I have noticed a lot of pointless emotional anger over the issue of climate change, in both directions.  People who are certain that we are in a period of anthropogenic global warming have to a large extent given up arguing the case rationally and merely attack anyone who disagrees with every element of the above statement as "climate change ( Read more... )

Once upon a time I knew a crazy man who wanted to abolish automobiles.

He wasn’t really crazy, of course, and he didn’t want to “abolish” automobiles in the sense of destroying every car in existence and forbidding their further manufacture.  He was an supporter of the “car-free” movement, which advocates a return to living in the urban cores ( Read more... )

Many may have noticed that I've been relatively quiet on this blog for the last couple of months, especially on political and strategic issues.  The reason is that I despair of any positive change in the American political or strategic position over the next four years ( Read more... )

Having re-elected the Obamessiah, we Americans are going to at least in part be responsible for the now almost-inevitable major war now brewing in the area between Libya's Western border and India's Eastern border.  Oh, the Muslim Terrorist States will be guilty of the war crimes, but we will be guilty of sitting idly by and watching it happen.  A ( Read more... )

Eleven years ago, the forces of Islamofascism committed a monstrous crime against America and against all humanity.  They made prisoner the civilian crews and passengers of four airliners and then murdered all their prisoners, in the course of an attack which brought down a civilian target -- the World Trade Center -- and slighly damaged one ( Read more... )

Shulamith Firestone (1945-2012) was found dead on the 28th, an event of which I first learned from reading Nicola Griffiths' blog entry "RIP Shulamith Firestone."  Griffiths' entry is something of a commemoration:  my own opinion of Firestone and her effect on society is a lot lower.

Firestone was one of the founders of "radical feminism," a ( Read more... )

Last weekend Neil Armstrong, the first man to step onto the surface of Luna, died.  The tragedy is not that he died:  he lived a good long and happy life, and accomplished more than most people dream of doing.  The tragedy is that it has been 40 years since any human duplicated his feat ( Read more... )

This VERY long and detailed specualtive essay is now up for examination.

Natural Boundaries for Spacefaring Civilizations

IntroductionAn important concept in earthbound geopolitics is the "natural boundary" -- which is to say a defensible frontier beyond which further advance becomes difficult given any sort of serious opposition. Natural ( Read more... )

So, here we are again ( Read more... )

Recently, chris_gerrib accused me of not taking a stand on what we should do about anthropogenic climate change, saying in one of the threads from this entry

http://chris-gerrib.livejournal.com/322157.html

9 out of 10 people use the "can't be sure" argument as an excuse to do nothing. Try harder ( Read more... )