A few thoughts of revolt in Tunisia

According to one source:

(AP) TUNIS, Tunisia – After 23 years of iron-fisted rule, the president of Tunisia was driven from power Friday by violent protests over soaring unemployment and corruption. Virtually unprecedented in modern Arab history, the populist uprising sent an ominous message to authoritarian governments that dominate the region.

Well, Americans are once again welcoming a supposedly anti-despotic revolution in the Middle East. I do of course hope for the Tunisians to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity, but unlike the the reporter above, I have some knowledge of such precedents for this event as the Shah's ouster and the Moroccans revolution against the French. None of these produced a one-man one-vote system of anything, and so, to judge from experience, even after this coup, Tunisia may well be in for more of the depressing same.

Certainly the Tunisians are not demonstrating enough love of freedom to inspire hope. They did not fight long or hard to remove their despot. They do not seem to have established militias or a secondary government. Instead, they just seem to have rioted in order to drive out a very driveable old man. Worse though, they did not fight to end over-government but to establish a government strong enough to control the economy and create jobs. In light of this apparent unconcern for their liberties then, the Tunisians are unlikely to make the many daily sacrifices necessary to maintain them, and their future government may well therefore be another unelected weight upon their lives. In fact, given their stated goals, a tyrant promising jobs, land and bread may find himself not simply unopposed but welcomed. Certainly current authorities are facing no real opposition:

(http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_TUNISIA_RIOTS?SITE=NMALJ&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT), "plainclothes police were seen hustling some people off the streets of Tunis, which was under curfew. One was clubbed, another was dragged on the ground."

A Few Thoughts on Snow in Hawaii

Scientists have been discussing green-house gasses and global warming since the seventies, and on paper their ideas look good. Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane all do trap infra-red light as heat, and so a surplus of any of these gasses should raise the temperature of the Earth. Heck, in confirmation of this idea, we do see a general rising of temperatures; but, strangely, we also see signs of increased cold. Snow has fallen in Hawaii, Iraq, South Africa, Argentina and, for the first time ever, in Thailand. Clearly, something else just may be going on, perhaps an increase in climactic variability, a set of many changes to the environment from all the many different effects of humanity on that environment. In other words, we may not be facing global warming so much as global weirdening.

Now any increase in the variability of weather such as global weirdening would be very likely to escape the notice of scientist. A scientist running an experiment is almost always looking for changes in something's average rather than its deviation, and so he or she is likely to ignore record highs and lows of temperature as mere distractions from the real data of a stable average temperature. In such a situation, however, that "stability" of temperature may be the result of increases in the number of both high and low temperatures rather than a continuation of of previous ones. Worse though, in not noticing the degree of variability in temperature, meteorologists may well be ignoring the more impactful consequences of a less predictable environment. Farmers, economists and city planners, after all, may be able to take effective measures against simply a continued heating and drying, but each new possibility for change will increase the expense, effort, loss and suffering of those people. Worse still, having such extremes occurring so near to each other may well create further problems. Tornadoes, for one example, result from the meeting of hot and cool air massed, and global weirdening should indeed increase such meetings. Interestingly, much of the world is at least reporting an increase in the number of tornadoes....

A few thoughts on Jared Lee Loughner

Some news have suggested that the inflammatory political rhetoric so common today may have fueled Jared Lee Loughner's homicidal rage, and these news-writers and -editors are asking us to sheath such verbal weaponry in order not to arm further such psychos. Unfortunately though, judging any words by the reaction of the people least able to cope with them ignores a simple fact: anyone, like Loughner, unable even to sit in a class or walk a dog is likely to find something to be an idiot about, regardless of the media available to them. Furthermore, even the utter elimination of negative speech in politics will not elevate the rhetoric used; politicians will simply find politer ways to imply the necessity of removing their opponents from the political landscape and will thus simply probably motivate murder by the maladapted in a more gentle way. Dedicated politicians upholding a good cause, however, will lack at least one means to express the emotional force of their cause, and the electorate will still remain unprepared to face such verbal manipulation from their candidates.

How 'bout we just uphold critical thinking? We have to use it in other parts of out live....

A few thoughts on Ted Williams

People seem to be taking a very "I told you so" attitude toward Ted William's entry into rehab, and at first glance they do seem to have a point. The guy does drink, snort, lie and brawl, after all....

I won't uphold his behavior of course, but I will point to the futility of belittling someone who is at least trying to change himself from a drain on society and an asset to crime into at least something of a productive citizen. Such behavior, whether from oneself or Williams' mother, just drives more of the very few people able and willing to bring themselves up from the dregs back down. It also proves that people will accept the most disturbing behavior from established celebrities such as Michael Jackson, Lindsy Lohan, Paris Hilton, Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, Tom Cruise, Sean Penn, Whitney Houston and Paula Abdul, but that the Susan Boyles and Ted Williams' of the world had better expect the most severe scrutiny possible.