AverageJoe90
AverageJoe90's JournalJames Wells: The Ringwraiths of Despair. (x-post from GD)
Hello, fellow DUers,
I've been finding a lot of good material on DailyKos lately concerning climate change; this particular article by James Wells illustrates the desperation of climate deniers, and their shift in tactics from "It's not happening/not bad" to the likes of, "We cannot stop it.", "Renewables are a failure no matter what.", etc.(and unfortunately, some of our resident "doomers", it seems, have fallen quite hard for the latter two things.). BTW, if you're a Tolkien fan, you'll love the many references he drops to TLoTR.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/14/1185744/-Forward-on-Climate-The-Ringwraiths-of-Despair
Here, late in the Fourth Age, the Nazgul have returned, no longer only nine in number. You can recognize them by a clear signature: Their insistence that nothing can be done.
At last our country appears to be gaining some awareness of the climate crisis that has already arrived, and will worsen in the years to come. Since its getting tougher for the deniers to deny the facts that are singing outside our windows, now we are seeing a big wave of stirring calls to inaction: Its going to happen no matter what, so theres no reason to even try to do anything.
The arrival of swarms of Nazgul is actually great news, because it means that deniers are running out of other options. Outright denial has allowed them to delay effective climate action for years, but it won't work any more. If their main remaining argument is "There's nothing you can do", then this creates the perfect opportunity for us to showcase the many positive climate solutions that are already happening, and new ones that are arriving on the wings of the eagles every day.
Woo hoo! My mileage is so good, I think Ill go drive another hundred miles today! I dont think so. If you really need the hard core debunking, it's at the Climate Progress link above. This one should be called the Jarnevon Paradox, after the planet on which this theory might have originated.
To see why this matters, its worth looking at the layers of climate denial. Similar to the Four Dogs defense used by tobacco lawyers and other polluters, climate deniers wear layers to ward off the weather of the facts. When a layer gets peeled away by the truth, they move back to the next one. Its not happening. Oops, its happening! Ok, Its not caused by humans. Hmm. Lets move back to But its not a bad thing.
Then came Sandy.
For a denier, if youre down to Theres nothing you can do, it means that youre running out of layers. In fact, the only layer behind this one is "Squirrel!" That very last layer, also known as Al Gore sold out to Al Jazeera!, is time tested and should not be underestimated, but is much less effective when its all they have left.
So when the Nazgul are swirling around saying Theres Nothing You Can Do, it means they have been recalled to defend Barad Dur. This unleashes all of us to answer that last desperate attack: we can show all of the great things that we can do, and are doing.
Defeating the Ringwraiths of Despair
We can apply tough emission standards to existing coal burning power plants, and then use the EPA Endangerment Finding to reduce emissions from the most egregious other GHG sources. We can set a carbon tax and put some of the proceeds toward clean energy. Leading public figures can keep climate change in the center of national conversation, as President Obama has begun in his inaugural address and State of the Union.
As individuals and communities, the sky is the limit. We can reduce the energy and materials that we use, recycle the materials that come our way at a very high percentage, and use recycled materials. We can turn away from factory food. We can support great local and regional organizations that devote every working day to creating climate-friendly solutions. We can push our communities to expand transit, recycling, and other services that preserve our climate. We can live like hobbits, cherishing the simple things that make life special.
Each of us can spread the word on climate change and positive solutions, in person, in lights, online, or even on a first date. We can share information about the beauty and importance of places that must be protected. We can help get out the vote for real climate hawks. We must be willing to change, and to help others not to fear change.
Our Future - Worth Saving
And there you have it. Some real hope for the future.
James Wells: The Ringwraiths of Despair
I've been finding a lot of good material on DailyKos lately concerning climate change; this particular article by James Wells illustrates the desperation of climate deniers, and their shift in tactics from "It's not happening/not bad" to the likes of, "We cannot stop it.", "Renewables are a failure no matter what.", etc.(and unfortunately, some of our resident "doomers", it seems, have fallen quite hard for the latter two things.). BTW, if you're a Tolkien fan, you'll love the many references he drops to TLoTR.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/14/1185744/-Forward-on-Climate-The-Ringwraiths-of-Despair
Here, late in the Fourth Age, the Nazgul have returned, no longer only nine in number. You can recognize them by a clear signature: Their insistence that nothing can be done.
At last our country appears to be gaining some awareness of the climate crisis that has already arrived, and will worsen in the years to come. Since its getting tougher for the deniers to deny the facts that are singing outside our windows, now we are seeing a big wave of stirring calls to inaction: Its going to happen no matter what, so theres no reason to even try to do anything.
The arrival of swarms of Nazgul is actually great news, because it means that deniers are running out of other options. Outright denial has allowed them to delay effective climate action for years, but it won't work any more. If their main remaining argument is "There's nothing you can do", then this creates the perfect opportunity for us to showcase the many positive climate solutions that are already happening, and new ones that are arriving on the wings of the eagles every day.
Woo hoo! My mileage is so good, I think Ill go drive another hundred miles today! I dont think so. If you really need the hard core debunking, it's at the Climate Progress link above. This one should be called the Jarnevon Paradox, after the planet on which this theory might have originated.
To see why this matters, its worth looking at the layers of climate denial. Similar to the Four Dogs defense used by tobacco lawyers and other polluters, climate deniers wear layers to ward off the weather of the facts. When a layer gets peeled away by the truth, they move back to the next one. Its not happening. Oops, its happening! Ok, Its not caused by humans. Hmm. Lets move back to But its not a bad thing.
Then came Sandy.
For a denier, if youre down to Theres nothing you can do, it means that youre running out of layers. In fact, the only layer behind this one is "Squirrel!" That very last layer, also known as Al Gore sold out to Al Jazeera!, is time tested and should not be underestimated, but is much less effective when its all they have left.
So when the Nazgul are swirling around saying Theres Nothing You Can Do, it means they have been recalled to defend Barad Dur. This unleashes all of us to answer that last desperate attack: we can show all of the great things that we can do, and are doing.
Defeating the Ringwraiths of Despair
We can apply tough emission standards to existing coal burning power plants, and then use the EPA Endangerment Finding to reduce emissions from the most egregious other GHG sources. We can set a carbon tax and put some of the proceeds toward clean energy. Leading public figures can keep climate change in the center of national conversation, as President Obama has begun in his inaugural address and State of the Union.
As individuals and communities, the sky is the limit. We can reduce the energy and materials that we use, recycle the materials that come our way at a very high percentage, and use recycled materials. We can turn away from factory food. We can support great local and regional organizations that devote every working day to creating climate-friendly solutions. We can push our communities to expand transit, recycling, and other services that preserve our climate. We can live like hobbits, cherishing the simple things that make life special.
Each of us can spread the word on climate change and positive solutions, in person, in lights, online, or even on a first date. We can share information about the beauty and importance of places that must be protected. We can help get out the vote for real climate hawks. We must be willing to change, and to help others not to fear change.
Our Future - Worth Saving
And there you have it. Some real hope for the future.
Dr. Cara Barker's Love Project: Quilts for the Siblings of Sandy Hook Victims
Thought I'd share this heartwarming story with you guys.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/22/1189185/-Dr-Cara-Barker-s-Love-Project-Quilts-for-the-Siblings-of-Sandy-Hook-Victims
Artistic creations help us heal, and feel remembered. No one benefits more from this than the vulnerable little child. Their losses leave invisible scars. if not attended by compassion, made visible, this critical hurt affects further development. When children grieve, they need messages of reassurance that uplift and heal, reminders that they are not alone. For, when a family loses a child, (ask me how I know), the sibling encounters multiple levels of loss: the death of their brother/sister; a well as the temporary loss of parent, forced to navigate through their own impossible heartbreak.
Bless her heart........
I've found some good Daily Kos stuff that I've thought about posting.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen of the Democratic Underground. While getting back on Daily Kos, I came across a number of really good articles penned by various members of that site and I thought I might start reposting some of them here on D.U.
I've been on here for a little while, but I would like to be able to contribute a little more to the community and I figured this would be a good start.
I'll be dropping a few hints as to what I'm thinking about posting from time to time, so I'll edit the OP from time to time to reflect that.
Here's the first few to look forward to for today/overnight tomorrow:
On This Date in 1971, America Braced for a Nuclear Attack That Never Came
The Library is America's last truly socialized institution and you're about to lose it
Dr. Cara Barker's Love Project: Quilts for the Siblings of Sandy Hook Victims
Andrew Revkin, NY Times: A Closer Look at Moderating Views of Climate Sensitivity
Found this NY Times article from a couple of weeks back, and I thought I might share it with you.....
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/a-closer-look-at-moderating-views-of-climate-sensitivity/
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Worse than we thought has been one of the most durable phrases lately among those pushing for urgent action to stem the buildup of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
But on one critically important metric how hot the planet will get from a doubling of the pre-industrial concentration of greenhouse gases, a k a climate sensitivity some climate researchers with substantial publication records are shifting toward the lower end of the warming spectrum.
Theres still plenty of global warming and centuries of coastal retreats in the pipeline, so this is hardly a benign situation, as some have cast it.
But while plenty of other climate scientists hold firm to the idea that the full range of possible outcomes, including a disruptively dangerous warming of more than 4.5 degrees C. (8 degrees F.), remain in play, its getting harder to see why the high-end projections are given much weight.
This is also not a single-study syndrome situation, where one outlier research paper is used to cast doubt on a bigger body of work as Skeptical Science asserted over the weekend. That post focused on the as-yet-unpublished paper finding lower sensitivity that was inadvisedly promoted recently by the Research Council of Norway.
In fact, there is an accumulating body of reviewed, published research shaving away the high end of the range of possible warming estimates from doubled carbon dioxide levels. Chief among climate scientists critical of the high-sensitivity holdouts is James Annan, an experienced climate modeler based in Japan who contributed to the 2007 science report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.....
So there you go.....rest of the article can be seen at the link.
For those of you out there who believe Mitt Romney will start WWIII if elected.....
I'm just curious as to why you may think so.
However, I don't think it will, and here's a few reasons why:
1.)Russia is not Stalin's USSR-Even Vlad Putin will not be willing to risk 160 million lives over an invasion of Iran, or Syria(it didn't even come close to happening in '08, and that was when Shrub, Jr. was in office). Why would he nuke the U.S., period? And if he even thought about such a thing, the Russian people would be up in arms within hours.
2.)China needs us more than we need them-They absolutely depend on our trading for their economy to survive. If we embargoed them tomorrow, their economy would be in recession within days.
3.)Romney is an idiot but he's no Hitler-Even Reagan wasn't foolhardy enough to declare war on the Russians without cause. And Romney has shitloads of cash invested in Chinese companies, as well. He is all talk, no action. (I'd be scared if a guy like David Duke took over, though)
4.)And most importantly, the Cold War ended in 1991.
Truth is, as bad as a Romney Presidency would be, I have to say that this kind of extreme speculation is making us Dems look like tin-foil hatters. Sad but true.
(I thought I might clarify that what I meant by WWIII, was in the traditional sense, that is global atomic warfare.)
Another shooting just happened today! (Texas A&M)
It happened again, folks.....this time here in the Lone Star State!
[link:http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/13/justice/texas-am-shooting/index.html|
Scott McCollum, assistant chief with the College Station police department, told reporters Monday afternoon that the three people killed were the constable, the man authorities say exchanged gunfire with law enforcement officers and an unidentified 65-year-old male civilian.
The dead included Brian Bachmann, a constable in Brazos County, according to McCollum. According to his Facebook campaign page, Bachmann was a 41-year-old from College Station who had been a Brazos County sheriff's deputy since 1993.
God damn. I can't help but wonder if this may be a copycat crime of some type.
R.I.P. to all those victims who died.
Tea Party anti-OWS propaganda debunking thread.
Hey folks, thought this might be a useful thread to make as I've seen quite a bit of this B.S. lately.
There's one particular pair I came across just yesterday; one of them a sadly misinformed young woman who really adores the Teabaggers(an understatement btw), and an idiot troll who might just be one of their shills.
Here are some of their dumber comments:
"OWSers consist of actual racists, who are more worried about zionists and people becoming successful, than they are about out-of-control government spending, corporatism, and a federal leviathan restricting individual liberty. I'm sure there's SOME decent people, but it's a cabal of society's lowest common denominator. The only reason anyone thinks the Tea Party is at all racist is because they dare question the Federal Leviathan's power."
-EmpperorIng
"You libs use the term "racist" to discredit anyone who agrees with you. This includes the Tea Party. We're "racist" because we dare to doubt the legitimacy of a federal leviathan that doesn't recognize the limits of its power. We're "xenophobes" because we actually love our country and respect its rule of law, and we're "extreme" because extreme is a meaningless, subjective term you can throw around haphazardly."
-EmpperorIng
"Don't be fooled. The Tea Party consists of thousands upon thousands of members per group, with thousands more groups around the country, amounting to millions upon millions of self-identified members. While I concede OST has millions of sympathizers, actual members amount to tens of thousands across the whole nation. Every single one of them a malcontent and a troublemaker that contributes to the rampant rape, theft, assault, public defecation, vandalism, etc of these movements."
-EmpperorIng
"no it's pretty rampant. There's pictures of OWSers taking a dump on police cars. And by "taking a dump" I mean "His pants are down, and there's a big brown smear on the car." Not to mention people have been turning up dead in these camps." "Millions of tea partiers over 2 years haven't done 1/20th what thousands of OWSers do in 1 day."
EmpperorIng 7 hours ago
"I didn't notice any variation in your diction at all, and I also happen to think that your estimate is grossly inaccurate. Most of the Tea Party is made up of moderate and king elderly people who couldn't hurt a fly. And they, the massive majority, strictly denounce any and all violence and hate which manages to sneak it's way into their protests. The Occupiers do no such thing, and in fact, encourage it."
-LeBaoBeatha
"I've been to Tea Party rallies before. They're full of quiet elderly people, country music, and conservative guest speakers. Not to mention all the American flags. I haven't seen ANY of the utter bull that people say goes down at Tea Parties. I have on the other hand seen OWS group screaming in pedestrians faces and breaking shop windows. And the mounds of garbage and filth."
"At least Tea Partiers clean up after themselves. Oh, and they LEAVE after awhile. PEACEABLY.
LeBaoBeatha 2 days ago
(That last quote from this paragraph seriously needs to be debunked.)
"They're shitting on cop cars. And on sidewalks. They also shout profanities at anyone who walks past them wearing a suit. Not to mention the mounds of garbage they've been piling up. Have you smelled that rank? It's disgusting. Half the people there don't even know why they are, they either just want someone to be angry at, or they just want to camp out in the streets like it's the apocalypse."
-LeBaoBeatha
"From police reports, witnesses, court rulings and pictures in the local papers and all over the web, it's been decided that 1500+ incidence involving violence and/or defiance of common-laws have occurred at Occupy movements in the U.S. Whereas with the tea party only 30 have occurred over 3 years. The Tea Party not only gets permits(unlike the ows movement) but they also clean up before they LEAVE(...)"
-LeBaoBeatha
"Here's the thing: The Tea Party is hundreds of times larger than OWS and has been around much longer. In the entirety of their existance, they haven't done 1/20th of what Occupiers do in one day."
-EmpperorIng
(Now this is definitely baloney but let's get some hard stats up here, eh?)
And that's just from these two people.
BTW, this thread was also intended as a showcasing of facts and statistics to back up these debunkings, so links are very much appreciated.
OPEN Act has its own website now. You can edit this bill!
Hey! I was browsing the internet looking at random stuff and I came across the OPEN Act's website.
Believe it or not, you can actually edit this bill yourself. See for yourself:
http://keepthewebopen.com/
All I can say is, thank you, Sen. Wyden! This could be our chance.......
The RQ-170 Incident: Possible Sabotage from within? Dave Emory's take on the issue.
I recently came across Dave Emory's informative SpitfireList website and he recently posted an article concerning the Sentinel incident, along with his own commentary, which includes a question asking if someone in the U.S. may have been involved in the hijacking of the drones as well.
Additional Links can be seen here(which won't come up here because the forum is unable to hyperlink):
http://spitfirelist.com/news/droning-on-interesting-timing-in-the-middle-east/
"COMMENT: The apparent capture and downing by Iran of a U.S. drone aircraft raises a number of interesting questions.
If the account presented in Debka can be believed, the possibility of some sort of inside job is one to be carefully considered. (Debka is an intelligence newsletter specializing in Middle Eastern and Israeli national security matters.)
With the Ptech/Islamist/Muslim Brotherhood links to the GOP and the Underground Reich un-interdicted, the possibility of GOP sabotage to prevent successful military action against Iran must be considered. (Mitt Romney said that if Obama is re-elected, Iran will get the bomb. Although that may very well be a done deal, it is interesting to note the proximity of the drone capture to the Romneys remarks.)
Was Ptech technology involved here?
Might U.S. and/or Israeli national security interests have helped engineer this to forestall an Israeli attack on Iran, seen by many as a blueprint for wider devastation and disaster?
Might Islamists and/or Underground Reich personnel have been involved?
Might GOP personnel have been involved in bringing down the drone to cause embarrassment and or disfunctionality to the Obama administration, not unlike the U-2 incident and its effect on the Eisenhower summit with Soviet premier Khruschev or the October Surprise and its effect on the re-election campaign of Jimmy Carter?
Might right-wing Israeli elements have been involved, in order to generate pressure for an attack on Iran by Israel? Note that Debka has a strong bias toward the Israeli right-wing.
http://www.debka.com/article/21550/
EXCERPT: Iran exhibited the top-secret US stealth drone RQ-170 Sentinel captured on Sunday, Dec. 4. Its almost perfect condition confirmed Tehrans claim that the UAV was downed by a cyber attack, meaning it was not shot down but brought in undamaged by an electronic warfare ambush.
This is a major debacle for the stealth technology the US uses in its warplanes and the drone technology developed by the US and Israel.
The state of the lost UAV refutes the US military contention that the Sentinels systems malfunctioned. If this had happened, it would have crashed and either been wrecked or damaged.
The condition of the RQ-170 intact obliges the US and Israel to make major changes in plans for a potential strike against Irans nuclear program.
Earlier Thursday, Debkafile reported:
The Obama administrations decision after internal debate not to send US commando or air units into Iran to retrieve or destroy the secret RQ-170 stealth drone which fell into Iranian hands has strengthened the hands of the Israeli faction which argues the case for striking Irans nuclear installations without waiting for the Americans to make their move.
Senior Israeli diplomatic and security officials who followed the discussion in Washington concluded that, by failing to act, the administration has left Iran not only with the secrets of the Sentinels stealth coating, its sensors and cameras, but also with the data stored in its computer cells on targets marked out by the US and/or Israeli for attack.
Debkafiles military sources say that this knowledge compels the US and Israel to revise their plans of attack for aborting the Iranian nuclear program.
Like every clandestine weapons system, the RQ-170 had a self-destruct mechanism to prevent its secrets spilling out to the enemy in the event of a crash or capture. This did not happen. Tehran was able to claim the spy drone was only slightly damaged when they downed it.
The NATO spokesman claimed control was lost of the US UAV and it went missing, a common occurrence for these unmanned aircraft.
The enigmas surrounding its capture continue to pile up. How did Iran know the drone had entered its airspace? How was it caused to land? Most of all, why did the crafts self-destruct mechanism which is programmed to activate automatically fail to work? And if it malfunctioned, why was it not activated by remote control? . . . ."
Please note that Dave's assertion about Debka's biases may be true to a point, but it is certainly wise to ask certain questions in times such as this(and hopefully, will not prevent meaningful discussion & debate on this forum).
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