Another plot against the Net

The Guardian is hand-wringing about the Internet’s massive carbon footprint. Hmmm…when they close the sucker down, how much do you want to bet that it will be to stop global warming?

What’s not to like?

17 year old kid becomes obsessed with global warming, refuses to drink water because he’s convinced that if he does so, millions will die. Kid dies, reducing his carbon footprint, and insanity genes are removed from the gene pool. Well, of course, there was a psychological intervention, so he didn’t die. And there are still crazies at the Boston Globe who believe in warming. But this is a good start, and a trend that should be encouraged.

Tip o’hat to Bill Anderson at LRC.

Rusty explains the cold snap

“People have been saying for years that we’d have a Black President when Hell freezes over. We will, and it has.”

Dumbfuck hick Cleveland meteorologists aren’t Warmers!

Oh, the horror!

Cleveland-area TV meteorologists disagree with prevailing attitude about climate change…pushing hard against the prevailing winds of climate science….The American Meteorological Society has strongly affirmed that stance, but accredits even the on-air meteorologists who rail against it….Or are they too blinded by lake-effect snow squalls to see the big picture?

Then there’s the obligatory picture of living fossil Dick Goddard, who has good reason to be a skeptic, growing up as he did back when Greenland was green.

When you get near the end of the piece, you find out that pretty much all practicing meteorologists are skeptics, and why.

“The Plain Dealer: we report, we decide.”

Weather Channel fires propaganda arm

There’s a silver lining in the economic dark cloud:

NBC Universal made the first of potentially several rounds of staffing cuts at The Weather Channel (TWC) on Wednesday, axing the entire staff of the “Forecast Earth” environmental program during the middle of NBC’s “Green Week,” as well as several on-camera meteorologists…
Forecast Earth was hosted by former CNN anchor Natalie Allen, with contributions from climate expert Heidi Cullen. It was the sole program on TWC that focused on global climate change, which raises the question of whether the station will still report on the subject. Cullen’s future role at the network is not known.

Silver lining in the economic cloud

The economic crisis is making a new agreement on “climate change” more difficult.

So what’s the problem?

…with the Buckeyes taking over Michigan?

COLUMBUS, Ohio (APee) — The fight is on in Ohio to save the buckeye tree from heading north to, of all places, Michigan.

Environmentalists say global warming threatens to change the habitats of many plants and trees, including Ohio’s iconic buckeye tree. They say climate changes likely will push the growing range for the Ohio buckeye tree farther north.

Now I can see why Michiganders would want to keep a poisonous chestnut look-alike out of their state. But what’s in it for Ohio? Besides a way to rope football fans into the global warming scam, I mean?

Global warming hot air at La Scala

Italy’s premiere opera house has just commissioned on opera based on OwlGore’s “Inconvenient Truth” from Giorgio Battistelli, currently artistic director of the Arena in Verona. It’s not mentioned which librettist will have the duty of producing a drama from an alleged book of nonfiction, though Battistelli has done his own libretti, including that for Cenci (after Artaud), but not for the recent The Fashion (by Bob Goody) or Richard III (Ian Burton)

I’ve not heard a note of his music, which has been described as “post-modern atonality” and “a colourless gouache of synthetic sub-Birtwistle“. George Loomis of the International Herald Tribune wasn’t easy on his skills in the one non-negotiable of opera:

The chief fault of “Richard III” lies in its text setting. Proponents of opera in English — “Richard III” was written in English and performed with Flemish supertitles — argue that if only singers enunciate clearly and conductors keep the orchestra under control, words will come through. But Battistelli stacks the deck against them with heavy, though interesting orchestration, and angular vocal writing with long note values doesn’t help.

…though given that this is An Inconvenient Truth, the inept text-setting might help the project.

But the real issue here is plot. This being opera, we need a concrete love interest. Perhaps Battistelli could cast the prima donna as the goddess Gaia, and the lead tenor (or countertenor!) could sacrifice himself to her by being buried alive in a huge compost pile.

UPDATE 6/2: Comments from the composer here. There’s going to be a part for Al Gore; no information on whether it will consist of just one pitch.

Pelosi steps in McCain-Feingold

…by appearing in an OwlGore Warmer ad less than 30 days before her primary. No, I don’t think it was deliberate; Nancy Pelosi is not as smart as Hillary Clinton. But I hope they throw the book at her; she voted for that abortion, and the only way we’ll be rid of it is if enough politicians go to jail for it. The only thing better than seeing Pelosi punished would be to see John McCain run afoul of his own foul law.

Brownshirts for OwlGore

I thought the public schools weren’t supposed to teach religion.  I see more emotional fervor than science here. The curriculum calls for them to learn the scientific method. I see what the scientific method is in California: berate your opponents until they back down.

Nitey-nite, Western Civ.