(Playing of Ball of Fire.)
That’s our buddy Paul Shanklin as Algore in one of our three global warming update themes, Ball of Fire. From the Wall Street Journal yesterday: ‘Israel-Bashing,’ and climate hysteria in the European parliament. Now, get this. The only thing that matters here is the last paragraph of this story by Daniel Schwammenthal. ‘There was Clare Short, a member of the British Parliament and Secretary for International Development under Prime Minister Tony Blair until she resigned in 2003 over the Iraq war. Claiming that Israel is actually ‘much worse than the original apartheid state’ and accusing it of ‘killing (Palestinian) political leaders,’ Ms. Short charged the Jewish state with the ultimate crime: Israel ‘undermines the international community’s reaction to global warming.’ According to Ms. Short, the Middle East conflict distracts the world from the real problem: man-made climate change. If extreme weather will lead to the ‘end of the human race,’ as Ms. Short warned it could, add this to the list of the crimes of Israel.’ Israel, by wiping out the Palestinians, is distracting people from the real problem facing the earth, global warming.
In Tokyo: ‘A Japanese government website crashed Wednesday as people raced to take up an offer of a half-price McDonald’s hamburger in exchange for pledging to fight global warming. The Japanese unit of the US burger giant Tuesday offered a Big Mac for 150 yen (1.3 dollars), about half the normal price, to anyone demonstrating a commitment to preventing climate change. People were asked to check up to 39 boxes on a form they could download from the environment ministry’s website, each listing a way of reducing carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming. ‘We started seeing a rise in access yesterday and it surged this morning. We are now trying to restore the system.” So apparently people recognize this for what it is. All I gotta do is check off some boxes on a form, I get a Big Mac for half price. All I gotta do is pledge to do something. Just the idiocy, the asininity of all this continues to know no bounds.
‘Global Warming Could Mean More Heart Problems, Doctors Warn.’ This is from the Associated Press, Vienna. ‘Global warming may be forcing polar bears southward and melting glaciers, but it could also have an impact on your heart. Doctors warn that the warmer weather expected with climate change might also produce more heart problems. ‘If it really is a few degrees warmer in the next 50 years, we could definitely have more cardiovascular disease,’ said Dr. Karin Schenck-Gustafsson, of the department of cardiology at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute. On the sidelines of the European Society of Cardiology’s annual meeting in Vienna this week, some experts said that the issue deserved more attention. It’s well-known that people have more heart problems when it’s hot.’ It is? Whatever happened to all these heart attacks shoveling snow?
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RUSH: Bill in Reading, Pennsylvania, we go back to the phones. Welcome, sir, I appreciate your patience. Hello.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. I’m glad you’re back. I’ve been wanting to get to you, but you were away for a week and whether you’ve caught up with the fact that Fox News looks like they’ve gone over to the other side on the global warming, their Fox News radio at the top of the hour has been showing and Shepard Smith has done this with his segment, pointed out how about the green in order to combat global warming, and also the local TV channels, for example, Philadelphia Channel 29, has picked up on that, and they’re broadcasting that as a marketing thing —
RUSH: Well, wait, wait, wait, 29 of Philadelphia, is that a Fox affiliate?
CALLER: Yes, it is.
RUSH: Okay, well, I gotta tell you, this is corporate-wide. This is not just the Fox News Channel. You remember not long ago the press release came out about ’24’ was going green, was going to go environmental friendly. I got e-mails from people, ‘Oh, no, Kiefer Sutherland is going to be shooting SUVs while driving hybrids?’ No, no, no, no. They’re just going green in the production techniques. They’re going to use different light bulbs and they’re going to try to neutralize their carbon footprint. This is nothing more than a PR blitz coming from Fox corporate for who knows whatever reason. Look, I’ve talked to people at various automobile manufacturers. They can’t make the cars they want to make because of CAFE standards. They gotta make these little dumpers out there, these little V4s and V2s; these things that are little bubbles out there that you drive around and risk your life because the government is mandating all these mileage standards. I said, ‘Screw it, why don’t you build what you want?’ They said, ‘We can’t. We can’t offend the customers.’ What do you mean, offend the customers? ‘Well, the customers think that global warming is happening, and they want to protect the environment so we can’t alienate the customer base.’ Jeez. You know, everything’s out of whack here.
It’s sad because the whole thing is a hoax, and the whole thing is ridiculous, and the whole thing is irrelevant. I’m not saying we don’t pollute, but we clean our messes up better than any country or population in the world. We’re very conscious about it, and I’m not saying warming isn’t happening, but I’ll damn well assert that man’s not responsible for it because we don’t have that kind of power. If you want to think you have that kind of power because you want to think you matter then you go right ahead, but I’m telling you right now, whether you drive a V4 or a bubble car or a monster V12, it doesn’t make one iota’s worth of difference to the climate of the world, not one, folks. It can’t possibly. What if everybody was? Everybody is! All these jets are flying around, the space shuttles, all the rockets that we launch, all the satellites, it’s so patently absurd to think that we have this kind of power. Anyway, so the Fox corporate edict has covered everything from Twentieth Century Fox, and it’s probably a News Corp-wide thing as well. The attempt here is to present to the audience the idea that Fox is eco-friendly and doing what it can do to save the world and save the climate. Obviously they made a political calculation, a business calculation that’s going to sell. I, frankly, don’t think that putting out a press release saying that ’24’ is going to be totally carbon neutral in its production is going to get ’em one-tenth of one rating point. I think it’s totally asinine and totally silly, but it’s going to make ’em feel better.
All those suits in the corporate suite at Fox out in Hollywood — and I’ve been there and I’ve seen it — they’re going to feel all better about themselves. It’s not going to matter a hill of beans to the ratings of even one of their shows. In fact, it will harm, if they put these techniques — they’re not going to do this, don’t misunderstand, this is an example — but if they actually get dialogue in some of these shows, serious dialogue about, ‘I don’t think we should take the SUV, Jack, might be too much of a carbon footprint. We’re already going to be blowing up some terrorists out there; let’s take the hybrid.’ If they did that seriously, and not as a comedy bit, it will hurt ’em. But the idea that this is going to help ratings-wise is silly. It’s a PR thing. So don’t blame this Fox News Channel going green. This is how these things happen, folks. But I actually think the global warming phenomena is over. In fact, I got a story here that’s from NewsBusters today. The BBC has canceled some big Algore global warming show because of the failure of his Live Earth. The Live Earth concert was such a disaster, such a ratings and commercial disaster, that the BBC is canceling a Gore environment show.
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RUSH: Here’s the story. This is NewsBusters, Brent Bozell’s media watchdog site. They watch the libs out there on the web. On July 12, NewsBusters asked, ‘Did Live Earth’s Flop Reduce Media Interest in Global Warming?’ By the way, you have to throw in here the fact that DiCaprio’s movie has flopped, too. If there were all this really hepped-up emotion about global warming — if people were really, really worried about it — this story that I have here and the moving flopping, they would not be happening. I just think they’ve overplayed their hand. I think they panicked. They are not interested in debating anybody. You know, the people that believe in this stuff will not debate people like me who don’t. They just want to shut us up. They call us ‘deniers’ and all of that. Anyway, the BBC ‘has scrapped ‘Planet Relief,’ a proposed day-long special about climate change, specifically citing the failure of Al Gore’s international concerts as one of the reasons for the cancellation.’
The UK Times online says this: ‘The BBC announced today that the project has been scrapped. Negative reaction to this summer’s flop Live Earth concert, promoted by Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, was cited as a factor.’ The BBC actually reported this. ‘Viewers told the BBC to present the debate around climate change in an informed and rigorous manner. They did not want to be lectured by wealthy pop stars and celebrities. The BBC said: ‘BBC One aims to bring a mass audience to contemporary and relevant issues and this includes the topic of climate change. Our audiences tell us they are most receptive to documentary- or factual-style programming as a means of learning about the issues surrounding this subject, and as part of this learning we have made the decision not to go proceed with the Planet Relief event. The BBC promised instead to ‘focus our energies on a range of factual programmes [sic] on the important and complex subject of climate change. This decision was not made in light of the recent debate around impartiality.”
Now, you can look at this one of two ways. The BBC is a bunch of commie leftists, folks. There’s no question about it. So they could be saying, ‘Okay, the Gore flop is actually hurting the cause, and we can’t do it this way. We believe in the cause, and we want this cause to be spread around the world. We want people to buy into this, and we can’t keep using these flops as spokesmen for it, so we’re going to go out and put together our own truthful documentaries that contain our liberal bias and lies, because we, the BBC, have credibility and these pop stars and flops do not.’ I think that’s partially true, but there was a story I had in yesterday’s stack, and this was heartwarming to see, too. The British people, in a recent poll, say they are becoming very suspicious about the real purpose of all this global warming talk. They think it’s just a disguised way to raise their taxes — and guess what? They are right! That’s exactly what it is, that and more. It’s a control mechanism. It has all the elements of a major religion. It’s got its Garden of Eden: pristine planet. It’s got original sin: pollution. It’s got redemption and salvation: drive a Prius; drive a hybrid; sell your house and live in a tree; take your own bags to the grocery store — all this other rotgut, stunned stuff. ‘If you do that, we will absolve you of your sin if you agree to pay more taxes and let us control your lifestyle so that you don’t do any more damage to the planet,’ and that’s exactly what the whole thing is about: liberalism in disguise, and these British citizens are figuring it out. I’m telling you, we’re going to beat this back. I don’t want to beat it back too soon. I want the other for another seven years or so. A seven-year cycle on this kind of issue is a good thing. Experience guided by intelligence tells me that. Plus, I want Roy Spencer to continue to have a job, who’s the official climatologist here at the EIB Network.