Made You Think

Truthiness
I feel that the hubbub over who made up the word "truthiness" has drawn too much attention away from the discussion of the problem of truthiness. I believe that truthiness is one of the greatest problems facing our nation. (Hint: note ironic truthiness used in this paragraph.)

Examples:

An military analyst and former Army officer says that the military is stretched nearly "to the breaking point." Rumsfeld retorts: "I just can't imagine someone looking at the United States armed forces today and suggesting that they're close to breaking," he said. "That's just not the case."

The Justice Department defends the warrantless domestic eavesdropping program as constitutional. At the same time, the new Iraqi constitution, chief component of the political transformation that so many have died to support, would outlaw the program. The Iraqi Constitution states this limitation in plain terms: "The freedom of communication, and mail, telegraphic, electronic, and telephonic correspondence, and other correspondence shall be guaranteed and may not be monitored, wiretapped or disclosed except for legal and security necessity and by a judicial decision."

The U.S. trembles at the growing obesity crisis, and many (not just my friend Johanna) wonder why French women don't get fat like American women. But actually, maybe French women do. And anyway, maybe it's not such a crisis. Also, more study seems likely to be helpful; recent studies have suggested, for instance, that some fatness is caused or increased by viruses. I'm not saying that there's no rise in obesity, I'm just saying let's talk facts not hysteria about it. Also, what is really at the root of the hysteria?

And, apropos of my prior post, a climatologist asserts that NASA has tried to censor him. The sort of intimidation he describes seems similar to the intimidation lobbed at CBS by conservatives trying to get CBS to use the phrase "terrorist surveillance program" in place of "domestic spying," when describing the aforementioned wiretapping program.

And of course, there's the whole "Million Little Pieces" debacle. To my mind, what's worst about that incident is that so many people believed the book in the first place. It always sounded a bit outlandish to me, as it did to many others who used their brains, including Star Trib reporters in 2003.

I guess that's what's so depressing about the truthiness problem in general, actually.

It seems we've turned the earth into a septic tank; oh, and the space nearby, too.

I guess I'm becoming an environmentalist. In fact, my concern about our environment has lately been growing into almost panic. At least fear. I don't know if it's the phenonmenon of when-you-look-for-something-you-see it, or if there really has been an alarming increase in the number of frightening reports about our environment.

A few examples.

There's no longer enough supply of the most important metals to extend the standard of living in developed countries to the rest of the world.

The Japanese are afraid of U.S. beef because of the way we feed our cows and the way we process beef. Um, excuse me, but if the Japanese won't eat it, why should I?

Consumer Reports suggests I shouldn't. They now recommend buying organic meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy, as well as these fruits and veggies: "Apples, bell peppers, celery, cherries, imported grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach, and strawberries." I subscribe, and the article goes into some convincing detail justifying the recommendation. For example, kids who eat organic excrete fewer pesticides. And according to a researcher quoted in this MSNBC article on the same topic,

“What we do know is that chronic exposures to low levels of pesticides could very well be significant,” said Cynthia Curl, another researcher involved with the study. Children exposed to high levels of organophosphate pesticides are at risk for bone and brain cancer, neuroblastoma and childhood leukemia, she added.

Speaking of the effects of toxic chemicals, have you heard about the hermaphrodite polar bears, apparently caused by flame-retardant chemicals and other endocrine-disruptors? These chemicals seem to find their way to the Arctic region more easily than scientists thought they would.

And mining for coltan, used in cell phones, threatens Congo gorilla populations.

Research confirms that, as has always seemed obvious to me, cities really do make their own weather, staying warmer than the surrounding areas.

Rare sea turtles mysteriously turn up dead. I like turtles.

Global warming seems almost undeniable at this point, and causing more problems than I remember being warned about. Glaciers declining at rates unexplainable by historical trends. Mussels returning to arctic waters. Frog species going extinct. Declining whale populations. And, sadly, it turns out that even plants contribute to methane buildup. 2005 may well be the warmest year on record.

Our dirty hands extend beyond the borders of our planet, too. Even space is filled with our trash.

So I've started recycling again. More, I should say. Even though it seems like a silly thing, what difference can that make. But I just can't bear the guilt.

Fewer girl babies born in India

This article says that since sex-selective abortion became possible, perhaps 10 million fewer female babies have been born in India than would otherwise be expected. The most striking part to me was this chart of the falling percentage of women:

Indian females born as a percentage of males born.

1981; 96.2%

1991; 94.5%

2001; 92.7%

What happens in 15 years, when there are so many fewer women than men in society? Will that improve women's status? I'm looking for something to be hopeful about here.... (Thanks again, Morning News.)

What kids learn at the movies.

In their own words. (Thanks, Morning News.)

Factory farming and modern morality.

This essay in American Conservative discusses the faulty legal and moral reasoning that permits factory farms to subject animals to treatment that would be animal cruelty for pets. (Thanks, Morning News.)

Another study in the category of, they needed a study?

As you may have noticed from your personal experience, your mind is foggy during the first moments after you wake up, sometimes so foggy that it's like being drunk. "'For a short period, at least, the effects of sleep inertia may be as bad as or worse than being legally drunk,' said researcher Kenneth Wright of the University of Colorado at Boulder. " Indeed.

How the Alito hearings demonstrate the current "Constitutional catechism"

At Balkinization, Jack Balkin offers this thoughtful post reviewing questions and answers in the Alito hearings to demonstrate "that at this point in American constitutional history, a Supreme Court nominee must recite a catechism of belief if he or she is to be confirmed."

Here's the content of the catechism:

The nominee must state that he or she (1) believes that there is a right to privacy, (2) that Griswold correctly protected this right of privacy at least as to the right of married persons to purchase and use contraceptives; (3) that Eisenstadt -- which extends Griswold to single persons-- is correctly decided as to its result; (4) that Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided, (5) that Plessy v. Ferguson was incorrectly decided, and (6) that the one person one vote principle in Reynolds v. Sims is correct.

The nominee must also agree that Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania are Supreme Court decisions that are entitled to the weight of stare decisis. However, the nominee need not agree that these decisions are correct or beyond reexamination in the way that Griswold, Eisenstadt, Reynolds v. Sims and Brown are.

He convincingly explains that this catechism reflects "the current dominant national political coalition about what constitutional questions are off the table for revision." It is this catechism that gives meaning to a nominee's statement that "the issues raised in the previous decision (whether Roe, or Casey, or something else) might someday come before the Court so that the nominee must not prejudge whether the decision should be retained." Such a statement on its face makes little sense, since the issues in the cases that a nominee will profess were correctly decided -- Griswold, Eisenstadt, Brown -- still come before the Court as well; it's just that for those cases, the nominee is willing to profess they are unquestionably correctly decided. What a nominee really means when he says that he cannot prejudge the issue because it may come before the court is that "one can disagree about the legitimacy and or scope of the case and still be confirmable, that is, within the mainstream."

My fear of birds, justified.

I have an irrational fear of, well, more like revulsion for, birds. I don't know that it's a phobia, because I can reassure myself that say, a robin, can't really hurt me or anything. But they do give me that creepy feeling that most people get from spiders or snakes.

So, this article was of interest to me. Scientists have decided, based on markings on the bones, that "[e]agles used to prey on our ancestors." Specifically, they theorize that "the 'Taung child,' a 2-million year old apeman skull famed as one of the most dramatic human evolutionary finds, was killed and eaten by an eagle."

Later in the article the scientist explains that "the child had probably been scooped up by an eagle and taken to its nest, where its eyes were ripped out for dinner."

"Taiwan breeds transgenic, fluorescent green pig."

I think this headline speaks for itself. "By injecting fluorescent green protein into embryonic pigs, a research team at the island's leading National Taiwan University managed to breed three male transgenic pigs," the article explains. There's a picture. It's horrifying.

A slinky-shaped magnetic field

surrounds a gas cloud in the Orion constellation. That, or the field is smashed up and around the gas cloud. They're not quite sure. Obviously, the slinky is the much snazzier option.

A draw in the words battle

I've decided it's a draw in the battle of the words; one week, dictionary.com seems to send dumb words, then the next thing you know wordsmith.org is sending "anachronism."

I did like this word, meaning yesterday evening: yestreen.

Ancient hair gel

Found on Irish bog man. Short, apparently rich guy, "Clonycavan Man," found with big, tall guy, "Oldcroghan Man," in a bog. Both murdered a couple thousand years ago. Clonycavan Man supposedly used the hair gel to make his hair bigger. Weird.

New research about black holes

Some scientists think it takes a very long time for matter to move into the center of a black hole. "By tracking the death spiral of cosmic gas at the center of a galaxy called NGC1097, scientists figured that material moving at 110,000 miles an hour would still take eons to cross into a black hole." More than 200,000 years.

Also, other scientists discovered a star orbiting a medium-sized black hole. A medium-sized black hole is "about 1,000 times more massive than the sun."