A Couple More Notes From the Fringe

1. The prize for most unintentionally depressing subject line in an email goes to townhall.com, which sent me one titled "It's a Savage Nation." The reference, of course, is to "[b]estselling author, conservative icon, and popular radio host Dr. Michael Savage," who has a new book out.  But that seems to be increasingly true, doesn't it? It is a savage nation.

2.  Recently I commented on the right's bizarre rage against Obama. Yesterday I was visiting The Volokh Conspiracy, a website that I mentioned here last week. (I assume the name is an allusion to Hillary Clinton's claim of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" to bring about impeachment. The slogan of redstate.com is, "Where the VRWC conspires." That's from memory, of course, as I'm banned. Personally, I think "vast" might have been a little over the top.) Anyway...

I was reading, and commenting in, a thread about global warming. As  you might expect, the thread started out being reasonable and was quickly overpowered by passionate denialists skeptics. I came across this remarkably frank account:

...I stopped hiking and travelling because of physical problems that preclude hiking 20+ mile days in the backcountry. And I'm one pissed-off dude because of that.  This kind of "discussion" gives me an outlet that is both socially acceptable AND useful.

Now - I've already said some things about the "denialist" thing. For the moment, I'll just add this - it's kinda like those who use the F-word 3 times in every sentence - it's an indication of their immaturity, mental capacity, lack of imagination, lack of socialization and how thin their veneer of civilization is.  IOW, it's rude, crude and uncalled for and deserves no respect at all. 

For those who understand what science is, how it operates, its history and possible future, the word "Consensus" is utter nonsense. It's not an argument and it's only persuasive to those who are either ignorant or stupid (or both). 

Yes, that's one pissed-off dude, all right. I'm not too clear on why he's so exercised about being called a "denialist," or why that's worse than a term that he uses elsewhere, "the Church of AGW" (anthropogenic global warming). But what's noteworthy is that he is quite open about his rage being completely unrelated to the topic, and about finding an outlet for it in the "discussion" (in quotation marks, I suppose to indicate that discussing things is only his ostensible purpose). No doubt that is more socially acceptable than shooting someone, or beating the crap out of them.

But have the non-political, exogenous causes of rage increased for some reason, or has it just become more common for people to channel their rage into politics? And when they do, does violence go down, or does public expression of rage become more socially acceptable? And does that, possibly, increase the temptation to feel rage in a variety of situations (say, physical limitations)?  Is there a vast Satanic conspiracy against the better angels of our nature? Are we in fact turning into a savage nation?

Just speculating.

Strange Bedfellows

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that Osama bin Laden has denounced the U.S., and urged a boycott of American goods, over global warming. Things I am wondering:

• Is there a big group of young Muslim environmentalists who are the intended target for this message?
• If we pass cap-and-trade legislation, is that a surrender to terrorism? Will Republicans say that it is?
• Will he go after China next? (Hard to see how that could be a good idea for him--he's already tapped into the Uighur market.)
• What's with this boycott business? Has he decided to emulate Gandhi?

Bet you didn't know this: the AP story on this reports that he also mentioned global warming in a tape released in 2007. My mind is pretty boggled.

Things I Don't Understand

Today, by which I mean today, Friday, December 18, there are two great unsolved mysteries on the political scene: What on earth does Joe Lieberman think he's doing? and What on earth does China think it's doing? There are also subsidiary mysteries that someone may understand, but I don't.

Much ink has already (or many electrons have already) been spilled over Lieberman, and how he's now willing to sink the health bill if it includes something that was part of his platform in 2006. I have no new insight on this, but if I find out that he's being blackmailed by someone with a photo of him eating pork gyoza off a prostitute's stomach, I promise to post the information here (and, if possible, the photo as well). In the realm of things Obama probably knows but I don't, what's going on with Olympia Snowe? She said she wouldn't vote for the bill with a public option, but now any semblance of a public option is gone, and Ben Nelson is threatening to stop the bill over abortion. Snowe was one of the two Republicans who voted against the language that Nelson wanted. Time to step up, Olympia (does she have a nickname?), unless you think that people in Maine are doing just fine on health care. If you think that, you know different people in Maine than I do.

As for China at Copenhagen, well, they say it's a matter of principle. The principle here, evidently, is that international treaties should not include mechanisms for monitoring or enforcement. One thing to be said for this is that it will make it very easy to negotiate international treaties, since anyone can agree to anything. What makes the situation  even more bizarre is that China made a big show of being angry at Europe for not living up to its obligations under the Kyoto treaty, obligations that China was exempted from. Hmm, perhaps Europe would have done better if Kyoto had included monitoring and enforcement provisions, don't you think? The question that I don't understand, but some people may, is why this is playing in the papers as a big confrontation between China and the U.S. Where's Europe? Don't they have an opinion on this? Don't they have a poodle/dachshund/corgi in this fight?

By the way, here are my personal opinions on these two issues: Health care with new abortion restrictions? Kill it. Climate treaty with no monitoring? Kill it. I say this believing health care reform and a climate treaty to be extremely important.

Addendum: Silly me. I should have realized that, however deep and sincere Senator Nelson's beliefs about abortion are, what he's mainly after is more bucks for Nebraska. (I think that "are" in that last clause would be wrong, don't you?)  Hope that turns out to be his true goal. This is no time to be straining at gnats. And by the way, what on earth does MoveOn.org think it's doing? Saying the Senate bill should be voted down because there's no public option? I mean, please. Leave the irrational ideological rigidity to the other side.