Hockey stick? I’ll give you a hockey stick!!!!!1!
I cannot POSSIBLY be the first to think of this.
November 24, 2009 — 12:03 pm
Comments: 39
Schadenfreude Monday!
It’s a vile day here — wet, wild and windy (though I must say, unseasonably warm) — and I’ve spent the whole of it piled up on the couch reading the leaked emails and datafiles from the University of East Anglia. I love this kind of shitstorm. And the lame-o spin that goes with.
There won’t be a “hey, kids, let’s put on a giant hoax!” message. Not the point. The most scandalous bits are incontrovertible. To wit:
The Warmists are a small, insular crowd. It’s no use saying these were only a few scientists; they’re all on each other’s Rolodexes. The data these guys were pushing underpins mucho research. If that data is sloppy or nonexistent, it discredits a LOT of the science.
They leaned on journalists and editors. There’s not much virtue in “peer reviewed” papers if editors are pressured into or out of reviewing particular scientists.
They broke the law. Destroying information that is the subject of a Freedom of Information request is flat-out illegal. Also, some of the grant money discussion looked a little…fiddly.
They are fucking morons. Seriously. You don’t ever, EVER, EVARRRR put anything into writing that you wouldn’t want to read on the internet. I knew that. Didn’t you?
Journalists (particularly ones mentioned by name) will work hard to keep this information out of the funny papers, and they may succeed. Maybe. But the scientific community will be rocked by this. At the very least, it hamstrings the ability of these particular guys to strongarm editors and dismiss the opposition as beneath notice.
When Copenhagen fizzles, we’re going to see a lot more crude activist tearjerking bullshit like the stupid raining bears ad. Because — robbed of their extra-super-powerful 100% dissent-free global scientific consensus — that’s the best they’ve got.
Follow along at Watt’s Up With That and Climate Audit (among others). And remember, the good stuff is often in the comments.
November 23, 2009 — 4:19 pm
Comments: 28
Rooting for the home team
Apologies to my GLBT readers. I do have gay readers, right? Because if you guys are shunning me, it probably means my blog design reeks.
I went to art school, as you know — the Rhode Island School of Design. Which means I’ve had more gay friends than Marilyn Monroe. Put together.
PAHahaha! I’ve waited thirty years to use that line again.
Anyhow, I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t do it to kids or animals. And I don’t have to watch. And you shut the hell up about it every once in a while, huh?
But it’s time again for Stoaty to launch an appeal to base tribalism and try to move some merchandise up in here. Why, yes! You can get this design on a dark shirt, a light shirt or a couple of different bumperstickers.
The tagline is something a very puzzled young weasel is supposed to have pointed out when her mother tried to explain the concept of homosexuality. Why did Mother explain homosexuality to a six-year-old? Because she was a Thoroughly Modern woman. With some Very Strange friends.
Good weekend, all!
November 20, 2009 — 7:11 pm
Comments: 48
Wherein Stoaty flunks being an American
We’ve got turkey and roast potatoes and hot dinner rolls and candied sweet potatoes and…shit. I was SO SURE Thanksgiving was the THIRD Thursday in November.
Wow.
Huh.
Comes to something when my mother-in-law rings us up to say she’s been watching the telly and she’s pretty sure we’ve got the date wrong. Well, dammit, no limey bluehair’s gonna to tell ME when Thanksgiving is. It’s my favorite holiday, and I’ll celebrate it any day I like.
Anyway, the turkey won’t keep for a week.
What’s that? OF COURSE I passed my written driver’s test! I got 100% of the multiple choice questions and 58 out of a possible 75 points for that supremely pointless ‘hazard perception’ section (44 is passing). Now I have to start prepping for the real test — the one where I actually drive a car. Um…yay?
Afterward, Uncle B took me out for a Big Mac as a special Thanksgiving Day treat. I still lumme some special sauce, so maybe I’m an American after all.
November 19, 2009 — 4:32 pm
Comments: 45
Oh, that witty weasel
One of the fun side effects of marrying a foreigner is that he or she will not have heard the dumbass kid jokes EVERYbody in your home country knows from the age of, like, five. So you get credit for being having an incredibly quick wit. Or, anyhow, you have stuff to talk about. It goes like:
“I’m rubber, you’re glue!”
“What’s this?”
“It bounces off me and sticks to you!”
“Oh, I say, Weasel! How frightfully droll!”
So I got to explain, “do you have Prince Albert in a can?” and his companions, “do you have Prince Edward in a box?” and “do you have Martha White in a bag?” yesterday.
Actually, I never heard those last two. I found them (and the ad on the right) on the appropriate Wikipedia page.
Yep, that’s right. I looked up “do you have Prince Albert in a can?” on Wikipedia. I’m a thoroughly post-modern weasel.
I love the ad, by the way. It typifies the weird mix of respect and disrespect we held for Indians way back when we were allowed to have attitudes about Indians. I remember the expression “to put the Indian sign on” — it was sort of the evil eye — but not “Jimmy” as an adjective. Or “smartweed” for nasty tobacco.
And that’s all you’re getting out of me today. I’ve got a written driving exam tomorrow!
November 18, 2009 — 6:47 pm
Comments: 24
Cross the line? Yes we can!
I used to feel kind of bad, poking fun at The One. But the bigger the dose, the badder the taste. There was this Boston Globe article over the weekend:
“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,’’ he told campaign aides when he was running for the White House. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that . . . I’m a better political director than my political director.’’
Ohhhhh…I really don’t like this man. I knew he was stuck on himself, but I didn’t realize he thought he was Barack Obama Sooper Genius. Maybe his staff isn’t letting him down, after all. Maybe he’s overruling them. With his mind.
Oh, and did you catch Kathleen Parker yesterday, pleading for more civility?
Kathleen, honey, we’ve been yelling obscenities at y’all this whole time. It’s just, now you can hear us.
November 16, 2009 — 9:38 am
Comments: 30
Special Saturday bonus news item…
Ed Morrissey reminds us how the New York Times reacted when Bill Clinton kinda, sorta, not-really bowed to Akihito in 1994. “Unthinkable” they called it. “…the ‘thou need not bow’ commandment from the State Department’s protocol office maintained a constancy of more than 200 years.”
Change we can aggrieve in.
November 14, 2009 — 1:52 pm
Comments: 35
Say, I’m getting really good at this craven attention whoring thing…
Hey peeps, what up? Oh, not much. Friday night. Big storm coming. Well, hey, there is the whole 2009 Weblog Award thing.
I was absolutely floored to discover that my little corner of the webernettertubes, per the Technorati Authority, counts as a Very Large Blog. So I went ahead and nominated myself for that. But if I nominate myself for anything else, I’ll probably go blind.
Yes, my darlings. It’s a hint.
I reckon I could qualify as a humor blog, a conservative blog, or an individual blogger. Oddly, though there is a comic strip category and a photography category, there isn’t an illustration/Photoshop category (not that I’d want to go up against the likes of Worth 1000 or Snapped Shot).
Best design is probably pushing it and Teh Awesomest Blog of Them All is just silly.
Multiple nominations in a single category are not encouraged, but after the initial stampede, hitting the + on a nomination will increase the likelihood it makes it through to the finals. Shoot, you could even uprate some other favorite blogs, if you see one on the list. Oh, and my feed address is https://sweasel.com/feed
And if any of you jokers nominate me for Best LGBT Blog, I’ll find out where you live, come to your home and stitch an AIDS quilt on your lawn.
“You’ll never get anywhere being shy, Stoaty,” my old mother used to say, as she waved her panties high above her head at the incoming fleet.
November 13, 2009 — 4:53 pm
Comments: 17
And you thought OUR lot were pinko stooges
You know, I try to stay out of British politics. I still own property, pay taxes and vote in the States. I got enough to get wadded up about with the politics I know. Plus, nobody likes a bitchy immigrant. But Uncle B sent me this link and I’m just…stonked.
Just after WWII, Harry Pollitt — leader of the Communist Party in Britain — gave a talk at Cambridge and told a bunch of bright young lefties don’t join our party. Join the establishment and work from within. And they did. The Communist Party withered away in Britain, and the USSR issued a postage a stamp and named a battleship after Pollitt when he died. Because he did Communism such a service.
The handwritten diary of the Soviet’s point man in the West turned up in the US Archives and has recently been translated. The man, Anatoly Chernyaev, is still alive and tickled pink that his life’s work is being recognized. It details how close the relationship was between Labour, trade unions and the Soviets. Right from the start (or almost the start — the Labour Party was founded in 1900).
Some of these guys were paid agents of the Soviet Union, actively working with Moscow to bring down Thatcher. Why that hasn’t resulted in charges can only be because most of the old coots are dead. And Labour is still in power.
It’s a long but a fascinating read, if you’re the sort of person who wakes up in a cold sweat dreaming of Antonio Gramsci.
The UK Spectator broke the story, but the only place you can get it for free is the Daily Mail. In the darker phase of my paranoias, I often think They let the embarrassing stories go out in the Mail because it’s such a trashy, low-rent rag.
November 12, 2009 — 8:15 pm
Comments: 20
I guess I never really thought about what the Bomb Squad drives…
Cramming for a test at fifty is like a dream come true. You know — the one where they read your transcripts and find you never REALLY finished Algebra and you have to go back to High School. Oh, and for some reason, you are in Study Hall in your underpants. That dream.
I’ve got the Theory part of my driving test a week from tomorrow. That’s a multiple-choice dealie plus a bogus ‘hazard perception’ test that probably sounded all high-tech and sciencey when it was first proposed in, like, 1995 (you press a wired input device charmingly known as a mouse!).
I’ve got a study DVD Uncle B very kindly gave me for my birfday and I’ve started the long cram. I have to answer fifty from a pool of nine-hundred-something questions, with 80% accuracy. So far, I’ve passed all the simulated tests I’ve taken using common sense, but I certainly haven’t aced any. And some of the questions make me wish there was a default, “no, seriously — WTF?” option.
Pelican crossing, my silky sable ass.
November 11, 2009 — 8:13 pm
Comments: 17