Not Such Fresh Air

If you haven’t heard it yet, here’s Jeff Goddell on geoengineering and his book “How to Cool the Planet.”

Libertarian Gold

John Holbo has a nice post over at Crooked Timber. He continues the thread inspired by the outrageous claim of Bryan Caplan’s that somehow the ladies were freer back in the 1880s than they are today. It’s an interesting post if only because he suggests that there are sociological reflections of conceptual distinctions in libertarianism, and also because he runs his argument through the establishment of liberty as property:

I think it is not generally recognized – it seems right to me, correct me if I am wrong! – that the thick/thin libertarian distinction, even though it can be fuzzy, in practice, marks out two fundamentally distinct kinds of political philosophy, based on totally different principles. This gets disguised because there is considerable overlapping consensus at higher levels; and the thin side, in particular, tends to be systematically confused about where it is coming from (where it has to be coming from, to be what it is). Once we see this, a few things that are a bit strange about libertarianism, as a sociological phenomenon, look less strange. Also, maybe it turns out that libertarianism is a Bigger Tent than liberalism, philosophically, even though it is sometimes classed as a mere fringe of the liberal tent. Liberalism really is one kind of thing, broadly speaking. But not libertarianism – which is really two fundamentally different kinds of thing in one. (You could debate that, arguing that liberalism, too, has some pretty serious and deep internal divisions. But that’s not today’s topic.)

American Patriot Lord Monckton

Hey, check this out. Lord Monckton was one of the heralded speakers at a DC Tea Party rally yesterday. Wonkette provides us with the photo… and then there’s this terribly scratchy audio below. Dave Wiegel as the scoop and the Huffington Post has more. Also covered at The Way Things Break and DeSmog Blog. The audio is nearly unbearable, but if you go to minute 2:50, you can hear Monckton’s apologia about why a British Lord would be at an American Tea Party rally. (I mean, seriously, is there no appreciation for history here? It’s not even like a simple irony, as might be the case if Monckton were any other foreign national. He’s a stuffy British Lord, for chrissakes. The Tea Party movement is predicated on the 1773 rejection of the Crown.) At any rate, he loves freedom. I guess that makes him an American.

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Reason’s Watchdog

Two more fantastic clips from Jon Stewart, illustrating once again that the Daily Show is one of the best places to go for exposure of the logical failings of the news corps. See below as they address the hasty generalization, the straw man, special pleading, the genetic fallacy, among other fallacies, all without saying as much.

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I leave you with this. Ack!

Smoke

Hybrids be damned. Travelers? Turn back. The earth goddesses of Iceland will be conducting a small-scale geoengineering experiment for the next several days. But look, I’ve noticed a curious similarity with regional goings on. Here’s the statement from the World Health Organization:

In Geneva, meanwhile, the World Health Organization said people with respiratory problems should “limit their activities outdoors or stay indoors” if ash started falling from the sky.

Seems innocent enough, until you compare it to a recent statement by our University Chancellor Phil DiStefano regarding another smoke-related event:

“Those with medical conditions affected by smoke should communicate with their supervisors and consider leaving the Norlin Quad area by 3 p.m.”

Oh dear. I’ll be teaching my undergraduate class a few hours before this “event.” We’ll see how that goes.

Anybody have any links to posts on the projected climatic effects of this curious volcanic eruption? Is it just the case that there it happens to be in the path of US-Europe air traffic, or is it the case that this one is particularly sooty?