Here is a story that I’m sure will tickles all the various cockles in yer body:

Newlyweds Alex and Donna Voutsinas accidentally stumbled upon photographic evidence proving that both were at Walt Disney World on the same day twenty years prior.

The photo, snapped when Donna was 5, shows a man in the background pushing a stroller with a toddler inside. That man was Alex’s father, and the boy in the stroller was none other than little baby Alex.

Okay, I’ll buy that. It’s a sweet story, something magnificently coincidental. Buy let’s get beyond that for a second and try to figure out this: Who in the hell is that mascot? Jacques the Pedo?

A good rule of thumb to follow, no matter if you’re at Disney or at the shopping center;  if ANYONE dressed in a messed up beret and wearing a prison outfit tries to pose for a picture with your children, blow the rape whistle you have hanging around your neck. Scratch and scream and do whatever it takes, because you are not in a safe place.

**Woosk

Ahead of the Copenhagen Climate Conference (alliteration), world leaders are lauding China’s announcement that it will cut 2005 carbon intensity levels — the amount of CO2 produced per unit of GDP growth — by 40-45 percent by 2020. This is absolutely fantastic news, until you remember that the Chicoms are nothing but filthy liars:

BEIJING (Reuters) – A top Chinese climate envoy said Friday only emissions curbs carried out under its newly announced carbon intensity targets that have international financial support will be open to outside scrutiny.

In other words, the 95% state-owned industries will not be open to outside scrutiny, but the foreign-owned enterprises will be.

Yu Qingtai, China’s climate change ambassador, added that most of the country’s emissions-curbing plans would likely not fall into the category of “measurable, reportable and verifiable.”

This is how the Chicoms say “fuck you”. Whatever they do, it’s none of our business. They will not measure, report or verify carbon emissions levels.

“You cannot apply the same kind of standards for actions that we take on our own, with our own resources, (as you do) for actions that we take with international support.”

Meaning, if a foreign business sets up in China then yes, apply your carbon emission standards to it, but as for state-run businesses, well, that’s our business, not yours.

China, however, has emphasized that the target is a voluntary, domestically binding policy goal, raising the specter of a dispute at Copenhagen over whether and how reported Chinese emissions reductions will be checked.

There is no “dispute” here at all. Emission reductions won’t be checked because the Chicoms won’t allow outside agencies to check them. Where’s the dispute in that? The Chicoms are actually being quite upfront about this. They have spelled out that their target is “voluntary”. If western leaders would stop praising the Chicoms for one second, they would realize that the commies aren’t going to do a bloody thing about reducing emissions.

Beijing insists that rich, industrialized countries should continue bearing most of the burden in reducing greenhouse gases and that developing nations like China and India must not be subject to mandatory emission reduction targets in any new deal.

China also said any new accord should include more financial and technological support for developing countries.

What Beijing is saying is that the west should continue sending them money and technology so they can continue their explosive growth, so they can build up their military, so they can keep taking our jobs, while sending us further into debt and an eventual financial collapse.

I was wrong when I said the Chicoms are liars, at least on this subject they’re being completely upfront. It’s the western governments that don’t want to hear the truth.

I fixed your video for you. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present “Bullshit In, Bullshit Out”.

Mitchieville readers get the first crack at my new stuff, but if you liked that one, I have quite a few more denialist detournements of climate change propaganda at my Youtube homepage.

Spotted at Belmont Club.

I don’t know too much about this Climate Change thing that so many people have gotten into over the past decade or so. I know some folks say it is a religion of peace. Me, I’ve never had much of a religious/apocalyptic bent, so it’s just never interested me enough to look into it any deeper than I have, say, Scientology or palmistry.

But, whatever the truth or falsity of their promises of salvation: I do know that I would far, far rather the earth spirits’ wrath burn the planet to a crisp than see these people and their thoroughly fascist aesthetic succeed. Better to be slightly warmer on one’s feet than be pressed into a chanting, letter-shaped mob of anonymous, faceless Action-Takers on one’s knees.

According to Environment Canada, just because we had frost this weekend (and 25cm of snow in Edmonton), doesn’t mean we are going to have a cold summer:

“It looks that the models are suggesting at least at this time that maybe what nature has in store.”

 

An air front moving in from the south will bring warmer temperatures this summer, at least 20 to 25 hot days with temperatures above 30 C, as of mid-June, Phillips said.

The summer will bring warmer temperatures? That sounds reasonable.

You can always trust Environment Canada to deliver the goods. This past winter they called for just a sliver of snow and unseasonably warm temperatures. Sure, they were completely wrong, but what I’m saying is that they are usually correct. Take last summer for instance when they said it was going to be dry and very hot. Oh right, we had a record rainfall and it was cold all summer. Well, the winter of 2007-2008 they hit the nail on the head when they said we would get little snow and very warm temperatures. My bad, we had a record snowfall and a record cold snap.

At least they were right when they predicted last Sunday to be warm and sunny. Oh c’mon.

I hear what you naysayers are naysaying–these same people who can’t predict what the weather is going to be like three months from now, one month from now, one week from now and one day from now, are the same people that want us to believe that if we don’t change our habits immediately, the world is going to implode in 120 years.

Yes, that is exactly what they are saying. Hope, Change, and Believe™.

Welcome to the world’s cheapest car, perfect for the world’s cheapest people!

Costing just 100,000 rupees ($1,979; £1,366), the Nano will now go on sale across India next month, with deliveries starting in July.

Tata hopes the 10-foot (3-metre) long, five-seater car will be cheap enough to encourage millions of Indians to trade up from their motorcycles.

Trade up their motorcycles? Who can resist the cool allure of a bad-ass hog like only the Indians can make? Luckily, the owner of the company, Ratan Tata, has your needs in mind:

“I hope it will provide safe, affordable four-wheel transportation to families who till now have not been able to own a car.”

Affordable is a reasoned argument…but safe? Plastic body, plastic bumper, no air bag, no power steering, and no A/C when sitting in Mumbai traffic, so rolling (!) down the windows and taking in that congested air will be a necessity. Safety, huh? We at the tech support division of Mitchieville would like to test drive one of these things, but we’re afraid it will be stuck to our butts once we emerge from the vehicle. We’ll also have to get a less sturdy traffic cone for the obstacle course or the bumpers might get too dented upon collision.

I don’t know how your average Garunder Six-Pack is supposed to transport his seven kids to Six Flags over Bhopal in this thing. Even best-case acceleration can get you from 0-60 mph in 21 seconds. Feel the white-knucle power!

If these types of cars are so great, why don’t we see a lot more of them in North America? Surely there are a lot of people who need cheap, reliable transportation. All the greens will be excited to hear that the car is so light and fuel efficient (~ 60 mpg). You can see those dinky little SmartCars everywhere, but even they have steel bumpers and steel exteriors. They also have ABS, power steering, front and side airbags, and luxuries like radios.

SmartCars are bought by people looking to tell you a story, much like Seth Godin’s marketing strategy he’s talked about for companies like Google. Starting at around $17,000, the SmartCar is not even the cheap alternative to a regular car that can be purchased at the same price and arguably be a lot safer in a crash. The Nano would be wiped right off the road by even a mid-sized.

Maybe these cars will fly in a culture that uses a lot of motorcycles and scooters, but I’m not seeing the difference. There’s also no pity for a guy who’s 6′3″ who will have his knees jammed into his chin riding in one of these contraptions. If I were a courier in India, I’d likely just stick to my Vespa. My current car gets just as good gas mileage and can survive a crash better than a “smart” car would.

Okay, so maybe we’re getting a little powder here in Vancouver, and Las Vegas, and Malibu, CA (seen above), and southern Arizona, and hell. That’s no reason to get into what is undeniably equivalent to denying the Holocaust. Climate change is REAL. You cannot deny climate change. It makes an argument that is almost impervious to argument. Do not argue.

Just look at the insensitive captions used with the photos:

Snow in Henderson, NV on December 17, 2008. It’s still snowing here, and the kids are outside in the neighborhood playing.

Playing?? You’re playing in death, you little Eichmanns. Would you play in Holocaust victims? You’re also staying home from school. How can we possibly educate you in the perils of global warming if you stay home due to snow?

Oh, and from the Ministry of Hating Earth, some measly little experts, no doubt sponsored by Big Oil, confirm that global temperatures dropped in 2007. Okay, well, that doesn’t disprove global warming. If anything, that proves billions more need to be invested to study why this drop in temperature has happened. We at the technical support team here in Michieville will continue to explain the data to you in way that we think you need to understand.

The belching and flatulence done by cows and pigs is now subject to taxation by the US government. The regs, ruled constitutional by the United States Supreme Court, would see the average rancher slapped with heavy fees for each head of cattle or hog.

No problem! They’ll just import the beef and pork from Mexico. They always seem to have sound inspection measures and strict environmental regulations. Personally I don’t see the problem with the government driving an industry out of business in the guise of a sound, reasoned concept like “climate change” until they come by willing to nationalize it.

This certainly bears no resemblance to forcing a bunch of banks to lower their standards for lending, then causing the banks to be unable to recoup the lost mortgages, and the government generously offering to pick up a stake in the banks.

Thank you, EPA and PETA. Pretty soon the only thing created in the US will be outrageous government propaganda.

Of the 37 signatories currently on the Kyoto treaty, 20 of those countries are releasing more greenhouse gasses than they agreed to, costing them a whopping $46 billion US in penalties:

As a penalty for missing their goals under the treaty, the nations are required to buy permits for every excess ton of the heat-trapping gas released through 2012. That will total 2.3 billion permits for 20 nations, New Carbon Finance, a research firm in London, has estimated.

The potential penalty, 36 billion euros ($46 billion) for the group based on current permit prices, and the fact that only a minority of 37 Kyoto signatory nations may meet their pledges bodes poorly for international efforts to limit global warming.

Italy and Spain could potentially have to pay $6 billion US alone, but they seem to have a unique way of going about not paying their penalties:

(more…)

Environmentalists have been very happy lately because rising gas prices have meant less cars on the road and more conservation. Yay momma Gaea! I’d like to be the first to wreck their happiness, by telling the filthy tree huggers, rising gas prices has led to an increase in the average Joe six-pack raping momma Gaea. Yay earth rapists!

More area residents will be heating their homes with wood pellets, coal and fireplaces next winter than anytime in the recent past, as they seek alternatives to skyrocketing fuel oil and natural gas costs.

Sales of pellet stoves and related equipment nationwide is estimated to have increased more than 50 percent in the first half of 2008, according to one industry source.

The cost for a home totally heated by pellets and using three tons of wood pellets per season is expected to be in the vicinity of $750 to $1,000 this winter, she said.

An Attleboro area home using 500 gallons of fuel oil that cost $1,275 to heat last year with fuel at $2.55 per gallon could well cost its owner $2,170 this year at the current average price of $4.34.

Either by hook or by crook, I will not live in a world where I can’t rape its natural resources.

When faced with financial ruin, people will explore any avenue to cut their costs. If this means burning coal, so be it. If this means chopping down a few trees, so be it. If this means filling up their stoves with the eyeballs of puppy dogs, so be it. Sure, the environment is important to people, but do you know what is far more important? Not dying of starvation. And that’s where environmentalism ends with most people. If you’re making money hand over fist, then sure, you don’t mind shelling out a few nickles for the environment. However, if the choice is between steak or giving away hard earned loot to some jackass who wears a jean jacket with a stupid button with an even dumber slogan about the environment on the stupid button, well, the environment can burn to the ground for all the average schmuck cares. I know this to be true, for I am a schmuck like you. Schmuck.

It’s a disco inferno

Guardian (UK): Greens are the enemies of liberty — Environmentalists want to curb our freedom far more than the government’s anti-terrorist laws ever will by Brendan O’Neill

[G]reen thinking — with its shrill intolerance of dissenting views, its deep distaste for free movement and free choice, and its view of individuals, not as history-makers, but as filthy polluters — poses a more profound threat to liberty even than the government’s paranoid anti-terrorist agenda.

Environmentalists are innately hostile to freedom of speech. Last month James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate change scientists, said the CEOs of oil companies should be tried for crimes against humanity and nature. They have been “putting out misinformation”, he said, and “I think that’s a crime”. This follows green writer Mark Lynas’s insistence that there should be “international criminal tribunals” for climate change deniers, who will be “partially but directly responsible for millions of deaths”. They will “have to answer for their crimes”, he says. The American eco-magazine Grist recently published an article on deniers that called for “war crimes trials for these bastards… some sort of climate Nuremberg.”

It is the mark of shrieking authoritarianism to look upon dissenting views not simply as wrong or foolish, but as criminal. Throughout history inquisitors and censors have sought to silence sections of society by labelling their words as “dangerous” and a threat to safety and stability; now environmentalists are doing the same. Their demonisation of sceptics as “deniers” has had a chilling effect on public debate. .

[...]

But perhaps the main way that environmentalism undermines the culture of freedom is by its ceaseless promotion of guilt. In the environmentalist era, we are no longer really free citizens, so much as potential polluters. We are continually told — by government, by commentators, by radical activists – that everything we do, from wearing disposable nappies to using deodorant to allowing ourselves to be cremated, is harmful to our surroundings.

Liberty –- true liberty -– requires that people see themselves as self-respecting, self-determining subjects, capable of making free choices and pursuing the “good life” as they see fit. Today, by contrast, we are warned that we are toxic, loaded, dangerous specimens, who must always restrain our instincts and aspire to austerity. This is not conducive to a culture of liberty; indeed, it represents a dangerous historic shift. . .

[emphasis added]

~ Sisyphus, cross-posted at The Sisyphus Files.