Huffduffer is a dumb name for a really neat service. Huffduff people – if you’re reading this – nothing personal. The one upside is that once you’ve learned the name, it’s hard to forget.

Huffduffer is a free service for creating an RSS & iTunes feed of random audio files you discover on the internet. It doesn’t have to be a podcast, just has to be an MP3 file referenced in whatever page you’re trying to “HuffDuff” (is it a verb? post-Google, can everything now be a verb? If my website provided a service, would you use my name as a verb?)

There’s also a “social”  and “discovery” aspect to the site, allowing you to browse and subscribe to other people’s feeds.

The subscriber base is HEAVY on design, a plus for me, a designer.

You can create a “group”, HuffDuff uses the term “collective”… eh…  anyway, I’m not sure how that part works. If you set up an account, and use it, “add me” or whatever…

http://huffduffer.com/KevinISlaughter

Geert Wilders‘ hate crimes trial just recently began and below is a speech he gave at a pre-trail hearing:

(if facebook or whatever reader isn’t showing the embedded video, find it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZyXkiQ-vn0 )

Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-Right MP, has demanded that his race hate trial should hear evidence from the fanatic who used the Koran to justify killing the director of an anti-Islamic film.

It marked an incendiary opening to the landmark case that has divided the Netherlands over the limits of freedom. Mr Wilders, 46, who is accused of incitement and discrimination, asked for 18 witnesses to be called in his defence, including Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who stabbed and shot Theo Van Gogh in an Amsterdam street in 2004.

The Van Gogh murder left a deep scar on the national conscience. It helped to change the mood of tolerance of Islam, and boosted Mr Wilders’s popularity.

Mr Wilders, whose Party for Freedom came second in the European elections last summer, faces a 70-page charge sheet covering five counts of breaking Dutch law in more than 100 public statements — for example, by likening the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and calling for an end to the “Islamic invasion”. He could be fined or jailed if convicted.

The alleged offences include Mr Wilders’s film Fitna, which shows images of 9/11 and beheadings interspersed with verses from the Koran. It ends with a clip of the controversial Danish cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.

At the opening day of the trial the prosecution objected to the request to hear from Bouyeri, and the panel of four judges adjourned until February 3 to consider which witnesses to call. “This case is about more than Mr Wilders,” Bram Moszkowicz, his lawyer, told the court. “It touches us all. It is such an important and principled question that could have far-reaching consequences.”

Mr Moszkowicz argued that the witnesses Mr Wilders wanted to call would prove that what he said was not simply inoffensive but true. He suggested that Bouyeri, a dual Moroccan-Dutch national, would be key to the case because he was a fervent Muslim who carried a Koran during his trial and defended his crime by claiming that Islam permitted violence against unbelievers.

And of course, now is a perfect time to repost FITNA, the short film he’s being tried for:

(direct link: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=216_1207467783 )

I’ve been very impressed with the Vice Travel Guide series… they’re currently unveiling “The Vice Travel Guide to Liberia” and it’s as terrible as one might expect, if your expectations are like mine. The videos are fairly short, 5-6 minutes a piece. I’d like to be able to wait until all of them are released, but I watched the first and was locked in.

4 of 8 episodes have been released as of this posting, I’ll try to come back and update when more have been released…

(UPDATE: 8 of 8 have been released)

The Vice Guide to Liberia 1 of 8

Welcome to The Vice Guide to Liberia. In this eight-part series, VBS travels to West Africa to rummage through the messy remains of a country ravaged by 14 years of civil war. Despite the United Nation’s eventual intervention, most of Liberia’s young people continue to live in abject poverty, surrounded by filth, drug addiction, and teenage prostitution. The former child soldiers who were forced into war have been left to fend for themselves, the murderous warlords who once led them in cannibalistic rampages have taken up as so-called community leaders, and new militias are lying in wait for the opportunity to reclaim their country from a government they rightly mistrust. America’s one and only foray into African colonialism is keeping a very uneasy peace indeed. In Part 1, Vice’s own Shane Smith provides a brief history lesson and some essential context for understanding what caused Liberia’s civil war and how things got so bad. Liberia was originally planned and founded as a homeland for former slaves back in 1821. But fast forward a bunch of years and a military coup and you find the First Liberian Civil War in 1989: yet another third-world regime change in which the US-backed opposition, led by Charles Taylor, overthrows a government unfriendly to US interests. Once in power, Taylor’s corrupt, dysfunctional government quickly finds itself under attack by local warlords, leading to the Second Liberian Civil War ten years later. From there things go from bad to total shit.

The Vice Guide to Liberia 2 of 8

While Liberia’s former president Charles Taylor’s trial for war crimes and sundry other atrocities continues at the Hague, the ex warlords of Liberia remain in their native country. Some are harassed by cops; others are hunted by vengeful gangs. The lucky few still maintain control over some territory.
In this chapter, VBS meets General bin Laden, so named to strike terror in the hearts of his enemies. After springing bin Laden from jail, VBS is invited back to his compound, where bin Laden leads us to his roof and tells us about his neighborhood improvement plans. Mid-interview, after a suspect group of men unfamiliar to bin Laden assembles in the courtyard down below, VBS is forced to flee.

The Vice Guide to Liberia 3 of 8

Eager to see what the UN and Liberian government are actually doing, VBS meets up with a local journalist who plops us down in the center of West Point, the worst slum in Liberia. Without any modern plumbing, the people of West Point have taken to using the beach as a dump and giant outhouse. The area smells like, well, a dump and a giant outhouse, and it goes without saying that residents’ health suffers a whole host of issues. Here we also happen on a young Liberian rapper, who gives us a couple verses about the scourge of Africa: AIDS. From there it’s off the visit a heroin den, where we watch a twelve year-old smoke heroin and describes raping a woman at gunpoint. It gets worse.

The Vice Guide to Liberia 4 of 8

Nearly 70 percent of Liberia’s female population has been raped, but that horrifying figure just begins to describe the depths of Liberia’s depravity. There’s also the not-minor issue of cannibalism—specifically, the devouring of one’s enemies. To learn more about these atrocities, we pick up General Rambo and take him to the compound where he once commanded his own rebel faction. Rambo convinces us that the Liberian rebels who lay in wait outside Monrovia could take over the city in two hours if the UN leaves the city. The UN is scheduled to begin pulling out next year.

The Vice Guide to Liberia 5 of 8

Back in West Point, we take our cameras to a busy brothel that reminds us of a biblical-era rendition of hell. The walls appear spattered and stained by some vicious cocktail of human fluid. A fetid air wafts throughout. Bloody rags and condoms lay strewn across the floor. The half-dozen girls on call accuse some UN members of flagrant sexual misconduct. When chaos breaks out in the whorehouse, we hit the road. In the car, General Rambo sends us a text telling us to hurry back to our hotel where General Butt Naked awaits.

The Vice Guide to Liberia 6 of 8

General Butt Naked, now Joshua Blahyi, takes us for a tour of the area he once controlled as a warlord. Now a converted Christian, Joshua recounts a day in the life of a cannibalistic general: eating the hearts of innocent children, training boys to kill, murdering enemies under the African sun. We learn of the secret powers of fighting completely naked and are taken to a spot where only a day earlier an assassination attempt was made on Joshua’s life. Today, Joshua preaches the gospel, helping to rehabilitate the former child soldiers who were most psychologically damaged by the horrific violence of their youth.

The Vice Guide to Liberia 7 of 8

In Chapter 7 of the Vice Guide to Liberia, VBS ventures to a cemetery filled with graves emptied by ex-combatants who used them as sleeping quarters. Joshua, aka Butt Naked, gives us a lesson on the consumption of human flesh before taking us to his Pentecostal church. We watch as Joshua delivers a sermon about his personal transformation from pre-pubescent murderer to redeemed holy man.

The Vice Guide to Liberia 8 of 8

The final chapter of our Guide to Liberia begins with Joshua, one-time rapist and murderer of thousands, introducing Shane at his church and denouncing Liberia’s fair-weather friends afraid of slums and swamp water. His sermon ends with an open admission of the blood on his hands. In the end, we wonder about the future of Liberia, Generals Butt Naked, Rambo, and bin Laden, and what will become of the child soldiers after the UN leaves. Will it once again dissolve into open warfare? Or can a message of good redeem a country that’s been plagued with violence and poverty since its inception?

Should Obese, Smoking and Alcohol Consuming Women Receive Assisted Reproduction Treatment?

ScienceDaily (Jan. 19, 2010) — The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) has published a position statement on the impact of the life style factors obesity, smoking and alcohol consumption on natural and medically assisted reproduction.

In a literature study the ESHRE Task Force on Ethics and Law summarised the negative effects of obesity, smoking and drinking on the natural reproductive potential of patients, on IVF results, pregnancy complications and outcomes and finally on the health of the future child. The paper is published online on 19 January 2010 in the journal Human Reproduction. The group made five recommendations.

1) In view of the risks for the future child, fertility doctors should refuse treatment to women used to more than moderate drinking and who are not willing or able to minimize their alcohol consumption.

2) Treating women with severe or morbid obesity required special justification. The available data suggested that weight loss would incur in a positive reproductive effect, although more data was needed to establish whether assisted reproduction should be made conditional upon prior life-style changes for obese and smoking females.

3) Assisted reproduction should only be conditional upon life style changes, if there was strong evidence that without behavioural modifications there was a risk of serious harm to the child or that the treatment became disproportional in terms of cost-effectiveness or obstetric risks.

4) When making assisted reproduction conditional upon life style modifications, fertility doctors should help patients to achieve the necessary results.

5) More data on obesity, smoking and alcohol consumption as well as other life style factors were necessary to assess reproductive effects. Fertility doctors should continue research in this area.

ESHRE acknowledged that this was a complex issue due to personal, patient, professional and societal responsibilities and also in terms of what these responsibilities meant with regard to safety of mother and child and fair and equitable access to treatment. The respect for patient autonomy needed to be balanced with the moral weight of the interests of society and the future child.

Obesity

According to the group obesity negatively affected reproductive potential through interference with hormonal and metabolic mechanisms leading to lower ovulation frequency and reduced chances of conception. The risk of gestational diabetes increased from twofold in overweight women to eightfold for morbidly obese women. The infants of obese mothers were at risk of perinatal death, congenital abnormalities such as neural tube defects (80% increase) and cardiovascular anomalies (30% increase).

Smoking

The risk of infertility was thought to be twice as high in smokers compared to non-smokers. Female smokers needed more time to become pregnant, were less likely to do so spontaneously and had a higher risk of miscarriage. Having an accelerating effect on oocyte depletion, smoking was suggested to lead to an increase in 10 years with regards to IVF outcome. Lower birth weight, a higher risk of oral facial clefts and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome were associated with maternal smoking. Male smokers were at risk of producing sperm of reduced quality and concentration.

Alcohol Consumption

Reduced conception, lower pregnancy rates and higher miscarriage rates were suggested as adverse effects of alcohol consumption. The known effects of alcohol consumption were summarised under Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) such as physical anomalies and behavioural and cognitive deficits. Other risks associated with prenatal alcohol consumption were foetal death, preterm labour and compromised foetal growth.

via Should obese, smoking and alcohol consuming women receive assisted reproduction treatment?.

Or don’t. I’ve put a new episode of the Variety Hour up. Later than expected and I’m less than satisfied as usual. I explain in the intro that my plans tend to be too big, or complicated, or rely on me writing something really clever (hah)… and things don’t fall into place, the show gets pushed back and then finally I just do some recording one night to wrap it up and send it out. There are some glitches in the recording, where the audio skips and I didn’t catch it and record back over it. I’m trying to listen to the episode now, but I’m just tired of hearing myself talk for the time being.

If I’m putting them out once a month, I want to do something a little more polished and/or complex than what I’ve done. I had my first caller in the show and I was going to do some commentary and that involved a quick interview with someone else. I never got that done, so I ended up having to take the caller out of the show. I think it would have pushed the whole thing well past the hour mark anyway.

I’ve recorded a couple of Ingersoll speeches for an Infidels.org / AAI project where they’re taking works on freethought/atheism and making audiobook versions available for free. The one in the podcast is “Should Infidels Send Their Children to Sunday School?” and it was written in the latter half of the 1800’s. I’ve attached another short one to this post, titled “How to Edit a Liberal Paper“, you know I had to jump on that one – it only runs about 5 minutes.

I’ve recorded a third, but haven’t edited it yet. The recording unedited is over an hour… I was tired of talking by the end of it, and it’s just really long. I’ll post it when I’ve edited it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:19 — 2.4MB)

Usually people think that Slaughter is a pen-name. It is not, it’s a family name going back a few hundred years to when one of my relatives Anglicized their German name when they stepped off a boat in Philadelphia. If I’ve cleared that up, and there is a further question, it’s “What does the ‘I’ stand for?”

There are a number of Isaacs in my paternal family line, on both my grandfather and grandmother’s sides.

The father of my grandmother, Isaac Spencer London was a newspaper owner/editor in Richmond County, North Carolina. He was married in 1915 to Lena Payne Everett, the daughter of a man who would be Secretary of State of North Carolina.

Isaac and Lena had 5 children. The fifth, Henry Armand London, died within minutes of being born, and the mother, Isaac’s wife, died the next day, Jan. 9, 1930, from pneumonia.

Isaac Spencer London Jr. was the 4th child of the two, being born August 5th, 1926. His mother passed away when he was only 3.

Isaac Jr. enlisted in the Army, and during the course of kidney stone operations he contracted Hepatitis, eventually killing him on January 20th, 1947 at the age of 20.

During the last days and following the death of his namesake, Ike did what a newspaperman would do – he wrote. These writings were then gathered together with photos and genealogical data on dozens of family members and published in a 44 page booklet titled “Pictures and Sketches of My Son Isaac Spencer London Jr. who died January 20, 1947 of Acute Hepatitis at the Veterans Hospital, Fayetville”.

I found a couple of copies of this booklet when I was sorting through my grandfather’s belongings after he had died. I didn’t know any London family members but my grandmother. A few years ago I’d pulled a significant amount of genealogical information from the booklet into a database, and when I went looking for it again, couldn’t find it. When considering the task of doing it again, it occured to me that these booklets are probably quite rare nowadays (though it seems a few are listed as being in a few NC University libraries), and certainly there were more family members who may be interested.

Rereading last page was what spurned me to take action:

This last page and the two blank pages of the cover are intended to be used as a Family Record. It is my hope that the names and data of additional grandchildren, and the names of their descendants, or of other members of our families, may be written hereon as a PERMANENT Family Record.

I have prepared this 44-page booklet (and 4-page cover) entirely with the idea of INFORMATION for our descendants. Here’s hoping it will be of value and be informative to you all in the many years far hence!

—Isaac S. London, Rockingham, N. C., June, 1947.

The past two days I’ve spent scanning, OCRing, Photoshopping and Wordpressing to eventually finish with a website dedicated to this booklet and the information it contains. With the exception of typographical issues (many hyphens are still present that don’t need to be, a few misspellings from misreadings by the OCR program, etc.) the entire booklet is online.

http://www.picturesandsketchesofmyson.com/

The grave of Isaac S. London Jr.

Though I don’t imagine that most of my readers will have an interest in the site as a whole, I appreciated greatly the following section from near the end of the 44 page booklet, though, and it may be of interest to genral readers. It is a glimpse into the small-town newspapers now gone:

—

How Carl Goerch Views the
Rockingham Post-Dispatch
In His May 17 1947, Issue

The following story on the writer and his paper was printed in Carl Goerch’s “The State” at Raleigh May 17, 1947, and was written by Robert W. Shaw. The boners or linotype errors Carl lists really never occurred in the Post-Dispatch, but they make up a “good story” and serve to accentuate the individualistic make-up of the Post-Dispatch. And so with no apologies, here is his story, caption and all:

Ike’s Newspaper

POST-DISPATCH VIOLATES THE RULES OF
JOURNALISM BUT THE READERS LIKE THE
PAPER AND ITS, EDITOR IMMENSELY.

ISAAC S. LONDON is proprietor, editor and publisher of the Rockingham Post-Dispatch, a weekly paper ,of seven columns width and twelve pages which he has been running for nearly 30 years—since Dec. 6, 1917 (and The SILER CITY FRIT for nine years before that — April, 1909, to Dec. 1, 1917). Ike has probably the most incomplete make,- up or format of any paper in North Carolina — from a JOURNALISTIC standpoint, that is.

As everyone knows, there are certain set rules which the operator of a newspaper has to follow. In the first place, it is practically mandatory that he be a graduate of the journalism department of some college. He must know newspaper “style” when it comes to writing. Naturally, he must put the most important news stories in the most prominent position, he must classify the news, and there are a number of other regulations to follow in connection with make-up.

All of these rules are cheerfully violated by the Post-Dispatch every week.
As a matter of fact, IKE runs his paper without the slightest regard for rules.

NO FANCY HEADLINES

There are no, fancy headlines: just a word or two to give the reader a hint of what is to come. Moying-picture theater ads appear on the front page. If somebody has paid for a classified ad, offering a cow for sale, that’s liable to appear on the front page also. It all depends upon whether the type fits nicely or not. If there are 12 pages in this week’s edition of the Post-Dispatch, society news and sports news are liable to appear on any one of the 12 pages. An account of Mrs. Upjohn’s reception is just as apt as not to be followed by an item announcing that Joe Waterby’s cow gave birth to twin calves last Wednesday. Sometimes it happens that the items get slightly mixed, so that they appear in print as follows:

“Mrs. Upjohn was hostess at a beautiful reception last Monday evening. She gave birth to the twin calves earlyin the morning, and Joe is highly pleased because of this unusual event.”

Scores of persons who have birthdays during the following week are mentioned in the current issue of the Post-Dispatch—that is, if Mr. London can possibly find out about them. The jovial editor—with a keen sense of humor and tremendous vitality—writes every word that appears in his paper. He pecks out the copy on his typewriter and never reads a words of it to check for mistakes. That is why you’ll find items like this occasionally:

“Mrs. Jones had on a punk dress and looked lovely in it.”
“The local P.-T.A. meeting last Wednesday was hell at Mrs. Harrison’s home.”
“Pete Walker, employee of the Carolina Power & Light Company, was badly shocked Tuesday as the result of com-ing in contact with a live wife.”

Exudes Friendliness

The Post-Dispatch exudes the friendiness of its editor. There is no room for high-falutin’ words and phrases, and if a little editorializing and a few personal views get into the news columns occasionally, that is all right, too.
Mr. London sounds off to his heart’s content in his editorial column, entitled: “Glimpses — On the Cuff.” In it he doesn’t try to solve the world’s weighty problems, but leaves that job for the bigger newspapers. So far as the Post-Dispatch is concerned, the proposed installation of a new street-light is of much greater news value that a rowdy session of the United Council.
Then, too, Mr. London has a habit of imparting a little extra information in his news items. For instance, if Louise Culpepper had left town for a visit with relatives, the aver-age paper probably would carry an item like this:

“Miss Louise Culpepper left Rockingham Sunday to spend the summer with her aunt, Cleopatra Hicks, at Tip Top, Virginia.”

How Ike Runs it

But when Ike sets out to report that eyent, it appears in his paper like this:

“Lively and sprightly Louise Culpepper left Rockingham Sunday to spend the summer with her aunt, Cleopatra Hicks, at Tip Top, Virginia, a town that is 2,728 feet above sea leyel. Rockingham is 225 feet above sea level at the Seaboard Depot. But by the way, we have always wondered whether there is any truth to that story about the original Cleopatra committing suicide by letting herself get bitten by an ass. Anyway, we hope that Louise has a good time and that she will have some interesting things to tell us when she gets back home.”

If a man has a nickname and is generally known by that nickname, you may rest assured that it’ll be tacked onto him when his name appears in print. Such as:

“Buck Johnson, from Route 1, was in town Saturday. Buck told us his youngest son, Toadface, had just recovered from a case of measles.”

“Stinky Whittaker, of Ellerbe, was in Rockingham Tuesday on a business visit.”

“Fatty Sanderlin, of Route 4, came to Rockingham Wednesday and had a tooth pulled. When we saw Fatty on Main Street, he was still spitting freely.”

If some professor of journalism wanted a horrible ex-ample of what a newspaper should not be, he probably would latch onto, a cony of the Post-Dispatch immediately and display it before his class. In every issue he un-doubtedly would be able to find at least a score of set rules that had been violated or ignored completely. And he unoubtedly could spend an entire morning session pointing these out to his students.

The thing he probably would overlook, however, is the fact that the Post-Dispatch is one of the friendliest, most cheerful papers in the state; that Mr. London knows practically all of his subscribers, and they know him; that they regard his ‘paper as a weekly visit from him personally, and that they appreciate his interest in their affairs.

When you talk to a friend, you don’t pay attention to all the rules of grammar or rhetoric: you talk to him naturally. That’s what IKE does every week: he talks to his friends through the columns of his paper. The Post-Dispatch is Ike London, and Ike London is the Post-Dispatch. They have been synonymous for 38 years.

I’m really bothered with the term “denialist”. It seems akin to racist or communist, intended to shut down discussion on all levels. We’re right, you’re an ideological brute who cannot see the truth that we, the elect, have. It pushes what could be sincere and scientific inquiry into the realm of conspiracy theories, and it’s done with calculating and malicious intent.

The first denialists, the lowest socially, are the “Holocaust Deniers”. The new denialists on the blocks are the “Global Warming Deniers”. Richard Dawkins, in his new “The Greatest Show On Earth” is floating “History Deniers” for people who don’t believe in evolution. This is in the first few pages of the book, and honestly, when I got through this, I ended up putting the book down and not picking it back up again. I accept that evolution is real, I have no problem in name calling in a manifesto, but that’s not what I was wanting in “The Greatest Show”, a book that is more of a work of Apologetics more than Polemics. Even the Vatican endorses evolution.

It seems obvious this is creating a dichotomy and a gross reduction of viewpoints. This, from scientists and historians who should know how difficult the subjects are, and how both historians and scientists have been very wrong about theories they’ve held to be quite unassailable at one point in time.

This said, I was quite pleased to see this more nuanced taxonomy…

http://edge.org/3rd_culture/brand09.1/brand09.1_index.html

FOUR SIDES TO EVERY STORY

[STEWART BRAND:] Climate talks have been going on in Copenhagen for a week now, and it appears to be a two-sided debate between alarmists and skeptics. But there are actually four different views of global warming. A taxonomy of the four:

DENIALISTS They are loud, sure and political. Their view is that climatologists and their fellow travelers are engaged in a vast conspiracy to panic the public into following an agenda that is political and pernicious. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma and the columnist George Will wave the banner for the hoax-callers.

“The claim that global warming is caused by manmade emissions is simply untrue and not based on sound science,” Mr. Inhofe declared in a 2003 speech to the Senate about the Kyoto accord that remains emblematic of his position. “CO2 does not cause catastrophic disasters — actually it would be beneficial to our environment and our economy …. The motives for Kyoto are economic, not environmental — that is, proponents favor handicapping the American economy through carbon taxes and more regulations.”

SKEPTICS This group is most interested in the limitations of climate science so far: they like to examine in detail the contradictions and shortcomings in climate data and models, and they are wary about any “consensus” in science. To the skeptics’ discomfort, their arguments are frequently quoted by the denialists.

In this mode, Roger Pielke, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado, argues that the scenarios presented by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are overstated and underpredictive. Another prominent skeptic is the physicist Freeman Dyson, who wrote in 2007: “I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models …. I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests.”

WARNERS These are the climatologists who see the trends in climate headed toward planetary disaster, and they blame human production of greenhouse gases as the primary culprit. Leaders in this category are the scientists James Hansen, Stephen Schneider and James Lovelock. (This is the group that most persuades me and whose views I promote.)

“If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted,” Mr. Hansen wrote as the lead author of an influential 2008 paper, then the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would have to be reduced from 395 parts per million to “at most 350 p.p.m.”

CALAMATISTS There are many environmentalists who believe that industrial civilization has committed crimes against nature, and retribution is coming. They quote the warners in apocalyptic terms, and they view denialists as deeply evil. The technology critic Jeremy Rifkin speaks in this manner, and the writer-turned-activist Bill McKibben is a (fairly gentle) leader in this category.

In his 2006 introduction for “The End of Nature,” his famed 1989 book, Mr. McKibben wrote of climate change in religious terms: “We are no longer able to think of ourselves as a species tossed about by larger forces — now we are those larger forces. Hurricanes and thunderstorms and tornadoes become not acts of God but acts of man. That was what I meant by the ‘end of nature.’”

The calamatists and denialists are primarily political figures, with firm ideological loyalties, whereas the warners and skeptics are primarily scientists, guided by ever-changing evidence. That distinction between ideology and science not only helps clarify the strengths and weaknesses of the four stances, it can also be used to predict how they might respond to future climate developments.

If climate change were to suddenly reverse itself (because of some yet undiscovered mechanism of balance in our climate system), my guess is that the denialists would be triumphant, the skeptics would be skeptical this time of the apparent good news, the warners would be relieved, and the calamatists would seek out some other doom to proclaim.

If climate change keeps getting worse then I would expect denialists to grasp at stranger straws, many skeptics to become warners, the warners to start pushing geoengineering schemes like sulfur dust in the stratosphere, and the calamatists to push liberal political agendas — just as the denialists said they would.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: First published as an OpEd article in The New York Times on December 15, 2009]

speaking on the topic of his books, “Life at the Bottom” & “Our Culture, What’s Left of It”

YouTube playlist of all 5 videos here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B1E0EF2F2EB2ABA7

YouTube playlist of all 5 videos here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A5D6100BA466D071

There have been plenty of blog posts showing funny, risque and sometimes “offensive” results. These “suggest” results are generated from user queries, not Google or the government or a board of parents and religious and community leaders.

But it seems that nobody has every searched for “Islam is”, because there are no suggestions. Well, we all know that’s not true…

They have allowed you to find out that people think Mohammed is a pig and a liar at least (similar results for “Muhammed”).

mohann