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First they ignore you
Then they laugh at you
Then they fight you
Then the West Antarctic Ice Shelf melts
Then you win

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 08:25:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You know, I've been seeing advertising for a comedy called "Evan Almighty," about some guy (with the great Steve Carell in the role of "some guy") building an Ark in anticipation of a flood. I'm beginning to think Hollywood is trying to tell us something...

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde
by NordicStorm (m<-at->sturmbaum.net) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 08:43:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
How about Bruce Almighty?

I'm tired of the American obsession with religion in popular culture, to be honest.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 08:47:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Quite right. Although when a movie consisting primarily of scenes of brutal torture can bring in hundreds of millions of dollars, that tells us quite a bit about the disturbing lack of outrage over torture as a governmental practice.

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde
by NordicStorm (m<-at->sturmbaum.net) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 09:06:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It is a semi-sequel of that film. Morgan Freeman is God in both (as well as real life).

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 07:52:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
If I really thought God looked and spoke like Morgan Freeman I might just become a believer :-)  seldom has there been a mainstream actor with such an endearing screen presence.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 02:02:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
First they ignore you
Then they laugh at you
Then they fight you
Then the West Antarctic Ice Shelf melts
Then you win

correction? seems to me more like

Then the West Antarctic Ice Shelf melts
Then we all lose

and the melt rate is, so I hear, astonishing and frightening the folks who monitor it.  yet another case of "our previous predictions were clearly far too optimistic and we never thought we'd see this amount of damage in our lifetimes, blah blah."  (I am getting almost inured to reading this kind of report summary, which is in itself a very bad sign.)

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 03:18:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I suppose what people like Klaus and Stenman are doing would most accurately be described as "whistling past the graveyard".

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde
by NordicStorm (m<-at->sturmbaum.net) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 04:53:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, yes, we all lose, but hopefully after a big disaster happens because of global warming we'll be able to run all the deniers out of town.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 05:55:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Hurricane Katrina? (Granted it wasn't caused by global warming, but it took us all of five minutes to forget it ever happened)

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde
by NordicStorm (m<-at->sturmbaum.net) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 06:00:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]
That't why the phrase "until New York and London have new coastlines" keeps being thrown around these parts (by Helen, I believe).

But yes, it's quite possible the capitalist media noise machine will be able to prevent the right conclusions from being reached even in that case.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 06:33:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't recall whether it was here or at Dailykos, but I saw a mention of some right-wing blogs explaining the benefits of transport routes opening up over the North Pole as the ice melts....

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde
by NordicStorm (m<-at->sturmbaum.net) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 06:42:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
There's going to be war over the Northwest Passage. allegedly, US nuclear submarines already regularly patrol what Canada would consider its waters.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 06:48:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Those few still left alive.

Presuming there's still a town to run them out of.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 08:23:53 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm sure they will be busily explaining to us that disasters open up new opportunities for Business and Growth (business booms in the aftermath of a disaster, since (a) it provides the "game over, reset" moment that capitalism desperately needs every few decades to get out of the compound interest trap and (b) a lot of people get killed and their property becomes new feedstock for speculation and accumulation).  NOLA has become quite a profit centre for carpetbaggers and a hotbed of real estate speculation;  as one of Bush's cronies freely admitted, getting rid of all the Black and poor people was something the old whiteboys' club had wanted to do all along.

others among their camp will be explaining that the disaster had nothing to do with CO2 or any of those "ivory tower academic theories", but was actually God's punishment on us for permitting gay marriage and extramarital sex and teaching Darwin's theory in the schools.

in more fortunate locations inland, others of the breed will be busy explaining to their faithful that the coastal floods never happened at all but are an elaborate hoax perpetrated by The Librul Media in collusion with red/greenies who hate science and technology and want to take your SUV away.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

by DeAnander (de_at_daclarke_dot_org) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 01:59:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]
...red/greenies who hate science and technology...

... when in fact it is our trust in science that leads us to mistrust technology.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Fri Jun 29th, 2007 at 03:41:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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