Tim Blair

If David Brooks were more like Maureen Dowd, the word ``nuaged'' would have come up against ``nuanced.''

I'm hoping that it's going to be very good and that we have great entertainment value but that at the same time it treats the science seriously.

Me too. I'm dying to see the film's scientific explanation of how global warming causes volcanoes.

Yes, the report was done for the Pentagon, but it was the Pentagon who leaked it to The Observer:

"A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer [...]"

Further:

"The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades."

I don't see the Guardian lying anywhere.

Further, even back in 2001 defence adviser Andrew Marshall has been described as:

"He's hard to draw a bead on," says one analyst who worked with him, "because he spends his time coming up with every conceivable future scenario that could threaten the U.S."

[...]

"he's, "one of the most effective pork-seeking missiles ever deployed by the military brass."

Even his supporters describe him as a "worrywort", constantly dreaming up new low-probability scenarios to justify new weapons systems and security measures. So yes, it may all be nonsense - but the report is hardly interest-free, since the Pentagon commissions these things with a certain result in mind.

I also think that the Guardian/Observer is as critical and objective about this as it can afford to be. So I can't really see the point of your post, other than it being an attempt to induce abuse against your political opponents, instead of actually engaging with the discursive content which, in addition, you seem to either not read and understand properly or arbitrarily mould to fit your polemic.

A worrywort is an existential plant.

George Bush himself firmly stated that global warming was a fact way back in June 2001, when he rejected the Kyoto Protocol:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/06/20010611-2.html

The Pentagon merely considers the national-security ramifications of global warming. It briefly echoes Bush's assessment that warming is happening and says nothing about the causes.

That's what's wrong with the debate at this point: there is no debate that global warming is occurring, but the left wants us to think there is, because it wants to steer debate away from the causes of global warming, where there really is debate, as surveys of climatologists show.

On top of that, the famous big solution of Kyoto would have negligible effects on greenhouse gas levels if implemented, in spite of the enormous costs required to implement Kyoto! No doubt some environmentalists think Kyoto is just an important, symbolic first step. But they lie about the science, they lie about the proposed solution, and they lie about the nature of the debate in promoting their non-solution.

The global-warming issue has thus become a pure power-play, not a genuine policy debate.

Yes, the report was done for the Pentagon, but it was the Pentagon who leaked it to The Observer:

"A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer [...]"

Mike, it sure would have been smarter if you'd bothered to read Tim's previous coverage of this, in particularthis post that he so kindly linked to near the top of this one.

And just so you know what you're supposed to look for: There something in there about how the "secret report" really surfaced. Please proceed to enlighten yourself now.

They've been playing the trailer for "The Day After Tomorrow" for a couple of months now. The big ending scene of the trailer? Manhattan buried under hundreds of feet of snow, resembling the North Pole. So that's global warming? Um, OK.

What could make the Guardian dissect the trailer of a silly new action flick? Only the hope that it might turn people against Bush. Because, as everybody knows, Americans are stupid and base their voting on what they see in the movies.

Remember how "Independence Day" made people vote for Pullman/Goldblum in ´96!

PW, thanks for enlightening me, wasn't aware of the Fortune aspect.

I still don't think that the Guardian is misrepresenting the truth if it says that the Pentagon 'released' the report. Releasing a report that someone did for you, doesn't mean you made it yourself.

Besides, I probably feel the same way about the content of this report as Tim does.

However, the point about Tim's questionable journalistic methods stands.

I imagine "The Day After Tomorrow" will deliver the election to John Kerry the same way the post-nuclear war movie "The Day After" completely destroyed the Reagan reelection campaign in in 1984.

I find it odd that an article about a big-budget movie about coping with global warming fails to mention the other great, big-budget movie about coping with global warming: Waterworld.

Gee, I wonder why.

(And volcanoes in LA are the fault of global warming?? I had no idea!)

Did you notice the variety of spelling styles in the "Talmud" citations? ("Hilkkoth Akum" vs. "Kilkhoth Akum" or "Choschen Hamm" vs. "Choschen Ham")

Apparently they were mindlessly copied from a scanned version of a grainy copy of a copy of a fax.

The Guardian once again demonstrates its brilliant grasp of the dynamics of American cultural/political interplay, to wit, the Devlin/Emmerich Effect. George Bush's recklessness in authorizing use of the Stargate for a reconnaissance mission to the planet Abbados, and the near destruction of the Earth that almost ensued, was detailed in the film "Stargate" and cost him the 1996 election. Bill Clinton was re-elected on the strength of the wartime performance of his young-ish, slightly left-of-center counterpart in "Independence Day", serendipitously played by the similar-sounding Bill Pullman. "Godzilla" was decisive in the Congressional elections of 1998, for reasons that are not precisely clear to me because I heard it sucked so I didn't see it.

The Guardian's knowledge of the US, and the sophistication of its analyses, are truly impressive. If only there were such a newspaper in America that could provide a similarly intelligent analysis of the UK for American readers, on issues such as, "How would Britain's nationalized health-care service deal with an epidemic of Lightning-Fast Zombie Disease?", or, "Britain's nuclear weapon deployment policies - have they deterred a re-infestation of Midwich?"

If only there were such a newspaper in America that could provide a similarly intelligent analysis of the UK for American readers, on issues such as, "How would Britain's nationalized health-care service deal with an epidemic of Lightning-Fast Zombie Disease?"

I am on it, sir! *hustles off to watch 28 Days for research*

TV Tonite:

ch. 02 King Kong: evil neo-cons loose giant gorilla on America's most loved skyscraper.

ch. 03 JAWS: a young GW Bush pilots an animatronic giant shark through the waters of New England, generating, as expected, death and destruction.

ch. 04 Godzilla: Perry Mason proves that 1941 was all about oil, and Halliburton's greasy fingerprints were all over it.

ch. 05 Poseiden Adventure: Borgnine vs. Bush underwater cage match.

ch. 06 The Inferno: The Man In The Yellow Hat lets Curious George wander around the apartment building with matches.

There you go Tim, you bullshitter you... nobody with half a spine would take your nonsense seriously. Truly despicable. Where are the 91 comments on this thread of nothing?