Name calling

You know when the opposition have no real authority or evidence against your point of view when their first response to disagreement is personal attacks. If nothing else it points to a poor standard of education and overall low moral literacy on the part of the insult leveller. The forums and blogs are full of it.

The worst offenders? Eco-warriors and embittered lefties, with redneck righties (Who probably ate their last keyboard) coming in a very, very poor third. By way of illumination, I was reading Robert Harris's excellent 'Ghost' last night, in which one of his characters ironically observes that 'peace' protesters are the most violent. Well maybe that's hyperbole, but like all exaggeration, there is a grain of truth in it. The more fanatical a belief, the less rational and amenable to reason its followers become. For this reason I think the current crop of global warming believers will carry on believing and insulting those of us who have been examining the empirical evidence, calling people like the top climatologist at MIT a and anyone else who doesn't kowtow to their claims 'denier'. In this fashion the 'AGW Believers' rather remind me of the slightly apocryphal tale about a slightly dotty old lady who used to turn up at public Science lectures about the nature of the Universe to declaim "It's turtles all the way down!" loudly at the lecturer.

For myself, I will listen to more reasoned voices with a great deal more scientific credibility than mere politicians and campaigners. People like Roger Pielke (Snr $ Jnr) Richard Lindzen, Dr John Christy, Bjorn Lomborg, Lief Svaalgard. Whilst not everything anybody says can be treated as gospel, simply calling people names because they don't agree with you is for kindergarten.

Anyway. It's been a lovely day today, the sun has come out while Mrs S and I were whizzing between meetings, and the top hundred metres or so of Mount Benson has been frosted with a light snowfall. See pictures. This is very early, snow doesn't usually turn up until mid December. Oh, and a gratuitous picture of two Mule Deer bucks respectively over three and five years old (A six and a ten pointer) we saw whilst up in the north part of town.

Mt Benson from Parkway trail yesterday.


Mt Benson from south of town today.

Where's that two bucks I asked you for? Oh, there they are.