moon phases

Started this before change to "New Blogger", as backup in case of trouble with digiphoto blog "In a Small Dark Room", or rants & links blog "Hello Cruel World" . Useful - at one stage Dark Room was there, but like the astrophysical Dark Matter, we could't see it ... better now, but kept Just In Case.

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There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
Mark Twain (letter to Joseph Twichell after his wife's death)
[me, on a bad day]

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WRITER'S LINKS
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(and my Wish List)

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Catmas Five  
Less than 6 months now to Catmas!
And if you need a catpic fix before the first Friday in October, check out the Catmas blog, as linked above.

I need cheering up after hearing of the death of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. He's left us a wonderful legacy, but will still be missed.

New York Times on Vonnegut: God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut, by A. O. SCOTT (October 9, 2005); Kurt Vonnegut, by Verlyn Klinkenborg (April 13, 2007); Novelist Who Caught the Imagination of His Age, by Dinitia Smith (April 12, 2007)

"If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have nerve enough to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts." (1996)

So it goes.

Labels: cats, mourning, sorrybiz

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 11:39 am

 
Science seeking Truthiness  
I am putting here Charlie Stross' post and its links on the subject, with a link to it and its numerous comments. I can barely coherently frame my thoughts on the subject.

February 4, 2007
The definition of contempt
The American Enterprise Institute, a think tank largely funded by Exxon-Mobil is offering to pay climatologists $10,000 for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (www.ipcc.ch).

This is not surprising: lacking any real defense, it's only logical for them to seek men of straw to argue the case for them. The surprise is that they expect climatologists to be willing to trash their professional reputations — in a manner that will come back to haunt them whenever they subsequently apply for a job — for a mere ten thousand dollars. For a professional lobbyist that's a couple of billable hours; yet they suppose it's the measure of a working scientist's life's work.

Seldom has it been so easy to put an exact price on contempt.

Addendum: I note with interest that the American Enterprise Institute are Ayaan Hirsi Ali's current employers. More on this rather creepy body of unelected would-be architects of your future here (en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ American_Enterprise_Institute).

Posted by Charlie Stross at 12:36 PM

(Guardian article linked at beginning: www.guardian.co.uk/ international/ story/ 0,,2004230,00.html

From the comments:
Regarding the economics of AGW, there's an interesting discussion at (www.realclimate.org/index.php/ archives/ 2007/ 01/ stern-science). I particularly like this comment:

"Question: If we could save the world from a 100% certain total destruction of the whole infrastructure in 2057 in a way that would cost 10% of its total value, would it be profitable to do the investment and save the world?
If we use a moderate 5% interest rate in our calculation, the answer is clearly no! We should not save the world infrastructure 0f 2057, it costs too much today. The present day discounted value of the world infrastucture in 2057 (when I am 100 years old and probably in my grave), is only 8.72% of its total value in 2057 and less than the calculated 10% (of the total value) required investment today. So we decide not to save the world infrastructure.
If the doom was about in 2107, using the same calculations, it would not be "profitable" to use even 1% of the total value of the future infrastructure to save it today. I hope you check my calculations, discounting is relatively easy and fundamental to profitability analysis the economists regularly use to give their expert opinions."

The ensuing discussion shows that the arguments can be more complicated than that (as one would expect). But this does give an insight into what sort of questions we should be asking if someone says that dealing with climate change now would be "too expensive".

Posted by: Dave Berry

Labels: climate, politics, science

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 2:35 pm