insanity
-
SLC mayor takes on O’Reilly
Our collective BFF Rocky Anderson takes on Bill O’Reilly (not eco-related necessarily, but funny): Demonstrating that, alarmingly, liberals aren’t actually all that kooky. Or irrational. Shocking. (h/t: News Hounds)
-
Letter to the editor from Arkansas
This is the text of a letter to the editor printed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on April 16 of this year:
You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two.
This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they?
Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.
Connie M. Meskimen
Hot Springs -
Oy
A panel of retired generals thinks global warming is an urgent national security threat. The U.N. Security Council thinks global warming is an urgent national security threat. But wait! We forgot to ask Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R)! Sensenbrenner questioned "why global warming has suddenly become an issue of national defense" and afterward accused politicians […]
-
Stern in Berkeley
Friday saw a real eye-opener down here in the Berkeley area. Sir Nicholas Stern (of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change) was speaking at the UC campus, and there was quite a buzz.
Sir Nick is a celeb for sure, and all sorts were there: left, green dead-enders like myself, lots of climate and energy scientists, and a good smattering of new energy VCs, like the fella behind me from Nth Power (which, by the way, isn't giving up on silicon for thin film just yet).
-
It’s
Oh, dear. This video is HIGH-larious. And at the same time utterly, utterly depressing.
Without further ado: "What We Call the News."
-
Wrestlemania for the future of the planet
El Hijo del Santo to the rescue!
Someone tell Inhofe that after a worldwide search we've finally found his doppelganger. If the money is right and Don King doesn't want too big a cut, I don't see why we can't put together a pay-per-view event and settle this thing once and for all.
-
Children, anxiety, and global warming
I found this post over on the Climate Ark blog.
Hello,
My 8-year-old daughter has just come running to me in a flood of tears. Why? Because she thinks the world is going to end sometime soon and it's the fault of me and, to a lesser extent, my generation. That's why. Why does she think that? Because she takes it for gospel that over bearing boffins like yourself know more than ordinary folk like me. Does it make you feel good? Making an eight-year-old girl with a mouth brace bawl her little eyes out?I really empathized with this father. There's more:
-
Capitalism v. environmentalism: a poll
Don Boudreaux, an economist, argues that doing nothing is the best policy for global warming.
As David, biodiversivist, Tim Lambert, and ThinkProgress point out, this argument has a lot of screws loose. (ThinkProgress also has a picture of Boudreaux, who looks slightly insane. He is also, by sheerest chance, with the Cato Institute, which according to a book by two University of Colorado law school scholars, "receives most of its financial support from entrepreneurs, securities and commodities traders, and corporations such as oil and gas companies, Federal Express, and Philip Morris that abhor government regulation.")
Just for a moment, let's ignore the whiff of prostitution. Let's ignore the alarming changes that global warming is expected to bring to climate, and the worsening of drought, floods, forest insect pests, hurricanes, species extinctions, among other aspects of life on earth.
Let's focus instead on the politics of the claim.
-
Deactivated cylinders
The competition to own the biggest truck on the block has finally reached its zenith. The Detroit News tells us that pickup truck sales continue to "crater."
GM and Ford Motor Co. announced plans to cut North American vehicle output in the third quarter to pare their stocks of unsold [pickup] trucks.
"That market is sitting back a bit," said Gary Dilts, senior vice president of sales at DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group. "But the core of the truck business -- a very large percentage -- will remain, because they need that kind of vehicle."Garbage in = garbage out. A small percentage of people who buy these trucks actually need them.