Farrago Line

Take two aspirins....

Two more unbelievers, here and here, ignore the fire alarms being pulled by Al Gore.

Who, by the way, appears to be off the meds again:

"The planet has a fever," Gore said. "If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action."

Based on Gore's carbon footprint, is it fair to speculate that the action he would take is to throw gasoline on the burning crib?

Gored

Hello.

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Fear Factor

Yet another float on the panic parade: We should be more afraid of climate change than nuclear warfare. And just because nuclear apocalypse never transpired doesn't mean the doomsayers aren't right this time.

Is it fitting the article begins by referencing fictional accounts of planetary doom?

Not everybody's caught climate fever.

Some don't buy any of this "climate porn", as a UK think tank recently described such talk. Al Gore's movie is "bullshit from beginning to end", according to Ray Evans, a former Western Mining executive and author of the Lavoisier Group's Nine Facts About Climate Change (2006). For Evans and many others, man-made climate change panic is a bugaboo, perhaps even a hoax.

Check out this next graf: The debate isn't about climate change (no debate, there: climates change) or the fantasy that humans cause catastrophic climate change. It's about something we can all yak about no end.

Either way, the debate over climate change is now about fear. How afraid should we be? It's a valid question, because a sensible reaction to any threat begins with fear. Fear can help propel us towards solutions, as it did in the case of ozone-depleting CFCs. But we don't want to respond to a threat with asymmetric alarm.

Is that a load of crap? "A sensible reaction to any threat (the existence of which in this case is entirely suspect if not patent nonsense) begins with fear?"

The article dismisses debate (whatever that is) on catastrophic climate change saying the "debate" (cough propaganda machine cough cough) has switched to how much fear and panic is needed to lead to proper solutions. And here's why we should be terrorized: "Just because it never happened before, doesn't mean it won't ever happen."

Very true. Utterly useless.

Here's the author's parting remarks, and yet another reason I don't buy the climate panicmongers.

What's really cheering about climate change anxiety is that it's about the deep future, a place the Bomb managed to obliterate without a single missile leaving its silo. This time, our fear means something because we can act on it.

Exactly what panicmongers love to see: people acting on their fear, which is always the only fear to fear.

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Esoterica Warning

In the spirit of openness, full disclosure, open sources, free ranges and what have you, this post, received the following comment:

An Inconvenient Truth - Sheikh Omran

Compare what media reported and what sheikh Omran said about Climate change
http://aswjblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-sheikh-omran-said-about-climate.html

First off, thanks to whomever at ASWJ for commenting.

Second, what's your point?

The "Clerical Error?" post does not defne or purport to know what the media reported ... about anything. It linked to a story in News.com.au. The post linked to that story so that Farrago Line readers (all both of them) could see for themselves the primary document from which I lifted two paragraphs to beef up my miserable post.

Furthermore, the ASWJ comment points to a partial transcript of a speech that, as far as I can tell, doesn't address one way or another anything in the "Clerical Errors" post.

All I can discern, from both the news.com.au story and the generous ASWJ comment is that at least one Islamic brother buys the Global Warming hype. He may disagree on who's to blame. Al Gore blames jet fuel burning, massive electric power using, big car driving Americans such as himself. And Sheik Omran blames, near as I can tell, secular scientists' experiments.

Maybe I'm missing something embarrassingly obvious?

Dead language

It's suicide.

Euphemisms be damned. Besides, you're dead. What do you care if we're honest about it?

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Paper news

Steven Rattner writes the blues about the news.

"Perhaps most worrisome is the loss of young readers, who have drifted away steadily since the early 1970s, long before there was an Internet, when more than 70% of 18- to 34-year-old Americans read a daily newspaper. Last year that figure stood at 35%."

Among other things, he speculates that newspapers might survive if transformed into non-profits.

"Not-for-profit status might be one possibility. Instead of having billionaire moguls as proprietors, we could try to turn them into philanthropists who found nonprofit organizations to buy and operate their local papers. At least one such example exists: the St. Petersburg Times, owned by the Poynter Foundation as a result of a bequest by Nelson Poynter."

One question: What are we going to do with all the unemployed journalists?

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Friends of God

Rebecca Cusey reviews Alexandra Pelosi's (yes, her daughter) documentary: Friends of God: A Roadtrip with Alexandra Pelosi.

"Pelosi makes a genuine effort to understand what motivates these God-minded fellow countrymen and, in the process, gives Evangelicals the chance to see themselves as others see them."

Cusey says Pelosi doesn't, ultimately, get it. And offers this reason:

To those who have never been a part of evangelicalism, the lingo, the constant referrals to the Bible, the personal lifestyles defined mainly by their biblically imposed limits, religious passion, even the pure power of thousands of people at a rally, can be terrifying. Evangelicals would do well to understand this, not to conform to the broader culture, but to speak a language those outside the church can understand.

Amen?

In a skit I saw several years ago in church,  the main character is a Christian who's out evangelizing by interupting people on the street and asking them: "Have you been washed in the blood of the lamb?"

Appropriately, his victims recoil in horror.

Last night at Bible study (Romans), the following question was asked of the group: (paraphrase) how can Christians help lead Jews to faith? All the responses had to do with fashioning a better argument. One guy noted how strenuously the Jewish man he sought to engage in discussion of the Christ avoided the topic altogether. Another seemed to say that Reformed and atheistic Jews were easier to approach and convert than the Orthodox variety.  Or vice versa. I couldn't tell for certain. The rest of the discussion had to do with framing the pitch. Nobody offered a less verbal alternative: shut up and act like Jesus.

What would turn more heads: laying out our theology, or laying down our lives.

Why is it in my Bible study, nobody said: "Be his friend"?

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Relative hubridity

Mark Steyn notes that the free press is only relatively free.

Here in the citadels of western civilization, we have a slightly different problem: our relatively free press is a press edited by relativists.

Not only that, the reason you seem so far to the right is that the left is the center.

What counts is the broader context in which these events are framed. And in most of the western world the default mode of the culture is well to the left.

In the Devil wears Prada, Miranda Priestly educates ignorant Andy Sachs, who believe she's immune from the fashion industry, when, in fact, she is it's merest pawn, who has no say and only the illusion of choice in her clothing:

However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.

Hat tip: Imdb

Likewise politics. The next time you vote, the next time you take a stand on global warming, check to see if the sweater you're buying isn't one selected for you.

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Light 'em up

Oh, wait! A place in the brain controls the urge to smoke?

So ... what you're saying ... it's not in the left glute?

"Clearly brain damage isn't a treatment option for people struggling to kick the habit."

I know it didn't help me quit.

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Barak Atak

Mark Steyn on Obakarama.

Need one say more?

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