WUWT exclusive | Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The shock full text of IPeCaC’s Sixth Assessment Report (2020), the last of an undistinguished series of leaden, multi-thousand-page rent-seekers’ manifestoes, has been leaked. It can now be revealed exclusively to an eagerly sleeping world.
The Lord Monckton Foundation’s zit-faced, Coke-gurgling, coke-sniffing, donut-guzzling teenage hackers, TweedleDumb and TweedleDumber, have wormed their way through a back door in the firewall of the HAL 9000 mainframe at IPeCaC’s triple-gilt, marble-lined headquarters in Geneva.
After seconds of research, at the CP/M command prompt they typed “JOSHUA”. The Hollerith cards whirred through the reader, then the teletype spat out the words “GREETINGS, PROFESSOR FALKEN”. They were in!
Tweedledumb typed the Last Question: “AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?”
And AC said, in a stage Scots accent, “There’s a 97% consensus that we’re a’ doomed.”
Big Brother took time off from watching you to concur.
Tweedledumber spoke the Next Question in what passed for his mind: “But what is the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything?”
Unfortunately, at that moment Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz destroyed the Earth to make way for Intergalactic Route 666. The mice were not at all pleased. They had suspected the answer might be the product of three of the first four primes, but now they would never know, the Earth, the giant computer they had constructed to find the answer, was no more – and so were they. No more, that is.
The dolphins, of course, had moved off-world in good time, leaving behind them the message that would inspire entire philosophies throughout the known and unknown universe: “So long, and thanks for all the fish!”
The trouble with computers is that they are prone to tell WOPRs. Mother, for instance, has tried to reassure us that the aliens that inhabit IPeCaC’s headquarters are quite nice really. But we’re not buying anymore.
Read any sci-fi story that involves computers and you’ll realize that letting SkyNet become self-aware is not a good idea. Nor should one even entirely trust the Prime Radiant.
However, there is one splendid exception. The Lord Monckton Foundation’s computer, Ughtred St John Mainwaring, OBE, won across the faro table on the toss of a card over a glass of port from Michael Wharton, the late proprietor of the Peter Simple column in the Daily Telegraph, can be trusted implicitly.
It was originally constructed in the 9¾th dimension and installed in the Telegraph’s gerund-turning shed, where it performed distinguished service for more than a century.
Under its new ownership, it has been temporarily diverted from its current task listing the nine billion names of God in the Tibetan monastery of the Ping-Pong Lama and mapping them to the nine billion counter-examples to the Goldbach conjecture that it discovered in the intervals of defeating Deep Blue at chess.
It has now been requested (one does not dare to “task” Ughtred St John Mainwaring, OBE) to predict the course of the climate debate until 2020.
Mind you, it was not pleased to be humbly petitioned to undertake so distastefully straightforward a task. Its fine buhl and ormolu cabinet in the French Empire manner shimmered disapprovingly, and it reduced the ambient temperature throughout Tibet to that which obtains at the surface of the planet Neptune.
IPeCaC will now have to put back its forecast of the ultimate disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers from 2035 to at least 2350.
The effects of our justifiably dismayed calculating engine’s hissy fit were felt on the other side of the world. The Bunga-Bunga volcano erupted in Iceland rather than Italy. In Scotland, a glacier began to form on Ben Nevis.
Nevertheless, Ughtred St John Mainwaring, OBE, dipped its goose-quill pen into its pot of vermilion-tinged lampblack ink, unfurled a sufficient length of fine vellum, selected its unique English Italic Copperplate Gothic font (it would not dream of using any lesser handwriting), adjusted its cardboard cuffs, and, in impeccable 18th-century English of which Burke himself would have been proud, wrote –
“In the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty, more than two decades will have elapsed without so much as a suspicion of warmer weather throughout the Empire.
“This inconvenient truth will exercise no scintilla of influence upon the Thrones and Dominations, Princes and Powers that constitute the Untied Nations [Ughtred St John Mainwaring, OBE, never makes a spelling mistake].
“Even Her Britannic Majesty’s Government, holding sway over a quarter of the globe and all of its oceans [no one has dared to tell Ughtred St John Mainwaring, OBE, that the Empire no longer exists, or that, as C. Northcote Parkinson had long predicted, there are more admirals than ships in the Royal Navy], will close its mind to that mere fact.
“The Prince of Wales will whicker and whinny and set back his prominent ears [Ughtred St John Mainwaring, OBE, has analysed Chazza’s speeches and has convinced himself the Prince of Wales is a fictional stallion long put out to grass] …
“The overpaid, overfed and yet intellectually scrawny guild of natural philosophers, perched in their dismal, echoing towers of steel and glass and concrete, will have pored over their thumb-stained tables of Naperian logarithms, and will proclaim with characteristically ill-founded 117% confidence the 666th pretext for their dusty slide rules’ failure to predict so long a period of terrestrial thermodynamic equilibrium.
“Meanwhile, the 25th annual congeries of the States Parties to the Untied Nations’ Wickerwork Convention on Energy Security, all mention of “climate change” having been quietly discarded in 2017, will assemble in Ulan Bator and vote to maintain itself in permanent session till a solemn and binding treaty establishing an unelected global government shall have been agreed to by all nations.
“A Shawshank battlefield shoulder-launched tactical nuclear missile allegedly fired by a Ukrainian separatist will thereupon destroy the giant conference yurt, removing the negotiators, the fawning scribblers, the campaigners for blending blue and yellow, and the climate crisis itself, by a single, decisive coup de main.
“The mean intelligence of the human race will markedly increase in consequence, and not before time. The Pax Britannica, an era of unparalleled peace, prosperity, and merriment, will prevail for ten thousand years, and the weather will no longer be of interest except insofar as it has a bearing on the cricket. God Save the Queen!”
Finally, Ughtred St John Mainwaring, OBE, which fancies itself as a draftsman and often ends its output with a pointed sketch or cartoon, signed off with the following image representing the three-word full text of the Sixth And Mercifully Final Assessment Report, before returning to its more engaging pastime of inscribing the nine billion names of God on the world’s largest and most impeccably illuminated manuscript.
It is nearing the end of its long task. The Hubba-Bubba Space Telescope has noticed that, beginning at the farthest reaches of the Universe, the stars are winking out, one by one.
In the formless void that will in due course obtain, the last flickering wisp of human intelligence will address the Really Last Question to Ughtred St John Mainwaring, OBE, a shimmering cabinet of buhl and ormolu in the French Empire manner disporting itself pensively but merrily with the dolphins in the 9¾th dimension.
The Really Last Questions is this: “Got a light, mate?”
And that great engine of clear thinking will pause in its boogie with the bottlenoses and meditate for a fraction of an instant before replying, “Let there be light.”
But there will be no light. For long after the continuing failure of global temperature to increase at anything like IPeCaC’s predicted rate has become clear to all, burning fossil fuels and using nuclear energy will be pointlessly and expensively forbidden.
To those who ask, “What is the point of all this drivel?”, I say two things.
First, as Robert Louis Stevenson so nearly said, “To drivel hopefully is better than to rave.”
Secondly, is it not more than passing strange that all science-fiction computers except those on whose discredited output IPeCaC and the world’s classe politique so expensively rely are justifiably mistrusted?
Douglas Adams is rolling in his grave! Remember, British humor is an acquired taste for the world!
Very funny
Mike
Bit of Pratchett in there as well, around Tibet.
The nine billion names of God of course is Arthur C Clarke.
Lu-Tze is your man if you want to change a time series to suit.
And of course the credited Peter Simple. Many of Simple’s characters appeared in the real world during the Bliarian [I make no spelling mistakes, either] Deviation.
And mightily appreciated the Bunga-bunga bit!
Auto
It, progressive Enlightenment liberalism, I call it Progressive Propaganda Socialism, created UNEP, UNFCCC, and IPCC makes less sense than Christopher Monckton of Brenchley drivel?
Those that are not well read in SiFi are going to have a hard time with this one.
Those that are well read are going to have an even harder time, what with going off on tangents recalling the plotlines of all the works referenced.
A couple of additional references to Mentats and Proteus IV and Bingo a Sci fi full house……
I don’t remember if Mike was mentioned
Scottish accent: Ye can allus change the laws o’ Physics [in yer models].
Star-trekking – the Single.
Gorgeous!
Auto
That is Progressive Enlightenment liberalism, sorry Progressive Ideologiacal based Propaganda Socialism? They do that every day. Building Policy based Virtual Reality. Time to wake up to reality again and do something about it in national elections?
Apt lyrics to David Bowie song Saviour Machine:
President Joe once had a dream
The world held his hand, gave their pledge
So he told them his scheme for a Saviour Machine
They called it the Prayer, its answer was law
Its logic stopped war, gave them food
How they adored till it cried in its boredom
‘Please don’t believe in me, please disagree with me
Life is too easy, a plague seems quite feasible now
or maybe a war, or I may kill you all
Don’t let me stay, don’t let me stay
My logic says burn so send me away
Your minds are too green, I despise all I’ve seen
You can’t stake your lives on a Saviour Machine
I need you flying, and I’ll show that dying
Is living beyond reason, sacred dimension of time
I perceive every sign, I can steal every mind
Don’t let me stay, don’t let me stay
My logic says burn so send me away
Your minds are too green, I despise all I’ve seen
You can’t stake your lives on a Saviour Machine
HAL: Let me put it this way, Mr. Amor. The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.
Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do.
I’m half crazy….
Don’t dis HAL. HAL got it right –
“This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been due to human error…”
BTW, that song was the first song sung by a computer, at Bell Labs (no surprise) I had heard it in Physics class in high school a couple years earlier. When I saw 2001 the movie, and HAL volunteered to sing a song, I guess it might be that one and had enough time to steel myself from bursting out in laughter at the saddest part or the movie. It’s wonderful that Kubrick and Clarke preserved that little piece of computer folklore.
But between you and I “We Screwed Up”.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and the future bafflegab prognostications of the ipcc.
If there are seven more flat years, the real AR6 will be even funnier.
I look forward to hear how the missing heat is hiding on the moon…
Neil
I think most of the missing heat missed the Moon and is now way past the distance of Alpha Centauri.
Richard
Maybe a dream with seven cows in heavy coats, followed by seven cows wearing shorts?
Especially if those flat years are lightly tinged with a bit more frost than usual.
very good.
the only thing missing was an isis jihadi returning to Britain armed with an illegally obtained 1600watt vacuum cleaner on a mission to free julian assange
The EU are working up to ban powerful hair dryers next and have another 20 small scale objects in their sights.
tonyb
Best to read this with a BRITSH thinking cap on and a really HOT cup of tea ……. !!!
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
As long as we are not forced to listen to Vogon poetry:
Even Vogan poetry is better than the IPeCaCa Stories.
Regards
Climate Heretic
And thus, extrapolating from a few bad T1000s, we also forget the noble sacrifice of Optimus Prime.
For shame.
I had to get grief counselling for the kids after his death scene. It was heart wrenching.
pOINTMAN
The forbidden Robby.
Can be used to induce vomiting as well?
I find it amazing that Hari managed to predict all of this. He’s seldon wrong.
Pointman
It all depends on your foundation…
Can someone translate this into American for me? Google Translate doesn’t have that option.
Yes translation would be nice. I have no idea what this is about.
Roy
This was distinctly strange and I am British and was raised on Monty Python.
tonyb
Monty Python is based upon truth – uncomfortable truth.
This is based upon a fairly wide selection of SiFi classics, most of them from British authors.
Monty Python trivia knowledge won’t help you here, you need to have read the books.
If you don’t get it, you have several weeks of concentrated reading ahead before you begin to.
Roy, if you haven’t already, you can start with Asimov’s “The Last Question”
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
from which came
“AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?”
But I suspect you have more important things to do. 🙂
His Lordship Monckton is applying what he learnt from Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected .”
As Pointman notes the strategic importance of using “Humour”
He popularizes Josh’s cartoons: Climate Prat of 2013 – We have a winnah!
Pointman introduces the importance of The Prat Principle in identifying the climate prat – the
Applying these Mark Steyn observes in “A Boy Named Sue”
“
His Lordship Monckton extends this “humerous” assault to the IPCC.
Should run this past Orac as well.
I’m sure Zen would confirm that.
I will re-read the piece in the comforting knowledge that there is, after all, no incursion from Dr. Heinz Kiosk…
– – – – – – – –
Christopher Monckton,
Rather different than yours are my answers to your question “What is the point of all this drivel?”.
First , view science fiction or any type of fiction as ‘invention of reality’. Now consider what Victor Hugo said,
Secondly, it is not drivel to portray self aware computers in science fiction. Some SF portrays self aware computers as profoundly indifferent to mankind. That vision of computers would actually be good news, maybe we could get an unbiased view from them.
Finally, I enjoyed your wandering through a good sampling SF, but I did not detect a reference to Asimov’s ‘Foundation Trilogy’. Maybe the releaser of the Climategate emails works for the Second Foundation and maybe Rajendra K. Pachauri is the ‘Mule’, n’est ce pas?
John
The Prime Radiant, referred to in the head posting, is of course the output module of Hari Seldon’s computer in the Foundation trilogy. It would not have been right to leave that out.
Christopher Monckton,
Missed that reference.
It has been a while since I read Asimov’s ‘Foundation Trilogy’ in my teens in the early 1960s . . . glad you got Asimov in there.
John
This could have been a lot shorter, like, just “42”. Perfectly encapsulates the wrongness of the question and the answer.
I believe just “101010” would be an elegant sufficiency.
or “2A”
So next time it will be with 99% certainty that we have doomed (dumbed?) the planet.
Pretty much unreadable and unintelligible. What population on Earth is capable of thinking this post was funny?
only those with a sense of humor. Or Humour.
The significant population.
This is why shouldn’t cast pearls before swine
So sorry, William: the head posting presumed a wide knowledge of the classic works of science fiction – for that is the realm in which too many of today’s climatologists operate.
Be gentle with him Chris, he might be nursing some scorning scars.
Pointman
Scorn me deservedly. My quick perusal missed the Sci-Fi references. Having just read Dune, Live Free or Die, Citadel, The Hot Gate, Zoe’s Tale and Heaven’s Shadow the last 2 weeks I offer brain-full apologies. I must have been out of my gorram mind for missing the frakking references to Foundation and W.O.P.R.
In appreciation of the work that Christopher Monkton does on all of our behalf I offer the following from my favorite character: “This report is maybe twelve years old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there’s a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They’re gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people.”
Thanks for speaking for us!
Good Science Fiction is an extrapolation of scientific understand as it exists at the time of writing. That which is not is Science Fantasy, or just plain Fantasy. That is the realm of the IPCC’s publications, not Science Fiction.
The intelligent ones.
Us yanks could have used a few more Python-esque references…..
Also missing is Mike, from Heinlein’s Moon is a Harsh Mistress. A few moon rocks tossed in the general direction of the UN might work wonders, though the resulting dust clouds would surely impact global temperatures.
Nooooo. Poor Mike never recovered from that – truly a self-aware computer that realized the impact of its (his?) actions.
John The Cube,
Heinlein’s ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress’ was a keeper. The computer ‘Mike’ as indispensable aid to freedom fighters was a good sub-plot line. The book was Heinlein’s manifesto on the concept of human freedom.
John
some other notable computers:
EPICAC in Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, which coordinates the United States economy. It is also featured in other of his writings (1952) Named similar to ENIAC, it’s actually named after an over-the-counter poison-antidote syrup which induces vomiting
Mycroft Holmes (aka Mike, Adam Selene), in Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (Named after Mycroft Holmes, the brother of Sherlock Holmes) (1966)
M-5 Creation of Dr. Richard Daystrom “The Ultimate Computer” Star Trek season two episode of Star Trek
– – – – – – – – –
william,
Yup.
And there is a recent (in the last 10 years or so) series of SF books that feature self-aware factories floating in space. Still tracking down a specific reference to the author and books.
John
That was a “funny once”, John. ;->
You see, that is the kind of factual accuracy that Al Gore should have used in his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”.
Oh, wait…
never mind.
‘used’ – “aimed for”, I suggest.
Not that I think the AlGore-ithm chap was ever in the correct county.
Let alone parish . . . .
Auto
The lord is good, we thank him for this food
btw
there is no agw
note the last graph on the bottom below the table of minima
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/files/2013/02/henryspooltableNEWc.pdf
I protest! Mike in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was a perfectly well-behaved computer, co-conspirator, flyer of rocks (see John The Cube’s comment), and semi-decent joke teller. The likes of him has never been seen again, a pity.
Other missing but prestigous computers…
MultiVac.
HEX
In answer to “Dodgy Geezer”, in Isaac Asimov’s “The Last Question”, Multivac eventually transmogrified into just plain AC. “And AC said, Let there be light. And there was light -“
Thanks, Christopher, Lord Monckton,
It is very appropriate to reference science-fiction classics when writing about the IPCC, they are the most prolific fiction producers and the most boring. I will sooner listen to Vogon poetry than read yet another Assessment Report.
Douglas Adams was a gentle genius.
I’m afraid those drawing parallels to Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams are doing those authors a serious insult … their writings are accessible, articulate, and actually funny.
One suspects that the Lord has been on the port. There will be a red-faced retraction when he wakes up.
Ralph
Good Lord, I suspecteth that thy tea hath been spiked!
I might of missed it, but there’s no reference to Wintermute and the Tessier-Ashpool SA dynasty.
Pointman
Possibly I missed it – through tears of laughter – but – I stand to be corrected – is there any reference to Cordwainer Smith’s multiverse? Certainly no oblique reference to The Crime & the Glory of Commander Suzdal. I didn’t notice one . . .
If not familiar, do try his works.
If in error – sorry – Auto
We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls
We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
All the gifts of life are held within our walls
This would be from an earlier work of a Canadian power trio!
Following not to be confused with humor:
Standby for the current lack of a named tropical storm in the N. H. to be the fault of climate change.
I said it first here.
There is another level of reality/fiction to be detected. The text subtly refers to the Thrones, Denominations(sic) Princes (sic) and Powers of he United Nations. For those not familiar with this particular real or fictional crew these are very nearly four of the nine Choirs of Angels of the Catholic Church, which are (in order of importance): –
Cherubim
Seraphim
Thrones
Dominions (sic)
Virtues
Powers
Archangels
Principalities (sic)
Angels
I’m sure that both our Lord (in this case Monckton, of course) and the sainted Ughtred St John Mainwaring, OBE, [who never makes a spelling mistake].would both have known of this hierarchy. Interesting to speculate why certain ones have been subtly modified and attributed to the Untied Nations?
Well, I think so anyway.
Tantalus
Thoroughly enjoyed this!
Been reading SciFi starting in 4th grade.
Getting through Cat’s Cradle while hiding it under the classroom desk took a while…
Would have liked an H.G. Wells or Olaf Stapeldon reference….
Given all the great SciFi, this could article be just as extensible as the reasons for the lack of warming!
Thank you too much!
“…IPeCaC’s triple-gilt, marble-lined headquarters in Geneva…”
What? They’ve removed the ermine carpets?
Unavoidable – Contaminated by Pelligrino water, with those toxic CO2 bubbles.
This is how Australian scientists found evidence of a warming trend.
JOSH has competition. : )
John
Well remembered. Like all good cartoons, more than a hint of truth in the concept.
CPE1704TKS
[enter]
(nicely done)
the HAL 9000 mainframe at IPeCaC’s triple-gilt, marble-lined headquarters in Geneva.
Is the HAL 9000 setting next to “Zero’ from Rollerball?
Caan travels to Geneva in search of answers about corporate decision making in hopes of learning why he is being forced out of the game. There he discovers a liquid core supercomputer called Zero, that has recently “lost” the entire 13th century
Guess Zero didn’t loose the entire 13th century (after all it was “Not much in the century –
just Dante and a few corrupt popes.”) but it just got algorithmed out of existence.
Homogenisation perhaps?
Hmmm… could it be that those who don’t understand this post are all acolytes of the Church of Aestus Estus Maximus?
There is a problem here. This is the style in which the argument of AGW is reported to us. Gosh!
Pointman @9:19 “I might of ……”? Eh ?
re: Ughtred St John Mainwaring, OBE
All well and good but what about the slithy toves?
…and Klaatu?
…. barada nikto
I grokked most of it. Thanks for the laughs.
(The Real Report will simply read, “Give us all your money or your beachfront villa gets it.”)
spetzer86 August 29, 2014 at 11:22 am
Maybe a dream with seven cows in heavy coats, followed by seven cows wearing shorts?
Shit Man that was nice And I bid 300 kwatllus ;>)
Who would know that the Poms had a sense of humour, you are a credit to your nation Chris, but you might have to strike out the scottish accent bit after the referendum…
Douglas Adams would be proud, live long and prosper Lord Monckton
not nearly as funny as Monckton, but Shafer has a go nonetheless. mind u, bringing up the possibility, regularly posed by the CAGW crowd, that what is already MSM overkill coverage of CAGW may not be enough, without considering that all this coverage might be precisely what is making people sceptical, shows he is still an MSM CAGW gatekeeper :
29 Aug: Reuters: Jack Shafer: Why we’re so blase about global warming
What else has nudged America’s global-warming opinion needle in the direction of the doubters and I-don’t-care crowd? Perhaps opinions on global warming are driven by the volume of press coverage, not necessarily the content. Today volume is down: A Nexis search of the five top newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times) shows that 2,286 pieces mentioned global warming in 2006, compared to 1,353 in 2013. That’s a measurable decline, but great enough to move opinion? I doubt it…
I’d love to see a Pew survey pose a question like this: “Have global warming predictions convinced you that the coming devastation is so unstoppable that you’ve given up thinking about it?” Respondents would agree and cry at the same time…
For most of us, global warming is a problem for 90-years from now, and only two groups of people can be trusted to consistently think that far ahead: bond-buyers and hardwood forest planters.
http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2014/08/29/why-were-so-blase-about-global-warming/
Lewandsky et al, the AGW-psycholgists, would undoubtedly interpret that answer to a Pew survey as evidence of the defense mechanisms of denial and dissociation required to deal with AGW-induced psychological trauma.
This reference is more about a robot than a computer but my first thought was of Johnny 5.
http://youtu.be/Ey43FJWWQ_w
I always liked reading Scifi as a child, my personal favourite were the books by John Wyndham. He didn’t like the term scifi preferring to call it Scientific Fiction. He would take an idea and go way out with it like his idea which many would call genetic engineering of plants to come up with his book The Day of the Triffids which was written before genetics was known in 1951.
I don’t think he had any computers in his stories apart from being number crunchers.
James Bull
I forgot his book in which invading aliens melt the polar icecaps as a weapon against mankind.
The Kraken Wakes.
James Bull
Been reading Sci Fi most of my life. Got to love it.
As an aside Fox News had this headline up on the internet.
Comedian Morgan Still Struggling After Fatal Crash
It was probably fatal to others in or outside the car.
Yeah, I read it and died laughing.
The line “Let there be light” is also from an American sci-fi film the name of which I cannot recall. The story line is three men travel the universe destroying stars that are about go supernova with smart talking and thinking bombs. One bomb starts acting strangely and the guys try to talk it out of exploding (Because they are nowhere near a target star and the bomb is still on their spaceship). Eventually the ships computer reconfigures the bomb to limit the explosion just before the bomb has an epiphany, and says “Let there be light”. I think the bomb talks with an Irish accent.
The movie was Dark Star, made in 1974 by a young film student – John Carpenter…
The existential discussion with the Smart Bomb is hilarious.
The conversation in question.
Pinback
Actually, the voice of the bomb sounds like the voice of the acctor who plays the Holo-Dr on Star Treck Voyager. Classic movie though…sheesh that long ago? I saw it only once. And there was a “creature” that looked like a space hopper.
That’s the classic movie Dark Star by John Carpenter.
Pointman
Indeed that is the film.
6×9=?
i stopped snorting coke, because the bubbles got up my nose
I see Lord Monckton graciously left out the “Lost in Space” robot and the Teletubies so that the CAGW side can respond with a rebuttal.
That’s funny!
This could just be me, but I cannot follow this post at all. I am unsure of its theme, its plot, or if it is fictional satire? I guess the obscure nature of the story is beyond my pay scale. Was there a problem with a computer and this is a rant about it? Did another climate gate leak occur? I just don’t get the reference and can’t get my bearings in the flow. So if someone could indulge me and give me the dang point?
To those with a sense of humor, no explanation is necessary. To those without one, no explanation is possible.
Pamela Gray: “This could just be me”
No. Although this is not a criticism of Lord M.’s piece, it relies greatly on (1) one’s familiarity with the sci-fi canon and (2) not insisting that everything hang together. I somewhat meet the former criterion but fall short of the latter. My loss.
Moreover, I think certain kinds of humor are an acquired taste. Some decades ago “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” was floating around a cabin where six of us stayed on vacation. Three of us almost literally rolled on the floor laughing, while it left the other three completely cold, even though they richly appreciated other humor.
In any event, you are not alone.
I suppose there could be too much of this sort of thing, but we’re nowhere close yet. A few of you wits from Civilisation could pitch in a bit more often on some of the drearier threads which ravel here and relieve the tedium.
British humour can be considered as very “dry”…
I have occasionally made a similar observation of British cooking and women.
I thought it was to make up for the weather.
For those who have not got it, perhaps you may appreciate the rejection letter from a theatrical entrepreneur to a comedian who had applied for a position in the Variety Show. “Some of your jokes we have seen before, the others we have not seen yet.”
But if you are really worried about the prospect of doom, don’t until you find three men and a lady outside a pub m and find they are the three motorcyclists and the lone pedestrian of the Apocalypse.