Posts Tagged ‘4th doctor’

…once known as Global warming until some inconvenient truths caused those to change the name.

On Morning Joe Scarborough is actually challenging the idea that people who are skeptical should be treated as pariahs, and Bill Press and Jeff Sacks are defending that concept with relish!

Meanwhile at the conference a few interesting things are going on:

Today the gloves came off and the true purpose of the “global warming” scare became nakedly visible. Hugo Chavez, the Socialist president of Venezuela, blamed “global warming” on capitalism – and received a standing ovation from very nearly all of the delegates, lamentably including those from those of the capitalist nations of the West that are on the far Left – and that means too many of them.

Previously Robert Mugabe, dictator of Rhodesia, who had refused to leave office when he had been soundly defeated in a recent election, had also won plaudits at the conference for saying that the West ought to pay him plenty of money in reparation of our supposed “climate debt”.

Inside the conference center, “world leader” after “world leader” got up and postured about the need to Save The Planet, the imperative to do a deal, the necessity to save the small island nations from drowning, etc., etc., etc.

Reason has samples from some of the speeches.

Now consider, technology that allows video conferencing is available all over. These world leaders are leaving a huge “carbon footprint” in their travel and the travel of their encourages. If this was the crisis they claimed it was why would this not be done by video?

The truth is that taxpayers around the world are paying for booze, board, broads, and the best foods for the delegates who attend, this is the international gravy train. These people don’t get involved to eat a sandwich on their couch looking at a screen, it is for an easy life and status.

It is the modern equivalent of the feudal system, live like a lord and let the serfs (read taxpayers) support them.

Are they all corrupt? That is an unfair generalization as unfair as my pal Dave when he says every pol is corrupt. I’m sure quite a few got in with good intentions, I’m sure that like the great plantation owners of the 17th and 18th century or the Nobles of 10 centuries ago they see this as perfectly normal and never question it. But like the end of the world predictions from the Seven Day Adventists and the Jehovah Witnesses when the predicted end doesn’t happen the data will adjust to push it to another later date giving that much more time for us to do something (read spend money) to save the day.

Andrew Bolt who has been all over this calls out the high priest (and great benefactor) on a few falsehoods:

No, Al Gore is a liar.

Last week we showed that the first of his Climategate defences was so preposterously wrong that it was doubtful he had even read the leaked emails he tried to dismiss. You see, five times in two interviews he dismissed the emails as dated documents that were at least 10 years old:

I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old.

In fact, most of the controversial emails, as I showed, were from just the past two years – and the most recent from just last month – November 12, to be precise.

So Gore was so wrong on the first count that it was difficult to think of any way an honest man could have made such a mistake. Five times.

But now Steve McIntyre has exploded the second argument Gore made. And now all doubt in my mind is gone. Gore must have simply lied.

Read the whole damning thing

What will come of this? The can will be kicked down the road, the dates will change and a new conference, well stocked with the best foods and wines, will be schedules and the elites of the world will again take their private jets and limo’s to attend and beat their breasts about how much they care.

And people are falling for this? It brings to mind The Ribos Operation and the 4th doctor:

DOCTOR: I wonder if ol’ Taffy knows the real value of it. “Scringe stone” found in a dead man’s pocket? A lost mine? A phoney ma… are people still falling for that old guff? I mean are they?
ROMANA: You mean you didn’t believe his story?
DOCTOR: No.
ROMANA: But he had such an honest face.
DOCTOR: Romana!! You can’t be a successful crook with a DIShonest face, can you?
ROMANA: Oh.

And they will forever.

Update: You just can’t make this stuff up:

It’s Robert Mugabe, lecturing the leaders at the Copenhagen.

And now President Barack Obama is there. He’s saying, “The time for talk is over.” Ironically, he’s talking.

If every leader did to his country what Mugabe has done, carbon emissions would drop dramatically, and yet leaders could still jet off to conferences and talk about how moral they are. And the conference organizers would treat them with respect.

Time to break out my favorite cartoon again:

The Morality of Global Warming!

Update 2: Stephen Glover nails it:

He points out that England’s prince and prime minister both took (separate) chartered planes to the conference and asks of the Prime Minister:

Could he perhaps have shared an aircraft with Prince Charles? Might he have considered taking a scheduled flight to the Danish capital, of which there were 16 on Tuesday?

Evidently not. It is odd, isn’t it, how climate change doomsayers such as Prince Charles and Mr Brown are so often unprepared to make the smallest sacrifice in their own daily lives to address a threat which they assert is literally deadly.

but they are not alone:

The Copenhagen summit, supposed to produce an agreement limiting greenhouse gases, has, according to experts, the same carbon footprint as a medium-sized African country such as Malawi.

There are an amazing 34,000 delegates attending the event, and the grander among them are forced, says my colleague Robert Hardman in Copenhagen, to park their private jets in Norway because Denmark has run out of Tarmac, and to procure their gas-guzzling limousines from Germany.

The threat is apparently only for the little people.

Update 3: Apparently Charles needs to pay more attention to his mother’s example:

There was a buzz at King’s Cross this morning as platform 11b began crawling with police.

Could it be a drug bust, the crowd wondered? Or was a rock star about to board a train?

Then a small lady in a headscarf appeared, a handbag on one arm and a posy on the other.

Fellow passengers on the 10.45 First Capital Connect service to King’s Lynn couldn’t quite believe their eyes as the Queen stepped on board a first class carriage.

Why take a public train when you are the Queen of England?

A Buckingham Palace spokesman added: ‘Members of the Royal Family, including the Queen, frequently use scheduled train services.

‘We have to look at issues such as cost effectiveness and security but do try to when it is appropriate.’

The Queen does, of course, also have use of the Royal Train – but that costs taxpayers £57,142 each time it is taken out of its sidings.

When she dies, England as we knew it dies.

Danger Will Robinsion Danger! Really boring episode!

My review of the Big Finish Companion Chronicles 4.04 The Pyralis Effect staring Lalla Ward as the 2nd incarnation of Romana with the 4th Doctor is available at Amazon.com here.

This is the lowest rank I’ve ever given any Doctor Who Big Finish Adventure Companion Chronicles Adventure and tied for my worst ever ranking for a Big Finish Audio. It is rather ironic since the two of the three I disliked the most both involved Romana a character I like and who is first rate in the Gallifery audio series. Whatever do you Don’t buy this as your first experience of the Big finish Doctor Who series, you don’t get much more boring that this one.

The writer has a blog here and is likely a lot better than this episode shows but I can’t believe how bad this was. To give you an idea I listened to it right after The Prisoner of Peladon and The Eight Truths I can tell you quite a bit about both of them but I can’t tell you anything worth telling about this one, it was that forgettable.

If you are a reader of this author I would be interested in your opinion. Am I just missing something or what?

If you are collecting the entire set I suppose you must buy it. If I might suggest that can be the filler you use when placing an order at Mike’s Comics which offers free shipping on CD’s with an order of $60 or more. I can’t think of a better reason or frankly any other reason to buy it.

Update: I forgot about Terror Firma, which also earned 2 stars, but this one is worse that that one, at least that one is memorable, bad memorable but memorable, this one isn’t.

First of all lets quote Tom Baker as the 4th Doctor in the Face of Evil:

“The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views…which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.”

This is going to mean a great amount of wealth transferred to the “right” people.

The Second thing is a very Sicilian thing: How stupid do you have to be to put stuff like this in and e-mail in particular or in writing in general? No Sicilian would EVER dream of anything like that. These guys may be “scientists” but they must not have a brain between them.

Remember what I’ve said before, nothing that you wouldn’t show to someone publicly should ever be in an e-mail. You have been warned!

If you are a Doctor Who fan (and if you’re not you should be) you should check out the web site Life Doctor Who and Combom. It is one of the better sites on the web that covers the news of the series.

Yesterday he lined to a wired article by Scott Brown that apparently he didn’t realize was available online not online (he scanned it in) concerning can us Yanks appreciate Doctor Who? As his commentators noted it appears we have been watching two different series than the writer Mr. Brown, that was a slight annoyance to a Who vet like me but this bit just clinched it:

Sound familiar, America? Oh, I can hear the teabaggers now: This is defeatist talk! Doesn’t sound like your cup of Tetley, eh, Glenn Beck? Fair enough: Enjoy your Transformers and the baby-faced club kids of the new Enterprise.

I vented my spleen in comments there. My sons and I just want to enjoy our Doctor Who but I can’t due to another as Jay Nordlinger has called it safe zone violation, but I promised a longer response so here it is…

Memo to Brown I’ve been watching the show for 30 years, I have (and have reviewed) many of the Big Finish audios. I know the series very well and if anything it is an illustration of the value of action rather than non-action.

I will happily stipulate that whenever possible the Doctor will use a scientific solution rather than a violent one but they come at a cost. And that doesn’t preclude violence and guns (No matter what Sarah Jane says) if needed, let review:

In Planet of the Dead Unit kills the two creatures that come through the wormhole instead of the Doctor noveling them somehow.

In The Next Doctor Miss Hartigan’s Brain is fried by the Doctor’s action to save the city.

In the three part finish to last season (Stolen Earth, Journey’s End) the Doctor scolds his twin for destroying the Dalek fleet even though he knows that millions will die if it is allowed to live, his primary plan to stop Davros from slaughtering the universe is…to beg him not to.

In Turn Left the world is saved by Donna Noble killing herself

In Midnight the Doctor is saved by the Hostess killing the Ms. Sylvertry and taking herself with her.

In Unicorn and the Wasp Donna saves the day by drowning the wasp against the Doctor’s desire

In the Sontaran Stratagem and the Poison Sky the Doctor’s solution is to destroy the Sontaran ship killing them, only the fact that someone else did it prevented him killing them himself.

In Planet of the Ood the doctor actually…doesn’t do anything. Ood sigma and the friends of the earth solve the issue and it was because of , wait for it. Bloody Revolution.

In the Fires of Pompeii he kills the Pyroviles.

And lets take a quick peek at what happens when he refuses to kill The family of Blood?, How many people die because the Doctor isn’t willing to kill the four aliens in season 3’s The four humans they take over, the vet at the door, the two teachers, those who were shelled, the family of the little girl etc etc etc…

And you can go back to the primary series, The Invisible Enemy, The Invasion of time, The Sontaran Experiment, Terror of the Verviods, Snakedance, Monster of Peladon to see the Doctor do what has to be done to save the day.

Granted he does hold back, he does wait he tries every other method he can but in the end when talk can’t solve the problem he acts, and during the times when he just can’t pull the trigger and is about to be killed, (particularly in his 9th incarnation) someone else does it (Rose, The parting of the Ways).

One note about the 9th incarnation, his unwillingness to kill in part of the plot and the psychological injury of the Time War so it can be excused to some degree but even in that season he can do what needs to be done, (World War III).

So PLEASE don’t give me that pap about “Glen Beck” types etc. We who recognize that there are times when you have to act rather than talk know the cost and we recognize the cost of inaction is often even higher. Or as Ronald Reagan said:

Let’s set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace–and you can have it in the next second–surrender.

Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face–that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand–the ultimatum. And what then?

For a long time our friends worldwide on the left had the privilege to tell us how primitive we where and less enlighten because they lived under the umbrella of our protection. As our current administration dithers on said protection others will have to make the choice to give in or stand up. To quote Mark (Dr. Who gay mafia) Steyn from his book America Alone:

A while back, I was struck by the words of Oscar van den Boogaard, a Dutch gay humanist (which is pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool). Reflecting on the Continent’s accelerating Islamification, he concluded that the jig was up for the Europe he loved, but what could he do? “I am not a warrior, but who is?” he shrugged. “I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”

The close of his speech at Hillsdale College says it all:

General Stark knew that. Mr. van den Boogard’s words are an epitaph for Europe. Whereas New Hampshire’s motto—”Live free or die!”—is still the greatest rallying cry for this state or any other. About a year ago, there was a picture in the papers of Iranian students demonstrating in Tehran and waving placards. And what they’d written on those placards was: “Live free or die!” They understand the power of those words; so should we.

It’s is a shame that I have to write this post, I just want to enjoy my Doctor Who and the adventures in time and space, but the more enlightened won’t allow it. I say to them you would make a good Castellan Kelner.