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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! February 23, 2004 You're Getting Warmer...By GreyhawkA bedtime story Son: Dad, what is Global Business Network? Dad: Well son, Global Business Network was created in 1987 around a pool table in a Berkeley, California basement by five friends. These GBN cofounders envisioned a worldwide learning community of organizations and individuals—a network, connected by the open and generous exchange of ideas, "out-of-the-box" scenario thinking, ruthless curiosity, and exciting new information technologies. Son: Out of the box? Berkeley? Dad: Yup. Here are the founders: Peter Schwartz, futurist and business strategist; author of The Art of the Long View, When Good Companies Do Bad Things, and The Long Boom; former head of scenario planning at Royal Dutch/Shell in London, and director of the Strategic Environment Center at SRI International Napier Collyns, networker extraordinaire, a 30-year veteran of Royal Dutch/Shell, responsible for planning, public affairs and human resources Stewart Brand, writer, futurist, and inventor of ideas; author of The Clock of the Long Now, How Buildings Learn, The Media Lab, and originator of The Long Now Foundation, the Whole Earth Catalog, CoEvolution Quarterly, and The WELL computer network Lawrence Wilkinson, multi-media innovator; current vice-chair of Oxygen Media and former president of Colossal Pictures Son: Wow! A philosophy professor, a futurist with the Whole Earth Catalog, a VP of Oprah's company who used to make movies... Dad: I know. An impressive group. And also instrumental in GBN's creation were several key colleagues in Europe: Kees van der Heijden and Arie de Geus, both former heads of Group Planning at Shell, and Bo Ekman, a consultant and former Volvo executive. Son: Must be money guys. So, are they making cable TV movies for women? Dad: Why no. In fact, Schwartz, along with group member Doug Randal, wrote this piece in Wired magazine. President Kennedy understood that dominating space could mean the difference between a country able to defend itself and one at the mercy of its rivals. In a May 1961 address to Congress, he unveiled Apollo - a 10-year program of federal subsidies aimed at "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth." The president announced the goal, Congress appropriated the funds, scientists and engineers put their noses to the launchpad, and - lo and behold - Neil Armstrong stepped on the lunar surface eight years later. Son: Ohhh... they're scientists? Dad: No. Not at all. Schwartz, cofounder and chairman of Global Business Network, is an "internationally renowned futurist and business strategist. A specialist in scenario planning, he works with corporations and institutions to create alternative perspectives of the future and develop robust strategies for a changing and uncertain world." Doug Randall is a senior practitioner at GBN with over ten years of scenario planning, business strategy, and sales experience working with large corporations, not-for-profits, universities, and research organizations to address complex business, social, and environmental challenges. Son: Ohhh... so they're sorta like science fiction writers... Dad: Well, sort of. But they are hired by businesses to develop plans for possible future scenarios... Son: Right, science fiction stuff, by guys who can't write well enough to be pros. But they aren't scientists? Dad: No. Son: Not Meteorologists? Dad: Heh. No. Son: Climatologists... Dad: No, no... Son: Chemists or Physicists? Dad: No. What exactly... Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.. A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. Dad: Well, it's sort of a sensationalistic newspaper... Son: But why do so many bloggers just take what they read as though it were some sort of scientific proof? I mean really, these guys are saying Nuclear war will result because of... Dad: Yea I know. Some people will believe anything they read. You've got to watch out. The truth is out there. Son: And who leaked the report to the Guardian? Do you think maybe the authors got angry when they were laughed at? And how much taxpayer money... Dad: Bedtime, son. Update: Son: Dad, does Tim Blair have more on this story, exposing the Australian press for jumping in; links to earlier, less sensational BBC coverage, and ridiculous new claims from Greenpeace? Dad: Yes. Son: Did Tom Tomorrow suddenly add a weak disclaimer on his post saying the report "might" be speculative, even though he knows it is, and then suggested everyone should still have a hard time sleeping? Dad: Yes. Son: Calpundit has lots of things posted, but his "global warming" story is almost the hottest thread going. Almost, because the hottest thread is one that says he just doesn't like Bush and can't see how the guy got elected President because he didn't earn it. Do they really care about whether the world ends or do they just hate Bush? Dad: Posted by Greyhawk / February 23, 2004 3:19 AM | Permalink 14 TrackBacksNice knowing you, folks: Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters. A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns... Read More Mudville Gazette and Tim Blair are covering the Guardian fiasco over the climate change report. In a nutshell, the report was prepared for the Pentagon not by it, it was disccused in Forbes magazine two weeks ago, and it describes... Read More Don't really feel very motivated to write these days, so I will confine myself to brief comments. Here are a couple of stories that I suspect will have "legs": Osama bin Laden in the crosshairs: Trying to kill Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf ... Read More Greyhawk ably rips some of the junk science (or, rather, junk-scientists) behind the climate-change Chicken Littles’ squawking. Nicely done.... Read More Tim Blair has some comments on a hysterical article in today's Guardian. The Guardian article notes a "supressed' Pentagon report... Read More Greyhawk over at the Mudville Gazette is fisking the daylights out of one of my favorite organizations, the Global Business Network. His point, which is true as far as it goes, is that the scenarios developed by GBN shouldn't... Read More It seems the feces has hit the rotary oscillator yet again when it comes to the subject of global warming. I'm not the first to... Read More Yet another fake story in the press (Bush Buries Secret Global Warming Report) triggers my ire, and I rant intemperately about the state of things as they are. Of course, I'm not shocked: This is precisely what my worldview predicts. Still, it's appall... Read More This is not a bedtime story I would have asked for when I was young. Yet it is a humorous piece showing how weak a large portion of environmental issue reporting has become. RTWT... Read More This is not a bedtime story I would have asked for when I was young. Yet it is a humorous piece showing how weak a large portion of environmental issue reporting has become. RTWT... Read More While AK has been bring reports of the Moonbats from Nazimedia known as 'Morlocks', I decided to report on a species of Moonbat, that while less dangerous, is no less insane. I am referring to the Moonbatticus Chicken Littleus or... Read More Mudville Gazette and Tim Blair are covering the Guardian fiasco over the climate change report. In a nutshell, the report was prepared for the Pentagon not by it, it was disccused in Forbes magazine two weeks ago, and it describes... Read More Nice knowing you, folks: Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters. A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns... Read More Yet another fake story in the press (Bush Buries Secret Global Warming Report) triggers my ire, and I rant intemperately about the state of things as they are. Of course, I'm not shocked: This is precisely what my worldview predicts. Still, it's appall... Read More 51 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
Dude, that is bogus! That is so totally not Whole Earth Catalog thinking! We must totally act now to save the planet from Mel Gibson's Jew Hating Mad Max Nuclear War Winter cannibalism and vote Kerry! Haven't you seen Waterworld?
Just because they aren't 'scientists' doesn't make them wrong! Listen to Oprah!!! Soylent Green is People!
Lex Luthor is behind this plot to make worthless desert land into beachfront. Common knowledge. Just ask anybody.
What no nekked dancing ladies, even jest topless ones?
(PS Thot Ralph Nader was soiled green? Is "soylent" an "(sp)" kinda thing?)
Calpundit doesn't claim to support the story. He admits he doesn't know whether it's valid or not.
Or Weather or not...
Hmmmm... you mean like he did with the Bush/AWOL story?
Peter Schwartz wrote the script for the movie War Games (where a kid hacks the missile control network and nearly starts WWIII). He's smart, well-connected to specialists who know what they're talking about, and a critical thinker. I interviewed him some years ago for a Discovery Channel documentary called FutureWar. He is the real McCoy.
Stewart Brand is probably even smarter than Peter. Check out his brief book Clock of the Long Now if you want some incisive, non-GreenieWeenie perspective on matters concerning timeframes longer than one human life. The book is chock-full of insights about how to sort out what matters from what doesn't in our own lives and in our culture. Only a few, precious aspects of human life will hold their value despite ever-accelerating technological advance. Yet these are exactly the things (example: love of our children) that impart the most meaning to our lives. It's urgent that we protect the important things and quit wasting time on the things that time will erase.
These guys are futurists, not fortune tellers. That means they construct worlds that might be, not worlds that certainly will be. The idea is to help organizations ranging from the Pentagon to the Sierra Club realize what effect current actions might have on the future, and consider how adjustments to current practices might lead to better futures. Notice the word "might." Schwartz et al. would be the first to tell you no one can predict the future...but that doesn't mean we shouldn't think about it.
The Guardian article irritated me. The Pentagon is a building. Buildings don't talk. The Pentagon has tens of thousands of people in it. There are about ten people in the Office of Net Assessment, and they don't speak with the voice of the Department of Defense--their job is to think weird thoughts for a living.
Similar thing happened last month, when the news reported one guy's writing at the Army War College to be the official position of the whole school!
No wonder the military doesn't like press....
I don't get the "The truth is out there." link? It only took me to this site called Google, I think? What the hell is that? No truth there that I could see? Please, at least make real arguments by supplying real links to supporting arguments. Ok?
I remember whren WWIII broke out. It was a lot like War Games...
Seriously though the point is the Guardian/Observer really wanted a shot at Bush, wanted to start a new myth-based Bush bash, and conveniently left some key facts out of their story. And they knew it, or could have found it via Google. That's Yellow Journalism.
Here's more.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153514,00.html
"Key findings of the Pentagon" is deliberately deceptive, no offense intended to the gentlemen who wrote it. (Who, in fact, might not enjoy being called "The Pentagon")
You think the guy who wrote the script to "War games" is a valid futurist? The script centered around a working AI, using 1980s technology!
Nations will never use nukes to secure food supplies. The ones with nukes are advanced enough to secure other food supplies. The third world countries will do what they've always done. Let the peasants starve while feeding the upper class.
to kamikaze
those japanese pilots were on a drug induce euphoria to aid them in their quest for glory.
I suspect you are on the same quest.
sometimes the obvious is not for everybody.
For what it's worth, according to IMDB, Lawrence Lasker and Walter Parkes wrote War Games.
The Guardian story is old news — they just put an alarmist twist to a story published in Fortune magazine almost two weeks ago.
The Fortune article concludes:
I find it a very big coincidence that this came out the same day that Ralph Nader decided to enter the presidential race.
"Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.'
Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.
'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.
'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace."
Hat tip: Greyhawk. You made them all look...uhhh... uninformed
Oh, and one more:
"So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign."
Bring it on!
I have worked with Peter and his team, and have found some of their ideas to be terrifically powerful. I have no direct knowledge of the Pentagon report.
Large corporations or organizations like the Pentagon pay GBN to swoop in and map out plausible ways the future might unfold, as a tool for managing key uncertainties that affect the organization's future. Their bread and butter is to sketch out sets of scenarios like these (just an example):
1. Global warming is real and we do nothing about it
2. Global warming is phony and we do nothing about it
3. Global warming is real and we work hard to stop it
4. Global warming is phony and we work hard to stop it
and discuss in vivid detail what such a world would look like, how we'd recognize that reality is trending that way, and what we'd do if we found ourselves there. They are NOT qualified to say, and would never try to say, something like "scenario 1 will happen by 2020, and 55 million people will die." Predicting the future is precisely what their technique does NOT attempt to do, and is part of what makes it unique.
When the article says "so dramatic are the report's scenarios that they may prove vital in the US elections," I want to scream. First, they're supposed to be dramatic, to engage one's creative thinking. Second, GBN's scenarios come in sets: they write about a thing and its opposite, as in my example above. I'd love to hear the Guardian report on GBN's presumed "global warming is phony" scenario.
(IIRC, the GBN folks made their fortune by asking, 30 years ago, both "What if the price of oil keeps going up," which every expert knew would surely happen, and also "What if the price of oil goes way down," which turned out to be the surprising truth. Having thought through both scenarios, Shell was better-prepared than its competitors to act when the slump hit.)
If the Pentagon is using GBN, I applaud their foresight. A session with GBN can really shake up an organization and get them thinking creatively. It should never be confused with a plan or a prediction. I suspect the Guardian has confused the two.
Yeah, remember when they said back in the old days that NYC would be knee deep in horse shit in a few years because of all the horses and buggies. Now THAT's a scenario worth being scared about.
Now, Planner brings some sanity to the brawl...
I can agree that the people themselves are among some of the most qualified futurists and futurologists in the world. And I can agree that they contemplate, investigate and eventually publish various 'scenarios' which have some validity in fact (in objective reality).
But for Al-Gaurdian to use the info like this makes even IT look petty, biased and lacking anything REAL with which to bash Bush.
Futurists!
Name me any "futurist" who was right except by random chance.
I have no doubt these guys are bright. They live good lives without doing anything real, just glib talking.
I am 57. When I was a teenager, the biggest problem facing the USA was going to be leisure time. There were books writen about it. Automation was going to replace all those factory jobs, and then what would people do with their time? Really, that was the worry.
Then, the futurists switched to a darker vision, famine due to overpopulation. Etc.
Americans now have the longest work week in the Western devleloped world, and we all know how fat we are.
Forget forecasters.
Joel
No, it's true. Soylent Green is made out of people. It's people!
Don't forget the coming Ice Age. That was the buzz for us enviro-nerds in the late fifties.
Just wondering ... how long will it be before the "suppressed Pentagon report on global warming" takes its place beside the plastic turkey and Bush the Deserter as a left-wing incantation? I say, one week, tops.
I find it interesting that the same people who are willing to cower after connecting the (few and far between) scare dots on the global warming musings - are the same people who can't seem to connect the dots that Islamist terrorists have established an international network, with the cooperation of nation-states, with the stated intention of attacking and destroying the west.
Hmmm..which should we be more concerned with today? That the ocean might rise another 3 inches in the next 20 years before we get serious about carbon fuels - or that terrorists might enter our country with WMDs??
Tough choice (if you are stupid).
Three cheers to Planner.
Now back to ARod & his effect on the NYY's Global Dominance. (ARod is real & the Bosox are working hard to stop his effect; well, they could've worked harder.)
Why do I feel that if a Dem is elected Pres, all Global Warming stories will be off the front page? Could it be that I'm thinking of the homeless-in-the-street poverty stories, which were ubiquitous when Bush 41 was Pres, but which disappeared when Clinton was Pres, only to be, hesto-presto, resurrected when Bush 43 became Pres?
Hey, Karl Rove, how about this pro Bush headline: "Global Warming Helps Homeless; Now Warm In The Streets!"
TomCom
Hey Democrats, how about this headline: "Bush, GOP AWOL On Global Warming!"
TomCom
Didn't I hear all this on Art Bell's radio show--or he wrote a book on this or something.
Futurist. Heh.
Don't forget that the timeframe for that dramatic rise in temperature is absurd. If global warming exist (and isn't neutralized by some effect we don't know about), in a real situation the world would easily adapt. If you want to look at security, terrorist have an intent. Terrorist have ever evolving techniques with a fixed goal, the climate/environment is an everchanging system with no fixed goal and no end result.
Butthead, the kamikaze pilots were not on drugs. If they had been, they wouldn't have hit anything.
Kamakzi, now, I don't know what he/she's on. I'm just talking about the kamikaze.
Oyasumi!
Look, let's get this straight. "Climate change" is NOT a myth or else we'd still be huddling through an ice age. The question isn't over whether the climate changes. The question is one of whether or not humans are causing significant changes to the climate now, what those changes might be, and how we might limit that impact. I think it is silly to take actions regarding climate since we have no idea what changes might be taking place if we didn't exist. Particularly when the actions we take may have wildly disproportionate impact on our economy. Such economic impact could just as easily be equated to the effects of terrorism. The factors involved in trying to figure out how to counteract climate change are astronomical. We don't know with any degree of certainty what effect we are having on climate because we don't know what the climate would be like if we weren't doing what we are doing. And if we do something different, we won't know if what we did had any effect because we won't know what the climate would've been like if we hadn't done it. Precautionary principle be damned. We are human beings. If the climate changes in some radical fashion, we adapt and move on. It has happened before.
The anonymous "planner" says that he has "worked with Peter and his team" and that their ideas are "terrifically powerful." Serious people do not describe ideas as "terrifically powerful." Nor do serious researchers "swoop in" with reports made more "dramatic" so as to "engage one's creative thinking." Cultists, cranks and quacks, on the other hand, do.
I did policy debate in high school, and no matter what the topic of debate was, someone would find a way to link it to nuclear war. Giving help to homeless --> nuclear war.
In response, you could use the "Nuclear War is Good" evidence, showing all the good things about nuclear war.
Art Bell did indeed do a book on climate change. Co-authored by none other than Whitley Streiber, UFO abductee extraordinary. The Coming Global Superstorm. At the time it came out a few years back I used it as evidence that their was absolutely nothing to worry about. If these cranks were pushing the notion it had to mean there was no basis in fact.
Peter Schwartz wrote the script for the movie War Games (where a kid hacks the missile control network and nearly starts WWIII). He's smart, well-connected to specialists who know what they're talking about, and a critical thinker.
Hmmm...a critical thinker who didn't stop to ask himself: "Now, why on earth would anyone buy the idea that someone would design a top-secret military computer with an unencrypted outside line?"
I can't say that it follows.
Jam said, ""Climate change" is NOT a myth or else we'd still be huddling through an ice age." The inherent fallibility in that argument is the assumption of some prehistoric event for which there is no scientific "proof". For all we really "know", the "Ice Age" is a myth too.
Very clever. From now on I get all my science info from President Bush, you know, the guy who thinks the world is closer to a thousand than a billion years old.
I'm not sure what kind of evidence Chris is seeking. I'm not a professional scientist, but I think a lot of science is based on someone making an observation, and then trying to figure out or explain how the observed event might have taken place. Over time, other researchers will do work that adds additional proof or disproof of the original theory, and a consensus may eventually be reached about the correctness of the original claim. This may take a long time; just ask Copernicus.
While we can't take a time machine back to be 100% sure (I hope this isn't the evidence Chris is waiting for), at some point, somebody saw something that seemed best explained by the existence of an ice age. I'm also not an expert on ancient climate, but I think one piece of evidence used to support the ice age theory would be the presence of moraines left by advancing, and then retreating, glaciers. When we see this evidence in a non-arctic setting, we may conclude that the most reasonable explanation we can currently conceive involves some point in the past at which the climate was significantly colder. This is an example I happen to be aware of, but there probably are others. I will admit again that we don't have a time machine, but we do have evidence.
A myth would be something for which there is no evidence, although there may be plenty of wishful thinking on the topic. You know, like the Bush AWOL thing.
Uhh.. Robert, did you read anything here?
And are you okay?
Futurists were a big deal back in the '80s in private industry, then they went out of fashion when fanciful thinking got a closer scrutiny by the bean counters. Apparently, big government is the only place that still believes in straight trend-line thinking. But then it doesn't have to answer to stockholders, so anything goes.
We are spending BILLIONS for these guys to sit around and think up possible (and impossible) scenarios that put our future (my kids) at risk. Good. This is money well spent, as compared to most of the crap my taxes are wasted on. Ever been through West Virginia?
I think Paul Stinchfield nails a certain type of perma-alarmist pretty well. Kudos to Paul. No offense to planner.
Gee wiz, the Pentagon is studying what has a very small chance of happening. Good for them. Being thorough is a virtue that we can and should pursue. They also probably have plans for invading Paris. So what? Anyone who thinks this story has any significance, really needs to check their reality meter.
The really good lesson here is that you should never listen to leftist futurists. They are always way off due to self induced future myopia.
Oops, sorry for the double trackback. Nice bedtime story, I'll save it for my kids on halloween. Of course, I'll have to add a Rumsfeld inspired monster or two for the proper scare.
Kelvin Mitnik: I think Paul Stinchfield nails a certain type of perma-alarmist pretty well. Kudos to Paul. No offense to planner.
No offense taken, Kelvin. I wouldn't be speaking up for GBN if I thought they were the typical perma-alarmists. As a capitalist and a conservative, I have no fondness for the Chicken Littles. But based on my prior experiences with GBN, I am skeptical that that's what's really going on here. What I think is more plausible is something like this:
Left-wing newspaper obtains largely unobjectionable leaked document, focuses on incendiary portion of much larger whole, interprets it in a context very different from the one it was written in, spins result into the most anti-Bush story it can.
Again, I have no direct knowledge of the Pentagon report, and I could be dead wrong, but based on what I do know of GBN, what is described in the Guardian story sounds fishy to me.
Oh, and Paul? Chill out. By snarkily attacking and misrepresenting not just GBN but me you risk antagonizing someone who may very well be your ally. I agree that something's fishy, but I suspect you're pointing the finger the wrong place. If I'm right, the story is not 'Doom-and-gloom think tank issues dire report,' it's 'Neutral think tank issues thoughtful report which major newspaper spins into anti-Bush scare piece.' Which story is more damning to the Axis of Fretful that we apparently both despise?
Or as Speculist points out, a Fisking is deserved, but we're Fisking the wrong guy. GBN good, Guardian evil.
UPDATE: I just read the report, thanks to Tim Blair and, ironically, the loonies at Stop Esso. The 22-page report is indeed GBN's typical, rather modest "What If" piece, filled with disclaimers about the impossibility of predicting the future, and with entirely reasonable recommendations at the end. The Guardian ripped out and waved around the scariest parts and recast the report as a scientific prediction of the future, which the report itself clearly states it is not.
Steve - "(PS Thot Ralph Nader was soiled green? Is "soylent" an "(sp)" kinda thing?)"
If you come back, no it isn't. It was a novel, later made into a movie with Edward G. Robinson and Charlton Heston about an overpopulated world which had discovered a miracle food called "soylent green", which the hero found out was made from people. Lots of nourishment...
planner, you're right, there was no call for me to be snarky. You sounded uncredible to me, but I could just as easily have said so in a civil way. I apologise. No kudos for me.
And I promise to stop channeling Walter Matthau.
Is this the same kinda science fiction as Wolfie's Pentagon cooked up about WMD's in Iraq?
We got lots of dire consequences that 'might' happen being hyped by media stooges.
And if the AWOL thing isn't true, why doesn't Shrub release all of the records like he said?
No kudos for Kelvin; kudos revoked for Paul. :(
Kudos for planner. :)
Par for the course for the Guardian, maybe.
If Jam does not believe in protecting the enviroment then he needs to get into a auto with all doors and windows closed and a pipe running from the exhaust to inside the auto with the motor running and count all his money or leave the money and get out. I'd bet we would be short one Republican or have a enviroment aware Democrat
Kelvin comment on this.
Internet Lawsuit Could Have Global Effect
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Feb 27, 9:36 PM (ET)
By ANICK JESDANUN
NEW YORK (AP) - On its face, the latest showdown between the company that runs much of the Internet's core and the organization that oversees key aspects of the global network is a basic contractual dispute.
But whatever a federal court in Los Angeles decides could have broad implications over whether financial or public interest ultimately drives decisions on how Internet users worldwide visit Web sites and send e-mail, legal experts say.
On Thursday, VeriSign Inc. sued the oversight body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, saying ICANN's decisions have impeded efforts by VeriSign to offer new, moneymaking services.
The contract between VeriSign and ICANN is indeed vague, and both sides have strong arguments, said Jonathan Weinberg, a Wayne State University law professor who follows Internet policy.
A decision could set precedent over whether ICANN has legal authority to halt emerging Internet services that it considers "good for VeriSign and bad for the Internet as a whole," Weinberg said.
VeriSign, based in Mountain View, Calif., sought injunction relief and unspecified damages against ICANN, which the U.S. government designated in 1998 to handle domain names and other Internet addressing policies.
In a statement, ICANN expressed disappointment "that VeriSign has again chosen confrontation over consensus."
VeriSign controls the computers that contain the master list of domain name suffixes, such as ".com" and ".fr." The company also runs directories for the two most popular suffixes, ".com" and ".net."
As a result, Internet computers intersect with VeriSign's millions of times daily to find out how to route e-mail and Web traffic.
Critics consider VeriSign a monopoly that tries to abuse its power by offering services favorable to its bottom line. Though VeriSign considers them innovations that benefit Internet users as well, ICANN has often responded by denying or delaying VeriSign's plans.
ICANN, meanwhile, has faced criticism that "it makes up its rules as it goes along," said Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami. He described ICANN as a regulatory body without established procedures regulators normally have.
A newly formed U.N. task force is studying replacements to ICANN.
In the lawsuit, VeriSign argues that ICANN has exceeded its authority by defining the company's efforts as "registry services," a term that by contract subjects the company to greater oversight. VeriSign also complains that ICANN takes too long to make decisions and is often inconsistent when it does.
"It's a culmination of our efforts over the last few years to gain a clear and consistent and fair process for the introduction of new services," said Tom Galvin, vice president of government relations for VeriSign.
Disputed services include Site Finder, which VeriSign launched last fall for guiding Internet users who mistype Web addresses.
Instead of an error message, Web surfers who enter addresses that don't exist get suggestions on where they might have wanted to go. VeriSign sometimes gets money for directing traffic to those sites.
Under pressure from ICANN, VeriSign later agreed to suspend the service following criticisms that the service damaged existing functions, like some spam filters and rival search services.
VeriSign also is awaiting approval on offering domain names using non-English characters and a waiting list in which individuals or businesses can grab domain names already in use as soon as their registrations expire.
Weinberg said ICANN can reasonably argue that its role as guardian of Internet stability trumps the profit-making desires of a private company. But to the extent ICANN's authority is formalized in contracts that aren't all that clear, he said, "this is not a lawsuit to laugh off."