed. Scalzi thinks that 2001 and The Matrix were cool, but Star Wars wasn’t. I might completely agree if I’d seen The Matrix, but not having done so, I’ll take his word for it. I do agree on his assessment of the other two.

Slightly off topic, I use the verb grok regularly (I did so at work just this week) and when I do so I wonder how many people grok it? And if so, how? No one has ever asked me what it means, which means that either they already know, or they think they already know, or they don’t want to admit that they don’t know.

And getting back on topic, and speaking of “cool,” it’s remarkable how well the word has held up for decades. A lot of other words (groovy, groty) come and go, but that one seems to have stood the test of time, and become classic slang. It’s also interesting how well the word is grokked by most people.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Whales, Fish And Minnows

5 Comments

Roger Pielke explains how the left-blogosphere works. I would note this in particular:

In the case of Romm and Delong they also engage in outright lies and character assassination. Neither links to my own words on my blog, apparently afriad of what might happen if people view what I have to say directly, rather than their cartoonish caricatures. Gavin Schmidt of Real Climate contacted my university once and demanded that they sanction me for opinions that he did not like on my blog, under a vague threat of harm to reputation. Joe Romm has ordered the media not to talk to me (given the response, I assume that the folks who listened to him were the same folks who feed him quotes;-). What is even more disturbing is how these folks interact on a personal level. I was completely taken aback by the unprofessional email responses I received from Brad DeLong yesterday. I have occasionally seen faculty members throw hissy fits in a faculty meeting, but never have I seen the degree of unprofessional behavior displayed routinely by professionals in the liberal blogosphere. What is with these guys?

I’ve noticed this, too. While obviously the exceptions are many, I’ve noticed in general that leftosphere bloggers are much less professional and much more incivil in both public and personal communications than those on the so-called “right,” who tend to be more courteous even in disagreement. For example, some have done studies that found use of the F-word and other crudities much more prevalent to port than starboard. And I (and Roger) are not the only people who have noticed this, which makes me think that it’s something more than anecdotal. As to theories of why that may be, I’ll let others speculate.