Last year, an anxious, depressed 17-year-old boy was admitted to the psychiatric unit at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. He was refusing to drink water. Worried about drought related to climate change, the young man was convinced that if he drank, millions of people would die. The Australian doctors wrote the case up as the first known instance of "climate change delusion."
Robert Salo, the psychiatrist who runs the inpatient unit where the boy was treated, has now seen several more patients with psychosis or anxiety disorders focused on climate change, as well as children who are having nightmares about global-warming-related natural disasters.
Now c'mon. That really wasn't the FIRST KNOWN CASE of climate change delusion!
More accurately, it might have been the *billion and first* known case.
It's a good thing I didn't attend my wife's holiday work party with the senior executives. She got seated next to the BIG BOSS's wife who proceeded to lecture everyone about the perils of "global warming". When I say "lecture" I mean it. She interrogated everyone on how they commuted to work. My wife won momentary plaudits for taking the commuter train into town. Yet uncomfortable with those laurels Mrs. C-Nut proudly declared that she owned a Chevy Suburban. I guess it was analogous to when Cubs fans throw opposing teams' homerun balls back onto the field.
Well anyway, all I wanted to point out was that this high level executive and his flaky wife also had a school-age child who apparently couldn't sleep at night - for fear of *global warming*.
It's just a little too "socialist" for me to wish everyone a Happy New Year.
Alright I am back from a blogging vacation. Worry not, my mind has been working overtime and it's ready to dispense morsels of wisdom to my starving flock.
I strongly considered making a break from Marginalizing by dedicating January exclusively to positivity - perhaps titling a blog series - "January Geniuses", rife with bull financial arguments, chi management techniques, hagiographies of great minds, and a strict avoidance of all things negative.
But has Greg Mankiw and Co. really earned a month off?
I think not. Instead I will just resolve to be slightly more positive throughout 2007.
A few comments on the end of the "inclusive" holiday season.
Did you know that Hanukkah is only a notable Jewish holiday in the United States?
Do you even know anyone that celebrates Kwanzaa? It's a completely fabricated holiday not unlike Festivus - both of which were conceived in the narcotically imbued sixties.
Kwanzaa was dreamt up by a NutJob named Ron Karenga in 1966. How exactly can a Californian create a "Pan-African" holiday? The guy talks out of both sides of his mouth - or should I more eloquently state that he flatulates at both ends. From that Wikipedia link above,
He later stated, "...it was chosen to give a Black alternative to the existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society."
In 1967, a year after Karenga proposed this new holiday, he publicly espoused the view that "Jesus was psychotic" and that Christianity was a white religion that blacks should shun.[5] However, as Kwanzaa gained mainstream adherents, Karenga altered his position so as not to alienate practicing Christians, then stating in the 1997 Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community, and Culture, "Kwanzaa was not created to give people an alternative to their own religion or religious holiday."
Nine years after Kwanzaa was invented, Dr. Karenga further moderated his views and became a Marxist.
Haha. California and Cambridge...the only two places where "moderates" are called Marxists.
Maybe I'll invent a holiday for the goyim to rival Yom Kippur - I feel particularly left out when that celebration comes around. Or maybe I'll start an all-white pro-basketball league. If you don't think there's a market for that then you don't know too many old white men!
I have already articulated my disgust for sharing. Remember multiculturalism is an ugly step child of socialism. Every person, every lifestyle, and every culture has to be equal in order to unite the proletariat. The children's shows on television are littered this time of year with seasonally flavored propaganda for the docile brats. The term "Christmas" is only uttered on the classic shows like "A Charlie Brown Christmas"; otherwise they use fashionable euphemisms like "holiday sharing party". I must have heard it fifty times on the Sprout Channel last month.
What does "sharing" have to do with Christmas? There may be a mutual exchange of gifts but that's not really "sharing". The next thing you know, these little kids will grow up thinking there's nothing wrong with compulsory sharing, i.e. confiscating the hard earned property of others...
Last night I turned on the television and the Sprout hostess was teaching kids to say "holiday" in sign language - what an absolute joke.
Now I am 32 years old and have never needed to use sign language beyond the universal middle digit expression, but nowadays, it's quite in vogue within certain circles to teach your toddler signing. Supposedly it aids "communication frustration". I recently met a young lady who actually taught at a school for the deaf. I asked her about these fruity parents that hire people to teach their kids sign language (ones that have no hearing problems whatsoever) and she turned red-faced with ire and declared the parents "total f*cking *ssholes".
Who could possibly complain about "global warming"?
I could see if a warm climate was getting unbearably hot, perhaps local denizens might get miffed by "human induced climate change". But in cold climes like Massachusetts, only Über-Morons could logically be upset at this year's heretofore mild winter.
It's a good thing I didn't attend my wife's holiday work party with the senior executives. She got seated next to the BIG BOSS's wife who proceeded to lecture everyone about the perils of "global warming". When I say "lecture" I mean it. She interrogated everyone on how they commuted to work. My wife won momentary plaudits for taking the commuter train into town. Yet uncomfortable with those laurels Mrs. C-Nut proudly declared that she owned a Chevy Suburban. I guess it was analogous to when Cubs fans throw opposing teams' homerun balls back onto the field.
Devil's Advocate - Well, what would you have said if you were there?
I would first raise my hand and loudly ask if anyone wanted to change seats with me.
Seriously, I hope I would have said nothing. My wife's boss controls too much of her income to risk offending him or his flaky wife. Self-interest trumps all.
Below is another timeless lesson on spousal dinner party etiquette. (Attention Morons and Luddites, you need to click, perhaps twice, on these images to make the videos play. They are not just weird pictures with a mysterious play button plastered on them.)
From personal experience I can assure you that husbands can be just as, if not more, embarrassing to their wives. Please, find my male chauvinism on other subjects.
Unencumbered, I would have told the clueless woman that "global warming" is nothing but a trendy climate theory and that she was both tragically uninformed and mortally brainwashed.
Lemma - It's a waste of time to reason with at least 90% of Morons.
Sadly, that is the conclusion I have come to over the last few years. Whether Moronic by nature or by conditioning, I have discovered that most dummies are incorrigible. My favorite tack to take with Morons is one of hectoring mockery. For whatever reason, popular learning curves flatten very early in life (age 25?) and enter a slow descent there on in. Bad ideas find easy burrowing in most adult minds, providing Captious bloggers with a target-rich environment.
How often do you hear someone say, "Well, I am not qualified to comment on that" or "I am not very fluent in that subject"???
Never, right?
While Michelangelo famously declared, I Am Still Learning, the apropos description of our times is Stuck On Stupid.
I am fully immersed in Michelangelo's mantra. Sure my learning curve was range-bound throughout my single years whilst I chased dollars, wine, women, and song; a fact that deeply pains me to think about. I certainly could have done all that but read a book or two along the way. But less than two years ago my brain was reborn, and I owe it all to this blog. I have said it before, and I'll say it again and again - I have learned more in the last two years of my life from the research, auto-didacticism, and composition of Marginalizing Morons than I have in the preceding three decades of my life.
Now back to that rich executive's Idiotic wife. Of course she lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts - the tony bastion of "conservatism and capitalism". Remember, the town doesn't even sell liquor and has "Transgendered Awareness" Day at its high school. Its reputation laughably proves the maxim that everything is relative. Anyway, this dummy has an 8 year old child in the Wellesley government school system who is "petrified of global warming". Can you say brainwashing? Or child abuse?
I remember being in the third grade (1982-83) and my teacher informed the class that Russia had a nuclear missile aimed at our city (Worcester). That was kind of scary and probably not something a teacher should be frightening kids with so glibly. But that was most likely true, in contradistinction to "global warming" mythology.
It's always risky getting pulled into "global warming" debates - you know, never argue with a fool because others may not know the difference.
To the Enviro-Evangelicals, owning a Honda Accord is always more virtuous than owning an Earth-scorching SUV. It simply doesn't matter if the Accord is driven 100,000 miles per year and the SUV sits idly in a garage. When small-brained folk scoff at my SUVs I fire back that I work from home and hardly drive at all (less than 10k miles per year). I demand to know how many miles they drive each year. Logical probing is feckless, they'll invariably exclaim, "So what, you COULD buy a minivan!"
Well, they COULD ride a bicycle to work. They COULD telecommute. They COULD turn their heat off completely and bundle up.
IF and COULD, two bywords of childish Morons, comically divorced from the reality-based world.
The woman in Wellesley...Despite her fear of the impending apocalypse, she has a couple of SUVs and feels extremely guilty about it. Perhaps in addition to shaming others into energy conservation she also offsets her carbon emissions?
Devil's Advocate - At least she cares...
Here we go again, drunk and stumbling down the steps of Conjecture Tavern. The next talking point will likely be, "Global Warming may not be happening, but we just can't take the risk...." - believe me, I have heard these arguments so often, I can predict not only the incoming talking points to a T, but also the order they get regurgitated. When did "smart" devolve into "robotically predictable"?
We can't take the risk of being wrong? Yep, the Enviro-Fanatics have co-opted Pascal's Wager.
Certainly, catastrophic risk is the most disastrous kind!!! What type of irresponsible person wouldn't be concerned about the end of Earth? Note at this nadir of the debate, the sly substitute of fear for logic, real science, and evidence. Mingled with the legerdemain is the fascist demand to avow your love of humanity and Mother Nature. This is why some of my favorite curveballs to throw "global warming" NutJobs are:
1) I bleepin' hate the environment! 2) Earth is my least favorite planet! 3) Mother Nature is a wench!!!
The fools just don't know how to respond. Guilt is puddy in their hands; so blunt the weapon.
As much as I'd like to get away from this subject I simply can not. It's the nexus of the Moron universe. As a propaganda buff, I ceaselessly marvel at the radius of "global warming" alarmism.
I just googled "george bush" and got 8.2 million search results.
While googling "global warming" currently yields 24.7 million search results.
So the most powerful man on the planet has merely a third as many search results...
Every time I come across a ridiculous "global warming" news story I dump it into a special folder for future reference. At my current rate of accumulation, I may soon have to buy an external hard drive to warehouse all of the inanity.
It takes more than just constitutional fortitude for normal people to stand up to such pervasive and sophisticated propaganda. Not only do they have to study the talking points and research the counter-arguments, they have to indulge inanity and defend the size of their cars, profess love for the Earth, proclaim themselves fearless of catastrophe, and bear the stigma inherent in tackling groupthink. If adults aren't up to this task, it's near impossible for eight-year-olds to resist the brainwashing - especially those kids of Moronic parents. Eric Hoffer has the pertinent quote,
We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.
"Global Warming" isn't just the shibboleth of a harmless evangelical cult; there are real casualties beyond frazzled 8 year-old boys and neutered "holiday" parties. But that's a subject for a later date.
Moving on.
First Night is the 30 year-old New Year's Eve celebration in Boston. Read its ridiculous Mission Statement:
Mission Statement: To reveal and celebrate diversity through the First Night celebration and the First Night Neighborhood Network, using art as a catalyst to unify the community through creativity, imagination and participation.
Even more asinine than that is that First Night is a complete misnomer. Since it's celebrated on December 31st, First Night should really be called "Last Night".
Devil's Advocate - Well it does turn to January 1st at midnight...
Well then it should be called "First Morning"!
I met a woman in Brooklyn last week who is a Boston émigré and an interesting entrepreneur in her own right. She organizes closets for evil rich people in Manhattan. She isn't designing them; she goes in and sorts sweaters and shoes, by season and color; she alphabetizes outfits by brand and whatnot and charges an insane hourly wage. Anyway, in talking to her, the subject of Boston came up. She shook her head and gave the most succinct and accurate description I have heard yet.
She said, "Those people up there are BACKWARD".
Yes, indeed they are.
Forget Seinfeld and Superman, Massachusetts is the Bizarro World. While Bostonians fancy themselves the smartest people on the OverheatedEarth, they are in fact among the dumbest. Bet your bottom dollar that one hundred years from now, Boston will still have Puritanical liquor laws and still be celebrating First Night on the last one of the year. Just recently I have endured countless "global warming" lectures, but never once in my life has someone told me I was going to hell for my sins. And remember I went to a Catholic high school (albeit a Jesuit one).
If you want to find a backwards, in-your-face evangelical, then blindfold yourself and throw a dart in Massachusetts.
