Good news = opportunity for sarcasm

Posted on March 14, 2007 by wellsdc

Here’s some more on the global-warming-as-somehow-anti-Christian front–I consider it good news:

The board of the National Association of Evangelicals has rebuffed leaders of the Christian right who had called for the association to silence or dismiss its Washington policy director because of his involvement in the campaign against global warming.

Prominent Christian conservatives like James C. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, had sent a letter to the association’s leaders this month accusing the policy director, the Rev. Richard Cizik, of “using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time,” which they defined as abortion, homosexuality and teaching children sexual morality and abstinence.

Yes, because as we all know, hordes of gay commandos are at all times massed at the Canadian border, waiting to loose their gay all over everyone, stop all the breeding, and offer fact-based sex ed to the nation’s teenagers (with a catchy techno backbeat). Gay is most commonly transmitted through phlogiston, a little-known fact. Gay also causes hurricanes, tornadoes, and microphone feedback. The Minoan civilization was destroyed by a giant explosion of gay. Thank goodness some people still understand that this is the greatest crisis America now faces.

Say, did anyone notice Baghdad is on fire?

Why is this a religious hot-button issue???

Posted on March 6, 2007 by wellsdc

From the Washington Post:

Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson and other conservative Christian leaders are calling for the National Association of Evangelicals to silence or fire an official who has urged evangelicals to take global warming seriously.

In a letter this week to the board of the NAE, which claims 30 million members, Dobson and his two dozen co-signers said the Rev. Richard Cizik, the NAE’s vice president for government relations, has waged a “relentless campaign” that is “dividing and demoralizing” evangelicals.

Cizik has been a leader in efforts to broaden evangelicals’ political agenda beyond abortion and same-sex marriage. He says Christians have a biblical imperative to protect the environment, which he calls “creation care.”

Is there a Biblical basis for doubting global warming? Is it scientific? (That would raise more questions, potentially.) Is it political? Seriously, I’m curious.

What we can learn from orangutans and tigers

Posted on March 4, 2007 by wellsdc

Sometimes you have to sit back, take a deep breath, and notice what our animal pals can teach us.

From the Associated Press:

A pair of month-old Sumatran tiger twins have become inseparable playmates with a set of young orangutans, an unthinkable match in their natural jungle habitat in Indonesia’s tropical rainforests.

The friendship between 5-month-old female baby primates Nia and Irma, and cubs Dema and Manis, has blossomed at the Taman Safari zoo where they share a room in the nursery.

After being abandoned by their mothers shortly after birth, the four play fight, nipping and teasing each other, and cuddling up for a shared nap when they are worn out.

“This is unusual and would never happen in the wild,” said zoo keeper Sri Suwarni, bottle-feeding a baby chimp on Wednesday. “Like human babies, they only want to play.”

The four have lived side-by-side for a month without a single act of hostility, she said.

Indonesian tigers and orangutans are both endangered species, threatened by rapidly shrinking habitats.

Conservationists estimate there are fewer than 700 Sumatran tigers still alive, while fewer than 60,000 orangutans remain in the wild. Around 90 percent of the jungle has been destroyed by illegal logging, poaching and cut-and-burn farming practices on Borneo and Sumatra islands.

The exceptional friendship will likely be short-lived, said veterinarian Retno Sudarwati, because as the animals grow up their natural survival instincts will kick in.

“When the time comes, they will have to be separated. It’s sad, but we cant’ change their natural behavior,” she said. “Tigers start eating meat when they are three months old.”

Aside from the part where the tigers might eat the orangutans, that is one of the cutest things I’ve seen in some time.

The Swift Boating of Al Gore

Posted on February 26, 2007 by wellsdc

Say what you will about Al Gore, but he made a good movie and he doesn’t deserve this:

Last night, Al Gore got very favorable national press and worldwide television exposure.

This afternoon, a group calling itself “The Tennessee Center For Policy Research” sent out a press release denouncing Vice President Gore for the size of his household electrical bills.

Apparently the attempt at a smear has spread throughout much of the internet already–heck, it’s been nearly 24 hours since the awards show. The question is, will they get away with it this time? I have long been of the opinion that Al Gore was too freakin’ polite for much of the 2000 campaign, but I am conflicted about the best way to deal with it long-term. Maybe progressives need a shadowy corps of smear artists to go head to head with Fox News and its ilk. There are two principal problems with that idea, though: (1) most progressives have too much integrity/self respect/human decency to routinely engage in the lying/twisting/manipulating of basic common sense and reality so common in their opponents, and (2) progressives may be too darned independent-minded to take the kind of marching orders that would be necessary for this sort of plan. This is not the kind of problem that will go away if you ignore it (it would if everyone ignored them, but that ain’t gonna happen.)

So I am calling on all intelligent independent-minded people to resist all these b.s. attempts to deflect attention away from what people like Al Gore say and towards misleading innuendoes about who they are. See, there probably aren’t very many actual counter-arguments, so the goal is to distract attention from that fact. I’m still trying to get my head around the arguments of those who doubt global warming–highlights seem to include that liberals hate America and that science can be determined democratically if enough people simply refuse to believe something (I choose to reject Avogadro’s number. I’ll get back to you on how that works out.)

Don’t just ignore this, though. It may not be worth dignifying with a response, but silence is really no longer golden.

Sigh.