Reflections From a Murky Pond

As I’ve commented before, if one has a message that is in protest against someone or something, one should be cognizant of the imagery one uses. It does little or no good for one’s cause if the imagery you use to get attention actually provides a “positive” image of what you’re protesting.

Such was largely the case with the Surfrider Foundation’s 2011 “Oil Bikini” calendar.

Sorry, as much as I love the oceans and take issue with the wanton destruction of our maritime environment, this calendar is just not making me angry about the Gulf Oil Spill. If anything, the thought of pretty young women wearing nothing but oil strikes me as a “golden lining” in the situation, at least at the hindbrain level.

From Surfrider’s earlier Press release:

Last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico left a deep impression in people’s minds. To remember this catastrophe, we have a created a calendar with photos of young naiads covered in oil…This calendar, which will be offered to all members of Surfrider Foundation Europe, is also designed to help recruit new volunteers

By way of mitigation, the calendar was marketed as stress relief to current members of the organization; it wasn’t designed as a public push campaign. On the other hand, as proven by my posting of this, everything goes onto the internet and parts of it will stay there long after any thought of context has faded away.

It’s not my normal practice to lampoon the words and/or actions of those few people trying their damnedest to stave off the dissolution of America and to protect its beleaguered economy from further rape by America’s domestic enemies, nor is it in my nature to use their words as a basis for puns. Some things, however, are just too good to pass up.

A bit of humor, even a pun, is good though, lest we take ourselves, rather than our cause, too seriously. And besides, how often does anyone get the chance to see a whale shark being hand fed?

In the past decade huge advances have been made in the field of transgenic research, the study of transferring genes from one species to another. What was once limited to a small number of crops has expanded out into a broad spectrum of animals as well.

Transgenic Marmoset Expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP)

To date the highest order of animal that scientists will admit to having genetically modified by the inclusion of completely foreign genetic material is the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus).  The marmoset is a primate though and the changes they’ve made since 2009 have been genetically stable so there’s little in the way of technological hurdles left for them.

This, without even considering its use on humans, opens the door to some “interesting” possibilities. 😉

Transgenesis 1:24 ( New Atheists Bible )

I’m approaching this with a little humor, and not all of it ill-natured, because there is a definite potential benefit from creating transgenic organisms. Even the “sports,” which history tells us will be some of the first commercial applications, have the possibility of bringing people a lot of wonder and joy.

There’s, however, just so very much that could go wrong because scientists often ask, “Can we…” but rarely ask, “Should we…” and we really know very little about the interactions between genes or how transgenic creatures would affect the biosphere as whole.

I’m not even going to go into the nightmares this will cause when, not if, we start doing it with humans. Too many of the scenarios that instantly come to my mind are too deplorable and too plausible.

Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations’ eighth and current Secretary-General has more than a bit of a problem. The UN, far from being a respected and august international body, is rightfully lambasted and lampooned by all citizens of the Civilized World’s nations who actually love their respective countries.

Mr. Moon thought he had a fix though.

If the truth of matters cannot win the hearts and minds of the citizens of the nations upon which the UN feeds like parasite, the only solution is to alter their thinking. Much like a circus ringmaster, Mr. Moon sought to send in the clowns.

Isn’t it rich?
Isn’t it queer?
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don’t bother – they’re here.

The only problem for Mr. Moon and the failing UN is that the clowns in Hollywood apparently demurred.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon took time off from the skirmishes in Libya and other bothers to fight the real threats facing the planet – those coming from the global warming deniers who have thwarted the UN plans for Kyoto II.

“I need your support,” he admitted last week in a pitch to 400 Hollywood movers and shakers in a day-long forum that played up the doom and gloom message — floods, fires and drought – that only Hollywood can sell to a skeptical public.

“Animate these stories!” Ban urged. “Set them to music! Give them life! Together we can have a blockbuster impact on the world.”

The Hollywood crowd, subjected to a day filled with panels with titles like “Making Global Warming a HOT Issue,” seemed sceptical itself. A vice president from Walt Disney, unimpressed by the UN’s two-decades long effort to market climate change to the public, said that it “feels like an early step,” asking “How do you make it marketable, palatable and engaging without preaching?” Another executive noted “the best messaging on climate change by far is by the deniers.”

Ban remains hopeful that he can swing Hollywood his way: “You have power and influence to send to millions and billions of people around world,” he said, adding “Some believe we have 2 or 3 planets, but we don’t. This is the planet we have to preserve and hand to future generations.”

Ban’s visit to Hollywood was part of the UN’s Creative Community Outreach Initiative, a major marketing effort starring himself that counts among its successes its role in the movies, The Interpreter and Che.

When Ban Ki-Moon and the UN can’t even impress Hollywood, which has been pandering to Liberals, Progressives, and any and all Leftist causes they could find, it says a lot about the the utter lack of worth of either the UN’s agenda, their capabilities and integrity, or both.

Even the clowns in suits running the Hollywood studios need any such arrangements between themselves and the United Nations to return value for value and they understand that the UN can’t or won’t do that.

Aristotle’s postulate, “The whole is greater from the sum of its parts” has become an axiom over the intervening 23 centuries since Aristotle wrote the various treatises that would later be compiled into the world’s first seminal work of philosophy, Metaphysics.

Of course “greater” means “larger”,  “more powerful” , or of “greater effect” as opposed to “better.” In the modern age nowhere is this more glaringly apparent than in the Warmists’ theories of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW).

The original for the images above can be found at Bishop Hill.

Firstly, the whole of the Warmists’ theories are greater than the sum of their parts. Poor data, small errors, and malfeasance early in the modeling process all combined synergistically  to create either a mistake or a fraud far more potent and “great” than any of it’s individual parts would normally be capable of.

Secondly, climate is, like all systems, far more and greater than the sum of its parts – and the Warmists won’t even deign to look at all – or even most – of those parts. 😉

Fortunately, like all poorly crafted constructs fabricated from substandard components, the Warmists’ hypotheses and theories have collapsed under the weight of public scrutiny.