Category Archives: politics

Property, People, Parties

Posted on 2013-05-07 by TJ

Before the Chartists, Westminster-style democracies had parliaments that unequivocally represented property. There were property qualifications for voters, much less members. The upper house represented the aristocracy, which was different from mere wealth. This is a concept Canadians may have some … Continue reading →

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How Not to be a Science Writer

Posted on 2013-01-04 by TJ

The state of science reporting has always been pretty dismal, with a few major luminaries outshining the combined light of their lesser colleagues. I suspect that the science desk is the place where novices and interns get parked until they … Continue reading →

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Wrong is Not Right

Posted on 2012-11-28 by TJ

Sea levels are rising faster than predicted by climate models, Arctic ice is melting more rapidly, glaciers are retreating more quickly, and a number of other one-dimensional measures have significantly larger first derivatives than climate models predict. In other words: … Continue reading →

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Things That Are Not Arguments

Posted on 2012-11-22 by TJ

This story of a group of Australian geologists who “undiscovered” an island in the Coral Sea clearly proves all of the following: Anti-science conservatism is true: Obviously if science can get an entire island wrong it must be the case … Continue reading →

Posted in bayes, epistemology, politics, probability, psychology, science | Leave a comment

Paul Ryan is not a “Randian”

Posted on 2012-08-12 by TJ

Presumably a “Randian” is a person who shares a substantial range of agreement with the fundamental principles espoused by Ayn Rand, which were: 1) ethically: egoism based on a false set of empirical claims about the kind of beings humans … Continue reading →

Posted in epistemology, politics | Leave a comment

The Mess That’s Texas

Posted on 2012-07-14 by TJ

The Republican Party of Texas (RPT) has released a platform that is so over-the-top stupid and self-contradictory it reads like a parody of itself. The brain trust of the RPT begins by affirming that governments in the US ought to … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, god, life, politics, religion, war | Leave a comment

The Diversity of Love

Posted on 2012-07-07 by TJ

There is currently a great kerfuffle about Corporal Jim Brown of the RCMP, who apparently enjoys consensual BDSM. The outpouring of hate from certain quarters has been quite astonishing, with people happily imputing that simply because someone is Black they … Continue reading →

Posted in life, politics, psychology | Leave a comment

Some Notes on the Higgs

Posted on 2012-07-04 by TJ

It looks very likely that the Higgs boson has been observed at CERN. There’s a lot of careful, discriminating, detailed and precise analysis to be done yet, but the data so far are consistent with a Standard Model Higgs, which … Continue reading →

Posted in epistemology, evolution, god, history, physics, politics, quantum, religion, technology | Leave a comment

The Most Important Discovery of My Life

Posted on 2012-05-01 by TJ

I have found the key to one of life’s great mysteries, and in doing so settled an argument that has plagued and divided people since nigh-on the beginning of the Epoch. It is a burning, eternal question, the tinder that … Continue reading →

Posted in poetry, politics, software, technology, writing | 1 Comment

Defeating x-ray backscatter detectors

Posted on 2012-03-11 by TJ

There has been a lot of chatter on the “interwebs” in the past week about a scientist, engineer and activist named Jonathan Corbett who has demonstrated a trivial way of defeating the x-ray backscatter machines I wrote about a while … Continue reading →

Posted in physics, politics, technology | Leave a comment