“The science is so settled it’s now perfectly routine for leaders of the developed world to go around sounding like apocalyptic madmen of the kind that used to wander the streets wearing sandwich boards and handing out homemade pamphlets. Governments that are incapable of – to pluck at random – enforcing their southern border, reducing waiting times for routine operations to below two years, or doing something about the nightly ritual of car-torching “youths”, are nevertheless taken seriously when they claim to be able to change the very heavens – if only they can tax and regulate us enough. As they will if they reach “consensus” at Copenhagen. And most probably even if they don’t.”
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God bless Mark Steyn.
Puts the finger on what is wrong with our current governance and the further decline we will inevitably suffer.
They are unable or unwilling to perform the functions that give rise to a government and a State – protect peaceful, productive people from predators – and instead turn to amorphous Good that is unproveable and therefore unfalsifiable. They can’t face reality and so it is ignored and attention is turned instead to the ethereal. Instead of the linearity of depositing predators outside free social intercourse, they create circular exercises in searching for the fabled fifth element. So we peaceful, productive people are now caught between a rock and a hardplace – trying to protect ourselves from the unchecked predators while trying to shelter ourselves from the silly quasi-religious doctrines and liturgies of our Masters. The end is near for us and the it isn’t going to be pretty.
Less philosophically put, the State in which I live (Wisconsin) is primed (due to budget constraints) to let prisoners out early. Simultaneously we are not allowed concealed carry rights nor can we openly carry a firearm without it being confiscated. The State refuses to protect us even though we are paying handsomely in taxes, but neither are we able to protect ourselves. So, tangible cooperative services decline, taxes will inevitably have to go up, overall risks to peaceful citizens will go up, our ability to protect ourselves is rigidly restricted and meanwhile the State budget is riddled with special interest handouts. The same goes at the the Federal level.
The State has stopped being about protecting us and has become the biggest predator of all will the right to tell us we’d better do our situps, turn our thermostats down, and put that twinkie down.
A thought strikes me: it’s now those of us who go around telling people the end of the world is not nigh who are considered crazy by the mainstream media and political class. Through the looking glass…
Just as the alcoholic believes that the solution to a hangover is more booze, governments believe that the solution to every problem is more government.
Just like the alcoholic, they justify this belief with arguments that sound almost plausible, at first, but become increasingly strident and fantastical, as friends and family try to limit their excess.
But, but.. if I don’t get another scotch, the earth’s temperature will sky-rocket and all human life will become extinct!
Other Rob, I think you’re saying that it is time for an intervention! Sign me up.
It has happened! There is a call for Al Gore to be stripped of his Oscar! The mainstream media may be ignoring Climategate, but this will force the issue onto them! After all, is anything more important than the Academy Awards, and especially a controversy over them?
(As an aside, for an LA Times article this one is surprisingly even-keeled. Perhaps the Millenium is indeed at hand.)
Laird, it is even-keeled because it is a blog, not the actual publication.
Well, that’s something anyway, Alisa!
The US Congress is now piling on, too. Good news everywhere!
There has always been a call to rescind Michael Moore’s Oscar for a documentary that is known to be faked. Nothing happened.
It’s 2.06 Eastern Time and it’s snowing in Houston.
Anyone got Al Gore’s itinery for today?
The Mersy meat:
Two Scousers – One Issue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEyzfFkEYoc
More Canadian stuff. VERY eloquent if you ask me:
Rex Murphy
As one commenter remarked: If you listen quietly you can almost hear the heads exploding over there (at the CBC).
(The CBC is not known for it’s even handed reporting.)
–GJ–
I don’t think that Al Gore should lose his oscar on the grounds that in a decade or two his film will be a hilarious comedy.
I see that “Climategate” is beginning to get into MSM (Sky News) even if most of the emphasis so far is on ‘the sceptics trying to destroy all the good scientists work’. Doubts regarding the accuracy and the truth are being presented and that is great.
May I offer my congratulations to everyone who has engaged in promoting this into the media.
Keep up the pressure!!
I’m with Sam Duncan on this deal. It’s as if there has been some sort of clandestine coup and the world has been taken over by a fringe sect of 7th Day Adventists.
All my life I’ve been hearing about the imminent doom of the west, or the world, or the universe.
What a series of disappointments—no nuclear war, no triumph of communism, no runaway population, no everybody’s skin melted off by acid rain, no ice age, no 2nd coming, no rapture, no Y2K world collapse, no oil drought, no nothin’.
Not even any zombies, fer christ’s sake, and you can’t find a decent werewolf or vampire for love nor money.
If things are going to be this dull, I’m not sure I want to live to be a hundred.
I was only hoping for that out of spite anyway. More than a few graves I want to pee on some day, even if I have to lower my adult diapers to do it.
If this AGW deal does fall apart, wonder what the True Believers will come up with next?
Stoneyground,
More likely Al Gore and his movies will hopefully end up in the same catagory as Reefer Madness(Link). I can see the connections.
Well, I’m kind of hoping that since they have ruined so much trying to do ‘good’ things, that since this Warming is such obvious crap, that maybe they’ll screw up the punishment so much that it will actually turn out good.
( Suppose not, eh? O well. )
veryretired , the perennial problem is the boy who cried wolf…which is one more thing that falls at warmists feet
Veryretired: your comment was great!!
I think that one of the reasons the MSM is reluctant to really push Climategate is the timing. It’s not just that they don’t want to upset the Copenhagen guilt-fest, (though there’s plenty of that involved I’m sure), but they’ve all gone large on Apocalyptic Climate Disaster in the run up and, (since it’s all in the can or pre-printed supplements), it’s too late to stop it.
They’re going to look stupid enough at Sky News pushing Copenhagen Climate Disaster for ten minutes in every hour without the headlines being dominated by Climategate and the “Sound of all hell breaking loose” as the inimitable Kate at Small Dead Animals puts it.