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May 16, 2005
      I was in Tallahassee, Florida, last week talking to a large room full of planning officials. My message was pretty straightforward: every new housing subdivision, every new strip mall, every parking lagoon and big box chain-store pod that you issue approvals for from this point on will lead your country deeper into tragedy.

     The response was apathetic, as though I were giving a class in Chinese algebra.

     Florida is one of the multiple epicenters of a hypertrophic suburban growth machine that has taken the place of the US economy. Reforming it is unimaginable because without the business generated by a cancer-like replication of car infrastructure, the economy would consist of little besides hair cutting, fried chicken, and open heart surgery. In places like Florida (and California, and northern Virginia, and Las Vegas, and Dallas), all citizens are complicit in the drive toward tragedy because all want business-as-usual to continue. The idea that any set of circumstances might put a stop to it is laughable to them. What can you do for such a people determined to commit civilizational suicide?

     Meanwhile, a glance at Sunday's New York Times Magazine shows what the supposedly thinking class of America is preoccupied with these days: rescuing architectural Modernism, that 20th century system of asthetic pretensions that affected to celebrate mankind's triumph over nature by way of technology. Those boys are in for a surprise when they discover that nature gave the human race technology in order that we might choose to shoot ourselves in the head when the time came. This is what comes of humans bethinking themselves smarter than nature. Apart from it. Superior to it.

      The tragic futility of the suburban growth racket and the towering hubris of Modernism go hand-in-hand. Both rest on ideologies that drive relentlessy toward death. Both depend on a condition of widespread and extreme narcissism among individual members of society to continue their operations. Both represent a kind of wickedness that does not require religious transliteration to understand. Both will be defeated by reality.

One thing that I'm predicting is that there will be a vigorous and futile defense of suburbia and all its entitlements, no matter what reality is telling us to do. And this will translate into a lot of political mischief. You can quote me: Americans will vote for cornpone Nazis before they will give up their entitlements to a McHouse and a McCar.

James H. Kunstler, Author of The Long Emergency
Interview with Salon
May 14, 2005

Of course, one could argue that they already have voted for cornpone Nazis. But I think I've already violated Godwin's Law enough for one week.

At Wikipedia: Adages named after people. A few examples:

• Godwin's law - As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
• Hofstadter's law - It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
• Littlewood's law - Individuals can expect miracles to happen to them at the rate of about one per month.

George Monbiot has a piece, published by The Guardian, showing exactly how a scientist — David Bellamy — came to the get a letter published in New Scientist that claims that 555 of the 625 glaciers being monitored are in fact growing in size. That figure is crap. Bellamy is president of the Conservation Foundation, the Wildlife Trusts, Plantlife International and the British Naturalists' Association, so his statement has been picked up all over the place. Unfortunately, it's total crap.

Monbiot traces it back to a web site touting a book published by the paranoid demagogue Lyndon Larouche. The "555" apparently was Bellamy's mistyping of the site's figure that "55%" of glaciers are increasing, which is itself unsourced and false.

Fascinating article by Monbiot. Depressing conclusion about the reliability of big-time science journals. Heartening conclusion about the truth getting out anyway. (Thanks to Gary Nexcerpt Stock for the pointer.) [Technorati tags: science GlobalWarming]

1. Nap Strong
2. My Other Bracelet is Fighting Colon Cancer
3. America: Shut Thy Pie Hole
4. Kiss Me, I’m Trendy
5. Please Watch Arrested Development

AOL and Discovery Channel are producing a TV series in June to count down the 100 Greatest Americans. They created the list from nominations made by 500,000 voters (ignoramuses I'd say).

Let NewMexiKen share just some of the most absurd from the list to get you agitated:

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Barbara Bush
Brett Favre
Christopher Reeve
Ellen DeGeneres
Hugh Hefner
John Edwards
Lance Armstrong
Laura Bush
Martha Stewart
Michaels Jackson, Jordan and Moore
Pat Tillman
Dr. Phil
Tom Cruise

These are listed to compete with others of similar importance; you know, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain.

Professor Bainbridge has a good discussion.

Thanks to Ken for the pointer.