Showing posts with label radiohead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label radiohead. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Quote of the Day

The Copenhagen conference is over with a weak, toothless, non-binding, low target, do little climate agreement as our elected world betters (stop me if you've heard this one before) failed to heed obvious warnings, listen to experts, or take necessary action due to short term political calculations. The US Senate was blamed, China was blamed more, Gordon Brown claimed the talks were "held to ransom", Banksy unleashed snarky art, and Thom Yorke was apoplectic. Hope you like a Radiohead album full of melting arctic ice references and climate statistics.

But still, in Copenhagen we found out that there were still things we can learn from our European brethren that could be applied back here in the States. Oh, not about climate change. No, we're all fucked horribly. No, I'm talking about the way their press deals with horridly regressive and embarrassing climate change deniers like Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) who went to the Copenhagen conference to enact his "one man truth squad" and ended up bumming around Copenhagen for about two hours, before calling a press conference and getting heckled by the few press that bothered to even cover him.
A reporter asked: “If there’s a hoax, then who’s putting on this hoax, and what’s the motive?”

“It started in the United Nations,” Inhofe said, “and the ones in the United States who really grab ahold of this is the Hollywood elite.”

One reporter asked Inhofe if he was referring to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Another reporter — this one from Der Spiegel — told the senator: “You’re ridiculous.”
Ouch. That cold shoulder was so cold that might have proved that global warming is a hoax... if the snow in Copenhagen during the summit didn't already prove that global warming was a hoax.

So, American press, would it be too much to ask that when a crazy person starts yelling bullshit about science that you'd speak up and go "You're ridiculous"? Or are will still doing that whole "Some people say that they have facts, figures, numbers, decades of research, and scientific analysis, while others say they have a notion about what God will or won't allow the planet to do. Who can say who is right?" thing? Ah well, thanks Germany for shaming Inhofe, however little his capacity for shame is. Thanks for treating him like a buffoon. Here he's treated like an important man with considerable power... which he is. It's incredibly sad.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.07

Republicans Propagating Falsehoods in Attacks on Health-Care Reform
Steve Pearlstein of the Washington Post on the lies hypocrisy and childishness of the debate over health care. He's fairly angry, dubbing those who are engaging in this type of action "political terrorists". But other than that it's a fairly clear and concise explanation of what the current plan under consideration is, disappointing as it is.

The Health Insurers Have Already Won
BusinessWeek on how no matter what ends up eventually getting passed, the health care industry will be relatively happy about, having been able to set the terms of the debate and the modes of reform almost from the drop. I know: what a shocker. I think that makes it the 137,897th time in a row that Congress decided to look out for business first instead of the actual people in a case that didn't involve overt poisoning or murder. Even the poisoning/murder ones are a 50/50 proposition in looking out for the public.

Pennsylvania Gunman Used Same Gun Store As Virginia Tech Shooter
I just want all you TB buckaroos out there to remember that if you're a mentally defective loner who is increasingly disturbed by his seeming disconnect from society and wishes to act out his militaristic revenge fantasies with a kill crazy rampage and subsequent suicide, go to TGSCOM Inc. of Green Bay for all your firearm needs.

Kepler Shows Exoplanet Is Unlike Anything in Our Solar System
The Kepler Space Telescope is finally starting up its mission to search for and analyze planetary bodies from solar systems in an attempt to find earth-like planets. The timeline for the project is to find a comparable planet by 2020. What have they found so far? A Jupiter sized planet with huge 1,300 degree temperature variances and a titanium oxide atmosphere. Oooh, so close.

New Radiohead - "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)"
Perhaps in some bid to cleanse themselves of Thom Yorke's voluntary wallowing in the Twilight mudpit, Radiohead has recorded and released a new song in honor of the recently deceased Harry Patch, the UK's last remaining WWI veteran. It's fairly good and all proceeds from the one pound purchase of the song go to the British Legion. Man, Radiohead outdid us again. All we did was use Harry Patch's death to mock education standards.