01.17.05

Selective Condeming/John Leo

Posted in General at 2:22 am by Clay

I just read through this week’s John Leo column, and he wrote in such a way that bugged me.

The article led off with,

“Almost everyone is a victim now, but some are more newsworthy than others. Here are the best of last year’s victims:”

And proceeded to name off Courtney Love, Florida Democrats, Single professors, athiests, and lots of people that most everyone would agree with what any moderately rational(e.g., Bill O’Reilly or Madonna) person would say about them.

So, we have lots of self-claimed victims, which I assume is a bad thing, given what I’ve read from John Leo in the past(and, in large part, agree with, but that’s irrelevant.). The four that are likely on one side of the spectrum or the other are uniformly on the democratic side.

This makes me wonder: I’m reasonably certain there are quite a few “defense of marriage” people who feel victimized by the “gay agenda”. I’m also certain that there are quite a few religious people who would like for the government to just leave them alone, and allow things like an administrator-led daily prayer in a public school

There are many more examples, I’m sure, yet somehow John Leo can write a diatribe about everyone being victims, and yet somehow leave out how all the conservatives feel they’ve been victimized.

To that I say: We all complain. We all want changes in government. We all have our own pet issues, and we all have a screwed up idea of how the world works. John Leo should wake up and understand that his diatribe about victimization in our society uses such a broad definition of “victim” that he presents himself as a victim, and therefore is meaningless. He’ll never get anywhere in changing the “victim” society by only attacking the left.

(For the record, if and when a liberal gets in power, I fully expect to rant about political correctness and how hate crime legislation makes thoughts illegal. I agree with John Leo’s point in a general way; just not the way that he likely means it.)

01.10.05

Global Warming

Posted in General at 4:06 am by Clay

The Global Warming issue came up in the Wisconsin State Journal’s Sunday edition(9-Jan-2005), and I found a couple of interesting points. First off, there was a graph of average global temperature over the past 100+ years. Underneath there was a caption saying that the temperature is up in recent years, but that there have been relatively recent years when the temperature was below average.

This struck me as odd, as those “below average years” would not have been below average without all of the past 25 years being increasingly above average.

So, point one for today is that most newspaper people are remarkably stupid when it comes to understanding statistics(here’s a bonus clue for reporters: If a question has an answer that gets over 90%, the asked question was useless. At least if you’re asking questions along the lines of, “Is freedom of speech a good idea?” rather than, “Have you ever smoked crack?”.).

The second point is that global warming is occurring. The question is whether or not it’s human-caused. If you ever run across a person who says, “We’re not sure if global warming is occurring or not”, and they actually mean what they’re literally saying — walk away. You’re speaking to a person who is a moron as far as science goes, and has completely invalid viewpoints.

Personally, I believe the evidence is too skimpy and contradictory to solidly say that humans did or did not cause it. That being said, I believe we should attempt to decrease emissions because the risks of catastrophe are too big.

That brings me to a third point: “We don’t know for sure, therefore we should do nothing” is not a good argument. There has to be a balancing test. The worse the possible catastrophe, the more we need insurance.