New at Reason

January 31, 2007

Katherine Mangu-Ward and the United Nations bring you the perfect gift for a child with nightmares of global warming.

Comments

tros|1.31.07 @ 3:37PM|#

Don't get angry. You should be angry already. The only thing being angry does is inflate your ego.

"I have learnt through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.

I spare neither friend nor foe when it is a question of departing from the code of honor.

It is not that I do not get angry. I do not give vent to anger. I cultivate the quality of patienceas angerlessness, and, generally speaking, I succeed. But I only control my anger when it comes. How I find it possible to control it would be a useless question, for it is a habit that everyone must cultivate and must succeed in forming by constant practice"

- M.K. Gandhi

|1.31.07 @ 3:45PM|#

The last I checked, eskimos traded the sled dogs for snowmobiles because they believe that canine flatulence causes global warming.

Or maybe it was because a team of dogs requires more energy and is more expensive to maintain than a gas guzzling snowmobile.

VM|1.31.07 @ 3:48PM|#

Has anybody else heard this radio spot?

(this is a fair-enough rendition (from Townhall, and I remember a bit about "drowned polar bears", too)

""Melting polar ice was a dirty look. Shrinking glaciers, a nudge. Then dying coral reefs pushed us, hard. Rising ocean temperatures and extreme weather, an uppercut. Then record-breaking heat waves hit us, right where it hurts. Has it occurred to anyone that maybe the earth is trying to get our attention.""

|1.31.07 @ 3:51PM|#

Gandhi,

He was that racist Indian guy who though Africans were inferior, and helped spawn the largest ethnic cleansing in human history (the partition of India into Muslim and Hindu states)? Didn't he also invite 12 year old virgins in to bed with him, to test his resistance to temptation? Or is there some other Ghandi I am not aware of?

tros|1.31.07 @ 4:07PM|#

True, Ghandi was definitely a religious fanatic that desperately needed to get his rocks off, but I wouldn't call him a racist. He was, correct me if I'm wrong, the primary inspiration for the American Civil Rights Movement. I would nt blame the partition on him either, considering that he wanted both religions to live in peace and for this was shot in the face.

Whatever you think about Gandhi, it remains obvious that being angry is a waste of energy and only annoys people.

|1.31.07 @ 4:10PM|#

Okay, this is completely off topic, but I can't believe there's been nothing on Reason.com about this yet...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6315819.stm

Dude; Chavez just officially took dictatorial powers to "implement Socialism" in Venezuela, and nobody at the top libertarian blog has a thing to say? Sled dogs and Joe Biden are more important?

tros|1.31.07 @ 4:33PM|#

Officials say he has no intention of turning Venezuela into a communist state, arguing that freedom of speech and religion will all be safe.

Not that I believe a word of this, but I think we will see how this is going to go when we see what he does about the drug war. If he actually cares about ending imperialism in South America this is what he will talk about. Otherwise Venezuela will be quickly descending into Atlas Shrugged territory.

|1.31.07 @ 4:41PM|#

Little bastard gets what he deserves for mistreating animals like that.

|1.31.07 @ 5:07PM|#

I've been to the Great White North several times and most of the Inuit I saw were some carbon emitting mother fuckers. Outboard engines, snowmobiles, giant pickups and SUVs abound. The only assholes you see in canoes and kayaks are yuppie tourists - like me.

They can also shoot whatever adorable arctic critter they want as much as the want whenever they want.

Oh - and those cute little sled dogs are actually mean, mangy mutts they work the shit out of all winter and then leave to fend for themselves on islands during the summer.

Other than that, they really do live in better harmony with the Earth.

|1.31.07 @ 5:20PM|#

Am I psycho or was this blogged here months ago?

|1.31.07 @ 5:26PM|#

And now the rest of the story.......Though Tore lost, another little boy won. Boy #2 watched Tore go through the ice, rescued him, found another way around the hole, thus proving Darwin's theory in the warm, warm Arctic.

VM|1.31.07 @ 5:29PM|#

highnumber:

Answer to question one: of course
Answer to question two: dunno.

Presenting that as an either/or is a false dichotomy, BTW. I suggest you learn about that before you embarrass yourself any further.

(grin)

|1.31.07 @ 5:49PM|#

Katherine Mangu-Ward has too much time on her hands.

|1.31.07 @ 6:01PM|#

VM, yes, I've heard that ad. I think the speaker was supposed to be set in the future, which is why all those things that haven't happened yet are referred to in the past tense.

|1.31.07 @ 6:58PM|#

Dude; Chavez just officially took dictatorial powers to "implement Socialism" in Venezuela, and nobody at the top libertarian blog has a thing to say? Sled dogs and Joe Biden are more important?

They already had an post on it back when this was actually floated. They'll probably have one on the coronation later - and we'll undoubtedly have left-leaners whining about how any American dares to criticize Chavez.

|1.31.07 @ 7:17PM|#

They already had an post on it back when this was actually floated. They'll probably have one on the coronation later - and we'll undoubtedly have left-leaners whining about how any American dares to criticize Chavez.

You mean like this one? Granted, it's a typically void-of-ideas David Weigel post, but he does seem to be making a case that Hugo is only a bad guy because wrong-headed people think he is.

Mark Bahner|1.31.07 @ 7:19PM|#

"Tore awakes, furious and full of resolve to build solar panels..."

Solar panels in the Arctic! Hmmm...why does my engineering Spidey sense tell me he'll have trouble?

Perhaps the good folks at the U.N. have persuaded him that during the Arctic winter can use an energy-efficient compact fluorescent light (CFL) to illuminate his solar panels to...run the CFL.

Hmmm...Spidey sense is tingling even stronger now...

liberaltarian4kucinich|1.31.07 @ 7:49PM|#

Chavez is a hell of a better President than BUSH

|1.31.07 @ 8:01PM|#

Re Chavez: yes, we get it, dictators can have broad popular support and still be bad...they can pursue policies representing interests other than simply enriching themselves and still be bad..

|1.31.07 @ 8:11PM|#

Chavez is a hell of a better President than BUSH

God, help me...have never had the urge...sounds so jingoistic and shallow...only pinheads say it...always comes from people on the wrong side of the argument...building...building...THE URGE IS TOO GREAT...CAN'T HOLD BACK ANYMORE...YEEEEEAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

IF YOU LIKE THIRD WORLD SOCIALIST DICTATORS SO MUCH, WHY DON'T YOU MOVE TO VENEZUELA OR CUBA?!!

i'm sorry. as punishment for my crime, no more caps for me.

seriously, i do not like bush, at all. not one bit. chavez? chavez? really, chavez?! by what standards is he "a hell of a better president"?
i'll need more than he didn't send his country into a pointless war. chavez is on track to become another castro by his own admission. even if you are not 100% on the side of economic freedom (which i assume from your moniker), how is life in the u.s. under bush not better than life under chavez or castro?

|1.31.07 @ 8:18PM|#

how is life in the u.s. under bush not better than life under chavez or castro?

BECUZ HALLIBURTON ISN'T THEIR AND CHENEY AND CHIMPBUSHITLER ARE TEH EVIL!!!

I mean, I hate Bush with a passion that scares me but to see someone make such an idiotic statement makes me respond like Pavlov's dog.

Paul|1.31.07 @ 9:03PM|#

Dude; Chavez just officially took dictatorial powers to "implement Socialism" in Venezuela, and nobody at the top libertarian blog has a thing to say? Sled dogs and Joe Biden are more important?

Pfft, they want socialism, let them have it. Just don't come running to us when it all falls apart...

Paul|1.31.07 @ 9:05PM|#

In the open-air public ceremony in the capital, lawmakers voted unanimously to grant the Venezuelan leader the new powers, shouting: "Long live Socialism."

Ok, I'll bite. OT, and I won't post again on this-- his legislature is with him. What're you gonna do? It's not like he jailed all the opposition. I think that countries wanting to move toward socialim should be allowed to do it unfettered. Let them collapse on their own.

|1.31.07 @ 9:36PM|#

i'm sorry. as punishment for my crime, no more caps for me.

You are forgiven, but only if you vow to never again apologize for such outbursts.

|1.31.07 @ 9:42PM|#

Solar panels in the Arctic! Hmmm...why does my engineering Spidey sense tell me he'll have trouble?

Well, I don't really know what's wrong with your spidey sense there, old boy.

But I predict that in chapter 2 of this happy little story, Tore moves to Venezuala, right after Chevez becomes the star leader of the UN. Chavez decrees that all eskimos move to Venezuala so they can save more energy.

HA! That's it! We need to pass a law against people living in cold climates. Takes too much energy to keep them warm.

Then we have to pass a law against people living in warm climates, because it takes too much energy to keep them cool.

In the end we will have to face the fact that We, the People, must be outlawed in order to preserve Mother Earth.

Save the planet! Kill yourself!

|1.31.07 @ 9:50PM|#

No matter how good an idea is, you will always have someone opposed to it.

Whenever a large group unanimously votes to do something like this, you just gotta know that there is some coercion involved.

|2.1.07 @ 12:48AM|#

Genghis,

Wasn't that the plot of LeHaye and Jenkins' "Left Behind"?

Guy Montag|2.1.07 @ 5:38AM|#

Rex Rhino,

Gandhi,

He was that racist Indian guy who though Africans were inferior, and helped spawn the largest ethnic cleansing in human history (the partition of India into Muslim and Hindu states)? Didn't he also invite 12 year old virgins in to bed with him, to test his resistance to temptation? Or is there some other Ghandi I am not aware of?

I thought Hillary said he ran a gas station? Joe sort of hinted that it is in Delaware. Sounds like it might not be as clean as Obama.

Guy Montag|2.1.07 @ 5:56AM|#

The night after he loses the race by falling through a weak place in the ice, Tore has a dream in which he sees the Inuit goddess Sedna, who warns him that "rich countries use-and waste-an awful lot of energy. Huge cars. Too many cars instead of efficient trains and buses."

Sounds like the story of a CBS satellite truck crew that was all over the news a day or two ago.

Glad there was a whale in the story too, but the beast was cast wrong. Whales are a potential source of renewable energy. Indeed, if we revert back to the old ways as the environmentalists wish us to, the use of fertility drugs and sonic hurding could make melon oil the next wonder fuel.

|2.1.07 @ 11:57AM|#

"Am I psycho or was this blogged here months ago?"

What happens is that one of the writers blogs about a story when it initially breaks. Then they polish it for the print edition of the magazine. A few weeks later, when they post the stories that appeared in the print issue the story gets re-blogged.