Note: There’s a response and analysis to this post here.
NOTE: Predictably, Joe Romm has turned this post into a personal bashing of me over at his Climate Progress blog. For some eye opening viewpoints from his side of the argument, have a look at the 495 comments on his parent blog “Think Progress” here. UPDATE: many of those ugly and violent comments at TP have been “sanitized” since I drew embarrassing attention to them. The word “filthy” in my post below, is pointing to the multiple use of the word to describe humans in the manifesto of the gunman, also published below. I realize that may upset some people, and for that I apologize. However, it is instructive to read the manifesto to see how global warming hype drove this man to do what he did. From this MSNBC story:
Lee said he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.”
UPDATE: It’s over, from MSNBC:
Police shot a gunman who held three hostages for several hours Wednesday at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Md., authorities said. They said the hostages were safe and the gunman was in custody. Police said the gunman’s condition was unknown. At least one explosive device went off when he was shot, and other explosive devices could still be in the building in Montgomery County in suburban Washington, D.C., they said.
UPDATE2: MSNBC is now reporting the gunman has been killed.
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Well, you filthy readers, see what happens when we don’t acquiesce? In case you haven’t heard by now, a gunman named James Lee, an Asian man with a years-long vendetta against the Discovery Channel cable network has entered the building and got an armed hostage taking situation going on right now.
Some news coverage here:
Armed Man Believed to Be Environmental Protester Takes Hostages in Discovery Channel Building
Among his demands from the manifesto on his website:
Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!
MSNBC reports:
Lee said he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.”
Perhaps inspired by Gore, and Dr. James Hansen’s recent call for civil disobedience, we have today’s environmental public relations train wreck turned armed hostage situation.
THE MANIFESTO OF JAMES LEE:
(downloaded before traffic took it down):PDF here at TMZ
The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:
1. The Discovery Channel and it’s affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn’s “My Ishmael” pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other’s inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!
2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs’ places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.
3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also, keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF??? STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!
4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn’t, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??
5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)
6. Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don’t build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!
7. Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people’s brains until they get it!!
8. Saving the Planet means saving what’s left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You’re the media, you can reach enough people. It’s your resposibility because you reach so many minds!!!
9. Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy. Find solutions for their disasterous Ponzi-Casino economy before they take the world to another nuclear war.
10. Stop all shows glorifying human birthing on all your channels and on TLC. Stop Future Weapons shows or replace the dialogue condemning the people behind these developments so that the shows become exposes rather than advertisements of Arms sales and development!
11. You’re also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.
Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what’s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.
For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human’s lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!
It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child born in the US will use 30 to a thousand times more resources than a Third World child. It’s like a couple are having 30 babies even though it’s just one! If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!
Also, war must be halted. Not because it’s morally wrong, but because of the catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT, DAMN YOU!!
The world needs TV shows that DEVELOP solutions to the problems that humans are causing, not stupify the people into destroying the world. Not encouraging them to breed more environmentally harmful humans.
Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
The humans? The planet does not need humans.
You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!
I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it.
These are the demands and sayings of Lee.
==============================
h/t to the Seattle Weekly blogs and WUWT DocattheAutopsy
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There are wackjobs everywhere, and making this guy the poster boy of the true believers in CAGW is unfair. Sure, he was a climate alarmist. But being a wackjob trumps that.
But the purveyors of the CAGW conjecture still have not produced any empirical observations or evidence showing that the portion of human-emitted CO2 [less than 3% of the total] causes any measurable effect on global temperatures.
Lefties blame what Timothy McVeigh did 15 years ago on current Republicans, but won’t take the blame for something they enabled this afternoon.
Smokey says:
September 1, 2010 at 7:53 pm
There are wackjobs everywhere, and making this guy the poster boy of the true believers in CAGW is unfair. Sure, he was a climate alarmist. But being a wackjob trumps that.
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True.
Al Gore (and the Greens) preyed on his fears.
First the Unabomber, Dr. Theodore John “Ted” Kaczynski.
Now the Discovery Shooter, James Lee.
Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is enemy action.
No more ‘free passes’ for the ‘we must save the planet at all costs’ BS coming from the Greenies.
Quit whining about how UNFAIR we’re being as we connect the dots.
You OWN it.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl102255r
Evil ideology requires evil means and produces evil results.
Prima facie, ipso facto and Q.E.D. Stupidity in the mirror is way closer than it should be.
seriousLee.
Reply: Not quite understanding how this comment holds together with the link, but it sort of is on topic. ~ ctm
@ur momisugly Pamela:
Sorry to hear that. I have had close family with mental illness also. It is not easy to deal with. I would say that Lee’s actions were the result of mental illness. The guy was arrested in 2008 and has been homeless since then. I am pretty sure after reading his manifesto that he was mentally ill. I am with you on feeling truly sad about his death and I can only hope it doesn’t stigmatize his family that he died in this way. My Grandpappy raised me Irish Catholic and taught that we pray for all the souls, the good, and especially the bad.
Then again, when he was arrested in 2008, he was evaluated by doctors, who found nothing wrong.
The Gazette also reported that Lee had spent two weeks in jail following his arrest, including several days being evaluated by psychiatrists.
“I told them my idea of saving the planet,” he said. “They couldn’t find anything wrong with me.”
So the mental illness idea may not even be correct. Some people are just malicious. Time will tell.
Also, and as I have said previously, it is sad that some of the rhetoric from environmentalists make it easier to miss the line between the two. I have some friends who have said many of these things, with all earnestness, and truly believe that population control is the wave of the future. That, I think, is scary. People are convinced that we must regulate populations to preserve humanity’s place in the future of this planet. But how do people decide which populations to regulate? It always comes down to the same lines drawn in between populations; Muslims, blacks, Jews, whites, Assyrians, et cetera. Who decides which population?
Well, that was the wrong link! This is what I meant to put, sorry:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c0b_1283301710
Lots of people seem so sure that Mr. Lee was mentally ill. Criminals use guns and bombs too you know.
Paul R. Ehrlich and John Holdren spout similar hateful Malthusian ideas. James Hansen has called for civil disobedience – otherwise known as criminality – in support of CAGW. Why any of you suspect he was detached from reality is beyond me.
My sympathies for those who knew him and I hope he finds compassion wherever he is now.
Oops, forgot the link to the story I quoted from:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/01/james-jay-lee/
Sorry.
“Mark from Michigan” – he listened to Mark from Michigan on SW (contrary to Clinton blaming someone named ‘Rush’ – and that would then make it the ‘current Conservatives’) –
See “Mark Koernke” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Koernke
Interested parties who wish to come to know the mind of McVeigh might check out the book American Terrorist written by Buffalo, New York journalists Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck who had access to McVeigh for 75 hours worth of interviews for this book (besides interviews with others as well).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Terrorist
Excerpt from the book where McVeigh takes credit, claims no c o n s p i r a c y –
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/842182/posts?page=33#33
.
I worry about an entire generation that grew up in the shadow if Al Gore’s film and the crazies that promote and distribute his ideals. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.
Jason Bourne said on September 1, 2010 at 6:38 pm:
Speaking of schizophrenics, what’s your Identity?
With regards to scientific discussions, are you upset about this site’s Supremacy?
Remember you’re a guest here, don’t issue an Ultimatum.
Exploiting death? What do you think Anthony does, make sensational movies? He doesn’t, which you may find to be An Inconvenient Truth.
☺
Sad. I do blame the lefty alarmists and the media to some degree. The poor pathetic soul probably did believe that he was saving the world. Words matter. Outlandish, irresponsible claims that humans are causing the earth to warm to the point of destroying the earth must have driven this man to do everything in his power to save it.
Jason Bourne says:
September 1, 2010 at 6:38 pm
This man was obviously a schizophrenic, not a “warmista”. Shame on you Anthony for exploiting his death, you are a sad man.
There is no proof of schizophrenia in that manifesto – no claim to be hearing voices or evidence of hallucinations. He didn’t claim the animals were talking to him for heavens sake. There are other symptoms of course, but you cannot conclude schizophrenia from the evidence at hand.
http://www.schizophrenia.ca/What_Is_Schizophrenia.pdf
Look, every time someone does something appalling it’s not necessarily because they are “insane”. That is a cop-out.
Clearly the guy had some kind of complex manifesting itself in misanthropy with an emphasis on infants. Amoung other things I am guessing that he didn’t get a lot of dates.
We all have complexes. The quote “These are the demands and sayings of Lee” does hint at inflation of a complex.
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/GlossaryOfTerms.html
So the short answer is we don’t if he was schizophrenic or not or if he was insane or not.
What we do know is that he cannot be allowed to do what he did – the police did their job. We also know that he was promoting common, if on the extreme end, green propaganda. We also know that this was news.
Finally, we know that the way media report this is also news.
Peace – condolences to all families effected
“Race to Save The Planet” published by savetheplanetprotest
Note: On ratings Dislikes to Likes ratio is over 2:1 (Dislikes 29 Likes 12) … not everybody is ‘buying it’ …
.
@James Baldwin Sexton
I believe mankind’s freedom, both physically, intellectually and spiritually is mankind’s salvation, not his destruction. I believe mankind’s destruction comes from the inhibition of his achievement.
I actually believe many of these things too. But your freedom as defined here allows an individual to act without consequence: freedom from inhibition to murder, for example. You need to add one caveat (and this caveat provides a logical – rather than religious – basis for morality). I would rephrase it thusly:
“Everyone has a right to physical, intellectual and spiritual freedoms, and the right to act in whatever ways allow them to maximize well-being, provided that these actions do not interfere with the rights of others to do the same (including future generations).”
And once you have this, you have a basis for a social discussion on governance, government, environmentalism, war, welfare, punishment and all kinds of other things. And I support the discussion – it’s what is necessary to provide balance.
There is a responsibility that comes with freedom, and that responsibility is to leave the world and our society and our government debt in as good a condition as we found it, so that others may enjoy the freedoms and rights that we have expressed.
Sir, we’ve been dealing with communists/socialists since the first person realized he could rationalize himself into equal value with people that contribute.(never bothering to understand it kills initiative of the people that do)
I understand and agree that big state welfare programs destroy initiative and undermine the work ethic. I want to see market based solutions to the problems of climate change, because I think that they will be more creative and efficient, and cost-effective. I don’t want to see global government, or big state solutions. I do think we might need to kick start the process a little, which is why I favor a flat carbon tax which is 100% redistributed back to tax payers through tax credits. With this, there should be minimal drag on the economy, as punters begin to choose energy based on their wallets, and new markets should open up as companies begin to provide new, more energy efficient products and services. I think a lot of environmentalists would also agree with this. This is not socialism.
So you’ll forgive me if I get a little upset when I hear comments such as:
Environmentalism? Socialism? – apart from the labels I didn’t know that there was a difference.
It’s so much easier to knock down environmentalism when you have constructed a strawman argument such as this. It would be like me using Pat Robertson or Glen Beck to define everything that the right did in the US.
Do I sometimes wish the rhetoric would ease up? Sure. Do I, for one second, believe we should not always remind people of the realities of communist/socialism.
You do yourselves a disservice by not challenging extremist rhetoric (on either side) on this site. I am not saying it should be suppressed (it shouldn’t be), but just because it is on “your side” doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be called out.
Scary!
I hope that they closely scrutinize religious fundamentalists at airports. Not only Middle Eastern religious fanatics but also those that belong to the Malthusian Global Warming faith.
We know specifically, that the leaders of this particular religious sect are frequent fliers while often occuping high positions in our society. They often attend conferences at exotic locations where this gang of individuals on a regular basis make shadowy deals in an effort to rip off money and wealth from ordinary people.
I’ve been wondering what the eco left was running all those AFTER HUMANS shows for.. now we know.. first what they want is nutso.. then they spin it for a few years.. “old Lee saw this coming”.. then they will be teaching it to our children in school..” you don’t want to have pollution babies do you?”
squirrels of the world unite!
INGSOC says:
September 1, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Most truly believed that their time had come with the election of Obama. The feeling of having to act up now to save the planet is growing… As is the case with this sort of thing, copy-cats will likely follow. As the fellow appears to be dead, they now have a “martyr” for the cause. As I have said before; we are entering a very dark age.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I’ve always feared the stage when this would start getting violent. It’s happened countless times throughout history. Someone adopts a radical point of view, tries to convince others by debating, but it doesn’t work. He’s labeled a fool. People start to avoid him when he approaches them in casual conversation. Then once he realizes he doesn’t have an intellectual leg to stand on, he decides to resort to violence to get the point across. He makes himself a martyr for the cause. We all know where it goes from there.
Lee was not mentally ill, though. That’s just a cop-out. He knew what he was doing.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
September 1, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Jason Bourne said on September 1, 2010 at 6:38 pm:
This man was obviously a schizophrenic, not a “warmista”. Shame on you Anthony for exploiting his death, you are a sad man.
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Yeh, the idiot comes in after the fact. Anthony posted this story well before the man’s demise.
What’s sad is people like him not only believing they know all facets of science to where he understands climate, now they’re in the diagnosing mental illness business. What limited knowledge I have in the fields of psychology/psychiatry, and the very limited knowledge I have of this person, I’d say schizophrenia wasn’t his difficulty. The very act of taking hostages, while not unheard of, would be quite remarkable for a schizophrenic. To do so you must take people unawares or plan and execute precisely the plan. Schizophrenia isn’t the only mental illness, nor the most common. And we don’t know this man had any.
I still don’t understand the huff and puff about the post. It is pretty clear that the guy had issues, but he strapped explosives to his chest, armed himself, and walked into a building he had been harassing for years to take hostages. He, in the course of harassing this company, was evaluated by state doctors and they found him fit enough to release back into society.
“A desperate act to validate his own ego and opinion,” is how Lee’s brother-in-law, Thomas Leonard, described the attack in an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto as the hostage standoff was unfolding.”
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/01/james-jay-lee/
So, I can’t trump the state doctor or his brother-in-law’s opinion. I don’t know him well enough to say he was crazy. His writing is disjointed, but he may just be a bad writer.
Woahhh!
I just went to:
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/01/discovery-terrorist-immigration/
to read the blog and the comments. These people (the ones who haven’t been “voted down”) are truly scary. Arrogant, vicious, violent, hateful, ignorant, stupid — words fail. Is this the face of the leftist, warmist, environmentalist today, or just an aberrant thread of subhuman troglodytic development given wings by the internets?
On the matter of the day, I’m so glad none of the innocents were harmed. As a Christian, I’m saddened by this poor man’s actions and resulting fate.
Compared to Huffpo “Think Progress” is pretty tame.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/01/james-lee-discovery-chann_n_702356.html
Read the comments there if you want to be truly scared. There appears to be dozens of folks that think he didn’t go far enough or that he was being most rational. Really creepy.
How would the media portray it if a skeptic took hostages and demanded a serious scientific debate? This poor chap was conned and went over the deep end trying to help. Sad but watch how they portray him. My money is that the media will simply cover it as a hostage taking, ignore his motives and move on to the next celebrity story because they don’t want the CAGW crowd to look dangerous and threatening.
Now if it was a patriot movement person or a AGW skeptic they would print how dangerous they all are and demand all guns be taken.
Truly sad that people don’t realize they are being manipulated.
The guy was obsessed with ‘filth’ the same way Brigadier General Jack Ripper was obsessed with ‘Precious Bodily Fluids’ in “Dr. Strangelove”
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0158904/
That he went nuts and used eco-gibberish is a result of his disease, not eco-gibberish.
He also used immigration and human extinction imagery in his magnum opus. He was likely obsessed with cleanliness, and no, I am not pretending to be a profiler or a shrink. Just an observer.
However, the reaction by the enviro-extremists is interesting. Just like when Oswald murdered JFK, many on the left seem unable to imagine that a deranged person from their general side could act violently. From the bitterness of the reaction today, this guy must have struck some strange nerve in the shakier true believers.