Elevating(?) The Level of the Debate.
 

No - should I read it? What is it about?

Elevating(?) The Level of the Debate.
 

What do you mean "what is it about?" Didn't we discuss it at length already? Back when you were assuring me that you would read it and discuss it here, paigow? I'm pretty sure Sparklehorse will get my back on this one.

Elevating(?) The Level of the Debate.
 

Yeah, but read Guns, Germs and Steel first.

OK - now I remember. I even bought the thing. But I bought that 820 page Irving book right after and so I haven't gotten to it yet. It is on my list.

Huge mistake listening to Paigow. Collapse would have been perfect for the first book of book club. I will get right on it.

Dobson = Scary
 

2.

But, my point was that Leahy and Co. spent days trying to get Roberts to answer exactly the questions that he's pissed that Dobson apparently has the answers to from Miers.

At least he could be subtle about this.

Dobson = Scary
 

Yes. I have a feeling Rove lied to Dobson. For you liberals, that was a lie not under oath, so there is no need for criminal prosecution.

Elevating(?) The Level of the Debate.
 

Okay, I'll bite. Why would I hate Collapse?

Elevating(?) The Level of the Debate.
 

"Environmental determinism"? I thought you were opposed to many recent environmental impact studies, but maybe I misremember your position. (This is entirely possible, as I've only even attempted half-heartedly to follow the PB for the last 3 months or so.)

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

Perhaps you should lend out your powers as a fortuneteller to the Bush administration. You could help save the world, and make oodles of cash at the same time.

Lenin -- The first "communist" ruler? I suppose. However, the results you cite come from the implementation of a dictatorship of the proletariat, lead by a Party that serves as the elite vanguard of the Revolution. That is Leninism/Bolshevism

It is simply not accurate to say that Leninism or Bolshevism is the same thing as Marxism or Communism.

S_A_M

Elevating(?) The Level of the Debate.
 

I hate studies - of any theme - in which the author starts with her desired conclusion and then manipulates the data to get there. See global warming.

But Diamond is really a weird free thinker. I first got into his "The Worst Mistake In Human History" essay (title may be somewhat off) in which he posits, and supports, that the advent of agriculture was the ruination of mankind. He was a prof of biology, and then a prof of physiology, and then a prof of geography. Renaissance kind of guy.

And, I've been away for months. Just back tonight, really.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

A European swallow and an African swallow are different, too.

Elevating(?) The Level of the Debate.
 

Just back for tonight or just back starting tonight? You should come by once Spanky has read Collapse, for our discussion of it.

I liked Collapse better than GG&S, but I think it was partially because Diamond's writing style was improved (imo) in Collapse. GG&S was a bit of a beat over the head with the premise and major determinative factors over and over again, leading me to feel like he didn't trust his audience to get it. I think his theories in GG&S were brilliant and well-thought out, but that the flow of the book kind of dumbed it down for the anticipated audience or something.

I found his discussion style in Collapse to be more engaging and, with the exception of the Greenland Norse discussion, not so bogged down in beating people over the head with things that it lost parts of the message. I liked the "case study" organization of the first chapters, followed by modern lessons and the like.

I keep meaning to make it over to the Collapse exhibit at the LA Natural History Museum. I think it goes on until February and I promise I'll go and report back. The GG&S series on PBS was quite good, though, as Spanky points out, his verbal affectation is a bit distracting.

Differing Concepts of Justice and Freedom
 

Well, that's good thinking.

Not sure the East Germans or Poles or Hungarians, etc. would have thanked us at the time -- or even in retrospect, with perfect knowledge of their possible alternate future.

Oh -- you mean "wherever we think Stalin is" (i.e. drop it on Russia) -- pretty sure the average Russian would not have thanked us at the time -- or even in retrospect.

S_A_M

Elevating(?) The Level of the Debate.
 

I liked Guns more, maybe because I have this inate dislike for people misreaching their conclusions over their data, and, while I don't count Diamond as one of "those" authors in the main, I thought he stuck far closer to the provable and proven in that one than in Collapse. While he generally takes few liberties, ("there were four more earthquakes in 1921 than in 1920, signaling a massive, almost 12% rise which results in a 1200% rise over a hundred years . . . "), he is generally more willing, in Collapse, to interpolate data.

But he's still fun to read. His logic is very good, to the extent that you sometimes think "wow, I wouldn't have seen that at all, but it works."

(ETA) - I have to add that Diamond appeals to the same kind of people who like Ayn Rand. There's a reason for everything, there are right and wrong things to do, and to ignore that is to die. When you move to the frozen north, where one crop grows per year, you can't eat two.