Wings Over the Pyre

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LiveScience brings us good news:

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- It has long been a matter of contention: Was the Aztec and Mayan practice of human sacrifice as widespread and horrifying as the history books say? Or did the Spanish conquerors overstate it to make the Indians look primitive? In recent years archaeologists have been uncovering mounting physical evidence that corroborates the Spanish accounts in substance, if not number.

Using high-tech forensic tools, archaeologists are proving that pre-Hispanic sacrifices often involved children and a broad array of intentionally brutal killing methods.

For decades, many researchers believed Spanish accounts from the 16th and 17th centuries were biased to denigrate Indian cultures, others argued that sacrifices were largely confined to captured warriors, while still others conceded the Aztecs were bloody, but believed the Maya were less so.

"We now have the physical evidence to corroborate the written and pictorial record,'' said archaeologist Leonardo Lopez Lujan. He said, "some 'pro-Indian' currents had always denied this had happened. They said the texts must be lying.''

The Spaniards probably did exaggerate the sheer numbers of victims to justify a supposedly righteous war against idolatry, said David Carrasco, a Harvard Divinity School expert on Meso-American religion.

But there is no longer as much doubt about the nature of the killings. Indian pictorial texts known as "codices,'' as well as Spanish accounts from the time, quote Indians as describing multiple forms of human sacrifice.

Victims had their hearts cut out or were decapitated, shot full of arrows, clawed, sliced to death, stoned, crushed, skinned, buried alive or tossed from the tops of temples.

All the more reason to play Spirit Warrior Empire, say I. In a rare twist of cynicism, I was never on-board with the mass murder deniers for Incan and Mayan society. Viscerally, I know, given the parameters of their beliefs and social structures, that they were societies quite happily capable of engaging in vast and agressive sacrificial behaviour. And I was always good with that.

But I never quite knew exactly how much like me they were:

In 2002, government archaeologist Juan Alberto Roman Berrelleza announced the results of forensic testing on the bones of 42 children, mostly boys around age 6, sacrificed at Mexico City's Templo Mayor, the Aztec's main religious site, during a drought.

All shared one feature: serious cavities, abscesses or bone infections painful enough to make them cry.

"It was considered a good omen if they cried a lot at the time of sacrifice,'' which was probably done by slitting their throats, Roman Berrelleza said.

Yet more support for the belief that I was born at just the wrong time. I mean, c'mon, surely I have all the psychological equipment to be a most excellent priest of Xipe Toltec, the Flayed God, whose priests wore the flayed skin of the most recent sacrifices, still wet and warm from removal. And not only could I flay people alive, I'd be a respected and honoured member of the community! Its the best of all possible worlds.

But I'm really worried about the kind of intellect the AP thinks that professors should display. This closing quote sums it up:

Pre-Hispanic cultures believed the world would end if the sacrifices were not performed. Sacrificial victims, meanwhile, were often treated as gods themselves before being killed.

"It is really very difficult for us to conceive,'' Pijoan said of the sacrifices. "It was almost an honor for them.''

"Almost" an honour?

OK, Mr Pijoan, let's try a little role-play here.

You're a middle to low-class member of Yautepec society. Your mother's a skilled spinner, your father helps work the fields. Odds are you're going to follow in your father's footsteps, unless you get lucky and show some martial ability, then you might work your way up the military. Its an option.

But your jaw starts hurting. A lot. You're a kid, so you cry. A lot. The Priests of Quetzecoatl drop by one day and chat up your parents. Seems the pain's a sign from the Gods that you're one of the Chosen. Your parents are blessed and honoured by the Gods' attention, and give you over to the priests, wide-eyed and impressed. They take you off to the temple complex where you're fetted and cossetted for a lunar month, instructed in the ways of the Gods, fed like you've never been fed before, and told that the Gods have picked you to come join their court and they just want your tears and blood to keep the world from flooding and the sun shining on your parents' crops.

Eventually, you're dressed in fine robes and feathers, and led up the temple steps to the alter, where the High Priest stands waiting with the obsidian knife that'll make sure your people and your world will stay safe and alive. You're about to do something you've seen others honoured with your whole life, and some of them are still whispered about.

And you're "almost" honoured?

I swear, the caliber of thinker in academia today is rock-bottom.

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Instapundit brings us good stuff:

SHADES OF FALLEN ANGELS:

The findings from a team of American climate experts suggest that were it not for greenhouse gases produced by humans, the world would be well on the way to a frozen Armageddon.

Scientists have traditionally viewed the relative stability of the Earth's climate since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago as being due to natural causes, but there is evidence that changes in solar radiation and greenhouse gas concentrations should have driven the Earth towards glacial conditions over the last few thousand years.

What stopped it has been the activity of humans, both ancient and modern, argue the scientists.

Heh. Whole story here.

UPDATE: I believe that this is the paper described above. Make of it what you will -- except that if what you want to make is a perversely delightful thesis for a science fiction novel, well, it's already been done. And though I think I've mentioned this before, you can read Fallen Angels for free at (where else) the Baen Free Library.

My opinion of Global Warming and its proponents has been long established here in my blog. To suggest I tend to lump them in with Flat Earthers is probably giving them more credit than they deserve. References like this are exactly why I think they need to say more things in public, so they can be properly mocked.

Now, let's combine this with LiveScience's feed from the AP (again), with the chilling headline, "Global Warming Nears Point of No Return":

LONDON (AP) -- Global warming is approaching the critical point of no return, after which widespread drought, crop failure and rising sea-levels would be irreversible, an international climate change task force warned Monday.

The report, "Meeting the Climate Challenge,'' called on the G-8 leading industrial nations to cut carbon emissions, double their research spending on green technology and work with India and China to build on the Kyoto Protocol.

"An ecological time-bomb is ticking away,'' said Stephen Byers, who co-chaired the task force with U.S. Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, and is a close confidant of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "World leaders need to recognize that climate change is the single most important long term issue that the planet faces.''

The independent report, by the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain, the Center for American Progress in the United States and The Australia Institute, is timed to coincide with Blair's commitment to advance international climate change policy during Britain's G-8 presidency.

Byers said it was vital Blair secured U.S. cooperation in tackling climate change. U.S. President George W. Bush has rejected the Kyoto accord, arguing that the carbon emission cuts it demands would damage the U.S. economy.

"What we have got to do then is get the Americans as part of the G-8 to engage in international concerted effort to tackle global warming,'' said Byers. "If they refuse to do that then other countries will be reluctant to take any steps.''

According to the report, urgent action is needed to stop the global average temperature rising by 2 degrees Celsius above the level in 1750 -- the approximate start of the Industrial Revolution when mankind first started significantly polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.

Beyond a 2 degrees rise, "the risks to human societies and ecosystems grow significantly'' the report said, adding there would be a risk of "abrupt, accelerated, or runaway climate change.''

It warned of "climatic tipping points'' such as the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets melting and the Gulf Stream shutting down.

No accurate temperature readings were available for 1750, the report said, but since 1860, global average temperature had risen by 0.8 percent to 15 degrees Celsius.

As one of Heather's passed-along quotes said:

What you see out your window is weather, not climate. We've only been keeping accurate temperature measurements for the last 150 years, at best.

What kind of an idiot tries to make iron-clad predictions of a chaotic, emergent system based on a tiny slice of data where the only measurable trends are both debatable and noise-level for any significant span of time? That's right, folks with an agenda. So let's consider the agendas of the groups that we have here.

The independent report, by the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain, the Center for American Progress in the United States and The Australia Institute, is timed to coincide with Blair's commitment to advance international climate change policy during Britain's G-8 presidency.

Hmmm, interesting. The Center for American Progress is pretty well known as an extremely Left organization, pretty much decrying anything that smacks remotely of American advance or, in fact, progress. Consider their current home page's list of articles and correlate against the idea of an impartial scientific organization. Not exactly hitting the sweet spot of believability for me.

The IPPR doesn't come off as any better. They're pretty open about sponsoring a "progressive" agenda. Reading their current articles is pretty much an exercise in "government uber alles" as the solution for all societal ills, and "pouring good money after bad." Yes, a progressive organization, indeed. And, again, one with a clear agenda on what cannot be allowed to occur: Western powers (the US, specifically), maintaining and expanding their technological and industrial lead through the operation of free markets. The tyrannies and fools of the world should be shored up at our expense.

The Australia Institute? Let's take it right from their mouths:

The Institute was launched in 1994 to develop and conduct research and policy analysis and to participate forcefully in public debates. In addition, the Institute undertakes research and analysis commissioned and paid for by government, business, unions and community organisations. Those involved in the Institute have each, from different viewpoints, been concerned about the impact on Australian society of the priority given to a narrow definition of economic efficiency over community, environmental and ethical considerations in public and private decision making. A better balance is urgently needed.

Private markets, while effective at encouraging efficiency in many circumstances, frequently fail to reflect adequately the ethical, social and environmental priorities of the community. Governments must provide the appropriate institutional framework in which private markets operate so as to ensure that they contribute to justice, equity and sustainability as well as efficiency. Market outcomes are not value free and the Institute reasserts the place of ethics in making public and private decisions.

Stripped of the bullshit rhetoric, what we have here is an organization that's devoted itself to squashing what free markets really need, freedom, by application of greater, larger, more muscular government intervention. Mmmm, yes, with the openly stated implication that the current methodology, currently having leveraged the largest tsunami aid effort on Earth, and in the very process of bringing democracy to the Middle East, aren't engaged in "enhancing community."

I'll bet they wear Che shirts, too, and think its hip.

But the AP won't tell you that these organizations aren't real scientific think tanks, but political ones. Nor will it go into the questions that surround whether or not we can even know if there is a global trend toward warming (and not, say, another mini-ice age, or whether we're naturally coming out of one). No, you see, industry is bad, the Western idea of individual freedom and responsibility is a terrible infection, and as such we should self-castigate until our backs beed red tears to try and make up for being so much damn better than our little brown brothers.

Its feces of the highest order supreme.

Maybe next week, I'll help my readership dissect the Kyoto Protocol and point out exactly why its not worth the rag its printed on.