Island Richards

Proof That Curdled Cream Rises To The Top! 

The Dixie Chicks took home five Grammies this weekend, proving that talent and intelligence can be mutually exclusive.

Natalie Maines’ acceptance speech consisted of a mocking quote from The Simpsons, “Heh heehh!” Good for you Natalie! The fact is that the Dixie Chicks ARE talented and DO make great music. The other fact is, like so many other celebrities, they chose to use the fame that their talents afforded them as a soapbox from which to spew their idiotic political absurdities.

They seem to think that the winning of music awards is a sign that their political folly is justified, and that they have somehow spit in the face of their detractors. They couldn’t be more wrong. Their decision to combine their music with their political views has resulted in millions of dollars of lost sales and being blacklisted from most of the country radio stations in America. They are great artists, but not very many people are listening. They have already ran them all off.

You know, Edgar Allan Poe was a phenomenally talented writer. He not only created great stories, he created an entire genre of writing. He also died penniless and face down in a gutter. Van Gogh created 2000 works of art in his life including 900 paintings. He will be remembered forever as one of the greatest artists in history. He died before he was 40, infected by syphilis, after having cut off his own ear, of a self inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. I bet they had powerfully important political views! And I’m sure someday, someone will care what those views were.

The Dixie Chicks have pioneered their own brand of rebel country music. They are great singers and great performers. I bet they have powerfully important political views! And I’m sure someday, someone will care what those views were. Well, that is if anyone remembers who they are.

Wisdom

A good article from George Will at Newsweek.

Inconvenient Kyoto Truths
Was life better when a sheet of ice a mile thick covered Chicago? Was it worse when Greenland was so warm that Vikings farmed there?

By George F. Will
Newsweek

Feb. 12, 2007 issue – Enough already. It is time to call some bluffs. John Kerry says that one reason America has become an “international pariah” is President Bush’s decision to “walk away from global warming.” Kerry’s accusation is opaque, but it implies the usual complaint that Bush is insufficiently enthusiastic about the Kyoto Protocol’s binding caps on emissions of greenhouse gases. Many senators and other experts in climate science say we must “do something” about global warming. Barack Obama says “the world” is watching to see “what action we take.”

Fine. President Bush should give the world something amusing to watch. He should demand that the Senate vote on the protocol.

Climate Cassandras say the facts are clear and the case is closed. (Sen. Barbara Boxer: “We’re not going to take a lot of time debating this anymore.”) The consensus catechism about global warming has six tenets: 1. Global warming is happening. 2. It is our (humanity’s, but especially America’s) fault. 3. It will continue unless we mend our ways. 4. If it continues we are in grave danger. 5. We know how to slow or even reverse the warming. 6. The benefits from doing that will far exceed the costs.

Only the first tenet is clearly true, and only in the sense that the Earth warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius in the 20th century. We do not know the extent to which human activity caused this. The activity is economic growth, the wealth-creation that makes possible improved well-being—better nutrition, medicine, education, etc. How much reduction of such social goods are we willing to accept by slowing economic activity in order to (try to) regulate the planet’s climate?

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