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February 27, 2007
Uh...
Badler writes:
I'm also coming around to the view that campus progressives should start to generate their own publicity stunts. How about global warming bikini day, where students wear skimpy bathing suits to class?
I'm not sure that would have quite the consciousness raising effect you're going for, Ben. Indeed, I think I'd happily trade a few degrees fahrenheit to make such a world manifest. That said, right wing students have gotten pretty good at oppositional organizing, and their affirmative action bake sales and Catch An Illegal Immigrant days have proven pretty effective for them. This isn't my area -- talk to me when you want an actuarial analysis of a health care plan -- but some of you must have awesome ideas!
February 27, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Reminds me of PETA:
-"Hmmm, how can we use our political views to convince girls to take their clothes off?
-"I've got it - nude protest!"
-"Dude, you're a genius!"
Posted by: Midwest Product | Feb 27, 2007 10:21:40 AM
Another from the conservative side- some pro-Palestinian group set up "checkpoints" on campus to protest Palestinian treatment by the IDF- of course everyone was pissed because the protesters were trying to go through their bags and people were being blocked from getting to class. So someone put red food coloring in a water balloon to simulate a suicide bomber; when they were checked they popped the balloon and "killed" everyone. I can assure you, hilarity ensued.
Posted by: SP | Feb 27, 2007 10:35:02 AM
Speaking of global warming, guess what Al Gore does to reduce global warming.
His house in Nashville uses twenty times the electricity that the average person uses. His driveway (and it is a big one) is lined with natural gas lamp posts. Those are real carbon friendly, eh?
It would be kind of like Bill Clinton lecturing the country on treating women with dignity and respect.
Posted by: Captain Toke | Feb 27, 2007 10:42:00 AM
If what you suggest is true, Cap'n, then Mr. Gore's ratio of good deeds to bad deeds on this issue goes from 50 zillion to 1 to 50 zillion to 20; his overall effect on the issue is disproportionately positive. Perhaps he should make some changes in his energy use, although I'm not sure his use of electricity necessarily implicates greenhouse gas issues. Care to elaborate?
Posted by: oliver | Feb 27, 2007 11:19:16 AM
Ezra, you might be mistaking "controversial" for "effective"?
Posted by: American Citize n | Feb 27, 2007 11:20:27 AM
I think that NYU catch-an-illegal-immigrant event was actually bad for Republicans. (Good for the NYU Young Republicans, obviously, but bad for the cause as a whole.) That got a lot of press, and it all blared the word REPUBLICAN. Not the racist dog-whistle the party's has used for so long to arouse Captain Toke and his friends.
Posted by: Marshall | Feb 27, 2007 11:20:59 AM
I dunno Ezra - if it was changed from global warming bikini day to "global warming hairy-fat-guy-in-a-thong day", perhaps the dangers of global warming would finally sink into some of the thicker skulls. I'm not necessarily volunteering (though I am a hairy-fat-guy who advocates for more conservation and better environmental policies), but an organized protest like that might at least turn out the cameras.
Posted by: NonyNony | Feb 27, 2007 11:26:11 AM
Also, is Captain Toke a real person, or some kind of Eliza-bot that looks for comments with certain keywords and posts mostly unrelated screeds related to those keywords?
Posted by: NonyNony | Feb 27, 2007 11:27:44 AM
The affirmative action game makes is clever and (from a conservative perspective) educational, but the catch-the-illegal game doesn't accomplish a damn thing. It doesn't make participants want to go guard the border. It doesn't better inform people about the issues at play. It just turns a serious issue into a game of Smear the Queer, and then they wonder why people think they're racist.
When I read this DailyKos diary, I thought something along these lines would make a good game. Rather than trying to show how well CEOs live by giving everyone more money, make goods cheaper so that everyone has the buying power of a CEO. If you include some regular workers, I guess it could function a lot like the affirmative action bake sale. The handful of CEOs would pay ten cents for a surf and turf dinner, but the rest of the students would have to fork over five bucks for McDonalds. Do this for a full week, never changing who's in what class, and see how people like it.
Posted by: jhupp | Feb 27, 2007 11:31:29 AM
Hey oliver,
If you want to praise an elitist who is going to lecture you and me to do as he says, not as he does, more power to you.
I personally believe someone that walks the walk has more credibility than a clown like Gore.
Oh, and don't forget all the jetting around the world Gore is doing. How many poor little chipmunks or amoebas did his jet emissions kill? How much closer to the global climate disaster is his carbon footprint putting us?
Liberals like to lecture about caring for the poor, yet conservatives and red states overwelmingly give more to charity than do liberals and blue states.
I think hypocracy is one of the character flaws liberals share.
By the way, the catch an illegal immigrant thing was great. For those of you that think those opposed to illegal immigration is racist, what race is securing our borders racist against?
Posted by: Captain Toke | Feb 27, 2007 11:32:09 AM
Speaking of global warming, guess what Al Gore does to reduce global warming.Blah, blah, blah ...
This contribution from the Cap'n is yesterday's Drudge Report counter-Oscars propaganda. Note, if they hadn't found something to exclaim about in his utility bills (I wonder how they compare to those of his neighbors in Belle Meade) they would have weighed his trash, examined his vacations, etc. until they came up with something to support a charge of hypocrisy. What they have demonstrated is that there is some driven snow more pure than Al Gore.
Posted by: David Houghton | Feb 27, 2007 11:36:57 AM
On cleaning up the distorted reality cap'n toke has swallowed hook, line, and sinker:
1. Gore’s family has taken numerous steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their private residence, including signing up for 100 percent green power through Green Power Switch, installing solar panels, and using compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy saving technology.
2. Gore has had a consistent position of purchasing carbon offsets to offset the family’s carbon footprint — a concept the right-wing fails to understand. Gore’s office explains:
What Mr. Gore has asked is that every family calculate their carbon footprint and try to reduce it as much as possible. Once they have done so, he then advocates that they purchase offsets, as the Gore’s do, to bring their footprint down to zero.
So, they're doing that trading thing like corporations, which sort of annoys me to a degree, but is nothing like the blatant hipocrisy that the right's druudge worshippers are claiming.
Posted by: Eric | Feb 27, 2007 12:01:30 PM
Gore has had a consistent position of purchasing carbon offsets to offset the family’s carbon footprint
So, you can do as much damage to the environment as you want, as long as you have enough money.
Al Gore could set off a nuke as long as he bought some carbon offsets to counter the environmental damage he did.
So how do those carbon offsets work? Does God get rid of the extra carbon Gore put into the air?
Posted by: Captain Toke | Feb 27, 2007 12:08:22 PM
...So how do those carbon offsets work? Does God get rid of the extra carbon Gore put into the air?
Give it up, Cap'n. You're ridiculous.
Posted by: David Houghton | Feb 27, 2007 12:16:26 PM
Hey, all commenters since Toke's first, you are aware that this is one of the most successful trolling efforts ever, right? Ezra's looking (mostly in jest) for ideas of liberal games, and Toke completely redirects the conversation to whether and how much Gore contributes to global warming. You've all been duped. Do not feed him!
Posted by: jhupp | Feb 27, 2007 12:31:37 PM
So, you can do as much damage to the environment as you want, as long as you have enough money.
No, as long as you offset it, which has consequences in other ways, but is logically correct when dealing specifically with the very simple math that is Global Warming.
More CO2? More global warming.
Less CO2? Less global warming.
Want to do good? Reduce your CO2 use, and suck up what you have to use. Gore is doing both.
Your argument that "Oh, but he can only do that because he has money - what he should really do is give up all his money and live like a hermit" is actually, surprisingly, a very far left argument. Are you really a back to the trees person, or are you just trying to bait people? I'm guessing the latter.
What are you doing to fight global warming, Toke, aside from arguing that rich people should give up their money and stop acting rich, which is something I can get behind if you want to start a campaign.
Posted by: Adam | Feb 27, 2007 12:36:29 PM
All those suggestions at the end of An Inconvenient Truth are what should be promoted. Some of them are ridiculously easy to do.
I really want to leave a note under the wiper of my neighbor who feels the need to warm up the car for 20 minutes when it's chilly. "Two will do!"
Posted by: Matt | Feb 27, 2007 12:48:38 PM
I saw one of the "Billionaires For Bush" demonstrations a couple of years ago and it was pretty damn funny.
Posted by: sprocket | Feb 27, 2007 1:01:40 PM
Bikinis and Speedos (yikes) should be worn in really unexpected venues--law offices, banks, church, for example--as opposed to expected places like classrooms (trust me, when I was at UF, lots of us wore bikinis and shorts to class when said class was in a non-air-conditioned building--for the purpose of keeping cool and, if there was a nearby pool, for after-class convenience).
Then the point would be driven home.
Another vivid illustration that matters are getting hotter would be to have an outdoor brunch where people cook the food on the sun-heated hoods of their cars. Kind of a Global Warming Tailgate party, only it would be frontal, not at the rear of the vehicle. Many days, it's so hot in Florida, merely touching a vehicle (especially a dark one) can cause first and second degree burns. Imagine a few hundred people frying eggs and bacon in pans (non-Teflon, of course) set on their cars. That would be a statement.
Posted by: litbrit | Feb 27, 2007 1:23:30 PM
So, carbon offsets allow hypocritical liberals to use all the energy they want and still talk down to regular Americans. As long as they pay.
So how does paying money after you fly across the country in a private jet, spewing CO2 into the air, how does that decrease the amount of CO2 your jet just spewed into the atmosphere?
Posted by: Captain Toke | Feb 27, 2007 3:01:29 PM
This one's too late to stop, but don't ever hijack a thread with such an unrelated topic again, Toke. As I've explained in the past, that's a bannable offense.
Posted by: Ezra | Feb 27, 2007 3:36:34 PM
"This one's too late to stop, but don't ever hijack a thread with such an unrelated topic again, Toke. As I've explained in the past, that's a bannable offense."
Is this in response to my question?
"So how does paying money after you fly across the country in a private jet, spewing CO2 into the air, how does that decrease the amount of CO2 your jet just spewed into the atmosphere?"
I guess if you can't answer the question, you change the subject.
Well, campus liberals could have an 'Seek Out and Assault the Conservative Speaker' event on campus. It wouldn't be much of a change for campus libs, but they seem to enjoy it.
Posted by: Captain Toke | Feb 27, 2007 3:44:00 PM
Setting up "Operation: Yellow Elephant" style military recruitment signups right outside Young Republican pro-war rallies would work pretty damned well, I'd think.
Ditto an organized call to "Teach the Controversy" of Flying Spaghetti Monster Creationism, or, even better, a petition drive to secure FSMism access to religious group funding and status within the university or from the government.
Posted by: Joe Propinka | Feb 27, 2007 4:14:54 PM
Toke, your question was already answered; you just didn't bother to understand the answer.
Posted by: Sanpete | Feb 27, 2007 4:27:19 PM
sanpete,
No one explained how paying money got rid of the CO2 that Al Gore's plane emitted into the atmosphere. I am pretty sure that once that CO2 is out there, it is out there. Somebody said it was simple math, but they didn't explain how except to say "more CO2 = global warming, less CO2 = less global warming". I understand that, what I don't understand is how if Al Gore is emitting probably 100 times the CO2 that the average person emits(with his mansions, all his vehicles, his jetting around the world), how will him paying money get rid of that CO2?
But if you don't stay on topic, you might be banned.
Posted by: Captain Toke | Feb 27, 2007 4:40:29 PM
