It's not enough to bash in heads, you have to bash in minds

After the horrific events at the Mosque in Quebec it is worth remembering that hatred doesn’t stop at the border.
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Trump Bars Refugees and Citizens of 7 Muslim Countries

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday closed the nation’s borders to refugees from around the world, ordering that families fleeing the slaughter in Syria be indefinitely blocked from entering the United States, and temporarily suspending immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries.

In an executive order that he said was part of an extreme vetting plan to keep out “radical Islamic terrorists,” Mr. Trump also established a religious test for refugees from Muslim nations: He ordered that Christians and others from minority religions be granted priority over Muslims.

1 week down, 207 to go.

For a while now, those who deny climate change (like the majority of elected Republican officials) have complained that climate science has been politicized and therefore cannot be trusted. The evidence for this has always fallen apart under the most superficial of scrutiny.

Yet less than a week into the Trump presidency we have a textbook example what the polarization of science actually looks like:

Trump administration: EPA studies, data must undergo political review before release

Review extended to content on agency’s website, including details of scientific evidence of climate change and that manmade carbon emissions are to blame

The Trump administration is mandating that any studies or data from scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency undergo review by political appointees before they can be released to the public.

The communications director for Donald Trump’s transition team at the EPA, Doug Ericksen, said on Wednesday the review also extends to content on the federal agency’s website, including details of scientific evidence showing that the Earth’s climate is warming and manmade carbon emissions are to blame.

Former EPA staffers said on Wednesday the restrictions imposed under Trump far exceed the practices of past administrations.

It doesn’t get any clearer than this. Data and scientific studies need to be approved by a political appointee before it can be released to the public. This is a textbook definition of political manipulation of science.

You cannot win a fight against reality.

The opponents of the Keystone XL and other pipelines have to keep on winning, forever, while those trying to build pipelines, or similar projects, only have to win once

I said those words 4 years ago, and sadly it looks like I was right:

President Trump signed an executive action today to push forward the Dakota Access pipeline as well as the Keystone XL pipeline.

I wish being right felt better.

Fidel Castro was the best Dictator the Cubans ever had, But Cubans deserve better than a dictatorship.

This isn’t a 2ºC or bust fight. It’s a fight to limit consequences. It’s a fight for every 1/10 of a degree. If we fail to hold to 2ºC, we have to fight for 2.1º; failing that, we battle on for 2.2º. With millennia of impacts at stake, we never get to give up, even if we end up in 4ºC. For future generations, 4º is still better than 4.1º.

“Game over” is neither realistic nor responsible. Even the most catastrophic outcomes humanity aren’t the apocalypse — the end of the future itself — they’re just appalling failure and tragedy. We have a duty to people who will live after those failures.

The world won’t end, even if we lose completely. Life will go on, but people will suffer profoundly, human possibilities will be dwarfed, lives impoverished, beauty undone, achievements lost — for millennia, and sometimes forever. –Alex Steffen

RIP Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

Words that feel especially poignant right now.

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Notice the change at the bottom of the graph? Anyway you look at it that sudden change is alarming.

It is worth noting that, nothing presented here is new, but XKCD author Randall Munroe is a master in making complex topics and difficult to grasp issues of scale easily approachable.

John Oliver explains it nicely, the instead of the imaginary TODD conference, I recommend the very real Bad ad Hoc Hypotheses Festival BAHfest!

Or If you prefer the news cycle in comic format PhD Comics has you covered:

…and the iconic Science World (more…)

20 Years ago John Perry Barlow published the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace:

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
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