Another word to avoid?

Posted on 20/07/2019 by Jon Garvey

Sajid Javid, the Conservative Home Secretary, announced a report on “extremism” yesterday. According to the mainstream press, he used the opportunity to bemoan the rise of “far right populist movements” around the world, and in particular to condemn President Trump’s recent controversial remarks about a certain group of socialist Democrats that I am led to believe dictate to Congress over in the USA currently. Continue reading →

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Munchies with a tang

Posted on 18/07/2019 by Jon Garvey

Last month I celebrated some of the wildife goings on here at the Camel’s Eyrie. Amongst them was this fine example of origami by a local band of common wasps: Continue reading →

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Listen to the politicians, not the scientists!

Posted on 16/07/2019 by Jon Garvey

My green credentials aren’t too bad, I like to think, overall. My hectare of land is managed without chemicals largely as woodland and (rare) wild-flower meadow. My economical Suzuki does less than 6K miles a year, even though I live in the country with no public transport, and I haven’t even been on a plane since my daughter’s wedding in France in 2013. My book God’s Good Earth was endorsed by one of Britain’s leading scientific environmentalists as “a call to action.” Mr Chlorophyll, me. Continue reading →

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More on the human limitations of science (especially regarding politics)

Posted on 12/07/2019 by Jon Garvey

My attention was drawn to an important, but rather predictably neglected, 2004 article How science makes environmental controversies worse, by Daniel Sarewitz (Environmental Science & Policy 7 (2004) 385–403). It’s essential reading. Continue reading →

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The gospel and the world’s morality

Posted on 08/07/2019 by Jon Garvey

A prayer letter I received yesterday had an introductory note that left me wondering. It was to the effect that only once someone is a Christian can their behaviour change, so Christians should not expect people to change before that work of the Holy Spirit. The writer questioned if the church gives the wrong message in this regard. Continue reading →

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Watch your language

Posted on 05/07/2019 by Jon Garvey

Brett Weinstein was the bloke who ruffled progressive feathers by refusing to participate in a “non-white” day at Evergreen University a year or so ago, thus becoming revealed as a “Nazi”. He was recently interviewing the journalist Andy Ngo, beaten up a few days ago by Antifa thugs as per my last post (and therefore a fellow Nazi, of course, in woke eyes). Continue reading →

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Signs of weak nations

Posted on 02/07/2019 by Jon Garvey

I’m not in any way primarily a political commentator, but in the “interesting” times in which we live, no thinking person can afford to ignore politics. In this case it was the brutal assault on a conservative (but Asian and gay) journalist Andy Ngo, who was filming an Antifa protest in Portland, Oregon – his home town. He was left with a brain haemorrhage, amongst other injuries, as well as having his equipment stolen. Continue reading →

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Meanwhile back in the real world…

Posted on 28/06/2019 by Jon Garvey

This is really just a local nature report, so don’t expect a punchline. We’re promised a heatwave from Europe this weekend. The papers were, of course, immediately blaming it on climate change, but you may recall that Irving Berlin’s Heatwave appeared in 1933, during the dust bowl years, and the Martha and the Vandellas song of the same name came out in 1963, and depended on people picking up the allusion. In fact 1962-3 was, in Britain, notably cold and snowy, and it wasn’t nearly as hot a summer as those I remember from the fifties. It’s called “weather.” Continue reading →

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Scientists pay now, or must pay with interest later

Posted on 22/06/2019 by Jon Garvey

Peter Ridd is an Australian geophysicist who has spent a lifetime studying the Great Barrier Reef, and recently won a court case against his dismissal from James Cook University, in which the judge was utterly scathing about the dirty tactics used to muzzle his academic freedom of speech and to discredit him as an individual. Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and sociology, Science | 9 Comments

“Just Nature” – clarify “Nature,” please.

Posted on 20/06/2019 by Jon Garvey

Chasing up, for interest, references to the 1908 “Tunguska Event” (now most commonly thought to be a meteroric or cometary air-burst), I came across this recent piece in Physorg. Continue reading →

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