It’s always heartwarming to see celebrities who Care About the Planet™ cut back on the destructive waste and excess that defines America. Capitalism yields consumerism yields planetary destruction, don’cha know, but fortunately, these defenders of Mother Earth are doing their part to pay for our sins. Once the crew packs up the dozens of thousand-watt (non-CFL!) lights and return the stars’ gas-guzzling trailers, actors hit the press circuit to get their (and their upcoming projects’) names in the headlines, and what better way to cultivate a nice guy/gal image than playing defense for fragile ecosystems?

The Green Police gave her grief about this.

Enter Jennifer Aniston, the former Friends star who has successfully transitioned from TV to motion picture fame and cares deeply about conservation. In her contribution to a 2007 book about “saving the planet one simple step at a time,” Aniston reveals she takes three-minute showers and brushes her teeth in the shower. “Every two minutes in the shower uses as much water as a person in Africa uses for everything in their life for a whole day!” she explains.

Well, it’s good to know that Aniston has been consuming less water than the rest of us climate change deniers… in a $42 million Beverly Hills mansion. No cognitive dissonance there! Except, apparently, Aniston has recently decided that the lavish crib is “too much” for her, and she will be downgrading to a “wooden box” a la Mad Men’s Vincent Katheiser trailer a la director Tom Shadyac $4.95 million Manhattan luxury apartment. Now, I’m no expert on New York’s housing market, but that doesn’t quite sound like the kind of humble life that, say, we middle-cass flyover troglodytes already live, right? (more…)

So, in a recent Time Magazine blog, the writer reports on a study from France’s National institute of Statistics and Economics, saying men are worse for the planet than women. It seems that men emit nearly 40 kilograms of carbon daily, as opposed to women’s 32 kilograms.

And as you know, carbon is evil. Like me, but in chemical form.

So, here we are, sitting atop the nexus of lefty journalism, where the writer has managed to slap together two tasty slabs of PC red meat: feminism and environmentalism.

Yes, men are pigs, but not just to women. They’re pigs to the planet too. In an amazingly clever move, Time used a picture of Homer Simpson to illustrate the piece!

The caption: “A typical man.”

Which makes me wonder: what kind of picture would you need to illustrate a writer for Time?

My guess is, it would be the long gone Cathy, from the comic strip… Cathy.

She and her stringy-haired neuroticism will be missed. I loved her fearless take on lip gloss.

Or maybe it was her bumbling husband, Irving Hillman. Boy does he love gadgets -even if he didn’t know how to work them!

Ack indeed.

(more…)

When movie director James Cameron descended upon the Athabasca oil sands a while back, Albertans were subjected to the predictable but nonetheless aggravating media blitz of misinformation that occurs when a mega-star chooses a cause to elevate.

The elevation came in the form of a supercilious warning to put the brakes on the world’s second largest proved oil reserve. It could, he feared, become a curse if not properly managed.  This revelation came upon reflection via a government sponsored helicopter tour and a token chat with a group of not-so disenfranchised First Nations peoples in the area. (In 2009, oil sands companies contracted more than $890 million for goods and services from Aboriginal owned businesses and employed 1600 Aboriginals in permanent jobs).

And with that, Mr. Cameron and the media were able to close the case on the oil sands, as Mr. Cameron purportedly had to jet.  It’s not Mr. Cameron’s fault, completely. The oil complex is just that – complex.  It’s not the kind of business one just picks up as a hobby horse.  Sure, Cameron can regurgitate the technical terminology if he likes. It would be difficult for a techno-geek of titanic proportions to resist a sexy term like steam gravity assisted drainage (SAGD).

Here is where I suggest “putting the brakes on.”  Perhaps a moratorium on incendiary statements by celebutantes or politicians a-la-Pelosi who are not able to, because of their lack of training, do the type of deep comprehensive assessment required for these matters.

There are a few facts that cannot be disputed and you will get those out of Mr. Cameron, the enviro-statist and their press sycophants.  In this case it can be narrowed down to just two: the area containing the deposit and the size of the estimated reserves in Alberta.  Then it’s down the rabbit hole we go. (more…)

“We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us.” – Pogo 

Walt Kelly’s propaganda poster premiered on Earth Day I, 1970. 

It now conjures a circular firing squad of misanthropes in light of Franny Armstrong & co’s radical environmentalist 10:10 campaign’s evil, child-snuff fantasy film “No Pressure.” 

Revealed by the film is the wicked heart beating within the apocalyptic religion of environmentalism; a self-loathing, anti-capitalist, anti-Western-civilization political haven for deracinated communists, anarchists and their useful idiots after the fall of the Bolshevik utopia. 

The anti-scientific wave of contempt and rage cresting within these totalitarians since the revelation of the infamous East Anglia University Climate Research Unit’s “Hide the Decline” e-mails now crashes, Humpty-Dumpty, shattered and exposed on the rocks of their great Anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Change fraud.   (more…)

**Programming details after the jump.

Disney is famously apolitical. In fact, it probably prides itself as an anti-political organization. For years its calling card has been producing family oriented fare that would be welcome in any American household.  Indeed it famously declined to distribute Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which Moore managed to turn into a David v. Goliath story about censorship and corporate greed. This allowed the millionaire filmmaker to find another large corporation to distribute the documentary… whilst getting huge publicity railing against large corporations.  Disney managed to survive this potential blow to their non-political reputation and saved their brand.

But tomorrow, it appears, Disney will be suspending those principles and will engage in political programming. To mark Earth Day the channel is carrying a raft of programs which push the Green/Environmental agenda.

Why would the company that stood up to Michael Moore be willing to make such a bait and switch?  My best guess is that these shows will not appear to be political programming.  But this is a fallacy.  One of the great victories for environmentalists in recent memory is that they have been able to portray environmentalism as apolitical.  And this will be on full display tomorrow on Disney Channel. (more…)

So James Cameron was just on “The View” Wednesday morning, and he was disarmingly frank about the premise and purpose of his film, “Avatar.” He plainly explained it was anti-corporate, and that his goal was to take that “subversive” message, and wrap it up in an entertaining vehicle in a way that America, or the world, would swallow it whole.

Check it out here:

I admire the guy for admitting that. But I just don’t see the subversion he’s talking about. I can’t remember the last time I saw a “pro-corporate” movie, which to me would be truly subversive. I mean, can you imagine a director making a film about a drug company that works tirelessly to come up with medications that saves millions of lives? That’s happened in real life – more than a couple of times. Still, no movie. However, Hollywood craps out a pro-environmental, anti-big business flick faster than I can say “Pass the Charmin.”

And I can say that pretty fast. (more…)

So Politico.com has a sad story concerning the White House Holiday Party – an event that usually allows reporters to skulk around the White House and get their pics taken with the President.

But shockingly, things may be different this year. Some members of the press were left off the list, and it looks like those invited won’t be enjoying the typical “receiving-line photo.”

What? Did I just say what I think I said?

Can we rewind that please?

But shockingly, things may be different this year. Some members of the press were left off the list, and it looks like those invited won’t be enjoying the typical “receiving-line photo.”

I know, I know. How will the reporters cope? I mean, sure – we all have problems this year. Because of the recession, I’m cutting back on unicorn ornaments and Vicodin. But the real tragedy is the denial of those precious few moments standing next to the Commander-in-Cuteness. I can’t imagine anything more horrible – and believe me – I’m really good at imagining horrible. (more…)

Having received some criticism for my last post about “Sesame Street,” I would like to briefly respond to some of the questions and assertions in the comment section. 

What’s so bad about saying “we share common humanity despite ethnic/religious/linguistic differences?” 

A main tenet of the multiculturalism and Enviro-Statism inculcated by Modern Liberal educators and as practiced on “Sesame Street” — exemplified in “We All Sing the Same Song,” is the diminishment of the unique greatness of American culture. 

Political Correctness and its Critical Theory are shamefully deployed against American culture to create a false front of “equality” to less free, less successful, and deviant cultures around the globe. 

That is neither a healthy, nor appropriate form of values inculcation upon young American children, nor is it a responsible expenditure of American tax dollars.  (more…)

Last Friday, America was introduced to documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer when he asked an inconvenient question of former vice-president and multi-millionaire climate-change spokesperson Al Gore.  The terse exchange has become a hit on YouTube, and has afforded Phelim several appearances this week on cable news shows.  In it, Phelim asks Mr. Gore to weigh in on a British judge’s ruling that nine facts cited in the vice-president’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth”, were in fact not true.  After struggling to remember the exact details of the case (it was so long ago…), Mr. Gore and Mr. McAleer wrangle briefly over whether or not polar bears are actually endangered.  Mr. Gore remarks that if they are not, “the polar bears didn’t get the message.”  Cute.

Of course, this answer is really at the very heart of the current debate over global climate change (formerly global warming, formerly global cooling), because whatever the polar bears might think about their own species’ global population, it is obviously far more than most every human environmentalists seem to care about theirs.

“Their is an anti-human element to many environmentalists.”  That was what Phelim told me the day I first met him and his lovely wife Ann McElhinney early last year.  The two had just spoken, quite passionately I might add (everything the two of them do is quite passionate), at a private gathering of conservatives in Sherman Oaks, California.  (more…)

The Society of Environmental Journalists spent much of their conference in Madison, Wisconsin questioning why mainstream journalism was dying.

Then they answered their own question when they decided it was their role to protect Al Gore from An Inconvenient Question.

Phelim McAleer, the director of Not Evil Just Wrong, asked Al Gore about the British Court Case which found his documentary An Inconvenient Truth had nine significant errors.

McAleer said that given his documentary is being shown in schools – does he accept the errors and has he done anything to correct them?

However, Mr. Gore declined to address the issue and when asked for a straight answer from McAleer – the response of the Society of Enironmental Journalists was not to applaud one of their own for bringing truth to power but instead they cut the mic of a journalist.

(more…)

Celebrated actress Meryl Streep’s latest project “Julie & Julia” is out in theaters. I have not seen the film and am not sure if I will. I did see the trailers, and admit to being tickled by Streep’s uncanny portrayal of Child’s mannerisms and unusual voice. (For Big Hollywood reviews of this film, click here and here.)

Streep is one of those rare thespians who truly morphs into the character she is playing. You forget for a while that you are watching Meryl Streep (as opposed to never forgetting it’s Tom Cruise in “[insert film title here]“), and for that she deserves heaps of praise.  But her off-screen silliness is ripe for mocking.

Take, for example, her declaration during a promotional interview for “Julie & Julia” that she was “disappointed” in Child because 20 years ago, Child refused to take part in Streep’s efforts to get organic produce into supermarkets: (more…)

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The outgoing leader of Greenpeace has admitted his organization’s recent claim that the Arctic Ice will disappear by 2030 was “a mistake.”  Greenpeace made the claim in a July 15 press release entitled “Urgent Action Needed As Arctic Ice Melts,” which said there will be an ice-free Arctic by 2030 because of global warming. 

Under close questioning by BBC reporter Stephen Sackur on the “Hardtalk” program, Gerd Leipold, the retiring leader of Greenpeace, said the claim was wrong. 

“I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake,” he said.

–

Sackur said the claim was inaccurate on two fronts, pointing out that the Arctic ice is a mass of 1.6 million square kilometers with a thickness of 3 km in the middle, and that it had survived much warmer periods in history than the present. 

The BBC reporter accused Leipold and Greenpeace of releasing “misleading information” and using “exaggeration and alarmism.”  (more…)

Proving once again its claim to the hotly contested title of Stupidest Television Network, ABC has canceled “The Goode Family” and “Surviving Suburbia,” continuing their business strategy of desperately trying new things and failing to give them a chance to succeed.

No wonder the cab/sat USA Network actually beat ABC (and the CW network) in the national ratings last week. USA’s formula of original series with unusual but likable characters and sound values carries consistently impressive audience appeal.

Although the ABC cancellations were expected–given the fact that the network had brilliantly moved both series to Friday night, a network television Dead Zone, thus guaranteeing that the shows would not be able to generate an audience over time–they nonetheless prove that ABC hates anything with decent values and ideas and cannot appreciate good, solid entertainment with real sense (Castle being the rare exception). (more…)

Brad Pitt gained much notoriety for his environmentally friendly housing project in New Orlean’s Katrina-ravaged Lower 9th Ward.  Recently, a budding grassroots movement has gained momentum to elect Pitt Mayor of the city.  Earlier today, Mr. Pitt sat down with TODAY’s Ann Curry and talked about the prospect of a mayoral run and what type of mayor he would be.  From an an article on the TODAY website:

“If chosen, would you run?” Curry asked in the prerecorded interview that ran Thursday.“Yeah,” Pitt said.

“Would you serve?”

“Yeah. I’m running on the gay marriage, no religion, legalization and taxation of marijuana platform,” he joked.

That comment drew a measured “OK” from Curry.

(more…)

On Dec. 12, 1974, my grandparents were driving home when a vehicle traveling 50 miles per hour hit them. On March 17, 2002, I was driving home when a vehicle driving traveling 50 miles per hour hit me.

My grandparents were killed instantly. I lived.  My grandparents were driving an AMC Gremlin. I was driving a Dodge 3500 diesel dually pickup truck.

AMC is now out of business. Dodge Trucks are still selling well. The free market decided that we didn’t need AMC Gremlins.

I still drive a Dodge dually. We factor in safety versus miles per gallon on every automobile purchase that my wife and I make. Devo could not have said it better: “Freedom of Choice…It’s what you want!” Freedom to choose is a basic American right. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are guaranteed to me and 299,999,999 other Americans by the Constitution. (more…)