From the Fahrenheit 451 department comes this indictment of California’s higher education’s “tolerance” for opposing views. When I first got the tip on this, I thought to myself “nobody can be this stupid to photograph themselves doing this” but, here they are, right from the San Jose State University Meteorology Department web page:
The caption from the SJSU website reads:
This week we received a deluge of free books from the Heartland Institute {this or this }. The book is entitled “The Mad, Mad, Made World of Climatism”. SHown above, Drs. Bridger and Clements test the flammability of the book.
Maybe they just can’t help themselves, note the pictures on the wall.
Here is a screencap of the website relevant section:
SJSU Meteorology page is here: http://www.sjsu.edu/meteorology/
Fully archived here:
http://www.webcitation.org/6GJvAbb2t
This is the link for book: The Mad Mad Mad World of Climatism
I think Drs. Bridger and Clements have proved the point of the book quite well.
if you wish to comment on their photo, here’s where:
Department of Meteorology
San Jose State University
One Washington Square
San Jose, CA 95192-0104
Voice: (408) 924-5200
FAX: (408) 924-5191
Email: meteorology@sjsu.edu
=======================================================
UPDATE: 12:50PM PDT
The photo and caption has been removed – gone from the web page.
http://www.sjsu.edu/meteorology/
But it is permanently archived here: http://www.webcitation.org/6GJvAbb2t
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Patrick says:
May 3, 2013 at 2:15 am
Burning books? Sheesh! Haven’t they heard of the internet?
Isn’t that an AlGorerhythm? 😉
(Let’s all chant together, now…)
Hey! Hey! San Jose!
How many books have you burned today?
Kinda’ takes ya’ back to the 60’s, eh?
Maybe they just can’t help themselves, note the pictures on the wall.
Umm … is that her trophy wall? Scary to think these people hold such power.
You HAVE to wonder about the University that would hire people like this and give them *teaching* jobs!
Re: Tom Curtis comparing book burning in a democratic society with the Allied policy of “de-Nazification” in the late 1940s:
The comparison is preposterous, offensive, and disgusting.
The topic and context for the SJSU profs. is,
1). “What is appropriate behavior and defense of civil liberties in a constitutional order with a (more or less) civil democratic society?”
The question facing Eisenhower and the Allies in 1945 onwards was,
2) “In the wake of the most destructive war in human history (60 million killed by some estimates), which the Nazis (primarily) launched in concert with their fellow Axis (fascist) powers, what is the most appropriate way to restore and enhance civilized values in a place full of the hateful genocidal propaganda which motivated and shaped this horrific war?”
One can certainly debate the merits of any particular temporary policy aimed at “de-Nazification” in the 1940s, but to make a simplistic comparison, as Tom Curtis has done, displays a stultifying ignorance and level of moral obtuseness.
Academia in California has just died.
Pointman
Skiphil says:
May 3, 2013 at 11:46 am
“Re: Tom Curtis comparing book burning in a democratic society with the Allied policy of “de-Nazification” in the late 1940s”
“… most destructive war in human history … which the Nazis (primarily) launched in concert with their fellow Axis (fascist) powers …”
As a minor point, I’d rephrase your sentence this way:
“… which the Nazis launched in concert with their fellow totalitarian power, the Soviet Union, by their staggered attack on Poland in September 1939 …”
I agree, of course, with your comment about the preposterousness of Tom Curtis’ comparison—I made a similar point just a little earlier. It suggests that people who express skepticism about the CAGW science and policy prescriptions deserve to be treated like German Nazis after WWII.
Do you also wonder what Tom Curtis thinks about Nuremberg-style trials for “climate skeptics”?
Tom Curtis ….
I continue to strongly disagree with your position. In this case there is zero difference between the metaphor of burning these books they use, and actually doing so. The end result is identical. It is their absolute, clear, intent to show that the book should be burned, as it – in their opinion – has no merit or value. Physically burning the book would produce no different result, and is not necessary to convey the message they portray.
They clearly show their belief the book should be burned, which is no different than actually doing so. For all the reasons shown by the comments here – It is not a “joke” to demonstrate your belief a book you disagree with should be burned. That these two alleged academics saw nothing inappropriate in their actions shows they do not hold the necessary level of ethics and intelligence that would qualify them for the positions they hold.
You often want to find excuses, to show bad behavior in the least offensive light – and brush off these examples of terribly bad behavior and ethics as being of little import or consequence. I respectfully say you are wrong. Actions do have consequences.
And here, while it may be easy to brush off as a silly joke gone wrong – these are alleged academics and professionals. And the very premise of their actions is so wrong, their bias and disrespect for opinions of others so clearly displayed, that I believe they should be disqualified as unfit, from their positions.
I do not make that statement lightly, nor from a position of bias. If a “skeptic” had undertaken the same actions my answer would be exactly the same. Some things are not a joke. And if a professional academic is unable to understand where that line lies on something as clear as this, then their demonstrated lack of judgement and ethics here, should lead to the question of their judgement and ethics in their work as well.
This incident reminds me of something that happened 40 years ago when I was a student at an engineering college.
I was standing in front of a urinal between two mathematics professors, one on each side, and casually asked the question of them, “I wonder ….. does the time a man spends standing at a urinal fit the normal distribution, or does it instead fit the exponential distribution?”
Instantly, there was a heated argument between them as to which probability distribution it might be, and why.
Wow, Tom Curtis follows up by proving my point about his utter ignorance. pottereaton, do you agree, yet? Just curious, yours is usually a respectable opinion.
Mark
Colorado Wellington:
Your post at May 3, 2013 at 1:13 pm says
I know many Americans think Holly wood won that war and that the US ultra-right thinks H1tler was a misunderstood ‘good guy’, but your assertion is ridiculous.
Germany was expanding.
Britain warned Germany that if the expansion were to include an invasion of Poland then Britain would declare war on Germany.
In 1939 Germany did invade Poland so a state of war existed between Britain and Germany.
Following further successful expansions (i.e. France, Greece, etc.), in 1942 Germany invaded the USSR.
Japan made a sneak attack on US territory and Germany fulfilled its alliance obligations with Japan by declaring war on the USA.
The US and USSR allied with Britain and its allies in the war with Germany.
In July and August 1943 the USSR defeated the German invasion of the USSR at the battle of Kursk.
USSR forces then chased the German forces westwards back towards Germany, and on the way the USSR annexed countries – including Poland – which it took from Germany.
On 6 June 1944 allied forces including many US forces invaded northern France from southern England.
These allied forces freed France from Germany then chased German forces eastward back towards Germany.
The advance from the west prevented the USSR taking all of Germany and possibly continuing an advance further westward. Instead, the USSR. USA and Britain decided how they would share the countries freed from Germany.
Poland was one of the countries which the allies agreed would be ceded to the USSR.
Richard
I suspect Heartland may send free copies of books (especially if it published them) to libraries. It mails unrequested pamphlets / newsletters weekly to state and national legislators.
I live in the San Jose area. My children will be starting college in a few years. San Jose State will not be considered for my children’s education.
Philosopher Ayn Rand said something to the effect that to counter your enemy you have to understand their argument.
However, such people as book burners can’t do that, because:
– they aren’t sound thinkers, thus:
o cannot understand others
o cannot argue their case
– they believe people are gullible (a self-fulfilling presumption?) so need to be protected from other viewpoints
Keep in mind these are people who have rejected reason. Their beliefs are emotionally based, not validated. The only methods they have available are screaming, lying, and force.
To those wondering how the idiots got Heartland books, recall that Heartland sent one to David Suzuki who returned it with a nasty note. Return postage paid by the foundation he claims to not be part of.
richardscourtney says:
May 3, 2013 at 11:46 pm
Huh? Where did that come from, Richard? I will assume it was not directed at me.
No, it is not ridiculous, Richard, but I don’t want to continue this tangential argument on Anthony’s blog. It distracts from his post about the weird happenings at San Jose and Tom Curtis’ curious defense of the same.
My main point was joining Skiphil’s protest of Tom Curtis’ preposterous comparison of San Jose State professors’ treatment of Heartland with Allied denazification of Germany.
Concerning the start of WWII: Can you think of a different forum where you’d like to continue our discussion?
Colorado Wellington:
At May 4, 2013 at 3:47 pm you ask me:
No, I can’t. And I see no reason to discuss my factual statements that said
You made a preposterous assertion and I outlined the history which shows it was preposterous in my post at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/02/san-jose-state-university-meteorology-decides-burning-books-they-dont-agree-with-is-better-than-reading-them/#comment-1296836
Richard
richardscourtney says:
May 4, 2013 at 4:16 pm
OK, Richard. Facts:
– Molotov and von Ribbentrop signed the Treaty of Non-Aggression between the Soviet Union and Germany on Aug 23, 1939.
– The treaty contained a secret protocol, including the partitioning of Poland, in Articles I. through IV.
– Germany invaded Poland from the west on Sep 1, 1939.
– The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on Sep 17, 1939.
– A joint victory parade of Wehrmacht and Red Army was held in Brest on Sep 23, 1939.
– The secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was modified in the Soviet-German Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation on Sep 28, 1939.
*) http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact.html
**) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/addsepro.asp
***) http://www.lituanus.org/1989/89_1_03.htm
The science is settled…we will accept on further viewpoints…Gee, think what medical advances we could make with this new interpretation of the scientific method…
Sorry Richard Courtney, your post of May 3, 2013 at 11:46 pm is so full of errors that it is of no use.
#1 – USSR did invade Poland on September 17, 1939. Stalin specifically used the “Hitler-Stalin Non-aggression pact” as the excuse. The USSR annexed the eastern third of Poland.
#2 – Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941, not 1942
#3 – The “Hitler-Stalin” Pact was actually the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty that made the USSR and Germany allies. That treaty was broken with the invasion of the USSR.
#4 – The allies never “gave” any lands or countries to the USSR. Like the other major allies, each was given a responsibility to administer the former Axis countries and the conquered ones and re-establish self governance. A duty the USSR failed to carry out, instead installing puppet regimes in all of them, and creating a greater USSR called The Warsaw Pact.
As for your battles, historians generally agree that the siege of Stalingrad was the turning point in the eastern theater. Kursk was a major victory for the USSR, but Stalingrad was when the tide turned.
Stop excusing the USSR. Stalin knew full well what he was getting into with Hitler, he just was buying time before HE invaded Germany. He lost the time battle.
Book burning is a fairly common response throughout our history by those setting up dictatorships of one kind or another, political, religious, a simple and exciting method of uniting to a common cause and establishing an enemy to be united against, controlled violence, and as noted, ends in burning people.
Sometimes that initial step isn’t applicable and they go straight to burning people, where the majority of the population are uneducated the educated themselves are directly targetted – Russia, China and Cambodia recent examples – under the pretext that these are out of touch somehow with the common man, but in reality to achieve the same effect, for the wannabe dictators to rid themselves of educated vocal opposition to dumb down the population, the easier to control them through ‘re-education’ techniques.
So what’s the connection to that now after two world wars and one world cup and the WWII argument?
Well, there’s this: http://de.slideshare.net/SiriusDisclosure/william-jasper-global-tyranny-step-by-step-the-united-nations-and-the-emerging-new-world-order-272p-20008978
When the Soviet’s proclaimed there were no longer any political prisoners and the Chinese still butchers of their people proclaimed for “human rights,” “peaceful coexistence,”and “social tranquility,”.
“But Kempster didnt stop there,adding: “If adopted … the plan would mark the transformation of the Security Council from a Cold War-hobbled debating society to an organization with the power to enforce its decisions….”17 Even more chilling! But not, apparently, to the apostles of one-worldism who have been lustily cheering suchproposals.In the months following the summit, as the Bush Administration moved brazenly forward with never-announced plans to supplant the U.S. Constitution with the UN Charter, the Establishment news media,dominated by members of the Council on Foreign Relations and led by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the CFRs own Foreign Affairs, provided both cover andsupport. So began the audacious propaganda campaign to resurrect a decades-old, one-world scheme totransfer U.S. military might to the United Nations.In its March 6, 1992 lead editorial entitled “The New World Army,” the New York Times came close to dropping all pretenses and subtlety:”
And since then the Patriot Act and so on, bringing American people into the control by the same mindset.
‘You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.’ Kruschev http://www.awakeandarise.org/article/FabianWindow.htm
The Fabians have become expert at infiltrating all areas, through education and creating controlled opposition in pushing their green agenda to population control and destruction of private property and the rest:
Fabian history: http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/05.09/revisionism.html
And this Fabian input from the likes of Blair and Gore and other more recent players: https://www.lifeinthemix.info/2012/03/profile-fabian-society/
“Fabian Socialism, Communism, Marxism and Fascism, are ‘all birds of the same feather.’ They all worship the same deities, have the same socialist beliefs, the same goals, but have different ways in getting there. Of all types of socialism, Fabian Socialism is by far the most insidious of all. Fabian Socialism is a subtle mixture of both communism and fascism, but unlike communism and fascism, which are directly confrontational and revolutionary, Fabianism deceptively aims to achieve the same objectives “gradually” through consensus with the “will” of the people, and use force only as a last resort.
“Because of this “gradual” approach it is much more insidious as it is often difficult to recognise in its early stages”
Which piece comes back full circle to the argument about WWII – “Today, led by the British aristocracy, members of the Fabian Society and London School of Economics, it is not the Marxist Five Year Plan, military thugs and secret police of Stalin that farmers have to worry about. It is now the British Fabian “fascist” policies of City of London Corporation multi-national corporations and banks (that are now wealthier than many countries) in collusion with the UN, that are monopolising farming and food distribution on a global scale, that are disenfranchising the small, private “middle-class” farmers out of their livelihood and driving them off their properties…… ”
The same banking cartel behind the curtain in the Wizard of OZ which destroyed the US farmers, the same banking cartel who usurped the Russian Revolution, (Lenin’s ‘you may think I’m in control, but someone else is driving the car’), the same banking cartel who financed Hitler and France and Britain and Russia in the extension of the first world war, which is pulling all the strings now. And they don’t give a damn what you believe or which political party you belong to, it’s all the same to them and they created some to add to the mix.
Britain didn’t go to war because of German expansionism, it went to war because the whole shebang was organised by the banking cartel, who moved on from financing both sides in wars between nations, to creating the wars to finance both sides..
and the people pay the interest on the borrowed money which the bankers create out of nothing. http://100777.com/node/298
How they got the second world war up and running according to a video here, which I’ve only just come across and haven’t watched, so putting it in for interest: http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/280670
How the US & British Banking Cartels Funded Hitler
“In 1939, Czechoslovakia had an accumulated 6,000,000 million pounds (British currency pounds, maybe?) of gold deposited in the Central BANK OF ENGLAND that had its account in the BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS ( BIS ) transfer $6,000,000 million pounds of gold into the REICHSBANK of Germany.
Bank Of International Settlements ( BIS ), Bern, Switzerland, Schweiz, Suisse, Swiss, Franc, Schacht, Schacht & Company, Reichsbank, Berlin, Germany, Dresner Bank, Wehrlibank, Marc, Austria, Bank Of England ( BOE ), London, England, Montague Norman, Westminster Bank, Barclay’s Bank, Pound, Sterling, Federal Reserve Board, Federal Reserve Bank, Washington, D.C., United States Of America, Central Bank, U.S. Treasury Department, Department Of The U.S. Treasury, Dollar, Morgenthau, Ostrander, Mikesell, JP Morgan, Chase Bank, Bank Of Japan ( BOJ ), France, Madrid, Spain, Bretton Woods, McKittrick ( U.S. lawyer ), Butterworth, Gold, Bullion, Intelligence, Agents, 22, Tons, Tonnes, Metric, 290,000,000 million, Butterworth, Basel. Central Bank Gold Bullion War Reallocations Part 2 of 5 ”
There is only one reason these academics thought it a great laugh to make their opposition statement in the manner they did, because they are not educated to think for themselves as the “greenie agenda” has become their only reality.
Wow.
Back to burning books ?
Witches beware.
Yet, no one says go.
Nothing we say here will have any affect on Dr. Alison Bridger. She’s the Chair of the Department and enjoys lavish lifetime benefits. From her webpage at SJSU: http://www.met.sjsu.edu/faculty/bridger.html
People – Faculty / Staff – Alison F. C. Bridger
Alison F. C. Bridger
Professor & Chair
Phone: (408) 924-5206
Fax: (408) 924-5191
Email: alison.bridger@sjsu.edu
Address:
One Washington Square
San Jose, CA 95192-0104
Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science, 1981, Colorado State University
M.Sc. in Meteorology, 1975, Reading University, England
B.Sc. in Mathematics, 1974, Sussex University, England
Research focus: large-scale atmospheric dynamics … Earth and Mars
Teaching focus: undergraduate & graduate atmospheric dynamics and numerical prediction
And, here’s her Home Page: http://www.met.sjsu.edu/~bridger/
http://www.met.sjsu.edu/~bridger/whoami.htm
Who appears not to have noticed that her link to Colorado University is to Reading ‘s site.