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ICE IS COLD

Some intros write themselves:

A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite.

Generally, stories that begin this entertainingly tend to quickly diminish in subsequent paragraphs. Here, however, the fun – unlike certain frozen explorers – never quits:

The explorers, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, on Saturday called off what was intended to be a 530-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment …

Then there was the cold - quite a bit colder, [organiser Ann] Atwood said, than Bancroft and Arnesen had expected.

They went to the North Pole … and they were surprised by the cold. Well, who can blame them, what with all this warming talk? Maybe they’ll sue Al Gore.

"My first reaction when they called to say there were calling it off was that they just sounded really, really cold,” Atwood said.

They. Were. In. The. Arctic.

Atwood said there was some irony that a trip to call attention to global warming was scuttled in part by extreme cold temperatures.

You don’t say. And now, a punchline of such sublime delusion it’s impossible to imagine it being said with a straight face:

"They were experiencing temperatures that weren’t expected with global warming,” Atwood said. “But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability."

(Via many readers and commenters, all of whom would have enough sense to predict coldness upon visiting Arctic areas)

Posted by Tim B. on 03/13/2007 at 02:42 AM
  1. Who are they going to sue?
    Santa?

    Posted by Honkie Hammer on 2007 03 13 at 02:56 AM • permalink

  2. ::This:: close to Darwin Award territory. Damn.

    and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment …

    I imagine the first to go was the Irony Meter . . .

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 03 13 at 03:02 AM • permalink

  3. “But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability."

    So now they’ve got themselves a catch-all.  Even the Gore Effect can be explained as a phenomenon of Gloibal Worming using the catch-all of unpredictability.

    Well, maybe it’s not so unpredictable after all.

    Posted by Mark V. on 2007 03 13 at 03:02 AM • permalink

  4. Now we know the people for whom all those stupid warning labels are written for.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 03:04 AM • permalink

  5. Ann Bancroft?  Wasn’t she married to Mel Brooks?

    Posted by Olrence on 2007 03 13 at 03:13 AM • permalink

  6. I think we should sponsor more of these people to go up there. Those polar bears need to eat.

    Posted by Jim Treacher on 2007 03 13 at 03:22 AM • permalink

  7. Ann Bancroft?  Wasn’t she married to Mel Brooks?

    Not that one: Mrs Mel Brooks, Anne (with an “e") Bancroft passed away in June of 2005.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 03 13 at 03:36 AM • permalink

  8. Meanwhile back at the computer workstation, Bullwinkle was busy trying work out why the arctic was so warm on his computer model

    Posted by Louis on 2007 03 13 at 03:37 AM • permalink

  9. #3 ‘Unpredictability” is to ecoreligion as ‘free will’ is to Christianity.  It’s that little hook on which to hang the inconsistent, and that only makes real sense to believers.

    Posted by romeo on 2007 03 13 at 03:47 AM • permalink

  10. #9 That is good romeo.  I put that alongside the remark that reducing one’s carbon footprint (or whatever) is the eco-equivalent of a Christian’s crossing himself: we know it makes no difference but we do it to demonstrate our piety

    Posted by rexie on 2007 03 13 at 03:54 AM • permalink

  11. Apparently it also snows in Aspen. LINK

    Posted by Kami on 2007 03 13 at 03:57 AM • permalink

  12. and the sahara is hot.  who knew?

    Posted by KK on 2007 03 13 at 04:01 AM • permalink

  13. The really unpredictable thing about global warming might be that it slows, then stops, then becomes global cooling. But since I predicted it ....

    Posted by blogstrop on 2007 03 13 at 04:05 AM • permalink

  14. Global Warming might even get so unpredictable, we’ll see some actual warming.

    Posted by Dminor on 2007 03 13 at 04:30 AM • permalink

  15. I can’t wait for the followup August trip to Death Valley.  It’ll probably flood.

    Posted by Hucbald on 2007 03 13 at 04:37 AM • permalink

  16. I’m most impressed that these brave explorers suckered a global warming funds committee into sending them on a really expensive vacation, about which they obviously knew nothing. I think that we should ask this same committee to buy us Grand Final tickets to examine the effect of the hot air from the Channel 7 announcers booth on global warming.

    Posted by AusDoug on 2007 03 13 at 04:39 AM • permalink

  17. Does anyone know what has happened to Paco- is he trapped in the North Pole whilst ivestigating Gorbal warmongering? or has hungry Polar bear got him-I’m getting anxious

    Posted by Hillyminx on 2007 03 13 at 04:45 AM • permalink

  18. AusDoug - or to see if any hurricanes will develop in off-hurricane season around the Carribean. Preferably now, during World Cup Cricket.

    Or another Artic expedition, scuttled by vague engine problems close to Rome or Vienna.

    Posted by Dminor on 2007 03 13 at 04:45 AM • permalink

  19. I want an arts grant,these twats would make a great musical.

    Posted by sparrow on 2007 03 13 at 04:48 AM • permalink

  20. At least Tara Brown knew it would be cold - what she didn’t know was that polar bears are carnivorous and like to eat people.

    Posted by CO² max on 2007 03 13 at 04:51 AM • permalink

  21. It’s a shame she lost three toes to frostbite caused by Global Warming. 
    But on a positive note, her carbon footprint just got a size smaller.

    (Well, one of them, at any rate.)

    Posted by Copious Maximus on 2007 03 13 at 04:53 AM • permalink

  22. Reminds me of when i was stuck in the Outback running Backpacker tours by floods.

    Euros...Raining,why is it raining

    Me… Um,look you might have trouble um understanding this but it um it rains in this country too,Crazy concept i know.

    Euros....This is not good,your country should be sunny,We want to know whats going on.

    Me...Um have rang god and i am expecting a fax from my arse shortly.

    Posted by sparrow on 2007 03 13 at 05:00 AM • permalink

  23. What do you expect when you are dumb enough to book your summer Arctic holiday through Club Moonbat? This travel agency has gotta be backed by a sinister cabal of hungry polar bears…

    Posted by EliotNess on 2007 03 13 at 05:01 AM • permalink

  24. C-A-N’-T *gasp gasp* S-T-O-P * gasp gasp* L-A-U-G-H-I-N-G!!!!!

    Oh! The humanity stupidity!

    #7 Spiny Norman, I think this is the same Ann Bancroft. Somehow I find it easy to forgive such idiocy when the person is dead.

    Posted by Texas Bob on 2007 03 13 at 05:07 AM • permalink

  25. The 7.30 report did another climate change extended interview tonight. Who did this fearless and unbiassed delver behind the headlines interview?
    James Hansen, who is guaranteed to go down the line of waves lapping at your penthouse doorstep.
    Are we just rabid anti-ABC bashers, or do they just keep inviting it by their actions?
    I confess I went away and ate dinner after that, and there is a chance that they had a contrary view on ... but I think not.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2007 03 13 at 05:10 AM • permalink

  26. “But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability.”
    Except being able to predict the screaming remnants of civilisation, plagued with malaria, crammed on the rooftops of penthouses, whilst the bloated corpses of drowned polar bears lap at their flood wrinkled toes will happen on the 17th of March 2034.

    Posted by lotocoti on 2007 03 13 at 05:16 AM • permalink

  27. #19 - A Great Musical! Think of the songs:
    When I Marry Mr Snow
    Snow Enchanted Evening
    Don’t Cry For Me, Arnesen & Tina
    I Feel Brittle
    Coldfinger
    The Oil Man & The Inouit Should Be Friends
    Dog Sled With The Fridge On Top
    I’m Just A Girl Who Can’t Say Go.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2007 03 13 at 05:21 AM • permalink

  28. I’m surprised they didn’t try to sail to the North pole.. what with all the melting icecaps and such.

    Posted by duncanm on 2007 03 13 at 05:29 AM • permalink

  29. O/T

    Nice flags fuckhead!

    Posted by CO² max on 2007 03 13 at 05:40 AM • permalink

  30. #25 blogstrop, they did a piece on redneck resistance to coastal development in Tassie but it was introduced with a “despite the threat of global warming...” And of course it had a lefty hook - the developers were gay.

    Posted by anthony_r on 2007 03 13 at 05:50 AM • permalink

  31. Glowball Warmening isn’t “unpredictable”; it’s vengeful.

    Posted by anthony_r on 2007 03 13 at 05:54 AM • permalink

  32. But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability.

    So, by their own admission, it’s not a scientific theory at all.  One of the traits of a scientific theory is that it is predictive.

    Posted by murph on 2007 03 13 at 06:13 AM • permalink

  33. #29 oh great - another demonstration that braxtopia gets its priorities from somewhere totally beyond the ken of the citizenry.  possibly the twilight zone

    Posted by KK on 2007 03 13 at 06:20 AM • permalink

  34. #25 I thought red kezza would have licked him if it was live in the studio.  What a sycophant, and as rebase noted, the lead in to the penguin rednecks bothering harmless developers.......
    I was wondering why the ABC was a) even interested in something provincial-but not Byron Bay; and b) taking the side of the developers (it was so out of character) until I realised there was a bit of poofter bashing (in a figurative, not literal sense) involved. 

    Suddenly the world made sense again.

    Posted by entropy on 2007 03 13 at 06:26 AM • permalink

  35. I checked three times to make sure there was no mistake. These guys tried to go to the North Pole in March.

    These are the guys from the “reality based” community?

    I was watching Spike TV and there was a show called “When Animals Attack”. The story was about some ‘scientists’, who were obviously hippies, who went to Alaska to study the effects of Climate Change on glaciers. Well needless to say, one of them was attacked by a grizzly bear. The were smart enough to “be equipped” with guns, and they managed to kill the bear before Darwin could claim his prize, but then they said that the bear was “autopsied”, you know, to determine why it would attack a human. You will never guess what the autopsy determined… That’s right, “climate change”.

    I think we got the Raw Footage of that Sixty Minutes polar bear attack, BTW. By the way, no liberals were harmed in the video.

    Posted by moptop on 2007 03 13 at 06:28 AM • permalink

  36. #30 Yes Rebase, the ABC have finally found some property developers they can like.

    Posted by cuckoo on 2007 03 13 at 06:29 AM • permalink

  37. Have a look at Foreign Correspondent on ABC now. Enviro refugees everywhere.

    Posted by CO² max on 2007 03 13 at 06:42 AM • permalink

  38. But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability, and this makes it almost impossible for the world’s leading scientists to predict global warming. Er.. wait, this can’t be right… [head explodes]

    Posted by Skeptimus on 2007 03 13 at 06:45 AM • permalink

  39. #32 - “But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability."

    Predictability may well be a necessity of a theory; at least it was up until global warming theories were first theorised.

    I think there’s a deeper question to be asked. If it’s unpredictable then...why don’t we just replace climate models with random number algorithms and save ourselves hundreds of millions of dollars? Money that could be spent, I’d like to point out, on having a huge-arse party to celebrate how ‘ken smart we are and that we’re doomed anyway, or maybe not, but who cares coz we’re having a party.

    Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 03 13 at 06:50 AM • permalink

  40. This had me howling with laughter at my desk. We surely, positively, absolutely witnessed a world first: woman takes trip, takes only one pair of shoes in her baggage. A TRIP TO THE NORTH POLE AND THEY ONLY TAKE ONE PAIR OF SHOES!!! Gods of Comedy, thank you!

    Posted by valachus on 2007 03 13 at 06:51 AM • permalink

  41. It’s a matter of the protective power of faith.  If she really believed in global warming, she wouldn’t have gotten frostbite.  It’s like walking on hot coals and not getting burned, in how it operates.

    Curiously, though, the hot coal walkers do not claim the coals aren’t hot, and go on about coal-cooling.  Instead, they go on about faith.

    Today of course they need carbon offsets as well as faith.

    Posted by rhhardin on 2007 03 13 at 07:00 AM • permalink

  42. Foreign Correspondent tonight:

    The Carteret Islands near New Guinea are sinking. No, no, that’s not right - the sea is rising. This will be the first inhabited atoll to be completely swallowed by the sea. The two thousand native people on the Island the size of a couple of football fields all know what’s causing this. Global warming!

    Global warming? How the fuck do they know this? Tribal legend? It must be something because as the reporter says gravely not even one scientist has been here to study this catastrophe. The ungrateful bastards. Have they no shame?

    Posted by CO² max on 2007 03 13 at 07:03 AM • permalink

  43. But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability.

    Because the weather was always calm, clear and 25 degrees every day before we upset Gaia with our nasty emissions.

    Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 03 13 at 07:11 AM • permalink

  44. Except being able to predict the screaming remnants of civilisation, plagued with malaria, crammed on the rooftops of penthouses, whilst the bloated corpses of drowned polar bears lap at their flood wrinkled toes will happen on the 17th of March 2034.

    Can’t be the right date. The zombies are gonna rise in 2046. March 31st. 3:04pm.

    Or something like that.

    Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 03 13 at 07:20 AM • permalink

  45. You will never guess what the autopsy determined… That’s right, “climate change”.

    Coming soon, to an episode of CSI…

    (Seriously, just how does one test for “global warming” during an autopsy?)

    Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 03 13 at 07:23 AM • permalink

  46. #45

    Let’s see, from memory it’s something to do with a thermometer and a fundamental orifice.

    Posted by CO² max on 2007 03 13 at 07:30 AM • permalink

  47. Lefty logic:

    We also didn’t see any polar bears, ipso facto, they are diminishing due to global warming.

    Posted by Nic on 2007 03 13 at 07:42 AM • permalink

  48. #40

    Er, I have been on bivouac and annual camp and only taken one pair of shoes - my boots.

    Posted by kae on 2007 03 13 at 07:45 AM • permalink

  49. #48 obviously nothing like Ms Bancroft’s manilos

    Posted by entropy on 2007 03 13 at 07:57 AM • permalink

  50. #5: I immediately thought of the immortal line: “Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson?”

    So, let’s if we have this straight: bring attention to global warming by going to the coldest place on earth during winter. Riiiiiight. You know this is an evil trick by Big Oil to make fun of the global warmongers.

    Posted by Tommy Shanks on 2007 03 13 at 08:13 AM • permalink

  51. News flash, this just in......

    Bears shit in the woods.....

    Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 03 13 at 08:47 AM • permalink

  52. They probably had to abandon their sunscreen and scuba gear, too. What a waste.

    Posted by ErnieG on 2007 03 13 at 08:48 AM • permalink

  53. I thought the stupider thing about the “autopsy” was that they were trying to determine why a grizzly bear would try to eat a human.

    Posted by moptop on 2007 03 13 at 08:52 AM • permalink

  54. (Seriously, just how does one test for “global warming” during an autopsy?)

    #45

    Let’s see, from memory it’s something to do with a thermometer and a fundamental orifice.

    Global? I dunno, that sounds pretty local to me.

    Posted by ErnieG on 2007 03 13 at 08:53 AM • permalink

  55. OMG! After posting my snarky comment about scuba gear, I went back and read the news item. To demonstrate that the ice is melting and we’re all gonna die, they were actually planning to don wet suits and go swimming.

    These people are dumber than a Yugo full of anvils.

    Posted by ErnieG on 2007 03 13 at 09:05 AM • permalink

  56. That’s odd, she was probably using a hockey stick for a thermometer.

    Posted by moptop on 2007 03 13 at 09:05 AM • permalink

  57. ”...one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability."

    So gloomy warbling is unpredictable, you say? So that would make it like that other thing ... what’s it called again ... oh yeah - the F***ING WEATHER!

    Assclowns.

    Posted by Don Charleone on 2007 03 13 at 09:06 AM • permalink

  58. #44
    The zombies are gonna rise in 2046. March 31st. 3:04pm.
    Sounds like someone is in the pay of big crematoria.

    Posted by lotocoti on 2007 03 13 at 09:09 AM • permalink

  59. They didn’t by chance bring Fat Albert with them, did they? Or maybe a copy of his stupid movie? That might be enough to trigger antiwarmening.

    Posted by SoberHT on 2007 03 13 at 09:11 AM • permalink

  60. I couldn’t read the whole thing, out of embarrassment for them. I did see the part about the wet suit, and I noticed that in one of the pictures, they were using a small inflatable boat for a sled. Are we really sure that this is not a story planted by Paco? Who outfitted them anyway?

    Posted by moptop on 2007 03 13 at 09:11 AM • permalink

  61. They should have listened to the imortal words of Carol King.

    Snow is cold
    Rain is wet
    Chills my soul to the marrow.
    Posted by moptop on 2007 03 13 at 09:21 AM • permalink

  62. "Can’t be the right date. The zombies are gonna rise in 2046. March 31st. 3:04pm.”

    Rob, where is Bishop Ussher when we really need him?

    Posted by Urbs in Horto on 2007 03 13 at 09:23 AM • permalink

  63. I’m off to the Caribbean next week, Should I pack a ski mask?  What with all this unpredictability I am confused

    Posted by owls001 on 2007 03 13 at 09:26 AM • permalink

  64. Fair dinkum, I was just reading the BBC “Have your say” section.  Some idiot was seriously asked the following rhetorical question:

    Can you explain why Venus is so hot, if not by CO2 and SO2?

    For God’s fucking sakes!

    Posted by murph on 2007 03 13 at 09:34 AM • permalink

  65. asked = asking

    PIMF!!!

    Posted by murph on 2007 03 13 at 09:36 AM • permalink

  66. Part of the reason they were so lightly equipped, I am sure, was their certain knowledge that polar bear numbers have dropped to near zero.

    BTW #58, that was funny.

    Posted by moptop on 2007 03 13 at 09:40 AM • permalink

  67. #60 There’s no truth to media reports, moptop, that several gentlemen in white fur coats from Hallibearton paid the Pan-Arctic Cooking Organization™ to outfit the group. At least I think that they were fur coats, I mean, if they had existed and requested PACO™ to outfit the group in the first place. That they didn’t. (Ooh. Dodged a bullet there.)

    Posted by andycanuck on 2007 03 13 at 09:42 AM • permalink

  68. Bancroft, 51, became the first woman to cross the North Pole on a 1986 expedition. She and Arnesen, 53, of Oslo, Norway, were the first women to ski across Antarctica in 2001.

    So, these two two people were experienced in arctic/antarctic conditions?  And they were surprised by the cold?

    The frostbite sounds like something almost out of their control (almost).  But the rest of their problems could have been anticipated, it seems to me.

    WTF!?!??!?!

    Comedy gold, people.  Comedy gold.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 13 at 09:44 AM • permalink

  69. Autopsy revealed “climate change” as a cause of the bear’s death?  I am sure the 30.06 slugs the hippies fired into the bear had naught to do with it’s demise…

    Posted by Major John on 2007 03 13 at 10:01 AM • permalink

  70. Gore Effect by Proxy?

    or

    The Climate Inquisition?

    Posted by Rob Read on 2007 03 13 at 10:11 AM • permalink

  71. Ann Bancroft is good though - almost as good as that stripper who called herself “Toni Curtis” (real name: Bernice Schwartz)...

    Posted by mojo on 2007 03 13 at 10:13 AM • permalink

  72. Now I’m going to have to spend the whole day explaining to my co-workers why I’m giggling like a maniac.  Priceless.

    Posted by Achillea on 2007 03 13 at 10:15 AM • permalink

  73. They went to the North Pole … and they were surprised by the cold.

    I guess the tank top, short shorts, and flip-flops didn’t work out.

    Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2007 03 13 at 10:18 AM • permalink

  74. #4 Speaking of warning labels to stupid folks, take a look at this. http://www.flickr.com/photos/49405310@N00/416068029/

    I believe it is addressed to global warming folks, specifically.

    Posted by filcan on 2007 03 13 at 10:23 AM • permalink

  75. #42 - it’s probably just Gilligan moving the lobster trap sticks again!

    Posted by Nova Scotia Mike on 2007 03 13 at 10:26 AM • permalink

  76. A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite.
    ROFLMAO!  “Too stupid to live” really should be a valid diagnosis.

    #35:  “By the way, no liberals were harmed in the video.”

    Too bad.  :-( Better luck next time.

    Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2007 03 13 at 10:48 AM • permalink

  77. Hmmmm.

    And this is the “reality-based community”.

    My brain exploded at around comment #20.

    Posted by memomachine on 2007 03 13 at 10:59 AM • permalink

  78. #35—that sounds like a South PArk episode.

    “There’re commin’ right at us!”

    Posted by Room 237 on 2007 03 13 at 11:06 AM • permalink

  79. "#9 That is good romeo.  I put that alongside the remark that reducing one’s carbon footprint (or whatever) is the eco-equivalent of a Christian’s crossing himself: we know it makes no difference but we do it to demonstrate our piety”

    Who’s this ‘we’? I neither know or care why you do it, or if you do it. Why I do it is none of your concern, and by definition, you can’t know. You can only take a wild ass guess.

    If the Religion of Peace hacks children and aid workers apart, we have to be subjected to inane comparisons to Christianity.

    Now Christians are getting the same for this eco stupidity. Next time, make the comparison to Muslims praying five times a day. And don’t forget to post your home address with it.

    Posted by Blue Hen on 2007 03 13 at 11:23 AM • permalink

  80. Completely irrelevant, but an autopsy performed on an animal is called a necropsy.  [/pedant]

    I haven’t got anything else to add beyond the astounding fact that the idiocy of global warmenists still has the power to astonish me.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 03 13 at 11:32 AM • permalink

  81. O?T

    Worth a simpsons “Ha-ha"

    Poor oppressed little mass she is, rooted a couple of Jihadis and all of a sudden your government grants stop for no apparent reason.....

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 03 13 at 11:38 AM • permalink

  82. #79 You said it Blue Hen. Christian bashing is perfectly acceptable (to everyone aside from Christians, that is).

    And I don’t even want to hear Don’t turn this into a theology thread!! either. Blame #8 and #9 for opening the can of worms.

    And for the record, not all Christians cross themselves. Catholics and some Lutherans do (maybe others too - don’t know)

    Posted by Texas Bob on 2007 03 13 at 11:42 AM • permalink

  83. Don’t they know, if you pack your swim suit you’re pretty much guaranteeing it’s going to be colder than you expect.

    Posted by alien kiwi on 2007 03 13 at 11:46 AM • permalink

  84. "But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability."

    Quite right, because who could predict sub-zero temperatures in the Artic in March?!

    The North Pole will freeze over before I let dumbass, clueless wankers like this decide anything about my future. Er, wait a minute…

    BACKLASH ALERT! BACKLASH ALERT!

    Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which won an Academy Award for best documentary. So do many environmentalists, who praise him as a visionary, and many scientists, who laud him for raising public awareness of climate change.

    But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

    “I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

    Mr. Gore, in an e-mail exchange about the critics, said his work made “the most important and salient points” about climate change, if not “some nuances and distinctions” scientists might want. “The degree of scientific consensus on global warming has never been stronger,” he said, adding, “I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand.”

    snip

    Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for “getting the message out,” Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were “overselling our certainty about knowing the future.”

    snip

    In his e-mail message, Mr. Gore defended his work as fundamentally accurate. “Of course,” he said, “there will always be questions around the edges of the science, and we have to rely upon the scientific community to continue to ask and to challenge and to answer those questions.”

    That’s a bit of a tune change for the (no nuancy boy he) Gorebot, yes? Seems suddenly there’s room for debate. Link

    Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 03 13 at 11:48 AM • permalink

  85. Completely irrelevant, but an autopsy performed on an animal is called a necropsy.  [/pedant]

    OK, then what do you look for during a necropsy that identifies the cause of death as “global warming”?

    Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 03 13 at 11:49 AM • permalink

  86. By the way, you have to click on that link on #35. It is too good to miss. A little girl (who doesn’t get hurt BTW) goes to a polar bear exhibit dressed as a polar bear herself. She looks more like a baby seal. Hilarity ensues as the cuddly wuddly bear suddenly and inexplicably goes into predator mode.

    Posted by moptop on 2007 03 13 at 11:50 AM • permalink

  87. #85, since I brought it up. First, they used the term “autopsy”. Second, they said that the bear had almost no fat reserves. They then concluded that the only reason for this must have been that the salmon had disappeared. Missed that one, last time I was in Alaska, there were so many rotting salmon in the streams that the seagulls ignored them.

    Posted by moptop on 2007 03 13 at 11:54 AM • permalink

  88. "They were experiencing temperatures that weren’t expected with global warming,” Atwood said. “But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability.”

    In the Catholic Mass, the host and the wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ. But they don’t taste like flesh and blood. That’s part of the miracle!

    Posted by Dave S. on 2007 03 13 at 12:27 PM • permalink

  89. #86 moptop,

    Look again, she’s wearing a baby seal on her head.....that makes it even better!!

    Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 03 13 at 12:43 PM • permalink

  90. This brings to mind, AlGore’s multi-venue-anti-Global-Warming/America-concert plans, including a July 7 date in Antarctica.

    Pretty much like February 7 in the Arctic.

    Cold and without much daylight.

    Not to make any predictions or anything.

    Posted by Thomas on 2007 03 13 at 12:52 PM • permalink

  91. Looks like the Gene Pool lifeguard let her off w/ just a warning this time.

    Blaming Global Warming for these folks is like blaming LSD for idiots who try to fly by jumping off buildings. Ducks don’t climb trees to fly south, and the Artic was cold before GW.

    Posted by brett_l on 2007 03 13 at 01:06 PM • permalink

  92. Second, they said that the bear had almost no fat reserves.

    Sounds like a female who hadn’t eaten for the last 4-5 months because she was denned up nursing her newborn cubs (the presence of which would alone be enough to account for the attack).

    Posted by Achillea on 2007 03 13 at 01:09 PM • permalink

  93. Ok, here’s how truly stupid these people are:

    They are being flown hundreds of miles south to Resolute from their current position.  So, what’s the weather like in Resolute for March 13th:

    Average maximum temperature: -28C

    Average minimum temperature: -35C

    Highest temperature recorded: -7C (in 1950)
    Lowest temperature recorded: -46C (in 1961)

    For those of you unfamiliar with Canadian weather in general and the arctic in particular, these temperatures do not take into consideration ‘windchill’.  Forecast for today: high of -30C with an extreme wind chill making it feel like -56C. 

    So, the current weather conditions are about normal for the area (extremely cold).

    Posted by boudica on 2007 03 13 at 01:11 PM • permalink

  94. I shared that story with the Mrs., who said,

    “It would serve her right to get gangrene! Is that GREEN enough for you, cookie?

    Posted by SoberHT on 2007 03 13 at 01:54 PM • permalink

  95. # 82 Texas Bob
    Good point. Why the Christain bashing? And why the complaining when Christians react to it? I don’t notice Christians here starting any of it.

    Also, comment # 9 says free will is that little hook on which to hang the inconsistent, and that only makes real sense to believers.
    That makes no sense even coming from an atheist. If there is no God then admittedly your life is without any intrinsic meaning or value (cheery thought) so that may explain the hostility to Christians, but what does it have to do with free will? In fact if you believe your life is the result of a series of purposeless accidents then the whole question of free will versus determinism, or any other question for that matter, must also be meaningless.

    Posted by Newman on 2007 03 13 at 02:14 PM • permalink

  96. Moonbats. Arctic. Mid-Winter. Frostbite.

    Could there be any other result?

    Moonbats never let reality get in the way of their fondest fantasies.

    They were experiencing temperatures that weren’t expected with global warming,” Atwood said. “But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability”.

    Naturally. Severe cold is a sure symptom of gerbil worming.

    I think a wake up call is in order.

    Posted by trainer on 2007 03 13 at 02:37 PM • permalink

  97. If there is no God then admittedly your life is without any intrinsic meaning or value (cheery thought)

    Stupid thought, actually. My life has a great deal of intrinsic meaning and value. Sorry yours doesn’t without a cosmic daddy.

    My first and last post on the subject.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2007 03 13 at 02:44 PM • permalink

  98. Newman,
    What Dave S said. Maybe our Christian friends should refrain from calling our lives worthless, or reflect on how insulting it is. Also, maybe you should look up the word “intrinsic”. Maybe the word “value” too.

    And like Dave, I am done with the subject.

    Posted by moptop on 2007 03 13 at 02:52 PM • permalink

  99. The amazing thing is that both of these women had been there before and they were STILL surprised.  Proof that for a true progressive, dogma trumps experience every time…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 03 13 at 03:15 PM • permalink

  100. #68. The frostbite sounds like something almost out of their control (almost).  But the rest of their problems could have been anticipated, it seems to me.

    I dunno, it would appear the frostbite was also due to stupidity. Namely, they failed to ensure their gear was well clear of a landing plane. You guessed it, the plane hit their gear. Thence in repairing the resultant damage to a shoe, failed to ensure the strapping tightness would not create problems for the foot, hence the frostbite. Elementary really.

    Posted by JAFA on 2007 03 13 at 03:17 PM • permalink

  101. # 97 & 98
    The remark (#9) that started all this was directed against Christians, but only when it’s responded to are your delicate sensibilities somehow offended.

    If you believe you are able to create meaning in a meaningless universe, which was somehow the result of a cosmic accident and you’re calling what I said stupid, then what you said is cosmic stupidity.

    If anyone ever created any meaning in this universe it wasn’t you and your wishful thinking - it was Jesus Christ.

    Posted by Newman on 2007 03 13 at 03:35 PM • permalink

  102. "Maybe our Christian friends should refrain from calling our lives worthless”

    By my count, one person made a comment about worth. Using a plural isn’t called for here.

    I had asked for people to refrain from likening Christianity with eco fads. No support came from anyone, except someone else who appears to be Christian.

    Posted by Blue Hen on 2007 03 13 at 03:57 PM • permalink

  103. “Of course life without God is meaningless"

    Second comment, second commenter, hence the snarkiness.

    Posted by moptop on 2007 03 13 at 04:43 PM • permalink

  104. Is a life without polar bears, because they are all too tired from swimming after salmon in the melting ice, meaningless?

    Posted by Room 237 on 2007 03 13 at 04:48 PM • permalink

  105. I’d rather ignore the atheist/agnostic trolling, Blue Hen, no matter how b.s. or OT. You, Texas Bob and Newman didn’t (although I fully agree with your motivation), so we were treated to a second and third bout of sermons from our intellectual and moral superiors, which is something I’d have preferred to do without especially as it’s so OT.

    Posted by andycanuck on 2007 03 13 at 04:50 PM • permalink

  106. Can I add on to Kyda (#84) with this from the SMH on Al Gore:

    There is a rising chorus of concern, extending even to “moderate” scientists with no political axe to grind, over the former US vice-president’s tactics and advocacy.

    The debate is ‘settled’, but there’s a ‘chorus of concern’.

    Oh and Quiggy is shaving his beard.

    Posted by Ian Deans on 2007 03 13 at 06:09 PM • permalink

  107. Have your say on the Today show Daily poll. It seems viewers are running at 61% not believing Al Gore.

    Al Gore poll

    Posted by Viril Brun on 2007 03 13 at 06:25 PM • permalink

  108. I think I’m going to start worshipping Gaia. I dig a goddess with a sense of irony. Of course, if I find out that the not bathing is dogmatic, I’ll have to immediately schism and form the Church of the Bathing Gaia. But we’ll fell that tree when we come to it.

    Posted by brett_l on 2007 03 13 at 06:35 PM • permalink

  109. It’s mid March and I’m already having to run my air conditioner to stay comfy.

    I am now a gerbil warmenonger. If gerbils having warms that need enongering in order for me to be able to save on my utility bills until later in the year, then lets all get to enongering them gerbils until they’re all warmed out.

    Since I am a newly converted GW Fanatique, I ask that all of you send me photocopies of your purchase receipts for your new Prius’s by end of business, Friday after next.

    Also, I like blue, so all y’all get blue Prius’s and then we could be like in a club, or whatever.

    Posted by Grimmy on 2007 03 13 at 06:38 PM • permalink

  110. # 103 Motop

    I looked at your link. You said “...worshipping a false god” is a waste of “...our incredibly precious time on the planet.” (Calling life “precious” seems like quite a leap of faith for an atheist. The planet came about by accident, remember?)

    Clubbeaux responded that “...life without God is meaningless.” (Keep in mind that the topic that day had to do with God.) And you took that as a personal insult? (By your own standards your original remark should have been considered insulting to those who believe in God - i.e. Christians.)

    Today, as usual, there were no gratuitous and unnecessary remarks about atheists’ beliefs, but it was a jibe about Christians which started this. Now the atheists are acting wounded and sensitive. Atheists like to dish out the insults, but apparently they can’t take any response to them.

    Posted by Newman on 2007 03 13 at 06:45 PM • permalink

  111. ot my old boss is an athiest and I have seen him struggle to find meaning / higher purpose.  In the end it settled down to his family and him improving himself and teaching others to be successful.  He finally seems happy and settled with his lot.

    I don’t see anything wrong with agnostics saying they are happy with their intrinsic value to society through what they contribute.  I don’t see anything wrong with christians who get blamed for all of the world’s ills responding it is either mans’ choice or simply nature.  Neither should feel smug over the other.

    group hug*

    on topic - smart adventurers would have called for fresh supplies if their damaged supplies was going to endanger themselves.

    Posted by peter m on 2007 03 13 at 06:48 PM • permalink

  112. And Scientists so loved the world that they gave their only begotten son, that the United States might not be flooded with 30 foot tidal waves.

    Gore 3:16
    The Book of GlobalWarmians

    Posted by Jay Santos on 2007 03 13 at 06:59 PM • permalink

  113. All those who do not become a pirate to fight global warming and follow the spaghetti monster are leading wasted lives.

    Posted by Rob Read on 2007 03 13 at 07:06 PM • permalink

  114. "They were experiencing temperatures that weren’t expected with global warming,” Atwood said.

    Well, what in hell did these two oh-so-experienced Arctic explorers expect?  78 and sunny?  Dumbshits.

    Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 13 at 07:11 PM • permalink

  115. Gee another thread hijacked because of some miner comment.

    Shrill on brother, get those heretics.

    Posted by armageddon on 2007 03 13 at 07:23 PM • permalink

  116. I don’t see what’s so bad about comparing environmentalism to an organized religion (whether Christianity or any other). Nobody’s saying that being openly religious is functionally equivalent to being a nutty enviro, just like nobody (at least here; I can’t speak for crazy leftoid atheists) asserts that all religions are functionally equivalent irrespective of what a religion’s followers choose to do with it.

    Still, the language and certain rituals certainly do start to show some definite resemblances; if anything that’s a knock on environmentalists for not admitting the religious nature of their own belief system already.

    Nevertheless, making comments like “If there is no God then admittedly your life is without any intrinsic meaning or value” don’t strike me as terribly helpful if you’re annoyed about public anti-Christian prejudice. But then that specific commenter has repeatedly had trouble holding his own anti-atheist/anti-agnostic prejudices in check (and he hardly ever comments on anything else), so it’s not like it’s coming as a big surprise. “Don’t feed the troll” cuts both ways.

    Posted by PW on 2007 03 13 at 07:27 PM • permalink

  117. Not that one: Mrs Mel Brooks, Anne (with an “e") Bancroft passed away in June of 2005.

    That’s a relief. Dead people shouldn’t undertake such arduous treks.

    Posted by Contrail on 2007 03 13 at 07:29 PM • permalink

  118. Very f*cking upset today. The Simpsons has been threatening to jump the shark for ages, but I didn’t expect it to be on a commie motorcycle.

    I’d heard bad reports about the insurgent sympathetic, army recruitment episode, but… FUCK THAT.

    WORST. FUCKING. EPISODE. EVER. ARSEHOLES.

    Luckily I could switch the channel and watch loons raving about Global Unpredicitabilty, wrongly arrested Al-jazeera operatives or (shudder) Dancing With the We Wish We Were Fucking Stars.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 07:31 PM • permalink

  119. Today’s competition.

    How were paroo dogs used?

    Your prize a lovely

    :”:’ ;; ;II;’;’;’;;’;’II:”:”:":" 75

    Sydney Harbour Bridge picture by 1.618

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 07:39 PM • permalink

  120. Here’s a list I made of a few of the world’s leaders I thought have been reasonably good and were believers in God, (most of them Christian or Jewish) some current, some historical:

    Abraham Lincoln
    Winston Churchill
    George Washington
    Ronald Reagan
    Margaret Thatcher
    Benjamin Disraeli
    Benjamin Netanyahu
    Franklin Roosevelt
    Dwight Eisenhower
    John Kennedy
    Theodore Roosevelt
    George W. Bush
    Tony Blair
    John Howard

    I know there were plenty of bad ones - Jimmy Carter, Torquemada etc., but I’m talking about the good ones here.

    Now the good atheist leaders I could think of:

    Pol Pot
    Josef Stalin
    Vladimir Lenin
    Mao Tse Tung
    Fidel Castro
    Enver Hoxha - glorious Albanian dictator
    Nicolae Caeusescu - Butcher of the Carpathians
    Kim Il Sung
    Kim Jong Il
    Ho Chi Minh
    Adolph Hitler - I think he was a pagan/atheist but feel free to disagree and drop his name.

    Care to add any names to the list of good atheist world leaders? I realize this isn’t proof of anything, but food for thought if your mind is open.

    Posted by Newman on 2007 03 13 at 07:40 PM • permalink

  121. #120 - Could just as easily say, the difference is they are all from the anglosphere.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 07:44 PM • permalink

  122. Demonstration of how humans are responsible for warming on Mars

    Posted by TattooedIntellectual on 2007 03 13 at 07:48 PM • permalink

  123. PW 116

    I have never brought up the subject of religion first that I can recall. But when I reply to a remark about Christians by an atheist like you, if that’s what you are, you get your shorts in a knot. So that makes me a troll? Let’s not get into name calling. You wouldn’t like it if I called you a Euroweenie crybaby, would you?

    Posted by Newman on 2007 03 13 at 07:50 PM • permalink

  124. #121 Infidel Tiger

    I notice you didn’t add any names to the list of good atheist leaders.

    Posted by Newman on 2007 03 13 at 07:52 PM • permalink

  125. This is the first time I ever recall hanging out for the appearance of the Blair News Helicopter. Where the hell are you, 1.6?

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 13 at 07:58 PM • permalink

  126. #124 - Sure didn’t. Because the things that set those leaders apart have far more to do with the institutions and rule of law of the countries and people they represent, than their own personal religious beliefs. Personally, I like my leaders to have a touch of the fear of God about ‘em. Stops the bastards getting cocky.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 08:00 PM • permalink

  127. Newman. C’mon. Stop hijacking the thread. Take it outside if you have to, but not in here.
    (from a fellow Christian)

    Posted by Dr Alice on 2007 03 13 at 08:04 PM • permalink

  128. Does anyone what to win my competition?

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:15 PM • permalink

  129. Margoooooo’s Hi!!!

    A really big wave!!

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:17 PM • permalink

  130. But when I reply to a remark about Christians by an atheist like you, if that’s what you are, you get your shorts in a knot

    Actually, what gets my panties all wadded up is that you’re coming across as a bonafide asshole most of the time. Your religious message is mostly incidental here; I tend to get similarly annoyed by people pushing any other subject with the zealotry and one-sidedness that you do.

    You wouldn’t like it if I called you a Euroweenie crybaby, would you?

    Hey, I’ve called myself that, so go right ahead. Okay, I think my words were “Euroweenie wuss”, not “crybaby”. Not that I expect that approach to be for everyone...your shtick is evidently “obsessive defensiveness” rather than “self-deprecation”; well, whatever works.

    I do feel pretty vindicated in my assessment that you’re pretty much a troll (of the “single-issue poster” variety), by your post #120 alone. If not in intent, then at the very least in effect. It’s just very hard to take seriously anything you write, even if there might be a good point hidden among it from time to time.

    (Feel free to have the last word, I’m done here.)

    Posted by PW on 2007 03 13 at 08:21 PM • permalink

  131. Hey 1.6, thank cripes you are here to bring a little commonsense to this thread…

    BTW I think that there is a fantastic mockumentary just begging to be written about globular warming ala inconvenient truth. In fact, I’m sure some commenters here could write it.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 13 at 08:22 PM • permalink

  132. Margos, I have the chopper waiting and ready to go. You’re the winner, Swinish didn’t turn up to win his prize. Let’s go for the Chopper ride!!!!

    I’ve packed a chicken and Champers lunch abd we’re off to the Snowy Mountains to see Australia’s “god” country .
    Ready? (Tim B, you’re not invited as Dave S says you have a girlfriend!!)Have she left you yet? If so Im still available, not for long but still am.

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:22 PM • permalink

  133. Margos, I hear you!!!!

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:25 PM • permalink

  134. All ready, 1.6.

    This could be like Thelma and Louise, except good.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 13 at 08:26 PM • permalink

  135. #132 - Hey 1.6, go easy on the champers if you’re the pilot. We need Margos back here later to clean up the lint and dropped apostrophes.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 08:26 PM • permalink

  136. I think I would like to come and work for you.

    Each Blair reader can contribute something towards this book idea on global dumbing down. I’ll do the :":";;’; illustrations on smog and pollution.

    Tim B, you can help us. So we all can retire and holiday together.

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:27 PM • permalink

  137. Tiger, you can come as well.

    But you have to answer my competition question.

    Want the question again?

    Paroo dogs were used for?

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:29 PM • permalink

  138. Oh Blair readers, don’t be an idiot don’t drink and fly!!

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:29 PM • permalink

  139. I love Thelma and Louise..

    “Get in the Chopper Margo” I can see a cowboy down the runway!!

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:30 PM • permalink

  140. Yeerhaww!

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 13 at 08:31 PM • permalink

  141. Thanks 1.6, but I’d only cramp Margos style. Very romantic out there I hear.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 08:33 PM • permalink

  142. null

    This chopper looks great!!

    I like the leather seats! I’ve got my camera, you can write the story!!

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:34 PM • permalink

  143. Tiger get in the Chopper.

    I’ll cheat and tell you the answer.

    Paroo dogs were tin cans used as rattles to keep the sheep from straying. Drovers used them long ago......

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:35 PM • permalink

  144. Mmmh comfy. This is also the first chopper I’ve been in that uses a runway.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 13 at 08:36 PM • permalink

  145. Tim Blair look we’re taking off now.....

    chop chop chop woosh woosh woosh..

    wow, I can see all that sky with global polution.... wow it’s so pretty....

    chop chop chop wooooosh

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:37 PM • permalink

  146. My day is certainly looking more interesting…

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 08:37 PM • permalink

  147. Tiger, you should wear the ear phones, it’s great and you can report the today for Blair News the Chopper traffic....

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:38 PM • permalink

  148. So which one of you guys is Margos and which one is 1.618?

    Any chance of a drink?

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 08:39 PM • permalink

  149. null

    Chopper Chicks and Blair Reporters, this is were we’re heading....

    “please observe the safety exits” and inflight movie today will be Al Gore’s global warming.

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:40 PM • permalink

  150. I’m the one with sideburns, and she has the moustache.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 13 at 08:40 PM • permalink

  151. "Champagne tiger or beer or beer and nuts or water or vodka and orange or soda?”

    Margos get your flight attendant outfit on ..I’m not doing a Feinnes or a QF qantas. steal the chocolates up this high........

    wooooooooooooooosh chop chop woooooshhhhhhh
    sorry agbout the typos.... weeeee

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:42 PM • permalink

  152. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagghh…

    Sorry 1.618. I’ve bailed out. That movie reminds me of an ex-girlfriend. Lying, cold, gold digger…

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 08:43 PM • permalink

  153. I’m the pretty one, that has a crush on Tim blair and wish he was my husband but Dave S says he’s dating someone else…

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:44 PM • permalink

  154. #115 armageddon
    Shrill on brother, get those heretics

    1 Unnecessary derogatory comment made OT about Christians

    2 Several Christians object to the comment

    3 Wounded atheists reply to the cruel nature of some of the objections although one of them started it

    4 armageddon wisely determines that this is a hijacking which occurred after a miner made a harmless comment

    Spew on brother, get those fanatics

    Dr. Alice, why does Christian bashing (however “harmless") have a place on this thread, or at least has to be ignored. If you don’t like what I said, why don’t you ignore it? What are you, some kind of hijacker?
    And as a supposed Christian, what’s your answer to mild mannered Texas Bob who first objected to it? I respect him for having the guts to address it in this forum which is full of hypersensitive atheists ready to cry “hijack” if anybody replies to a snide remark. But what you said is insincere drivel.

    Posted by Newman on 2007 03 13 at 08:44 PM • permalink

  155. Tiger, I have a chopper license.........

    Come drink fly and be merry .....

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:45 PM • permalink

  156. Time for heading back 1.6, I think we lost IT.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 13 at 08:47 PM • permalink

  157. The original occupants of this thread are dead set unlucky. They’ve been hijacked twice, by very different groups indeed!

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 08:48 PM • permalink

  158. Today’s blair Traffic is very tense. I can see very heavy blogging on the M5 free-way.

    Blair bloggers should take the Blair Freeway then it’s clear all the way for a good debate......

    Remember, Blair News it’s gutsy and it’s good...... woooooshhshhshshhsh

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:48 PM • permalink

  159. Thanks 1.6 - awesome trip. Only downside is helicopter hair.

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 13 at 08:50 PM • permalink

  160. Ok, sorry serious bloggers…

    Remember, to express an oppinion is important, listening is just a s good as well.

    Work together in your differences as well.

    Dr Alice and Newman and pw work and talk together…

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:50 PM • permalink

  161. Helicopter is difficult particularly if u and Me have paparattzi waiting…

    tee hee heee…

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:52 PM • permalink

  162. oops hair.... opps :)))))0

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:52 PM • permalink

  163. ....one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability."

    On the contrary, I think it’s entirely predictable that goreball wampuming will be blamed/credited/used as an excuse for everything from charcoal filter impregnated fartcatchers to the real estate bubble, until some new idiocy rears its head.

    I’m predicting alien invasion as the next big thing- hasn’t been around since the ‘50s, and fashion knows nothing else except recycling.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 03 13 at 08:52 PM • permalink

  164. I agree on the real estate bubble.

    The agents here in Sydney are trying to fire the market again....

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:55 PM • permalink

  165. This threads harder to follow than a David Lynch film.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 08:57 PM • permalink

  166. Bye for now friends !!

    Posted by 1.618 on 2007 03 13 at 08:57 PM • permalink

  167. Newman, the one who started being unpleasant is you. As for the rest of you who have decided to bring up the BORING TEDIOUS IMPOSSIBLE-TO-RESOLVE atheism-vs.-Christianity argument in this unrelated thread are all on the verge of being banned. As is Newman. Shut up or be shut out. It’s that simple.

    Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 03 13 at 08:59 PM • permalink

  168. I should have said “join in” not “bring up.” I am tired and therefore cranky. I have not gotten over my time-change rage, so watch it.

    Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 03 13 at 09:00 PM • permalink

  169. Under the caliphate, who gets beheaded first- Christians, Atheists, Agnostics, Scientologists or Rastafarians?

    Posted by Habib on 2007 03 13 at 09:12 PM • permalink

  170. #169 - Jews, followed by the slowest runners.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 09:13 PM • permalink

  171. Ms. Bancroft was interviewed on National Public Radio today. The interviewer gently tried to suggest that it seemed a bit ironic to abort the mission, so to speak, because it was so cold.

    Ms. Bancroft saw nothing humorous or even ironic in the way things turned out. In short, exactly according to the old joke about how many feminists it takes to change a light bulb.

    Posted by jdm on 2007 03 13 at 09:14 PM • permalink

  172. #171 It is so unlike the left not to see the funny side

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 13 at 09:17 PM • permalink

  173. It’d be fun to start spreading the word among the Gorons that these clowns weren’t stopped by the cold, but were bought off by the US government to keep their mouths shut about the near-tropical conditions they found (littered with bloated, half-rotten corpses of drowned polar bears of course).  I wonder how many of them would buy it.

    Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 13 at 09:18 PM • permalink

  174. Or doesn’t it matter, as we’re all going to drown in superheated, rising oceans, or be scarfed by starving, shedding polar bears?

    I’m confused.

    If the atmospehre is heating, shouldn’t this increase evaporation and lower ocean levels?

    I for one would like to know just what’s being done by the worlds governments to overcome the greatest current threat to the planet and its resident fauna and flora- I speak of the Illudium Q36 Explosive Space Modulator!

    (I believe Tim Flannery’s just finishing a book, and the Al Gore movie’s in final editing as we speak).

    Posted by Habib on 2007 03 13 at 09:19 PM • permalink

  175. #170- you haven’t been keeping up- it’s a well known fact that those cunning Yids will use their giant brians, financial acumen and scientific self-interest to flee the doomed Earth prior to the cataclysm du jour, having pillaged the planet of all its resources (and a goodly quantity of Gentile baby blood for the trip).

    Posted by Habib on 2007 03 13 at 09:24 PM • permalink

  176. #170, That would be the Rastafarians then, ‘cuz they’re so mellow and all.  Might be hard to hack through the hair, though.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 03 13 at 09:28 PM • permalink

  177. #175 - Nefarious foreskin dodging bastards.

    The Caliphate and the beheadings would almost be worth it, if they promised to do the arts community first. I’d even pay to go to that festival.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 09:29 PM • permalink

  178. PW 130
    I think you’re more “deprecatory” than “self-deprecatory” so I don’t think you should be bragging about how endearing you can be. I haven’t ever called anyone here an asshole, but I guess only an atheist should be allowed to do that and still congratulate himself on how great a guy he is. But remember, it’s the last resort of an ignoramus to start name calling.

    Once again, I have never been the first to bring up any “religious message” as you call it. I just replied to anti-religious (mainly anti-Christian) nonsense from people like you. You’re the ones with the OT “message”. You just get mad as hell when it’s opposed. Sounds like fanaticism to me. Hmm. A fanatical atheist, I wonder what that would look like. Oh, yeah, Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Castro…

    Posted by Newman on 2007 03 13 at 09:33 PM • permalink

  179. But remember, it’s the last resort of an ignoramus to start name calling.

    That is a beautiful sentence.

    Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 13 at 09:34 PM • permalink

  180. Bye bye, Newman.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 03 13 at 09:35 PM • permalink

  181. Newman, don’t let the door....

    Posted by kae on 2007 03 13 at 09:43 PM • permalink

  182. Andrea, sorry, I wrote my last comment before I read your command to stop the argument.
    Well, what would Jesus do? Meekly submit or continue to provoke the Administrator and get banned? Just kidding. Obviously, I’m not much like Him, or I wouldn’t have gotten the nice atheists so mad at me, but I’ll stop.

    Posted by Newman on 2007 03 13 at 09:53 PM • permalink

  183. Wow reading the comments on this thread backwards is like watching a car accident in reverse. I’m almost sorry i read the original post first. It would have been fun guessing what the subject was.

    Posted by Francis H on 2007 03 13 at 09:57 PM • permalink

  184. #182 Jesus would have his own website

    Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 13 at 09:59 PM • permalink

  185. glubbul wommering eats sea off sydney.  sort of.  well maybe not

    Posted by KK on 2007 03 13 at 10:01 PM • permalink

  186. If Jesus was a Jew, how come he’s got a Mexican name?

    Posted by Habib on 2007 03 13 at 10:04 PM • permalink

  187. #161 He, Habib, you forgot the polytheists.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 13 at 10:06 PM • permalink

  188. #184 Margos Maid
    Jesus would have his own website.
    What’s that supposed to mean? Do you have your own website? If so, I’ll bet it’s lousy.
    I was joking about the WWJD.  Never cared for that slogan.

    Posted by Newman on 2007 03 13 at 10:12 PM • permalink

  189. I think