What’s driving George Will’s warped views on environmental issues, including his criticism of compact fluorescent light bulbs?

On issues relating to the environment, George Will’s strategy has been to draw his curve, then plot his data. As of late, he’s been denying far more than climate change; he’s denying the data relating to climate change. It has gotten so bad that he’s been pointing to changes in the weather to attempt to rebut evidence that there are changes in climate, an unfair tactic that even fourth-graders know enough to criticize. Throughout his arguments, Will delights in sprinkling in pointy little reminders that the government is always misguided, as though we should trust in the “free market.” This week, in an article published by the Washington Post, Will has employed all of his favorite forms of paltering in a full-scale attack on compact fluorescent light bulbs. He doesn't like compact fluorescent bulbs for a variety of reasons that he enunciates. Without citing any statistics, he claims that some of those bulbs might not last as long as the bulb life indicated on the package. Because of the existence of mercury in the bulbs, he gripes that we can’t just toss them away in the general trash when they break or cease working. Will also complains that CFL’s are not all-purpose bulbs—they don’t work in hot places with limited airflow. And they take a bit to get to their full brightness. Down with CFL’s!

Continue ReadingWhat’s driving George Will’s warped views on environmental issues, including his criticism of compact fluorescent light bulbs?

What it means (and doesn’t mean) to be “open minded.”

What does it mean to be "open minded?" This excellent video gets right to it. Simple, straight-forward reasoning with entertaining animation. I've never seen this topic better-discussed. The video is by Doug, "Qualiasoup," who puts this quote on his youtube site:

"It is not acceptable to have a religion where the alternative to faith is punishment — that's how you train dogs, not develop people." - Deng Ming-Dao Consider some of his additional videos, such as this one on the basics of evolution.

Continue ReadingWhat it means (and doesn’t mean) to be “open minded.”

Conservative Judge: the most harmful thing about marijuana is jail.

Judge James P. Gray is a trial Judge in Orange County, California, a former attorney in the Navy JAG corps, a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles; he has also been a civil litigation attorney for a private law firm. In these two videos, he talks about marijuana and our "failed and hopeless drug policy" in America. According to Gray, it's easier for kids to get marijuana than alcohol because alcohol is regulated by the government and marijuana is regulated by drug dealers on the street. These are excellent videos, caused by a thoughtful judge who is in a position to know. If we started treating marijuana as we do alcohol, we would see five immediate benefits:

California would save $1 Billion in state expenses currently used to prosecute marijuana offenses.

California would generate $1.3B in take revenue per year in California (marijuana is currently the number one cash crop in California, with grapes being #2).

We'd make marijuana less available than it is now, and the quality of marijuana would be better regulated than it is now.

The entire medical marijuana controversy would go away--the Federal government is currently acting like a "bully" harassing sick people.

The hemp industry is a viable industrial crop, more valuable than cotton. You can get more paper from an acre of hemp than an acre of trees, and it's much more environmentally friendly. The diesel engine was originally designed to run on hemp. The sails of the ship "Old Ironsides," The U.S. Constitution were made of hemp fibers. The original copy of the founding document, the U.S. Constitution was made of hemp. It is an extremely valuable crop that we fail to exploit.
. Why don't we treat marijuana like alcohol, even though the majority of people are willing to do this? Why does the federal government care? Here's Judge Gray's belief: At least 75% of everyone in the U.S. who uses any illicit substance uses only marijuana. By legalizing and regulating marijuana, the federal government would no longer justify our "colossal prison-industrial complex." Many government jobs depend on the "war on drugs." Two Congressmen have admitted to Judge Gray that "the war on drugs is not winnable, but it's imminently fund-able." He concludes that the federal government is "addicted to the drug war funding." For more on the harmlessness of marijuana, see this earlier DI post. These videos were produced by Lee Stranahan, a writer, photographer and independent filmmaker. He also blogs for The Huffington Post .

Continue ReadingConservative Judge: the most harmful thing about marijuana is jail.

Varnum vs Brien: the abridged version of the Iowa Supreme Court Opinion upholding gay marriage

What follows is an abridged version of the Iowa Supreme Court Opinion upholding gay marriage: KATHERINE VARNUM vs. TIMOTHY J. BRIEN, Polk County Recorder. Decision date: April 3, 2009. Who would have thought that the next state to recognize gay rights was going to be Iowa? Right out here in the heartland, neighbor of Missouri, where I live? Many these states in the Midwest have taken pains to amend their laws to forbid gay marriage. I am highly impressed by the Court’s ruling and opinion in the case of Varnum vs. Brien, the Iowa Supreme Court Opinion upholding gay marriage (here’s the full text of the opinion). Here’s Des Moines Register’s brief description of the holding. It is an extraordinary opinion, extremely well-written and well-reasoned. It is extraordinary for both the legal analysis and for the emotional and social insights expressed by the court. This Court really gets what is at stake in this case, and did hide from any of the arguments asserted by the County. It’s amazing what happens when you carefully lay out all of the arguments for the world to see, and I do believe that the Court covered all of the arguments expressed by those who are opposed to gay marriage, even a big argument that the anti-gay-marriage forces didn’t have the courage to raise in the courts (religious objections). Because the Court took the time to carefully lay out all of those anti-gay-marriage arguments, we can all see how empty and paranoid they sound in the abstract. When we see the anti-gay-marriage arguments calmly on paper, without the angry faces and the megaphones, we see them as the specious arguments they truly are. Today, I took the time to read the entire 70-page opinion by the Iowa Supreme Court. It occurred to me, though, that many people (especially non-lawyers) might not want to work their way through the entire opinion. Therefore, I have created this “abridged” version, preserving the significant points, but redacting the citations and technical points. This actual words of the Court’s opinion are truly worth your while. Don’t settle for the simplified news media stories on this decision. This court’s opinion is professional and inspirational. In it’s thoroughness and directness regarding a tumultuous subject, it reminds me of the Pennsylvania decision of Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., (full decision of the Dover decision here). In this legal decision, the Iowa Supreme Court takes the long view of history, as you can see at page 16, where the Court points out that it prohibited slavery more than 15 years before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the rights of slave-owners in the Dred Scott case. This discussion is on the mark, given that any legislation curtailing the rights of gays is based on bigotry. The Court has a long analysis ready for those who would argue that homosexuality is a choice, starting around page 41 in the “immutability” section. The also Court slams the concept of "civil union" as a second rate version of marriage (for example, see page 9). What was at stake in this case was Iowa Code section 595.2(1), which ostensibly provides:

“[o]nly a marriage between a male and a female is valid.”

The Court considered a mountain of evidence and reviewed dozens of amicus briefs (briefs from interested individuals and organizations who are not direct parties) before rendering its opinion.

Continue ReadingVarnum vs Brien: the abridged version of the Iowa Supreme Court Opinion upholding gay marriage

Richard Nisbett: Intelligence mostly varies due to the environment, not genes

The dominant hereditarian view of intelligence holds that intelligence is mostly fixed by the genes. Richard Nisbett has dismantled the evidence on which the hereditarian theory is based. In his new book, Intelligence and How to Get It, Nesbitt argues that the twin studies on which the hereditarian view is based are deeply flawed. The main problem is that the adoptive homes in which those separated twins often find themselves are uniformly enriched learning environments. Nisbett's book was reviewed by Jim Holt of the NYT Book Review:

Nisbett bridles at the hereditarian claim that I.Q. is 75 to 85 percent heritable; the real figure, he thinks, is less than 50 percent. Estimates come from comparing the I.Q.’s of blood relatives — identical twins, fraternal twins, siblings — growing up in different adoptive families. But there is a snare here. As Nisbett observes, “adoptive families, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are all alike.” Not only are they more affluent than average, they also tend to give children lots of cognitive stimulation. Thus data from them yield erroneously high estimates of I.Q. heritability. (Think: if we all grew up in exactly the same environment, I.Q. differences would appear to be 100 percent genetic.) This underscores an important point: there is no fixed value for heritability. The notion makes sense only relative to a population. Heritability of I.Q. is higher for upper-class families than for lower-class families, because lower-class families provide a wider range of cognitive environments, from terrible to pretty good.

What does Nisbett's book have to say about race and intelligence? That the differences among the "races" are not genetic. Evidence in point: The "racial" IQ gap has been shrinking. "Over the last 30 years, the measured I.Q. difference between black and white 12-year-olds has dropped from 15 points to 9.5 points."

Continue ReadingRichard Nisbett: Intelligence mostly varies due to the environment, not genes