Freespace

Earthquake swarm in Yellowstone

The Yellowstone caldera is not dead, only sleeping. When we were there this summer, we learned that, among other things, the Mud Volcano has recently come to life again after being still for many years. And now there's an earthquake swarm going on there, with a dozen 3.0 + quakes in the last couple days. Pretty creepy. If that supervolcano were to go off, it would be a truly Cataclysmic Event.

Start the new year off right

...with Muppets singing Carmen.

CFI’s important work at the UN

Ed Brayton alerted me to the Center for Inquiry’s very interesting and useful work at the United Nations, defending individual freedom of conscience against very insidious efforts by Islamic theocracies. Of course the UN has little credibility with libertarians like myself, but it’s still important to defend against their efforts to further corrupt the fundamental principle of free and secular government. More, this is a very refreshing example of secular liberal intellectuals standing up against the efforts of Middle Eastern theocratic dictatorship. This work is led by Austin Dacey who monitors the U.N. for the Center for Inquiry.

Is legal scholarship phony?

A perennial debate rears its very gray head at The Volokh Conspiracy. I left there the following comment:

I would add one point to what you say. One of the big problems in this area continues to be physics envy. The economists want very badly to be precise and have dandy equations that look so sophisticated and objective and Scientific, and they like to look down on disciplines whose standards of precision, styles of argumentation, and subjects of dispute appear to be “subjective” or imprecise by that standard. They disregard Aristotle’s wise counsel:

We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true and with premisses of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs.

There is no reason why legal scholarship should be judged by the standards applicable to sciences that are more easily reducible to mathematics. On the contrary, the principles of law—which purport to govern the interactions of human beings, each of whom has free will, dreams, desires, taboos, ambitions, &c.—are vastly more complicated than, say, the principles that govern the interactions of soulless subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves. These latter phenomena are only barely explicable in mathematical terms by the science and technology of today, after a centuries-long effort by humanity’s finest minds. It should hardly come as a surprise, therefore, that wide areas of law have not reached the same degree of precision. And that fact hardly renders law “subjective,” or “imprecise,” or “made up,” or whatever.

A healthy development in the Republican Party

It's just words, but it would be a great start.

More on liberals and Islamic fascism

Caroline Glick:

After ignoring India's long and recent history of jihad, [Martha] Nussbaum condemned an imaginary double standard which she claimed labels all Muslims as terrorists and gives Hindus a free ride in subjugating them. Of course, thanks to multiculturalists like Nussbaum, the double standard we suffer from is the exact opposite of what she described: Muslim terrorists, we are told, are victims of persecution and represent a teensy-tiny fraction of Muslims. On the other hand, all non-Muslims involved in even marginally violent activities against Muslims are murderers, fanatics, extremists. Moreover, they are representative of their non-Muslim societies.

More here.

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Striped icebergs

Check out these gorgeous pictures of striped icebergs.

What should I read in 2009?

Are there any books out there I could profit from reading? Please leave a suggestion in the comments. Any and all suggestions are welcome, although I prefer nonfiction, and I make no promise that I will actually read any recommended book. Still, this is your chance to change my mind about something or explain something to me that you think I don't understand....

Ad-ing by subtracting

Vanderleun is right; it's the best commecial ever. Just wish I knew what it was for. I may be a customer of Fleggaard for the rest of my life...whatever it is.

Update: A reader explains, "Fleggard is a retail store, located right on the German side of the German-Danish border. The German V.A.T. (19 %) is lower than the Danish (25 %), causing many Danes to stock up on items when in Germany. In the commercial, the girls are writing 'Siemens Dishwasher, 4,999 dkr.' in the sky. Incidentally, the commercial is made for the internet, and will never be shown on Danish TV."

A very worthwhile organization

Check out Sense About Science, a British organization dedicated to combatting pseudoscience and silly medical notions being spread by celebrities and popular media. In particular, they're trying to get reporters connected with real scientists when commenting on some scientific matter, and thus cut down on nonsense like the antivaccine craze. They've released a head-shaking list called the Celebrities in Science Review 2008, of some of the stupidest dietary and scientific advice from celebrities.

The Sense About Science initiative is an update of a leaflet encouraging celebrities to avoid making claims until they have checked the facts. While there has been “considerable improvement” in the way British celebrities approach medicine, the charity says its files are still too full of pseudo-scientific claims. “We don’t expect people to know everything about science; the problem comes when they don’t consider checking it or asking questions.”

Related: Scientific Illiteracy All The Rage Among Celebrities, which includes my favorite (for lack of a better word) display of ignorance for the year: Sarah Palin complaining that fruit fly research was somehow a taxpayer boondoggle.