A bunch of interesting reading

Sorry for a bit of delay between posts.  Have been too busy with study/work/touch football (I have 4 nights of touch this week :/).

Anyway here are the favourite things I’ve read lately;

Christopher Hitchens rightly has a massive swing at the Republican’s strong anti-science platform.  Anti-science seems to be all the rage these days.  In fact just recently the Tasmanian Premier, David Bartlett dismissed what actually amounts to over 400 peer reviewed scientific journal articles that show that logging forests reduces their carbon carrying capacity as “bullshit.”  In doing so he ensured that I will never vote for him any higher than just above the religious political parties.  It’s also interesting to note Bartlett’s view that emissions from forestry are not a big deal because they represent such a small portion of global emissions.  The same can be said for every single persons individual emmisions, all of us make an almost insignificant impact on global warming, and it’s only when you add up all those almost insignificant impacts that you end up with a very significant impact.  People in Qatar (the country with the highest per capita emissions) emit 0.0000002% of annual global emissions.  Using Bartlett’s logic they don’t need to bother doing anything about climate change either – and everybody in the world emit even less than them.

There is a good article about Richard Dawkins here.  He addresses some criticisms well and demonstrates that he’s a funny guy too (although anybody who reads his stuff would know that already :P).

Speaking of religion, there’s a interesting, but heavier, essay about it from Pascal Boyer in Nature.  Definitely worth a read.

More stuff

Is Camden the most embarrassing suburb in Australia?  How can we get rid of them?  Of regardless of whether they’re right or not, discriminating against Muslims but not Catholics, is racism (or at least religious prejudice if you want to get into that stupid debate about what a race is).

 

David Karoly is my hero.  He even inspires me to study meteorology, although I’m not sure that will actually happen.  It’s interesting how nobody likes Garnaut’s report too.  Industry says it will kill business and people concerned about our future say it doesn’t do enough.  You can find the supplementary draft report here.

In related news, The Wilderness Society put out an embarressing press release in response to this report.  While I agree with the sentiment, it was important to note that this was a report specifically on targets and trajecories and it was relevant to mention forests.  It’s also important to note that 2 days before the report was mentioned, Garnaut directly called on more native forests and wilderness in Australia to be protected.  

 

Some religious stuff 😛

Here is a good analogy for the “intelligent” design argument.

A brewary in Denmark is making a “Godless” beer and donating money to an Atheist organisation for each beer sold.

 

I was going to finish off with a hilarious Michael Palin for US president video, but it’s already been taken off youtube :(.

Some Stuff

Fold It;  

Sick online puzzle game where you can help science by working out the structure of proteins!  

 

Jason and the Secret Climate Wars

Basically the US Department of Defence was warned of the effects of climate change in 1979 by this elite science advisory group, and then again by the National Academy of Sciences, but chose to ignore the warnings.  More evidence that instead of having democratic governments, we need scientific dictatorships :P.

Jason sounds interesting.  A lot of big names have been involved, including Freeman Dyson and Steven Weinberg.

 

Energy saving fluorescent lightbulbs are safe!

Incase you were worried – if you break your green lightbulbs you’re not going to breath in mercury and die!

 

Large Helical Device!

The Large Hadron Collider seems to be getting all the press lately.  I guess I still need to read a lot to find out what it actually does 😛

 

Currently reading; The Electic Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe.  Interesting read so far.  I’m glad I’ve read most of the references from the time; Hell’s Angels, On The Road, etc.  Although as is the case with all this “New Journalism,” I’d like to know how accurate the book really is.  Not very I suspect.  Unfortuantly I haven’t read One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, but I’m going to go buy it today, and maybe pause my reading to read that.