Curtis Dahlgren
Top Ten '11 Headlines: Regarding reaching new heights of absurdity!
By Curtis Dahlgren
"We were always subject to pressure from the cause people . . from women, or militants, or college groups. If I had it to do all over again, I'd learn to tell them to go to hell." — Frank Mankiewitz (George McGovern campaign mgr.)
NOT TO SPOIL THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT, BUT — this is not a chicken soup column. My momma didn't raise any dumb clucks. Her stork wasn't hijacked from Harvard Yard. You can slime us Dahlgrens, but you can't fool us with any crack-pipe turkey theories. I wasn't just born tomorrow.
Has it never occurred to you that some politicians lie? As George Orwell put it, "Some ideas are so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them." And some politicians must not be too smart if they believe their own lies. Nancy Pelosi once said:
"We're trying to save life on this planet." Milton Friedman said:
"The bulk of the intellectual community almost automatically favors any expansion of government power so long as it is advertised as a way to protect individuals from big bad corporations, relieve poverty, protect the environment, or promote 'equality.'" — Milton Friedman (intro to "The Road to Serfdom" by Hayek, 1994)
[Some of the above was excerpted from my TRUE COLORS column -
www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/090926 — but here are a few more quotes.]
"Certain signs, some of them visible to the layman as well as the scientist, indicate that we have been watching an ice age approach for some time without realizing what we are seeing." — Betty Friedan ("The Coming Ice Age," Harper's, Sept. 1958)
"The [English-speaking] race is the cancer of human history . . . its ideologies and inventions — which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself." — Susan Sontag (Partisan Review, Winter 1967)
"The only real good technology is no technology at all." — John Shuttleworth (Friends of the Earth) [can you say Unabomber-speak, boys and girls?]
"Well, excuse me, I'm not dressed for church." — Economist Julian Simon (to an audience of ecologists who refused to hear any evidence contradicting their dogma)
"MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES." — old Chinese curse
Some of those quotations were from "The Politically Incorrect Guide [TM] to Global Warming and Environmentalism," by Christopher Horner, but the watermelon-colored enviro-mentals are only one of our curses currently. Take a look at a few 2011 headlines (not necessarily "the" top 10, but "a" top 10, in no particular order):
- "Rolls Royce rolls out 3-ton trial balloon" (electric car with 1,452 pounds of lithium batteries) in Geneva. My $250 Ford Escort probably doesn't weigh more than those batteries. The Rolls will never fly of course; it was experimental with an emphasis on the "ex."
[But the author of a 2-page article about it says that Rolls owners don't drive many miles, mostly around town, "so we come to the ultimate irony of the 102BX. Far from being inappropriate, it might make the most sense of any electric car on the planet." — Dan Neil (Wall Street Journal, April 23-24, 2011)]
- "Dutch fall out of love with windmills" (government can't afford to subsidize them anymore). [Wonder why I still see those windmills coming into the local harbor here from Europe?]
- "Arab Spring turns stormy" (Christians get the worst of it all in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and so on). [Is this what the "evolution of society looks like? Back to the 7th century?]
- "Dollar's Decline Speeds Up, With Risks For U.S." (Dollar index closed week of April 24th at lowest level since before 2008 'crisis") [That headline made the list for its sheer lack of urgency.]
- "Holder says he did not know tactics of gun program" (Trib. Wash. Bureau, 10/8/11) [He says his DOJ is "investigating" the gun-walking "program"; this headline was nominated to the list for comic relief.]
- "Mexico slayings may be work of 'Zeta Killers'" (32 bodies found in Veracruz) [That story was in the column adjoining the Holder story (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oct. 8).]
- "Governor Walker recall effort begins" [no comment, except: "Why not recall the Gun Walker, not Scott Walker?]
- "Is There Anybody Out There?" (Researchers' eagerness to make claims about alien life are leading to bad science, to quote the subtitle of Wall Street Journal book section article in the 4/23 Wall Street Journal) [I didn't waste time reading the article, but you get the idea]
- "More fraud found in East Anglia e-mails" (re "Climate Change"). [See www.climatedepot.com ]
- "Best way for President to win reelection is not to run" (Caddell and Schoen article, paraphrased)
- "Another year without a federal budget signed by the President" [annual headline]
- "George Will calls Newt Gingrich a classic rent-a-politician" [he helped GranNan Pelosi 'save life on this planet' y'know]
- "Black Friday shopper maces competitors to get what she wants" [wonder if this California woman was a member of the Occupy movement or Pelosi's staff?]
- BUT THE WINNER IS -
- "EPA wants to shut down the only major power plant in Michigan's Upper Peninsula."
ACTUALLY, that's more than ten headlines, but who's counting, eh?
The U.P. of Michigan, which is larger than Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware combined, not only has just one area code, but that one Presque Isle plant at Marquette is a coal-fired plant in the "crosshairs" — and it wins the headline contest for epitomizing Washington D.C.'s idiocy — for lack of a better word rhyming with absurdity!
REALLY, I mean: Marquette sits on the edge of Lake Superior, so the prevailing westerly wind drives any "pollution" hundreds of miles toward an unoccupied area of Ontario. AND FOR THAT WE'RE GOING TO SHUT DOWN THE ONLY MAJOR POWER PLANT IN THE FROZEN TUNDRA?
We have some hydroelectric plants too, but they'll be the next ones "targetted" because the EPA-types don't like dams either! Don't say that the President didn't warn you what his policies were going to be in 2008 either!
P.S. "Naturalism wasn't supposed to mean statism. Naturalism's modern successor, today's environmentalism bordering on eco-theism, asserts that the only way to preserve nature is through state control of resources and liberties. By this thinking, the falling Iron Curtain should have revealed a green Eden, but we know that to be far from the case . . " — Christopher Horner
Well excuuuuse ME; I'm not dressed for Church!
© Curtis Dahlgren
November 26, 2011
"We were always subject to pressure from the cause people . . from women, or militants, or college groups. If I had it to do all over again, I'd learn to tell them to go to hell." — Frank Mankiewitz (George McGovern campaign mgr.)
NOT TO SPOIL THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT, BUT — this is not a chicken soup column. My momma didn't raise any dumb clucks. Her stork wasn't hijacked from Harvard Yard. You can slime us Dahlgrens, but you can't fool us with any crack-pipe turkey theories. I wasn't just born tomorrow.
Has it never occurred to you that some politicians lie? As George Orwell put it, "Some ideas are so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them." And some politicians must not be too smart if they believe their own lies. Nancy Pelosi once said:
"We're trying to save life on this planet." Milton Friedman said:
"The bulk of the intellectual community almost automatically favors any expansion of government power so long as it is advertised as a way to protect individuals from big bad corporations, relieve poverty, protect the environment, or promote 'equality.'" — Milton Friedman (intro to "The Road to Serfdom" by Hayek, 1994)
[Some of the above was excerpted from my TRUE COLORS column -
www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/090926 — but here are a few more quotes.]
"Certain signs, some of them visible to the layman as well as the scientist, indicate that we have been watching an ice age approach for some time without realizing what we are seeing." — Betty Friedan ("The Coming Ice Age," Harper's, Sept. 1958)
"The [English-speaking] race is the cancer of human history . . . its ideologies and inventions — which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself." — Susan Sontag (Partisan Review, Winter 1967)
"The only real good technology is no technology at all." — John Shuttleworth (Friends of the Earth) [can you say Unabomber-speak, boys and girls?]
"Well, excuse me, I'm not dressed for church." — Economist Julian Simon (to an audience of ecologists who refused to hear any evidence contradicting their dogma)
"MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES." — old Chinese curse
Some of those quotations were from "The Politically Incorrect Guide [TM] to Global Warming and Environmentalism," by Christopher Horner, but the watermelon-colored enviro-mentals are only one of our curses currently. Take a look at a few 2011 headlines (not necessarily "the" top 10, but "a" top 10, in no particular order):
- "Rolls Royce rolls out 3-ton trial balloon" (electric car with 1,452 pounds of lithium batteries) in Geneva. My $250 Ford Escort probably doesn't weigh more than those batteries. The Rolls will never fly of course; it was experimental with an emphasis on the "ex."
[But the author of a 2-page article about it says that Rolls owners don't drive many miles, mostly around town, "so we come to the ultimate irony of the 102BX. Far from being inappropriate, it might make the most sense of any electric car on the planet." — Dan Neil (Wall Street Journal, April 23-24, 2011)]
- "Dutch fall out of love with windmills" (government can't afford to subsidize them anymore). [Wonder why I still see those windmills coming into the local harbor here from Europe?]
- "Arab Spring turns stormy" (Christians get the worst of it all in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and so on). [Is this what the "evolution of society looks like? Back to the 7th century?]
- "Dollar's Decline Speeds Up, With Risks For U.S." (Dollar index closed week of April 24th at lowest level since before 2008 'crisis") [That headline made the list for its sheer lack of urgency.]
- "Holder says he did not know tactics of gun program" (Trib. Wash. Bureau, 10/8/11) [He says his DOJ is "investigating" the gun-walking "program"; this headline was nominated to the list for comic relief.]
- "Mexico slayings may be work of 'Zeta Killers'" (32 bodies found in Veracruz) [That story was in the column adjoining the Holder story (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oct. 8).]
- "Governor Walker recall effort begins" [no comment, except: "Why not recall the Gun Walker, not Scott Walker?]
- "Is There Anybody Out There?" (Researchers' eagerness to make claims about alien life are leading to bad science, to quote the subtitle of Wall Street Journal book section article in the 4/23 Wall Street Journal) [I didn't waste time reading the article, but you get the idea]
- "More fraud found in East Anglia e-mails" (re "Climate Change"). [See www.climatedepot.com ]
- "Best way for President to win reelection is not to run" (Caddell and Schoen article, paraphrased)
- "Another year without a federal budget signed by the President" [annual headline]
- "George Will calls Newt Gingrich a classic rent-a-politician" [he helped GranNan Pelosi 'save life on this planet' y'know]
- "Black Friday shopper maces competitors to get what she wants" [wonder if this California woman was a member of the Occupy movement or Pelosi's staff?]
- BUT THE WINNER IS -
- "EPA wants to shut down the only major power plant in Michigan's Upper Peninsula."
ACTUALLY, that's more than ten headlines, but who's counting, eh?
The U.P. of Michigan, which is larger than Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware combined, not only has just one area code, but that one Presque Isle plant at Marquette is a coal-fired plant in the "crosshairs" — and it wins the headline contest for epitomizing Washington D.C.'s idiocy — for lack of a better word rhyming with absurdity!
REALLY, I mean: Marquette sits on the edge of Lake Superior, so the prevailing westerly wind drives any "pollution" hundreds of miles toward an unoccupied area of Ontario. AND FOR THAT WE'RE GOING TO SHUT DOWN THE ONLY MAJOR POWER PLANT IN THE FROZEN TUNDRA?
We have some hydroelectric plants too, but they'll be the next ones "targetted" because the EPA-types don't like dams either! Don't say that the President didn't warn you what his policies were going to be in 2008 either!
P.S. "Naturalism wasn't supposed to mean statism. Naturalism's modern successor, today's environmentalism bordering on eco-theism, asserts that the only way to preserve nature is through state control of resources and liberties. By this thinking, the falling Iron Curtain should have revealed a green Eden, but we know that to be far from the case . . " — Christopher Horner
Well excuuuuse ME; I'm not dressed for Church!
© Curtis Dahlgren
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
