Articles by David Roberts

Laying eggs

Tom Toles in The Washington Post.

They’re coming to eat your children!!!

Bush just debuted a new swing-state campaign ad called "Wolves."  You can watch it on his website. It shows a pack of wolves prowling through a dark forest, makes the usual bogus claims about Kerry cutting intelligence budgets (and fails to note that Bush's hand-picked new CIA head Porter Goss actually did propose huge cuts), and concludes that "weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm."  In other words:  A vote for Kerry is a vote for terrorists eating you.

The ironies are rich.  This comes from an administration that has pushed to downlist wolves from the endangered species list. If they see wolves as the terrorists of the wild, I guess it's no surprise. But I wonder where they found the wolves for the ad ... perhaps outsourced to Canadian wolves?  And were any harmed in the making of the ad? Where's Defenders of Wildlife when you need 'em?

UPDATE: Check out this hilarious follow-up from Wolf Packs for Truth.

UPDATE: Gary Wockner of the Colorado Wolf Working Group is not amused by this ad. At all. He says so here.

Kyoto one step closer

The lower house of Russia's parliament approved the Kyoto Protocol today.  All that remains for formal Russian ratification is approval by the upper house and the signature of president Vladimir Putin, both widely considered inevitable formalities.  Once Russia signs on, Kyoto will officially take effect.

Suffice to say, Putin's motivations were not altruistic.  His ratification of Kyoto -- and it is entirely his doing, as he has reduced the democratic checks and balances of Russia's government to almost nothing -- is part of a deal with the European Union.  He gives them this bargaining chip against the U.S., and they give him membership in the World Trade Organization.

Without U.S. participation, Kyoto will achieve nothing.  The hope in what Bush calls "the halls of Europe" is that once world consensus settles on the issue, strict emissions limits are imposed by member governments on industries (many based in the U.S.), and a market in carbon credit trading emerges, the U.S. will have no choice but to hop on the bandwagon.  Think it will work?

Monster slash

I'm not really into these things, but lots of people love them -- witness the popularity of The Meatrix and the JibJab guys -- so if you are so inclined, check out Monster Slash, a Flash animation including a reinterpretation of the old song "Monster Mash," rerecorded by Bobby "Borris" Pickett, the very man who wrote the original.  You can probably figure out what it's about from the picture at left.