Ruined
by matt at 6:00 am on March 31st, 2006 in Bush Man DateWith the President visiting Mayan ruins in Mexico, is it too much to ask that he learn something while he’s there?
Dry spell linked to demise of Mayans (CNN 3/14/03):
A study of southern Caribbean sediments suggests that a centurylong dry trend may have been the killing blow in the demise of the Mayan civilization that once built pyramids and elaborate cities in Mexico.
Konrad A. Hughen, a geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said sediments from the Cariaco Basin in northern Venezuela clearly record a long dry siege that struck the entire Caribbean starting in about the seventh century and lasting more than 100 years.
Within this dry period, said Hughen, there were years of virtually no rainfall. It was in those periods of extra dryness, he said, that the Mayan civilization went through a series of collapses before its final demise. Hughen is co-author of a study appearing Friday in the journal Science.
Global warming a major health risk (ABC 3/29/06):
Global warming is already causing death and disease across the world through flooding, environmental destruction, heatwaves and other extreme weather events, scientists said in February.
And it is likely to get worse.
In a review published in The Lancet medical journal, the scientists said there was now a near-unanimous scientific consensus that rising levels of greenhouse gases would cause global warming and other climate changes.
“The advent of changes in global climate signals that we are now living beyond the Earth’s capacity to absorb a major waste product,” said Anthony McMichael of the Australian National University in Canberra and his colleagues, referring to greenhouse gases.
The only difference is that our ruins will be corroding under seawater…
Bush: I’m the President, I get to wear the hat!
Bush: If I can’t wear the hat, I’m going back to Crawford to clear brush.
Fox: We’ll race to the top. Winner gets the hat.
Fox: You bitches forgot about home field advantage.
marc wrote:
May have? He’s being far too easy on them.
This is where a good reading of Jared Diamond comes in handy:
..which I realize you implied put I thought I’d spotlight it further. :-)
Posted 31 Mar 2006 at 7:30 am ¶
seamus wrote:
Maybe Bush shouldn’t know that. He might reason that since that drought was God-related, and not created by man, that we’re not responsible for the current global climate change. In his black/white world, it’s either man or God, either nature or God. Besides, the “science is inconclusive,” right?
Posted 31 Mar 2006 at 2:36 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
Yes, “near-unanimous scientific consensus” proabably doesn’t cut it. As long as there is one inconclusive study, the science is inconclusive.
Posted 31 Mar 2006 at 3:28 pm ¶
eponymagain wrote:
I have to say, those photos lead me to think only: whoever is in charge of wardrobe/costuming for Bush got it exactly right for once. Putting Bush in a below-the-elbow short sleaved, box-cut, black-buttoned white shirt with khaki pants is precisely, precisely correct. The selection is so perfect, and simply could not have been Bush’s (it is also exactly what I wore when touring the Ruinas de Copan in western Honduras ten years ago), and it remains the absolutely pitch-perfect public persona garb for visiting gringos. And yes, the same wardrobe person deserves props for not putting a hat on the idiot’s head. Gringos wear baseball caps or nothing, so hatless is ideal for audiences north and south of the border. You’re right, Fox has the advangtage, but, I have to say, Bush’s handlers handled him correctly here. I’m surprised they didn’t put him in a fur-lined parka with the pesidential seal.
Posted 31 Mar 2006 at 11:38 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
There you go, putting ideas in their heads…
Posted 01 Apr 2006 at 4:05 am ¶