The Hound Of Ulster

THIS has absolutely no connection to anything, really.  Unless “Awesome” counts as a connection, in which case it’s pure gold:

Jeff Peckman, who is pushing a ballot initiative to create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission in Denver to prepare the city for close encounters of the alien kind, said the video is authentic and convinced him that aliens exist.

“As impressive as it is, it’s still one tiny portion in the context of a vast amount of peripheral evidence,” he said Wednesday. “It’s really the final visual confirmation of what you already know to be true having seen all the other evidence.”

It APPEARED to go well:

“It starts out with a digital camera looking out across the room toward a window,” Peckman described the video to ABC News. “There’s a couple of flashes of light. After a few seconds, there is a small head clearly rising above a sill, panning the room, blinking its eyes, all slowly.”

While the news conference was recorded, Alejandro Rojas, the education director of MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, asked all cameras be turned away from a viewing screen when the video of the purported Alien sighting was played for the assembled media.

…

Peckman, who makes his living selling a new technology he says reduces “the chaos of electromagnetic fields,” needs to gather 4,000 signatures to get the proposal on the ballot. Even if he fails, Peckman said, the effort will educate people about the existence of aliens.

“I just did a radio interview with a South Africa talk show, and the discussion is all the same,” he said. “People call in. They say, ‘Yes, I’ve had this experience. We know the government has been hiding this information.’ It’s time to bring it out.”

The fact that MUFON exists just made my day a little more worthwhile.
 

Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president wants to TALK with Al Gore.

“I many times tried to talk to have a public exchange of views with him, and he’s not too much willing to make such a conversation,” Klaus said. “So I’m ready to do it.”

…

Klaus, an economist, said he opposed the “climate alarmism” perpetuated by environmentalism trying to impose their ideals, comparing it to the decades of communist rule he experienced growing up in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia.

“Like their (communist) predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality,” he said.

“In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat - this time, in the name of the planet,” he added.

Klaus said a free market should be used to address environmental concerns and said he oppposed as unrealistic regulations or greenhouse gas capping systems designed to reduce the impact of climate change.

(Is this a good time to mention that I’m Czech?  Or at least my family is?)

Gore’s taking the “If you ignore him, maybe he’ll go away” approach.  Which still seems better than THIS:

Conservative grassroots group Grassfire.org wants people to waste as much energy as possible on June 12 by “hosting a barbecue, going for a drive, watching television, leaving a few lights on, or even smoking a few cigars.”

The point: the group wants to “help Americans break free from the ‘carbon footprint guilt’ being imposed by Climate Alarmists.”

They’re stealing my birthday for this?  I’m not perfectly sure, but I suspect this sort of “approach” may not help in bringing greater understanding and tolerance to the “debate.”  Plus, I just think we think about guilt way, way too much as a society.  It’s an excuse that makes it possible for us to avoid our actual guilt.

Still, Gore’s approach seems to be WORKING.

La Scala officials say the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to produce an opera on the international multiformat hit for the 2011 season at the Milan opera house. The composer is currently artistic director of the Arena in Verona.

Again, speechless. 
 

This STORY is so far into “surreal” territory, I’ve been trying to figure out how André Breton is involved.  There’s got to be some connection.

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, faces a citizen’s arrest when he addresses an audience at the Hay Festival in Wales this evening.

George Monbiot, the journalist and activist, is planning the action because he believes Mr. Bolton is a “war criminal”.

Monboit has a strange BACKGROUND, and no mistake.  This has got to be my favorite part, though:

Among his best-known articles are his critique of David Bellamy’s climate science, his description of an encounter with a police torturer in Brazil , his attack on libertarian interpretations of genetics, his discussion of the ethics of outsourcing, and his attack on the politics of Bob Geldof and Bono.

Anyone who attacks the “politics” of Geldorf and Bono can’t be all bad.  (Well, that might not be strictly true, but it sounds good.)

Actually, I take it back.  My favorite part is the role Monbiot has played in the acceptance and increasingly prolific use of the term “MOONBAT.”  (OK, so he’s not the “original.”  Still…)

Oh, and I have no idea how this even answers the question:

Explaining his motivation for carrying out what will be a purely symbolic gesture, Mr Monbiot said: “Many people accept that the launching of the Iraq war was an international crime, but no one has yet been prepared to act on it by arresting one of the perpetrators.”

UPDATE: Apparently, things did not go as PLANNED…at least not as planned by Monboit.  He did “flesh out” his position a bit more, though:

This was a serious attempt to bring one of the perpetrators of the Iraq war to justice, for what is described under the Nuremberg Principles as an international crime.

Sounds like white-water rafting, or something.

This one’s from The Duck, only without the PUNS:

And this was the result of a Michael Flatley search:

(I refuse to say why I was searching for Michael Flatley.)

That second one led me directly to this:

Having now revealed far more about myself than was prudent, I’ll be quiet.

  

Enjoy
 

The latest “suggestion:”

Right HERE.

But, the reality is that if the same Baby Boomers who are complaining about the changing demographics had not murdered so many of their children, they wouldn’t be in this mess. By the numbers, 2500 innocent children have been legally murdered each year in Pittsburgh since January 1973, let alone the ones not counted from unrecorded yet equally intentional deaths caused by abortifacients like the Pill.

Diatribe may not be the best word, because it has come to carry a significantly negative connotation.

1: a prolonged discourse
2: a bitter and abusive speech or writing
3: ironic or satirical criticism

As I check over the possible options, I’m forced to reject the first one right off the bat.  The Duck is occasionally (perhaps even often) prolonged on his blog, but this is not one of those times.  He is also occasionally bitter and/or abusive, though I don’t think the second meaning quite fits in this instance, either.  I’m going to go with #3 on this one.

Satirical irony is the Duck’s forte.
 

 

I was trying to duplicate Duck’s TRICK on these, and was intrigued by what the “Zoom & Contrast” brought out. Jen said it was like a STEREOGRAPH.
 

 

It got warm very suddenly.  Almost too warm yesterday.  It was over 80, if my thermometer is to be trusted.  (The one on the house, that is.  The one in the van is sure that it’s 67.)
 

Inside Catholic’s got an interesting PIECE by Father Dwight Longenecker about what he percieves as the differences between Tolkien and Lewis.

The difference between Narnia and Middle Earth points to the underlying difference between the imagination of Lewis the Protestant and Tolkien the Catholic. For the Protestant, truth is essentially dialectical. It consists of abstract propositions to be stated, argued, and affirmed or denied.

For the Catholic, Truth, while it may be argued dialectically, is essentially something not to be argued but experienced. The Truth is always linked with the mystery of the incarnation, and is therefore something to be encountered.

I’m not sure I agree with all of that.  The piece seems intent on creating an opposition between the two writers based on their religious beliefs, and that’s problematic to my mind.

I know Longenecker’s not trying to say “Tolkien Good, Lewis Bad,” but it does come across as “Tolkien Catholic (so, good), Lewis Protestant (so, less good).” And I think that has a lot more to do with taste than with the works themselves.

Longenecker’s “hot tub point” simply isn’t true for me.  I find myself more moved by Lewis (both emotionally and rationally) than by Tolkien.  Does that make me a Protestant?  Or does it just mean that I prefer Lewis’ style and approach?

Nor do I think comparing The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings is particularly fair.  The Space Trilogy and The Lord of the Rings, perhaps.  But I don’t think Tolkien ever wrote anything intended for as young an audience as Lewis’ Chronicles.  Some of the “simplicty” should be attributed to that, right?