First, very briefly, Murray Gell-Mann on the origins of language. A companion piece to yesterday’s TED video.

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English owes its origins to Proto-Indo-European whose offspring include all the European languages as well as Sanskrit and its children. Apparently one of the few surviving words from PIE is pert which survives as “fart“. Important then; important now. And they probably thought a fart in the granary was as funny as we think an SBD is in the lift is today….

Teh Intervention
Ken Parish from Club Troppo, VA’s most-visited blog, presents a report card on the NT intervention

What effect has the Intervention had? A very slight reduction in violent crime but nothing to celebrate given the expenditure of well over a billion dollars by the Federal government.

George Lakoff: neuroscience of politics
Believe it….or not!
According to boingboing, “George Lakoff is well known as a cognitive linguist who looks at how language affects culture, specifically how much the metaphors we use impact the way we think.” He has written a new book which was reviewed by NYT:

Lakoff blames “neoliberals” and their “Old Enlightenment” mentality for the Democratic Party’s weakness. They think they can win elections by citing facts and offering programs that serve voters’ interests. When they lose, they conclude that they need to move farther to the right, where the voters are.

This is all wrong, Lakoff explains. Neuroscience shows that pure facts are a myth and that self-interest is a conservative idea. In a “New Enlightenment,” progressives will exploit these discoveries. They’ll present frames instead of raw facts. They’ll train the public to think less about self-interest and more about serving others. It’s not the platform that needs to be changed. It’s the voters.
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It’s hard to take all this seriously if you know any conservatives, just as it’s hard to take Lakoff’s neurodeterminism seriously if you know any science.
…
Lakoff’s historical claims are easier to assess. They’re demonstrably false.

Hmmm…

From Steven Poole‘s Unspeak, one of the most intelligent of all blogs, an article on the newly-coined astronomical term, “plutoid”

But now it has been officially decided what Pluto really is.

It’s a plutoid.

A little circular, wouldn’t you say? It’s fine to call other lumps of rock Plutoids, if by that you mean “they’re a bit like Pluto”. (Asteroid actually means “like an aster” — ie, a star; “android” means “like a man”, and so forth.) But to say that Pluto itself is classified as being “something like Pluto” makes my head hurt.

Time

Sean Carroll, owner of the Cosmic Variance blog and CalTech physicist, talks in a diavlog (we think that’s an ugly contraction of “dialogue video blog”), to Columbia University philosopher of science, David Albert. They chew the fat about:

How a philosopher of science spends his time
David describes his run-in with the “What the Bleep!?” cultists
Is good science too disturbing to make good entertainment?
Sean and David take on John Horgan’s critique of string theory
String theory’s predictive power (or lack thereof)
Why is the past so different, in so many ways, from the future?

amongst other things. If you can be even slightly comfortable with, or are slightly excited by, the concepts of “the asymmetry of epistemic access, and the asymmetry of causality” in relation to time, then this 65-minute (accessible by topic) diavlog is for you.

Zimbabwe
Whatever It Is, I’m Against It
WIIIAI has this short piece on the inaction and criminal negligence by world “leaders” over Zimbabwe:

South Africa’s ANC issues a statement on Zimbabwe which, while condemning “the flagrant violation of every principle of democratic governance” (though saying much of the blame lies with Britain), asks other nations not to intervene, saying “any attempts by outside players to impose regime change will merely deepen the crisis.” I seem to recall Ronald Reagan saying that very thing about apartheid South Africa in the 1980s (update: I didn’t mean that literally, but I’ve just done the google thing, and Reagan actually said that putting sanctions on South Africa would “deepen the crisis.”)

WIIIAI is always a good read, usually funny and always biting comment.

The Nation agrees with us

How the Russert Test Failed America Journalists & Journalism

You’d never know it from the keening all over television, but as Dick Cheney’s press aide testified during the Scooter Libby trial, Russert’s show was the place the Bushies loved the most for “getting their message out.” Especially during the homicidal and suicidal Iraq war. And especially for the Vice President, who was architect of the Administration’s foreign policy.

Linda Hirshman: Sure, he asked the tough questions. But why didn’t he challenge the lies?

It’s not just that Russert abetted the Bush Administration in the Iraq War; much of the media shares that role. It’s that he did damage in a wide range of contexts…

Climate Confusion
Tim Dunlop at Road to Surfdom has a piece called “Some stuff on emissions trading.” We ourselves have been wondering what is going on. They all say one thing and do another. Garret dangles round limply like a puppet with his strings cut. Everyone wants action on climate. Everyone knows we must develop alternative sources of energy. Everyone claims to know that there will be some sort of cost. And everyone is screaming about the price of petrol. Some people are looking to cut the price of petrol by five cents. Last night between 6pm amd 9pm the price at my local went up by ten cents in one hit. The rebates people are looking for are negligible in the larger scheme. On the other hand we heard about some company that has genetically engineered e. coli to excrete crude oil – a carbon neutral or even negative process that would produce refined product at about $50 a barrel within three years or so. How about a small vat in the backyard?????
Anyway, here’s a grab from Tim’s piece.

My interest is in trying to work out how all this is likely to work, especially in an environment where the public debate is, it seems to me, not really spelling out what the issues are. What struck me about these pieces is the basically optimistic tone they have. Not that they ignore problems, but that they also give some weight to the upside of the changes we are going through. Neither side of politics is explaining the pros or cons very well, and that is reflected in the media coverage

Jon Stewart on the Daily Show has more alarming news about how climate change policy is managed in the US.

Is there really any hope?

Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court has determined that the death penalty for raping children is unconstitutional because it constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment”. What the?! The same court has just weeks ago determined that judicial murder by injection does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. How can the same method be cruel and unusual for one class of crime and not for another? They are truly fucked. And according to reports, including the Wall Street Journal, Obama has condemned the Supreme Court decision. So, unsurprisingly, has McCain.

Is there really any hope?

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