September 24, 2008

I Feel Much Smarterer Now

Hey I'll be first to admit that I know a little about a lot of things (I do know a lot about a few things, but that is a different matter). I'm always searching for knowledge though, on things I know a little about, that either interest me, or are in the news. I probably Google 50 times a day on average.

I like 101 summations. The simpler the better. If I want to pursue the matter, at least I have the basic knowledge.

Two things that I will guarantee most people hear about currently, but know very little about are Climate Change, and this bailout thingy in the US.

Happily, just in the last couple of days, I have been enlightened on both subjects, and now it us to anyone reading this post, to enlighten themselves.

First is Climate Change aka The Global Warming debate. Potholer54 gives what I think is the most sincere and factual account of what the heck is going on with our atmosphere in completely understandable words. Seriously, this is worth the 10 minutes out of your busy schedule:

H/T The Atheist Media Blog

Now for the Freddie/Fannie mess? How did it happen? Got 3 minutes?

H/T The guy behind Eye On The World

What? It wasn't caused by the 6 Jews who control the world? How can that be? Oh yeah, Fox news is controlled by those Jews. What was I thinking?

4 comments:

  1. I seem to recall not so long ago that on man made global warming you were sitting on the fence a bit. Are you now a believer [cough!], I mean "proponent"?

    As regards the bail out thingy, I'm still really none the wiser. Allow me to show my bias by calling Faux Noise... biased!

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  2. I'm definitely on the fence but I side with science when in doubt, if it is pretty much a consensus. Right now, I think it is hard to make conclusions, but there seems to be some legitimacy in being a proponent right now.

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  3. Potholer54 has got to be one of the best youtube video contributers around - that video in particular is exceptional.

    His potholer54debunks is a good series too. I regularly watch him, cdk007, donexodus2, thunderf00t and atheistmedia.

    As for the Fannie/Freddie thing, I was suspicious immediately because it was by Fox. Sure enough, it jumps in and blames the Democrats for something they did 2 years ago, while this thing has been going on for over 10 years, including 6 when the Republicans controller both the House and Senate and the Whitehouse.

    Lays a little bit too much at the feet of Fannie and Freddie as well. Lots of these schemes where hatched in the private sector as well - based on the Ponzi scheme idea that house prices would always rise.

    There were lots of government regulations that promoted this, to the joy of those who made it rich early on.

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  4. Beaj:

    Cautious, huh? I like that...

    Well, I'm no expert either. Being a chemist makes it easier to understand the lingo and reasoning but I cannot have an overview of the entire body of evidence either.

    I will say this though. Attention to the study of global warming was drawn to me while I was a student (early eighties). Initially I was naturally sceptical, as any scientist (budding or accomplished) should be when confronted with a new theory. Hell, back then the whole gamut of scientists working on the problem still had to develop the complex measuring techniques needed to probe into the Earth's thermal deep history!

    But one thing struck me right from the off: that conservative pundits, mostly non-scientists from the US, started warning of the negative impact on the economy this kind of study could have (if it was concluded that industrial activity was causing the heating), LONG before scientists had actually measured anything meaningful.

    Ask yourself why, of the multiple scientific paradigms successfully in operation today, only two (global warming theory and evolutionary biology) are the subject of such heated debate, involving entire populations of complete laymen. Last time I looked no one is proposing an "intelligent Quantum Mechanics" (even though QM is at loggerheads with some older theological principles regarding "certainty").

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