Great News: The Internet Will Destroy the Planet

Now how exactly will Al Gore's masterful invention go about destroying the planet? Why, by giving climate change "deniers" a voice to oppose the environmental wackos.

The planet may not be so lucky. It's increasingly apparent that the internet may bring about the death of human civilisation, beating out previous contenders such as nuclear holocaust and the election of George W. Bush.

The agents of this planetary death will be the climate-change deniers who, it's now clear, owe much of their existence to the internet. Would the climate-change deniers be this sure of themselves without the internet?

Somehow I doubt it. They are so damn confident.

They don't just bury their heads in the sand, they fiercely drive their own heads energetically into the nearest beachfront, their bums defiantly aquiver as they fart their toxic message to the world. How can they be so confident, in the face of so much evidence to the contrary?

It's the internet, of course, and the way it has given climate-change deniers the perfect forum — one in which groups of quite dim people can swap spurious information, reassuring each other there's no evidence on the other side, right up to the point they've derailed all efforts to save the planet. Call it ''mutually reassured destruction''.

In decades past, the climate-change deniers would have swapped theories in the pub or at a barbecue. But at the barbecue there was always one person willing to put a contrary view, to say: ''There's another side.'' And unless the barbecue was particularly nutty, there was no one handing out gestetnered sheets of dodgy science for people to take home.

The net allows the climate-change deniers to bleat about the scientists and whine about a price on carbon without fear of ever hearing a different voice, right up to the point of planetary collapse. To reformulate T.S. Eliot: ''This is the way the world will end — not with a bang but a whinger.''

On the upside, when it all does end it'll spare of from reading nonsense like that.

AP Laments: 'GOP governors undermine Obama's agenda in states'

I suppose these evil Republicans were elected to implement Obama's agenda?

Their ranks swollen after the last election, Republican governors from Florida to Alaska are undermining President Barack Obama's agenda at every turn ahead of the Democrat's 2012 re-election campaign.

Some are rejecting federal money for high-speed rail. Many are fighting the president's health care law. And several are going after the Democratic Party's bedrock constituency, pushing laws that would weaken the power of unions.

Not that any Republican governor will acknowledge that this is politics at play - even if it is.

Gee, ya think?

Now that's some piercing insight from the National Political Editor. Imagine the chutzpah of these Republicans to try and thwart the radical agenda of the opposition party. What's gotten into them?

But left unsaid in interviews with governors attending this weekend's National Governors Association meeting was this: Republicans, particularly in places with many electoral votes, like the Midwest, are fully aware that stymieing Obama's plans in the states could weaken him just as he tries to make the case to the country that he should get a second term.

Poor Obama. It's almost as if he doesn't have a bully pulpit from which his Teleprompter can give daily speeches. How will he ever counter the ill effects of these evil men trying to ruin him?

Whiny Muslim Babies Seethe Over Movies

If these people weren't such a menace and threat to the civilized world, this would almost be amusing.

There was a time, after the Nazis, when every Hollywood bad guy seemed to be German.

With the onset of the Cold War, they became Russian.

Now the blockbuster bogeyman is Muslim, according to a study published today.

Popular films, from action movies to cartoons, are portraying “crude or exaggerated stereotypes” of Muslims who are shown as the “enemy within” bent on “attacking” the western way of life, the report claims.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission said films as diverse as The Siege, a portrayal of a terrorist attack on New York starring Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis, the British comedy East is East and Disney’s Aladdin are reinforcing impressions that Muslims are violent and dangerous.

Hmm. A terrorist attack on New York. Ring any bells? The laughable part here is the ridiculously few movies they claim represents some mythic Islamophobia:

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Indiana Jones must find the ark of the covenant before the Nazis. The report says: “The cultural stereotypes and scenarios are patently obvious,” pointing to a street scene featuring bazaars, veiled women and bearded men in traditional dress, all set to snake-charming music.

Aladdin (1992)

The report queries why a children’s cartoon describes Aladdin’s homeland as “barbaric”, and notes that “good Arabs” including Aladdin are given American accents while the rest of the cast have “exaggerated and ridiculous Arab accents”.

The Siege (1998)

Palestinian terrorists attack New York city in response to the US military abduction of an Islamic religious leader. The report says that the film depicts Muslims as the “enemy within” and that the characters display the “monolithic stereotype of the Arab/Palestinian Muslim being violent and ready to be martyred for their cause”.

East Is East (1999)

A mixed-race Anglo-Pakistani family in 1970s Salford struggle against the traditional background enforced upon them by their father. The report says the representation of the Muslim husband as a polygamous wife-beating tyrant “fits into many of the negative perceptions people have of Muslims”.

Executive Decision (1996)

Palestinians hijack a Boeing 747 to launch a nerve gas attack on Washington DC. Report says the film “plays on the worst fears ... about a potential terrorist lurking in every Arab/Middle Eastern/Muslim-looking person, and the incompatibility of Islamic and western values”.

House of Sand and Fog (2003)

An abandoned wife is evicted from her home, which is taken over by an Iranian family forced to flee their country following the 1979 revolution. The report says the film constructs a “negative description of the revolution, without enabling any detailed or balanced analysis of the event”.

Frankly, outside of Raiders of the Lost Ark, I haven't seen any of these movies. A rather paltry selection of films in this absurdly flimsy study. How did they miss United 93?

Here's an assignment for these pitiful souls. How about stop denying that many Muslims are terrorists, stop being so paranoid about every little perceived slight you suffer (hey, those things happen to everybody), denounce Islamist violence, and stop being such babies.