The Lasso of Truth

Shaping young minds

Most mornings I pack 6 school lunches.  1 cream cheese bagel or croissant in a Ziploc bag, a handful of baby carrots in a Ziploc bag, slices apples dredged in lemon juice in a Ziploc bag, two-bite brownies in a Ziploc bag, and a fruit cup or pudding with a disposable plastic spoon.  I used to even send a juice box or disposable juice bottle, until I figured it would be less expensive to use jug juice and refillable bottles.  That was an economical decision.  The rest of the choices are motivated by expense and time constraints.

I expect my children have all been summarily labeled offenders in the first degree for some time now, by the eco-tyrants in their classrooms…

A couple in Laval, Que., has sparked a fierce debate over how far schools should go to teach children about environmental responsibility after their six-year-old son was shut out of a kindergarten draw to win a stuffed animal because he had an environmentally unfriendly sandwich bag in his lunch box.

Marc-Andre Lanciault said he hadn't heard of the school's draw or any environmental policy until his wife, Isabel Theoret, was making their son Felix a sandwich and he begged them not to put it in a plastic bag.

"He said, 'No mommy, you can't do that. Not a Ziploc,' " Mr. Lanciault said.

Through tears, the boy told his parents that the school had held a draw to win a stuffed teddy bear and only children who didn't have any plastic sandwich bags could enter.

I’ve already made the school resoundingly aware of how I feel about the nauseating bacterial science project that comes home under the “boomerang” lunch project (where children bring their lunch garbage back home).  Do you have any idea what a pudding cup looks like when it’s been baking in a thermal lunch bag all day?  Imagine the frantic reports that would be made to various agencies if it was me who forced my child to traipse back and forth to school with festering food garbage in their backpack!

On a day when we have all the children, I routinely run our dishwasher on an average of 3 times a day.  If I migrated to the so-called “sustainable” containers (ie. Tupperware) that the school encourages, it would add at least one more load each day.  Don’t tell me that is more “environmentally responsible” than a handful of Ziploc bags.  And even if it was, tough!  I already have enough work to do, making sure 6 kids get fed and dressed and off to school in time with a healthy lunch, and I already do enough dishes.

Finally!

Climate change relegated to where it belongs...the Science Fiction aisle.

Mocking the Eco-tards

It really should be an Olympic sport...

It made sense. At last I understood the self-flagellation part of this faith. We were to inconvenience ourselves with no discernible end, save the faith that the practice alone would make us feel better about our impact on this planet. All our self-loathing could be expunged by a constant regiment of minimal corporal punishment, eating tree bark. Just like in other religions, I gathered, suffering was beautiful to them. I looked around and it was working; they were all so beautiful in their conviction. I threw my arms around Stephen in a supportive hug and the Grape-Nuts fell.

[..]

"Oh, I almost forgot. I brought everyone gifts!" I ran back to my trunk and pulled out a box of books and started passing them around. "I'm hoping we can adopt it kind of as our own bible."

 "The Lorax by Dr. Suess?"

"It's got a good message we can all get behind. Also, it's short and there're pictures. After we're done here we can all go up in my balloon and read it together!"

In a Nutshell

“the environmental movement has revealed the snarling, wicked, homicidal misanthropy beneath its cloak of gentle, bunny-hugging righteousness.”

I'll say.

Say it with me: NO BLOOD FOR SUN!

Welcome to the days of the eco-fatwa...

Spain’s Dr. Gabriel Calzada — the author of a damning study concluding that Spain’s “green jobs” energy program has been a catastrophic economic failure — was mailed a dismantled bomb on Tuesday by solar energy company Thermotechnic.

Apparently they should have shipped him a flag, too...

Additionally, the head of Spain’s renewable energy association and the head of its communist trade union wrote opinion pieces in top Spanish newspapers accusing Calzada of being “unpatriotic” — they did not charge him with being incorrect, but of undermining Spain by daring to write the report.

Gee, now that sounds vaguely familiar.

It's the Melting MadnessTM

And a new slant on "tar and feathers"...

Thousands of crude-coated creatures will probably appear in news pictures by the time this column runs, but so what? It’s only oil – and organic substance, by the way, which bubbles to the earth’s surface all the time without human assistance.

The La Brea Tar Pits in central Los Angeles have been sucking down precious animal life for thousands of years. Walk down Wilshire Boulevard and you can smell the oil still bubbling away. Visit the nearby Page Musuem and you can see sabre tooth tiger skeletons yielded by the tar. Last year workers excavating a disused underground garage near the site found an entire ice-age mammoth.

Nobody seems to mind, however, because the tar pits are natural. If humans had been involved, though – we being “unnatural” somehow – LA’s gloopy ponds would be condemned as an environmental disgrace. Forget the occasional oiled gannet. These murderous pits of shame ate extinct species.

Don't trouble us with your pesky logic!

Environmentally responsible pinup

Regular readers will no doubt recall last year's raucous celebration of "Make Like North Korea Day".  I think I'm still paying for the hydro bill ;)

We have similar plans for this year, but with the addition of a sure-to-break-every-bylaw bonfire in the backyard...many marshmallows will be roasted while every light in the house is ablaze!  Good times will be had by all and the children will learn a valuable lesson -- falling in with the herd only means you spend your day staring at asses.

For those who continue to insist that humans are the worst thing to happen to this flung rock, I have a few suggestions to repackage the event in a more honest and direct context, so as not to confuse the simple among you:

~ Haiti Hour:  Mother Nature stepping in to do the work the rest of us won't, reducing the collective human footprint in a way a windmill could only do with falcons.  True believers are encouraged to toss a concrete slab onto one of the kids, to make the experience more authentic.

~ Hugo Chavez Hour:  Not the latest daytime television slot for the fascist thug.  Rather, a celebration of the commitment that Venezuelans are making, to reducing their impact on the planet.  With any luck, Hugo's policies, food and power shortages and increased militarism will have the population dropping off like flies.  That's when the environmentalism really pays off!  Light a candle, starve the children and gag the wife (if she gets too critical).  This could be extended out for months and years, to maximize effect.

~ Cro-Magnon Hour:  Here is one Mikey and I have already tried...This is best done, outside.  Club the nearest babe and drag her by the hair onto the nearest rock pile for a long round of Wild Kingdom.  Be sure to make enough grunting noises to show the neighbours how environmentally aware you are.  Variation:  The Wild Kingdom portion could, of course, be substituted for a stern lecture on the evils of capitalism and non-renewable energy.  This tends to sound the same to the neighbours and has the added benefit of not producing any environmentally irresponsible children.

~ Semtex Vest Hour:  Looking to the self-detonating crackpots for an ethical solution to environmental terrorism.  This requires a full lobotomy or catastrophic head injury.  Left-wing veganism can be an adequate substitute.  Throw a bed sheet over the Mrs.  Beat her with a large stick, if necessary.  Send the kids to the mall with their "new coat" and a cellphone.  Fireworks included.

Never let it be said that we don't offer meaningful solutions here, at The Lasso.  Alternate suggestions are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Behold the spectacle...

of vegans engaging in cannibalism.

Guilt. Intimidation. Fear. Sanctimony...

Exactly what you would look for in a psychology publication...

So here’s my simple solution: Stop Having Children.

I call it the 5 Year Ban. For the next five years let’s not have any kids. All of us. The whole freaking planet.

And yeah, if you are having children right now you are being selfish. You’re stealing. Stealing from the future. Stealing from the rest of humanity. Stealing from every living thing on the earth right now.

The current planetary die off rate—meaning the rate at which species are going extinct—is a 1000 times greater than ever before in history. Why? Because humans—one species among millions—have stolen the food, the water, the space.

And every time we bring more life into this world we’re increasing that theft exponentially.

My afternoon snack: NUTBAR

I'm sure it's intended as satire, but those of us firmly in the "To Hell with Earth Hour" category may find this campaign strangely apt...

 

Do these people know how nutty they sound?  Darth Vader casually vaporized an entire planet, as a pressure tactic!  So unless he lifts his hood and we find Al Gore under there -- which is not outside the realm of possibility, I admit -- I find it unlikely he'd be all huggy-huggy with the lambs and the pandas.  Heck, even Al isn't!

Cross one more university off the list of considerations

Why work hard and go to school, when you can fake your way into impressive credentials you aren't qualified for..?

Former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore will receive an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Tennessee.

The degree - an Honorary Doctor of Laws and Humane Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - will be given to Gore at the spring commencement exercises of the College of Arts and Sciences on May 14, where he will be the featured speaker.

And why not an honorary degree in economics, for Obama?  Or an honorary degree in anatomy, for Jeffrey Dahmer?

At what point do these things become meaningless and ridiculous?

Al Gore named as a "person of interest" in the case...

Alas, only in a just world...

A seven-month-old girl survived for three days alone with a bullet in her chest after being shot by her parents as part of a suicide pact over their fears about global warming.

The ultimate carbon footprint reduction and, if we're being fully honest, the preferred solution in the heart of hearts of every Global Warming flogger out there.

Al lied.  People died!

Not in the good graces, it seems

A story that makes even this staunch atheist wonder if there isn't really a God...

The El Niño weather phenomenon appears to be taking sides as it parches leftist-ruled parts of South America and brings bounty to US farmers and corporations. One of the severest droughts in decades has given Venezuela's socialist president a political nightmare as hydro-electrical power dribbles to a standstill, unleashing blackouts, rationing and protests.

[..]

The crisis has extended to Paraguay, where another leftist leader, Fernando Lugo, ordered the presidential palace lights switched off. In Argentina and Brazil – also with leftist governments – torrential rain and high temperatures have blighted crops with insect and fungi attacks.

A suspicious soul could ask whether El Niño, a Pacific weather system that influences climate worldwide, is on Washington's payroll. Monsanto and Dow Chemical are enjoying booming pesticide and fungicide sales in Argentina as farmers battle to save soy harvests. But in the US Midwest, farmers expect record corn and soy crops.

...and if he doesn't have a really keen sense of humor.

h/t

Oh, the irony...

Of King Charles making the "fake, but accurate" argument in defence of warmenists who falsify and manipulate data for political purposes.

Maybe he'd be less sympathetic if they were Republicans, from Alaska.

Paper or plastic? I wish...

To the best of my knowledge, there has not been a ban placed on plastic grocery bags in the municipality where I live.  The nearby fascist bastion of Toronto though, has recently put such a ban in place and my local grocery chains have been all too eager to follow suit voluntarily, in the interest of tacking an extra 5 cents per, onto my grocery bill.  My parents have it even worse.  The new large-chain grocery store in their neck of the woods doesn’t even offer bags at all, whether you pay for them or not.  All in the interest of feigning eco-piety.

Commentary notes some of the corollary effects in the wake of the death of the plastic grocery bag…

A nickel might not seem like much. But anyone who has lived recently in Hong Kong and experienced their 6-cent bag tax knows how burdensome that levy makes commerce. There, grocery-store clerks must cram as much as possible into a single, side-split reusable bag – or face a perturbed customer. (Never underestimate the public’s desire to save a buck.) Milk, butter, and eggs become Tetris blocks; and consequently, the checkout lines grow longer and longer as clerks painstakingly pack for maximum space efficiency.

But that is not all. Customers once re-used their grocery bags to dispose of trash; now, in Hong Kong, they buy trash bags. This suggests the tax is not effective in reducing bag consumption; it certainly doesn’t encourage conservation of resources. But it does, evidently, cause delay and hassle for everyone.

And increases revenue for the tax-takers.

Another unpleasant consequence I have personally noted is the degradation of the service level of my grocery buying experience.  Where once I used to have my purchases sorted and packaged for transport, now, even when I pay for the bags, the cashier hands a mitt full of empty bags to me and patiently stands inert while I bag things myself and hold the line up.  In fact, on a recent trip to my local store, while I was paying for and bagging my purchases, I overheard the petulant little sprite behind the counter complaining to one of her coworkers about an encounter she had with a shopper who actually dared to expect the cashier to bag her groceries with the bags she paid for!

Charge me more and service me less.  Is this really what we’ve come to?

A fitting effigy

Heh.

Another great moment

...in "do as I say, not as I do"...

director James Cameron and actors Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver zipped around Paris, Berlin, Moscow, and London on a dizzying promotional tour.

In a jet propelled by unicorn farts and rainbows, no doubt.

 Ambitious eco-message, indeed.

Walk to work

...or the "mountain people" get it...

Peru's mountain people face fight for survival in a bitter winter

Wait a minute.  It's too cold?!  That doesn't fit the narrative...

In a world growing ever hotter, Huancavelica is an anomaly. These communities, living at the edge of what is possible, face extinction because of increasingly cold conditions in their own microclimate, which may have been altered by the rapid melting of the glaciers.

The rapid melting of glaciers has made the mountains of Peru colder.

Don't you miss the days when people who faced inhospitable conditions could just pack up and move?  Ya.  Me too.

h/t

Intriguing paradox, indeed

I have sacrificed countless hours to watching lame, sometimes ideologically infuriating films, to feed my lust for aesthetic richness and visual spectacle.  Often, the creative use of lighting and effects in cinematography will be enough to redeem for me, an otherwise unwatchable dud - or at the very least, make the time spent worthwhile.

For this reason, I have had a sense of divided loyalties about the new cinematic epic, Avatar.  The promise of a spectacular three dimensional visual wonder has been enough to lull me into the false hope that I might be able to suffer the film's obvious and tiresome politics.

I haven't come to a decision yet, about whether I will part with my hard-earned money to see it.  Perhaps my hectic schedule of 2 jobs, 6 kids and Christmas will decide for me ;)

At any rate, it is nice to see that I'm not the only one who is somewhat turned off by the inherent hypocrisy of the very existence of the film, considering it's purported message...

Cameron’s story clearly curses the proliferation of human technology. In Avatar, the science and machinery of humankind leads to soulless violence and destruction. It only serves to pollute the primitive but pristine paradise of Pandora.

Of course, without centuries of development in science and technology, the film putting forth this simple-minded, self-loathing worldview wouldn’t exist. You’d imagine Cameron himself would be bored to tears on the planet he created.
There are no movies on Pandora, so he’d be out of a job. The Na’vi rarely visit a multiplex. They sit around their glowing trees, chanting; they don’t build and sink titanic ocean liners, and they don’t construct deep-sea mini-subs enabling certain filmmakers to spend countless days exploring said cruise ships.

A question of causation

Which came first:  The "Eco" or the "Jerk"?

It's a question that some people are starting to ask, and find answers for...

But new research by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto levels an even graver charge: that virtuous shopping can actually lead to immoral behavior. In their study (described in a paper now in press at Psychological Science), subjects who made simulated eco-friendly purchases ended up less likely to exhibit altruism in a laboratory game and more likely to cheat and steal.

In an experiment, participants were randomly assigned to select items they wanted to buy in one of two online stores. One store sold predominantly green products, the other mostly conventional items. Then, in a supposedly unrelated game, all of the participants were allocated $6, to share as they saw fit with an anonymous (and unbeknownst to them, imaginary) recipient. Subjects who had chosen items from the green store coughed up less money, on average, than their counterparts. In a second experiment, participants were again assigned to shop in either a green or conventional store. Then they performed a computer task that involved earning small sums of cash. The setup offered the opportunity to cheat and steal with impunity. The eco-shoppers were more likely to do both.

[..]

The green-products study broke ground by suggesting that behavior in one realm (environmental decisions) may have a licensing effect in a different area (not future environmental choices, but general morality). So, when I buy Seventh Generation laundry detergent and organic local squash—or bring reusable bags to the grocery store—will that make me act like a selfish jerk?

Is it just an elaborate system of "brownie-point" rationalizing?  Could be.  But judging from my own experiences with the eco-pious and fashionably fake cause-seekers, their morality has always been lacking.  The Eco-piety movement is just the newest way for them to put lipstick on the pigs of their character.  It gives them an opportunity to tell themselves (and others) that they're not really so bad.  After all, they're saving the planet with every purchase!

h/t

Humbuggers

You thought the warmenists were all about the trees, but no..!

But Christmas is a religious holiday that has no place at a United Nations function, according to the Foreign Ministry’s Svend Olling, who is the head of practical planning for the climate summit.

‘We have to remember that this is a UN conference and, as the centre then becomes UN territory, there can be no Christmas trees in the decor, because the UN wishes to maintain neutrality,’ said Olling.

I guess they figured there were already plenty of Ho-Ho-Hos! to go around.

But sadly, they'll be at least one Ho short.

A pox upon the social engineers

Only an environmentalist would make the argument that civilizational suicide is a rational choice for humans to make...

Humans are the only rational animals but have yet to prove it. Medical and other scientific advances have benefited by delivering lower infant mortality rates as well as longevity. Both are welcome, but humankind has not yet recalibrated its behavior to account for the fact that the world can only accommodate so many people, especially if billions get indoor plumbing and cars.

The fix is simple. It's dramatic. And yet the world's leaders don't even have this on their agenda in Copenhagen. Instead there will be photo ops, posturing, optics, blah-blah-blah about climate science and climate fraud, announcements of giant wind farms, then cap-and-trade subsidies.

None will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed.

To be environmentally responsible, humanity should subject itself to a eugenics policy to cull the herd, like the Chinese did.  Because a society with a swelling population of red-blooded boys and no girls to keep them occupied, sounds like the ideal solution.  Whatever do you think they might get up to, when they reach their tipping point, in the not-too-distant future?

All in the name of saving the planet, to which I must ask...if people are the problem, saving it for who?

Best Social and Environmental ads?

Well, I suppose "best" is a subjective word.

Bike to work, or the girl gets it...

  And, in case you thought the Environmental movement was completely out of class...

It has a special irony, when you realize this one comes from China.

Discovered!

The clearing house to beat all clearing houses, of information and news links on Climate Change hysteria.  Like Drudge on Ritalin, with pictures.

Brought to you by these guys.

Now a permanent resident in my Google Reader.

Isn't it amazing...

...That when it's good for their cause, it's "leaked" information, but when it's bad for their cause, it's an "illegal release" of information?

Almost as interesting as correspondence that was meant to be subject to FOI requests, suddenly being regarded as "private comments that were never intended to be public".

I bet Nixon felt the same way about some of the things he said...

h/t to the clearing house for everything Climategate-related.

Too many mouths to feed

Less ice..?

Scientists say shrinking Arctic sea ice may be forcing some polar bears into cannibalizing young cubs.

"When (bears) are very hungry, they go looking for something to eat," biologist Ian Stirling said Friday.

...or just more bears to feed?

h/t

Look what you find...

When you poke your head through a glory hole...

Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you're free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we'll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you'd like us to include.

Wow.  Nice integrity you got there, boys.

From here to here.

Almost as messy as a 400kg polar bear hitting the pavement at high speed.

Eco-crank self-contradiction of the day

I'll panic when life jacket sales start rising...

"The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland," said the paper's lead author, Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.

Same measurable level of carbon dioxide, yet we are still plagued with that pesky ice cap in the Arctic and Antarctic, and sea level remains stubbornly low. 

Odd that.

Almost as if carbon dioxide had nothing to do with it...

h/t LGF, who considers this to be the "gotcha" moment that will make all us denialist heretics see the light.

What I consider to be a classic case of projection

Again, I’m struck by the similarity between the techniques of global warming proponents and leftards; they both use cherry-picked data, they both make outrageous claims couched in pseudo-scientific language that sounds convincing to gullible people, they both compile lists of skeptical “scientists” that turn out to be packed with ringers, frauds, and people who never signed in the first place, and they both use quote mining.

I only changed 2 words in this quote, and the entire meaning has been altered.  Some would say to more closely reflect that elusive state called reality.

The Age of Stupid, indeed

Too much time on their hands, obviously...

Last November, New Yorkers were greeted one morning with a Fake New York Times, produced by pinkos. Today the same people—The Yes Men—have dropped a Fake New York Post on the city.

[..]

It's keyed to promote The Age of Stupid, the soon-to-be-released environmental flick.

Printing off thousands of fake newspapers and handing them out for trash is a novel approach to launching an environmental initiative, I'd say.