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Science & Technology

Sneak Peek

Katherine Mangu-Ward | 4.19.2008 1:53 PM

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From yesterday's governors' conference on climate change at Yale:

Stay tuned more more, including Arnold Schwarzenegger getting a massive auditorium of Yalie environmentalists to cheer at the prospect of killing endangered squirrels in the Mojave desert.

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NEXT: Self-Refuting Drug Warriors

Katherine Mangu-Ward is editor in chief of Reason.

Science & TechnologyClimate Change
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  1. J sub D   17 years ago

    Stay tuned more more, including Arnold Schwarzenegger getting a massive auditorium of Yalie environmentalists to cheer at the prospect of killing endangered squirrels in the Mojave desert.

    Huh? SWAG, some sort of proposed solar energy system?

  2. Priapus   17 years ago

    I don't know what that guy on the left is trying to say. Condi's a nice piece of elephant for one.

  3. J sub D   17 years ago

    I don't know what that guy on the left is trying to say. Condi's a nice piece of elephant for one.

    I think it's a reference to all of the choice cuts of donkey that all the the four star restaurants offer.

  4. anonymous coward   17 years ago

    The shirt is stupid, but the snowman is adorable. I've been cured of my global warming skepticism by him and his sign.

  5. Dave B.   17 years ago

    It took me a second, but he's referring to "a nice piece of ass"

  6. Barack Obama   17 years ago

    I think it's a reference to all of the choice cuts of donkey that all the the four star restaurants offer.

    A nice Donkey cutlet at the Four Seasons is the only thing that can take my mind off of the gay-bashing, gun-toting, Christ-worshipping, elephant-eating hicks.

  7. GG   17 years ago

    The shirt is stupid, but the snowman is adorable.

    I'm partial to this week's Phoenix New Times cover myself.

  8. Shannon Love   17 years ago

    These conferences have a long track record of success. After all back circa 1980, a similar conference was held to develop strategies based on the unquestioned scientific consensus of the day that the earth was out of petroleum and other "natural" resources. The governors all declared we would have to learn to live without oil.

    Today, of course, no one worries about running out of oil or other forms of energy, so I guess the governors fixed the problem. Based on this track record, I feel confident that 20 years from now, no one will be worried about global warming either.

  9. Shodan2020   17 years ago

    I'm just curious as to why a snowman would be wearing earmuffs. He's not helping himself stay cool with those on. 🙂

  10. Chris Potter   17 years ago

    Snow men wouldn't be going extinct if they weren't using so much birth control. Let that be a lesson to you.

  11. J sub D   17 years ago

    Snow men wouldn't be going extinct if they weren't using so much birth control. Let that be a lesson to you.

    I've heard from reliable sources that cause of snow people population decline is the well documented fact that snow women are all frigid.*

    * I know, too easy.

  12. crimethink   17 years ago

    Easy but good...well played.

  13. The Wine Commonsewer   17 years ago

    The shirt is funnier and makes more sense in this context.

  14. KD   17 years ago

    The Wine Commonsewer | April 19, 2008, 4:56pm | #
    The shirt is funnier and makes more sense in this context.

    Thread winner!!

  15. Eric Atkinson   17 years ago

    When I think of democrats...I think of ass.

  16. David   17 years ago

    The snowman is awesome in a Calvin and Hobbes way.

  17. jackal the carlos   17 years ago

    I have had about enough of goddamn snowmen ... I always wished that Frosty had remained a puddle.

  18. ed   17 years ago

    "Elephant" is a typo.
    It was supposed to say "eggplant."
    It makes much more sense that way.

  19. Brandybuck   17 years ago

    Is that guy suggesting that Democrats are asses? I can go along with that!

  20. sage   17 years ago

    The guy on the right reminds me - I could go for a sourdough jack and and an ice cream shake.

  21. BlueBook   17 years ago

    That snowman bears an eerie resemblance to an old eyewitness sketch of an alien encounter. Notice the blank, soulless expression, indicative perhaps of cybernetic hive-mind control.

  22. Chris Potter   17 years ago

    Yeah, I've never heard anyone complain that a place smells like elephant, either. So it cuts both ways.

  23. John C. Randolph   17 years ago

    I've been cured of my global warming skepticism by him and his sign.

    All the screeching from the lefties who equate skepticism with holocaust denial didn't change your mind already?

    -jcr

  24. Guy Montag   17 years ago

    I missed another costume event! Will have to go to DC tomorrow and see if there is anything being protested by clown-suited lesbians on stilts.

  25. Mad Max   17 years ago

    The thing is, I find the idea of human-caused global warming quite plausible (not that I assume it's the worst threat facing humanity or anything).

    If people are skeptical of global warming, maybe it's not because they have been duped by an oil-company-financed conspiracy of denail. Maybe it's because the environmentalists have been poisoning the atmosphere (so to speak) with so many doomsday forecasts since the 1960s that it's hard for serious people to be taken seriously when they talk about global warming.

    The boy in Aesop's fable was always making false warnings about wolves attacking the sheep. Finally, the people just tuned him out. There were still wolves out there, but that smart-ass kid ruined things for everybody by discrediting the whole idea of vulpine predation.

    Even serious scientists with buttloads of degrees after their names, who had no personal involvement in any of the prior panics, will have to deal with this skepticism, especially since *some* scientists are on record about the need to exaggerate in order to draw popular support.

    "This time we *really* mean it - this time we're not cranks trying to fulfill our psychological need for a secular sin-and-redemption scenario - please believe us!"

    It's like the "anti-communists" who accused Eisenhower and George C. Marshall of being part of the Communist conspiracy - that sort of thing turned some people off from anti-communism so badly that they become hesitant to acknowledge *real* communism, for fear of encouraging "McCarthyism and Red-Baiting." So we have NYT obituaries of open, notorious Communists which never mention their Party affiliation - just allude to their "controversial politics."

  26. Saul   17 years ago

    All the screeching from the lefties who equate skepticism with holocaust denial didn't change your mind already?

    No, no, you misunderstand. We equate it with stupidity.

  27. The Wine Commonsewer   17 years ago

    No, no, you misunderstand. We equate it with stupidity.

    Yes, yes, [lights pipe} and you guys were spot on about, let's see, a billion people starving to death by 1980, three mile island, the known petroleum reserves (five or six times), and Che's humanity, God Bless him.

  28. The Wine Commonsewer   17 years ago

    Thanks KD, I've not won very many threads, so I shall place the statue on the glass mantle next to gleam jar of sand from the black sand beach, the lava blackened driftwood, and the 12 inch black marble obelisk.

  29. I took a thermodynamics class   17 years ago

    I'm just curious as to why a snowman would be wearing earmuffs. He's not helping himself stay cool with those on. 🙂

    As long there is no Q dot, h is lowered in both directions.

    Whether the ? for blue and red makes the earmuffs and gloves thermally wise or just a fashion faux pas (two primary colors! and don't get me started on that scarf!) is left as an exercise to the reader.

  30. M   17 years ago

    TWC - On a libertarian thread, the first person to vote appoints the thread-winner.

    I suppose on an anarchist thread you can win without even that vote.

    Kinda cool.

    And people wonder how we took over the world from the statists.

  31. Chris Potter   17 years ago

    Earmuffs aren't primarily intended as thermal insulation. All that's needed is a physical barrier to keep the most energetic air molecules in the ear canal from escaping.

  32. Deceased Equine Pugilism Squad   17 years ago

    Earmuffs are also to prevent frostbite from wind blowing over pretty much the most exposed and non-insulated piece of skin on the human body.

  33. Hugh Akston   17 years ago

    Earmuffs also help drown out troublesome questions about the continuing controversy over the extent and immediacy of climate change, and which if any potential solutions are technologically possible, economically feasible, and not just greener-than-thou rhetoric.

  34. TallDave   17 years ago

    Nooooooooo Frosty noooooooooooo!

    That's it, Global Warming. Now it's personal.

  35. Jim Walsh   17 years ago

    It's like the "anti-communists" who accused Eisenhower and George C. Marshall of being part of the Communist conspiracy...

    Whatever happened to those wingnut types, anyway? Oh yeah, that's right: they all got into talk radio. (Oh well, anything that keeps them off the streets...)

  36. John C. Randolph   17 years ago

    We equate it with stupidity.

    Ah, there we go: standard lefty technique for winning friends and influencing people.

    So, if you believe that we're in mortal peril from global warming, do you also believe that you can prevent this disaster by mustering all the snotty condescension you can manage?

    -jcr

  37. Nobel Peace Oscar Winner   17 years ago

    which if any potential solutions are technologically possible, economically feasible, and not just greener-than-thou rhetoric.

    But our planet has a fever! If your baby has a fever, you have to do something! If we have to roll back greenhouse emissions to where they were in 1850, even though the global population is six times bigger now, well, we just have to roll up our sleeves and get it done!

  38. Guy Montag   17 years ago

    OT: Danika Patrick got her first IRL win yesterday.

  39. P Brooks   17 years ago

    Was there a massive crash while she was stalled in the pits, or something?

    Don't tell me- I'm still trying to figure out when they're going to show the replay.

  40. Episiarch   17 years ago

    Thanks KD, I've not won very many threads

    You haven't won anything. Note this and despair: I win all.

  41. The Wine Commonsewer   17 years ago

    Epi,that doesn't make you any more specialier than anyone else. So there.

  42. Episiarch   17 years ago

    Oh hell yes it does.

  43. The Wine Commonsewer   17 years ago

    And would you feel the same way if Kerry looked like forty miles of bad road?

  44. Chris Potter   17 years ago

    And would you feel the same way if Kerry looked like forty miles of bad road?

    Well, he looks like 80 miles to me.

    ...oh...THAT Kerry.

  45. jkp   17 years ago

    When I saw the T-shirt, I thought instantly of the 4/21/08 cartoon from the IBD:

    http://www.investors.com/editorial/cartoon.asp

  46. Chris Potter   17 years ago

    Also, it's interesting that that thread contains Edwards' reaction to Hillary's bawling,

    I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also tough business.

    which is basically the same thing Hillary's saying this week about Obama's complaints about debate question. Full circle indeed.

  47. Episiarch   17 years ago

    And would you feel the same way if Kerry looked like forty miles of bad road?

    That's entirely the point, dude. To reiterate: I win.

  48. Heff   17 years ago

    Earmuffs also help drown out troublesome questions about the continuing controversy over the extent and immediacy of climate change

    Earmuffs are also a fun thing to do with large breasts.

  49. Heinrick   17 years ago

    'It was supposed to say "eggplant."'

    Actually I have had a nice peice of egg plant.

  50. Guy Montag   17 years ago

    Wow, was expecting more action here while I was out "changing the environment" and picking up a sammich at The Italian Store in Arlington.

  51. Portnoy   17 years ago

    Hmmm... eggplant...

  52. P Brooks   17 years ago

    Looks like Kyle guessed right for a change- he pulled Danica in at the end of the yellow to top off, and she's saving fuel already.

  53. The Wine Commonsewer   17 years ago

    What? Danica had her top off? Shit, I only get the no-pay ESPN.

  54. P Brooks   17 years ago

    I'm still going to call her "Danica Kournikouva."

  55. Guy Montag   17 years ago

    TWC,

    That is a one-piece suit. you missed everything.

  56. P Brooks   17 years ago

    Tell the snowman to lay off the melodrama- it's snowing.

  57. Michael Ejercito   17 years ago

    That is one hot costume- and not in a good way.

  58. Guy Montag   17 years ago

    Experts suspect that the declining snowperson population is a result of higher levels of DHMO in modern snow than before the out-of-control weapons building programs of the Bush administration began.

  59. Guy Montag   17 years ago

    Six Mexican drivers are starting in today's Nationwide Cup NASCAR race.

    Odd thing, Kenny Wallace's regular sponsor is not popular in Mexico for some reason, so he is wearing a Boston red Stockings racing suit instead. Forgot if I mentioned that yesterday, but worth mentioning again.

  60. heh2k   17 years ago

    I'm sure there's a furries group in dc, and who knows who you might meet!

    Guy Montag | April 19, 2008, 8:44pm | #
    I missed another costume event! Will have to go to DC tomorrow and see if there is anything being protested by clown-suited lesbians on stilts.

  61. Guy Montag   17 years ago

    heh2k,

    I didn't get over there, how was it?

  62. J   17 years ago

    Won't somebody please think of the snowmen!

  63. Andrew G.   17 years ago

    LOL, the Snowman was pretty funny... He marched past my office window with a bunch of other people, before they all got in line to go watch the conference. Most people were only there to see Arnold though.

  64. Paul   17 years ago

    Speaking personally, we could sure use a little more global warming where I live.

  65. Gabe Harris   17 years ago

    "You have to ask what would it take to set off the alarm bells to make this a top-of-mind priority in the body politic. If you had told me a few years ago that we would be facing a situation where the entire North Polar ice cap was going to imminently disappear, I might have thought we'd certainly get people's attention, and yet only to a limited degree."

    Al Gore

    wow, the ice caps are dissappearing any day now, but the sea leel hasn't risen any yet? I'm not sure what to do.

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