This has been the most strange and unsettling week ever. Wiretaps, using the tax code as a political tool against your opponent, Huffington Post goes over to the dark side, and we witnessed the collapse of climate models ability to predict the future.
The Chinese must be laughing at our folly.
“May you live in interesting times“, often referred to as the Chinese curse, is reputed to be the English translation of an ancient Chinese proverb and curse, although it may have originated among the English themselves. It is reported that it was the first of three curses of increasing severity, the other two being:
“May you come to the attention of those in authority” (sometimes rendered “May the government be aware of you”). This is sometimes quoted as “May you come to the attention of powerful people.” (Alternately, “important people”.) Source
The icing on the cake this week is a portrayal as being one of the “Mad Men”, but given what’s been going on, one has to wonder, who really are the mad men? You just have to laugh though.
For those unfamiliar, this is a parody of the TV series Mad Men, which I have only a passing familiarity with. Apparently its about Madison avenue, sex, power, and smoke filled back rooms in the 60’s.
Unfortunately there’s no large version of the poster, because I’d surely like to print it and frame it for the sheer hilarity of it. It’s like somebody did a Vulcan mind meld with Mike Mann, and this was the image that came out. Of course, I want to frame the poster, rather than burn it like some that inhabit Mann-world do.
(Update: In comments, Michael Palmer says at June 7, 2013 at 10:48 am: here is a reconstructed mostly hi-res version of the picture. My thanks to him – Anthony)
Just a couple of notes for the artist, Steve Brodner, who didn’t bother to do his homework (all he had to do was check my “about page“), but instead allowed himself to get caught up in the Mannian fantasy vortex. For example, recall how Mike Mann reacted with full on conspiracy theory when I sent him a free calendar for Christmas.
I’ve met some, but not all of these people. As far as I know, none of them smoke. I asked Joe Bastardi yesterday whether he smoked or not (given his bodybuilding I highly doubted it) and he replied “only when I’m on fire!”.
For the record, both of my parents died of smoking related illnesses while I was young, and my severe hearing loss is connected to ear infections (and treatment by an ototoxic
drug) due to growing up in a smoke filled household. Smoking adversely affected my life, and made life choices for me that I didn’t plan. To portray me as embracing smoking is particularly unkind and most certainly inaccurate. But, that’s what happens when you live in The Mad Mad Mad World of Climatism.
While the cartoon is funny, the smoking portrayal does bother me a bit about this cartoon, because it is personal, and the artist of course is just another low information sap who works with popular memes. But, that smoking meme all part of the ongoing comparative smear to tobacco company tactics that Mann and Co. like to push, because after their own failure of the alarmist public relations strategy, all they have left now is denigration. Maybe they need to watch that “Mad Men” show for tips.
Oh, and also for the record I’ve also never gotten any money from big oil, small oil, Olive Oyl, Kochtopus, or the American Petroleum Institute, nor am I on the payroll (nor have I ever been) of any such organization. What you see is what you get, some advertising on the blog and the donation button on the right sidebar.
Finally, I don’t “deny” climate change. Most certainly the climate has changed over the last century. My view is that while CO2 has an effect, it isn’t as bad as being portrayed and it certainly isn’t living up to the expectations of the climate models. Like many eco-causes, it is over-hyped to get emotional churning which panders to the gullible.
Yes, we live in interesting times.
UPDATE: I’ve asked Steve Brodner on his blog (where he talks about the artwork) for a full sized copy. We’ll see how he reacts. I’d really like to get one. – Anthony
Dr K.A. Rodgers says:
June 7, 2013 at 10:13 am
Well, it is a take off on Mad Men. I assume that show doesn’t have women, except in “traditional” roles.
I pretty much stopped watching TV series after they cancelled Star Trek [Tos], though I did buy my first color TV for Jacob Bronowski’s “The Ascent of Man.”
Don’t bother posting at Steve’s website; he just posted this message:
“To all those posting here who repeat what Harpo has said, please know that the repetition of denial doesn’t change anything. You can do the self-delusion dance all you want on your sites. And soon there won’t be much of that either. We can change while there’s time. This blog will be devoted to that.”
Chad says: “…Every single reputable climatologist agrees that the earth is warming dangerously…Any climatologist who disagrees is not reputable….”
All true Scotsmen agree wi’ ye.
Note that Brodner referred to The American Prospect, a liberal rag, and to the assistance of an editor there. I think he envisions this used as a double-page intro to an article on you guys. Note there’s even space for a fold line in the middle of the drawing.
Ah, I think he has in mind that the drawing and captions would be the entire article, see http://prospect.org/article/six-portraits-mitt
Funny … ya definitely need a full size copy for ‘down the road’ use when late 20th and early 21st century “global warming’ nuttiness becomes just another enter in the “The Journal of Irreproducible Results” …
http://www.jir.com/
.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: “I wonder which “other” people, who are already famous, were used as the templates. It’s a good technique, your subject looks immediately familiar…because it’s really just a sketch of someone famous with a few touches. Thus Watts is Lech Walesa. Steve Milloy is Peter Lorre. And Joe Bastardi is Barrack Obama. Nice touch on the shading.”
I think you’re onto something, kadaka. James Taylor and Fred Singer are Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.
Ric Werme says:
“Well, it is a take off on Mad Men. I assume that show doesn’t have women, except in “traditional” roles.”
The purpose of the cartoon is to denigrate the opposition as sexist old white males, the favorite enemy image of the American liberal.
Showing Jo Nova or Donna Laframboise would have torpedoed that, so the cartoonist didn’t.
I would take the poster as a compliment. The Mad part of the title did not refer to their sanity but to the fact that they were based on Madison Avenue.They were, in fact, exceptionally successful communicators. Despite what people often say about advertising it has to be truthful to be sustainable – a lie discovered can destroy a brand. Advertising standards authorities require advertising to be legal decent honest and truthful.
So by likening you to the Mad Men they are declaring you as successful communicators of the truth.
Compare this with the output of political propagandists……
Ah, the old tobacco-booze-oldboysclub smear. (a threeper form the prog playbook)
h/t to Bish for this Pointman classic on the warmist demise:
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/how-to-run-a-really-bad-infowar-campaign/
DaveF said @ur momisugly June 7, 2013 at 11:49 am
You’re a better man than me, Gunga Din! Took me until I was 62. Twenty six days so far…
Anthony sorry to hear about your parents, one of my grand parents also had cancer that was tobacco related and another had a respiratory related injury caused by asbestos as a result of handling it while he was working on the docks.
Generally there does seem to be a difference in the type of caricatures that the proponents of AGW and sceptics of AGW fire at each-other, The imagery that AGW proponents create is about demonizing their opposition, where as the skeptics imagery is mostly about pointing out AGW proponents Idiocy and scientific mistakes in good fun.
I don’t get the reference above, but, I can hear the cogs working overtime in josh’s head :).
The best way to diffuse the malign intent is to adopt it as a badge of honor, sort of like what happened when astronomer Fred Hoyle mockingly called cosmic expansion the big bang theory. That sure came back to bite him. McIntyre, Monckton, Spencer and others ought to complain wherever they can about being left out.
You should return the favor and commision a picture of Mann, etc sitting around smoking joints.
commieBob said @ur momisugly June 7, 2013 at 10:36 am
Don’t just do something, sit there! — Lao Tsu
Here is a link to Steve Brodner’s artwork at a very good resolution for printing 11×17 – it has no text and the color is far better with minimal jpeg compression – http://stevebrodner.com/wp-content/gallery/editorial/mad-men-of-cc-1500p.jpg
It is from Steve Brodner’s website.
It might help them get their message across if they didn’t call 12 men who don’t deny climate change “Mad men of climate-change denial”.
Can they get anything right ??
Gary at 2:06 pm is right–adopt it as a badge of honor.
Because I think this depiction is fair: Josh protrays the Warmistas as idiots, and the artist of this work portrays the “Deniers of Climate Change” as a bunch of wise old men.
Give me “wise old men” anyday.
Especially on something as important as our climate.
The second phrase is better rendered as:
“May a person of the government arrive to assist you in your endeavors.”
This has been the most strange and unsettling week ever. Wiretaps, using the tax code as a political tool against your opponent….
Indeed, the revelations from congressional hearings that the higher levels of our government were responsible for directing the IRS to target conservative groups and individuals for illegal intimidation via ‘special investigations’ indicates willful, direct corruption. We need a Special Prosecutor to investigate our Special Persecutor, me thinks!
The covert gathering of data from all voice and text transmission methods in the US without congressional oversight or a judge issued warrants violates even the requirements of the already loose Homeland Security Act of 2002. Does this seem out of character for the current administration? I’ll let you decide. Here’s the Presidential candidate of 2007 thoughts on such matters… pronouncing how would handle such things, if he were to become President.
MtK
http://youtu.be/WAQlsS9diBs
It is an interesting sketch. I do not know, but I doubt that the salaries and funding for everyone pictured above would equal the earnings/funding of just one of the alarmist crew.
Perhaps for a small license fee, the picture could be used for truth purposes; use the picture and embed publicly known funding/earnings of the real scientists and bloggers and book match it against a Josh picture of the alarmists along with their funding/earnings. Adding in little notes about exactly which alarmists ‘deny or have denied’ access to publicly funded data and or research.
Depicting people as smoking or drinking when they do not is libel; lying directly or indirectly (implying funding sources that are less than legal) cut it very closely to libel; especially when the fraudsters do know which side is not honest.
The Pompous Git 2:01:
Keep going Pompous – best thing you’ll ever do! Best wishes, Dave.
P.S. to Pompous Git: 26 days – you’re nearly there!
In order for humor of this kind to work there has to be an element of truth in the story. There is none in the poster.
Peter Plail says:
June 7, 2013 at 1:42 pm
“I would take the poster as a compliment. The Mad part of the title did not refer to their sanity but to the fact that they were based on Madison Avenue.They were, in fact, exceptionally successful communicators. Despite what people often say about advertising it has to be truthful to be sustainable – a lie discovered can destroy a brand. ”
Eddie Bernays started his Propaganda carreer, based on finding of his uncle Siegmund Freud, by having some upper class gilrs during a parade smoke cigarettes, then launching a news campaign that promoted the idea that this was because they were sufragettes, leading to the association of women smoking as liberating. Nothing about it was truthful, the NYT probably loved it as they love a good lie, and it was a blazing success.
jorgekafkazar says:
June 7, 2013 at 1:30 pm
Chad says: “…Every single reputable climatologist agrees that the earth is warming dangerously…Any climatologist who disagrees is not reputable….”
All true Scotsmen agree wi’ ye.
Aye. ‘Tis true, Jorge.
But not all true Scots are reputable…… ‘n more is the pity!
MtK