The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

"The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen."

I've been making a nuisance of myself at Barnes & Noble. First I purchased "Spin State," a promising SF novel that just appeared in mass-market paperback. Then I cashed in "Investigating the Unexplained" -- a thoroughly bad book by a guy called Paul Roland -- for in-store credit. I don't think I've ever returned a book for being awful before, but this one was: comic credulity on one page and haughty knee-jerk debunking on the next, liberally blended with bad science. On one page, Roland casually informs us that the prevailing theory for the rise of homo erectus is mutation via meteor impact. Huh? Interesting concept, sure, but hardly a consensus viewpoint.

In the obligatory pages devoted to mysterious archaeological ruins, Roland includes a matter-of-fact reference to the sinking of Atlantis (evidently off the coast of Mexico). And he assures us, without citing any references, that the Greeks got the idea for their temples from ancient Peruvians. Another "huh?"

But it's the double-standard Roland employs that really bugged me. He writes off the Face on Mars as a "cluster of craters and mountains" -- two geological phenomena you'd be hard-pressed to find lurking atop the Face, regardless if the feature is natural or artificial.

In another chapter, Roland dispels the possibility of weirdness at Roswell by citing the "alien autopsy footage" (incidentally the same technique used by Michael Shermer in his otherwise entertaining "Why People Believe Weird Things"). But Roland doesn't even get his autopsy facts right; in his effort to demolish the footage's credibility, he claims that an anachronistic seal on a film canister label can be seen in the footage itself, thus proving it couldn't have come from 1947, as some have claimed.

Not true -- nowhere in the AA footage do you see the film canisters. The label with the indicting seal was produced by the film's marketer in a rash effort to link the footage with the so-called Roswell crash in time to reap public interest in the incident. It's not actually featured in the film. (And while I'm harping on the issue: Contrary to popular belief, nobody really knows when the "alien autopsy" was filmed or who filmed it. Or, for that matter, if it has anything to do with crashed UFOs.)





So I returned the book and found myself in the novel situation of being required to buy another book worth $7.50, since that's all in-store credit's good for. However, the book I eventually decided on -- "The Bloody Crown of Conan," an omnibus of three original Robert E. Howard "Conan" novels from the 1930s -- cost twice as much as "Investigating the Unexplained" . . . which demanded that I reluctantly cash in "Spin State."

On an unrelated note: While cruising the aisles, the full impact of the "Da Vinci Code" phenomenon really hit me. Spin-offs. Spin-offs of spin-offs. Spin-offs of spin-offs of spin-offs. Mind boggling. I'm convinced that when something is as incredibly popular and trendy as "The Da Vinci Code," it can't possibly be any good. In fact, it's most likely vile and condescending; witness the success of worthless writers like Michael Crichton and Kevin J. Anderson or the inexplicable popularity of Disney movies.

John Lennon's encounter with aliens

"He added: 'I wasn't high. I've been high a lot of times, and I never saw anything on LSD that was as weird as those f***in' bugs.'" (Via The Anomalist.)

I've never seen any aliens, let alone been abducted, The Pitch's recent expose notwithstanding. But I'm an extremely deep sleeper, and I remember once I woke up with the uneasy conviction that there were beings in my apartment. I was a little nervous, but by the time I realized I was simply in a daze of sleep I was really disappointed.

Yes, I wanted for there to be aliens in my bedroom. And why not?

EPA & CHEMICAL INDUSTRY TO STUDY EFFECTS OF KNOWN TOXIC CHEMICALS ON CHILDREN

"The trick here is that these products are known to have negative long term health effects. This is a short two year study. In other words, the results of he study are already known...there will be little to no obvious short term negative effects on these children at the end of the two year period. The seemingly positive results of the study will allow the ACC to announce positive 'EPA study results' to the public, which will allow the ACC to more effectively lobby congress to weaken regulations on these products even more (thereby increasing profits dramatically). This technique has been exercised by the ACC for decades."

No child left behind. Fucking typical.

Shoppers rush to pyramid Wal-Mart

"Around 200 shoppers queued for hours to be the first to enter the store, which is half a mile from the ancient Mexican pyramids at Teotihuacan."

And while we're at it, why not a Starbucks smack in the middle of Stonehenge?

Flashing lights hover over city

"The UFO was described as being shaped like three connected ball-shaped spheres that flashed blue, green and red from as many as six different light sources."

This seems to be a pretty credible sighting. Of what, I've no clue . . .

No explanation for mystery gas cloud

"Things are back to normal in Kittery, after a mysterious cloud of gas floated over the city Monday morning, causing several stores and the town's high school to be evacuated."

I can't help but think of the "airborne toxic event" from Don DeLillo's "White Noise" (not be confused with the upcoming movie of the same name).

By the way, I'm the proud new owner of a Compaq Illuminated Optical Scroll Mouse!

UN report highlights two global terrors

"Alongside diseases, the report identifies the spread of nuclear weapons as one of the most dangerous problems facing the world. 'We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the non-proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation,' it warns."

All they could think of were two? I generally fret over at least five before getting out of bed!

You just have to see this . . . (Via CP.)

Bizarre Weather Slams Japan Yet Again

"Now more extreme weather has struck the island nation, bringing gale force winds and a sudden extreme temperature increase that is unprecedented in the climatic history of the country. At 11:29 AM yesterday, the temperature in Tokyo rose to 77 degrees Fahrenheit from 38 degrees in just a few minutes, breaking a record for sudden temperature rise in the city set in 1923."

Click here for my review of Michael Grosso's "Experiencing the Next World Now," a surprisingly lucid exploration of the "afterlife" question. This is the best title in the Paraview Pocket Books line-up that I've read so far. Except mine, of course. ;-)

My 2004 Christmas Wish-List (partial)

(in no particular order)

1.) Nissan 350Z

2.) PowerBook G4

3.) Faux Leather iJoy Turbo 2 Robotic Massage Chair

4.) Bombardier Learjet

5.) The Cure: Join The Dots (Boxed Set)

6.) Pagoda-Style Cat Tree

7.) Virgin Galactic Ticket

8.) Starbucks Barista Espresso Machine

I've got a name for my presentation in Sedona next month: "Mars: Evidence of Visitation." I thought I'd keep it succinct and to the point.

Is it me, or does this place look positively Martian?

Song of the day: "Bad Day" (R.E.M.)

'We will be able to live to 1,000'

"Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases today."

I think this guy's beard must be well over a 1,000 years-old (see link).

I agree with his essay -- to a point. It seems transhumanism is beginning to spill into popular culture in the same way that the word "meme" has infiltrated the mainstream lexicon. Right now we're seeing a faddish pop-romance with the concept of physical immortality that probably has more to do with hope than science -- which is good because it exposes more people to the real possibility of radically extended lifespans, and bad because it does away with realistic expectations and naively assumes that we're zeroing in on a medical paradigm shift.

But reality is trickier -- and more deadly.

Season's grittings! This Christmas, celebrate the joy of a fading liberal democracy and hang Bush! No kidding! Take a look!





According to the website actually selling these things, you can "make President George W. Bush a part of your family's holiday celebrations with the 'President George W. Bush' Christmas Ornament. This 4 ½" likeness of President Bush makes a unique gift for friends and family who respect and support our nation's leader."

Personally, I think this particular rendition of the Christly, paternal and all-knowing W is a bit, well, effeminate. For a macho "war president," he looks a little too "Liberace." But maybe that's just me.

(Discovered at Busy, Busy Busy.)

Deadly hot summers 'to become the norm'

"Blisteringly hot summers similar to the one in 2003 when thousands of people in continental Europe died of heatstroke will become commonplace because of climate change, a study has found."

Water is not an essential ingredient for Life, scientists now claim

"While more exotic worlds might well harbour life, Mars remains the best bet. 'There was water on Mars when there was life on Earth,' Benner points out. 'This would not be particularly weird life, of course, in that it would be living in water, but it could easily be weird by Earth standards.' However, Benner concedes that 'a simple 'We don't know' is often the best answer for some questions. "Until life is encountered elsewhere, or aliens contact us, we will not have an independent second dataset. We may not even then, if the alien life itself shares an ancestor with life on Earth.'"

Rejoice! Mark Carlotto's New Frontiers in Science has been updated!

Researcher commandeers hobbit fossils





"Speaking of the incident, discovery team member Peter Brown, of the UNE, said: 'It's a tragedy. The material should never have left the building. It should have been described by the team that found it'."

And so the strange case of the "hobbits" slips closer into the annals of cryptozoology, a world of eccentric researchers, curiously "missing" specimens and "lost" evidence . . .

Japanese robot to chat lonely elderly out of senility

"Snuggling Ifbot, who is dressed in an astronaut suit with a glowing face, has the conversation ability of a five-year-old, the language level needed to stimulate the brains of senior citizens, its software designer said."

Is it just me, or does the target market fail to match Snuggling Ifbot's Space Age get-up? I can envision senile oldsters panicking at the sight of Snuggling Ifbot and calling the police. Look for a dramatic upswing in alien encounter reports.

What do you want to bet these stories are related?

Heavy fog falls on great part of China

"A mass of fog with an area of approximately 217,000 sq km covered up Beijing and Tianjin municipalities, parts of east China's Shandong Province and north China's Hebei Province Tuesday evening, which was monitored by the weather satellite, Yang said."

Noon turns to night as cloud blacks out sun

"Day turned to night across Shenyang when a freak cloud formation 8,000 metres deep blanketed the northeastern city."

Reader Bill Dash suggests that the above instances might be evidence of deliberate weather modification, and wonders if there's a link to the "chemtrail" phenomenon.

Or, of course, it could simply be more weird weather -- and there's been quite a bit of that lately.

Hello, hello, Earth?





"If ET ever phones home, chances are Earthlings wouldn't recognize the call as anything other than random noise or a star."

Just one of the reasons SETI won't be hearing from any extraterrestrials as long as it limits itself to radio transmissions.

One of my worst fears is coming true: The United States has begun an inexorable descent into full-blown theocracy. The antagonism between Christian Fundamentalists and secular America has reached a point of near-terminal absurdity, with the boundaries between church and state continuing to blur as the "moral majority" gains new political footholds.

This despicable milieu couldn't have come at a worse time. We currently face a mass extinction crisis that could violently displace the human species within 50 years. For many Americans, the Armageddon of myth actually seems like an appealing alternative. Infected by the same mentality, the Bush administration recklessly destroys natural resources; if the end is nigh, if Jesus is on his way (albeit late by 2000 years), why bother conserving? If we're fated to go out in a blast of holy special effects, why care?

Author John Shirley, who more or less predicted all of this in his "Eclipse" trilogy, penned in the 1980s, quite seriously proposes that the United States might fracture along ideological fault-lines. Imagine an America in which some states uphold, as best they can, separation of church and state, while in others the teaching of evolution is punishable by law. We are edging closer and closer to just such a schizophrenic state of the union: two Americas occupying the same continent and forced to co-exist in uneasy liaison.

But would the Fundamentalist America content itself with only half of a divided nation? Isn't the goal lurking behind the Religious Right's slippery political rhetoric the complete absorption of all rivals in the name of God? To me, the continued existence of a parallel secular US seems alarmingly fragile; how long until civil war, or its equivalent?

And keep in mind that all of this is framed by a much larger geopolitical nightmare. The Christian regime made possible by the Bush administration is due, in enormous part, to the xenophobia craftily stoked in the wake of 9-11-01. Although the relationship is seldom identified as such, Bush and his counterpart Muslim extremists survive -- and flourish -- through nothing less than symbiosis. The occupation of Iraq serves to justify the image of America as the "Great Satan" perceived by much of the Muslim world just as the perceived terrorist threat, assisted by an elaborate system of Pavlovian "terror alert levels," holds Americans in thrall to the potentially imminent outbreak of "evil-doing."

We are infected with a virus popularly called "belief." Unquestioned, it ruins minds by promoting willful ignorance and escalates suffering by invoking supernatural quick-fixes for problems demanding genuine solutions.

In the end, the biosphere itself will be the victim.

Did Our Sun Capture Alien Worlds?





"Astronomers have been searching for years for extrasolar planets, or planets in other solar systems. Few considered the possibility that 'the nearest extrasolar planet might be right here in our solar system,' says Kenyon." (Via The Anomalist.)

Hubble Uncovers a Baby Galaxy in a Grown-Up Universe

"Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have measured the age of what may be the youngest galaxy ever seen in the universe. By cosmological standards it is a mere toddler seemingly out of place among the grown-up galaxies around it. Called I Zwicky 18, it may be as young as 500 million years old (so recent an epoch that complex life had already begun to appear on Earth)."

More Robot Grunts Ready for Duty

"As early as March or April, 18 units of the Talon -- a model armed with automatic weapons -- are scheduled to report for duty in Iraq. Around the same time, the first prototypes of a new, unmanned ambulance should be ready for the Army to start testing. In a warren of hangar-sized hotel ballrooms in Orlando, military engineers this week showed off their next generation of robots, as they got the machines ready for the war zone."

Young man killed by exploding lava lamp





"Authorities say Quinn was heating his lava lamp on the stove Sunday afternoon when it blew up. They're not sure why he was doing it."

I'll tell you why he was doing it. Because those fluorescent globs inside lava lamps are sentient alien organisms, that's why. This industrious young man was simply doing his best to thwart the impending invasion.

The E.T. Equation, Recalculated (by SETI co-founder Frank Drake)





"Planets might not even need stars. No one has directly observed a rogue planet, but we know they're out there; astronomers have discovered more than 130 extrasolar planets, and their orbital motion tells us that during the formation of a solar system, extra planets get dumped into the star or kicked out of the system. The castaways wander in the great empty spaces between the stars, the orphans of the Milky Way. In theory, if the rogue's crust contained radioactive elements, their decay could keep the surface warm enough for life."

Who says you even need planets? It's possible a civilization could arise on a protoplanetary body such as an asteroid if conditions were right. Or maybe even on the surfaces of depleted stars. It's weird out there; I'm not quite ready to quarantine hypothetical aliens to planets -- even bleak, sunless ones.

Censored 2005: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2003-2004

And this is just the "mainstream" stuff no one told you . . .

Of mice, men and in-between

"Imagine, said Robert Streiffer, a professor of philosophy and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, a human-chimpanzee chimera endowed with speech and an enhanced potential to learn -- what some have called a 'humanzee.'"

I can see this happening within 20 years. Moreover, I can see nations using armies of specially trained "humanzees" as stand-ins for human soldiers in the many wars to come. (It's almost embarrassing how "Planet of the Apes" all this sounds.)

Cool site of the day: Technovelgy

You Aren't Scary, You're Scared

Probably even scared to see how this quiz came out!

How scary are you?

Interesting. I picked up a postcard advertising an art exhibit the other day. The name of the artist is Max Fearing -- which I read as "Mac's Fearing." Which I suppose I am.

Now everyone can spy

"'This is real-time streaming technology. It's like (the online directory) MapQuest or the navigation system in your car, but three-dimensional,' he said in an interview on Monday."

Here's a technology that might possibly make a difference, allowing eco-bloggers to monitor deforestation and chemical dumping as it happens. The implications shouldn't be understated.

Scientific maverick's theory on Earth's core up for a test





"Iconoclastic scientists often have trouble getting their papers published in scientific literature. Herndon 'is no exception,' he acknowledges. 'I live in a strange world where I go against a strong establishment that pretends I don't exist.' NASA has turned down Herndon's applications for research funding, he says."

Herndon's story isn't a new one by any means. Valid or not, his theory -- that there's a massive geological nuclear reactor at the Earth's core -- has a weird gut-level appeal.

Hovering over Titan

"A mosaic of nine processed images recently acquired during Cassini's first very close flyby of Saturn's moon Titan on Oct. 26, 2004, constitutes the most detailed full-disc view of the mysterious moon."

Chinese inventor sees money in flying saucers

"He borrowed design theories from cars, airplanes and helicopters. He staged crude experiments to test his ideas, from tossing a homemade saucer as a child to operating a small battery-powered toy saucer that is sort of a miniature of his grand project. Two years ago, he earned a Chinese patent for his flying machine design, which includes horizontal rotors of differing sizes spinning in opposite directions at differing speeds."

Godspeed!

Getting the intergalactic message across is easier said than done

"If humanity wants to correspond with the cosmos, Wright and Rose write, it should send bulk mail: Messages inscribed onto physical matter and then launched toward planets or other celestial bodies deemed most likely to harbor responsive life."

Extraterrestrial artifacts? Uh-oh. Dangerous territory. Because if we're dealing with a highly advanced extraterrestrial intelligence -- equipped with an appropriately advanced technology -- then it's probable interstellar communiques will be rather more interesting than simple "messages inscribed onto physical matter." For example, they could be artificially intelligent, able to respond to their environment and even home in on habitable worlds -- a trait that sounds tantalizingly organic.

Already, machines on Earth are becoming more and more like living things. And experts such as Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec insist this trend will continue. So maybe we shouldn't be terribly surprised if our first message from space takes the form of a sophisticated intelligence of some sort, infinitely richer in information than any plaque or gold-plated record.

Hey, Shostak! You listening?

"Miss Digital World is the first ever virtual beauty contest, strictly for the most beautiful and intriguing virtual models made using the most advanced 3D graphics tools." (Via Chapel Perilous.)

It was inevitable. Gibson's "Idoru" inches ever-closer to reality.

Meteorite 'photographed' hitting Earth

"The meteorite, which could have been as small as a grain of sand, would have been travelling about 30,000km/h." (Via The Anomalist.)

Wouldn't it be weird if you were walking along with a friend, minding your own business, when suddenly -- CRACK! -- a grain-sized meteorite impacted your friend's skull, exiting the forehead and sending a spume of semi-liquefied brain all over the sidewalk?

Maybe if I'm really lucky I'll get to see that someday.

Man, word really gets around.

Here's Phenomena magazine's preface to The Pitch's take on "After the Martian Apocalypse":

"Mac Tonnies is undoubtedly the leading authority on alternative thinking about Mars.* Level headed and highly intelligent, his ideas are certainly 'out there' as far as mainstream science is concerned but within the realms of conspiratorial talk about all manner of past events and activities on the brown planet (yep, it's really brown and not red) this guy is a sensitive conservative.

"He does firmly believe that the face on Mars is artificial.** It was carved and created by another intelligence and is not of natural origin.

"This article is a gentle plea for Tonnies to return to his original vocation of science fiction writing.*** The writer has mixed feelings about Tonnies' recent publication 'After The Martian Apocalypse' and questions his thinking and influences. Nevertheless, it's not really critical and is amusing for the strange references that the writer constantly makes to himself.****"

*Really, I'm not. For my money, image processor Mark Carlotto has done more to bring science to bear on the question of artificiality than anyone else. (But hey, I'll take it.)

**I lean toward the Artificiality Hypothesis as the most likely explanation for the Face (and other peculiarities in the Cydonia region), but I'm not a "believer." I'm attracted to the Cydonia mystery, in part, because -- unlike so many "fringe" ideas -- it's scientifically testable; it doesn't make much sense to "believe" in something if you can be proven wrong.

***For whatever it's worth, I'm at work on a near-future SF novel called "Women and Children First," about life in an ecologically decimated America circa 2040.

****The "meat" references have confused quite a few Web readers unfamiliar with Ortega's weekly column, "Kansas City Strip." I can't say I blame them. Kansas City has an enduring history in the meat industry; outside my window, for example, is a barbecue place called "K.C. Masterpiece." So the obscure references to various pieces of cow meat are a regional thing. And I should add that The Pitch's ubiquitous print edition has a graphic of a sizzling K.C. strip steak next to the column.

Summing up: Ortega writes as an anthropomorphized steak -- who, incidentally, shares page-space with someone calling him- or herself "Jimmy the Fetus."

Who said the Midwest was boring?

Regarding the SETI Institute's Seth Shostak, I commented that while "social anthropologists might bicker with me, [. . .] I think radio-SETI fulfills some of the criteria for cult-hood."

Within a couple days, alert posthuman Carol Maltby brought my attention to an interesting article, Top Leaders See Fatter Paychecks, which includes the following paragraph:

"The organization that spent the greatest proportion of its income on its top two executives was the SETI Institute, in Mountain View, Cal., which spent 2.5 per cent of its fiscal 1998 income of $10.2-million -- or $257,944 -- on paying its top two executives. Coming in at No. 2 was the Heritage Foundation, which spent 2.4 per cent of its $45.6-million income -- or $1.1-million -- on its top two executives."

I, for one, find it fascinating that the very institution that issues endless condescending remarks about the allegedly lucrative "cottage industry" of UFO/alien "believers" has found a way to award its high-priests in such consummately cult-like fashion.

Moon gas may solve Earth's energy crisis

"'By 2050 the whole world will have a major problem. We need to be thinking ahead,' Mr Taylor said."

A geologist informs me that transporting the necessary amounts of lunar fuel to Earth is utterly impractical. But that in no way diminishes the importance of using the Moon as a resource-rich staging base for ventures to Mars and the outer solar system.

Today is one of the ugliest days of the year. I plan on making myself scarce.

Alien Abductions and Coffee Enemas





"Having an open mind means you don't dismiss claims to truth out of hand. You analyze first. When you analyze a claim, you consider all the relevant evidence and examine all the logic involved, in a fair and unbiased manner, then grant tentative acceptance or rejection. If new arguments or new evidence come up, then you revise your opinion. Being open means that you apply this standard fairly to all claims. Being open-minded does not mean believing every claim, no matter how improbable--that's being gullible, not open."

However, in practice, debunkers seldom apply the same evidential standards to all claims. They may not even look at all if it means tangling with potential baloney (and to be sure, most New Age scientific "mysteries" are just that). Most self-proclaimed "skeptics," I've found, are merely pseudoskeptics, as intellectually porous as the pseudoscientists they attack and burdened with the same gnawing sense of self-righteousness that characterizes vacuous "true believers."