Archive for 2019

COATES IS A WILDLY OVERRATED WRITER, who focuses his efforts on “crowd pleasing,” but who has chosen a particularly inferior Stuff White People Like crowd to please.

I also like the reference in the comments — about the professor of economic history who was a policeman in Papua New Guinea — to Andrew Wareham, who’s written a lot of novels well, and based on detailed knowledge of the subject matter.

OPEN THREAD: Have fun!

PERSON OF TOLERANCE AND DIVERSITY KEYS PRO-2ND AMENDMENT OWNER’S CAR: Student’s Car Vandalized Because Of Pro-2nd Amendment Stickers.

Some things never change; in 2016, a Seattle car received $5,000 worth of damage, including slashed tires, because it had a Trump bumper sticker. In 2012, there were multiple reports of cars with Romney bumper stickers being keyed. In 2004, Glenn reported from the bullet-riddled Bush-Cheney headquarters, amidst reports of Bush-Cheney-adorned cars being keyed and causing road rage in leftists who espouse an ideology that preaches tolerance and diversity. Speaking of which, back then, a T-shirt manufacturer sold a Shirt with the image of a scratched-out Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper sticker and the words “A person of tolerance and diversity keyed my car.” Someone with a Café Press account should update the design for 2020.

THE MEDIA COVERED FOR OBAMA’S INCOMPETENCE LIKE IT COVERED FOR NOBODY SINCE AT LEAST FDR: Jamie Kirchik: Critics of the Trump administration’s foreign policy have forgotten the mistakes and misjudgments of its predecessor:

This was the constant, tediously narcissistic background music of the Obama presidency—that his youth and personal sympathy for those who perceive themselves to be the victims of American global hegemony somehow obviated the forces of history and ideology and culture, never mind what other nations perceived to be in their national interest. The Obamians’ determinist view of history could not recognise that the Cuban communists lock up independent journalists because the stale doctrine of Marxist-Leninism demands it; that Iran pledges “Death to Israel” because it sincerely seeks it, that the men in the Kremlin acquire actual glory from the serial humiliations they inflict upon Russia’s smaller neighbours; and that these phenomena derive from cultures and ideologies that will not be attenuated by American apologies and appeasement.

I BLAME VENUSIAN SUV DRIVERS: “Venus may have been a temperate planet hosting liquid water for 2-3 billion years, until a dramatic transformation starting over 700 million years ago resurfaced around 80% of the planet.”

Forty years ago, NASA’s Pioneer Venus mission found tantalising hints that Earth’s ‘twisted sister’ planet may once have had a shallow ocean’s worth of water. To see if Venus might ever have had a stable climate capable of supporting liquid water, Dr. Way and his colleague, Anthony Del Genio, have created a series of five simulations assuming different levels of water coverage.

In all five scenarios, they found that Venus was able to maintain stable temperatures between a maximum of about 50 degrees Celsius and a minimum of about 20 degrees Celsius for around three billion years. A temperate climate might even have been maintained on Venus today had there not been a series of events that caused a release, or ‘outgassing’, of carbon dioxide stored in the rocks of the planet approximately 700-750 million years ago.

“Our hypothesis is that Venus may have had a stable climate for billions of years. It is possible that the near-global resurfacing event is responsible for its transformation from an Earth-like climate to the hellish hot-house we see today,” said Way.

So the watery, tropical Venus of 1950s SF wasn’t wrong, just . . . out of date.