Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
With insignificant funds and hopeless political support, sometimes it's the earnest fringe candidate campaigns in our by-elections that have the most charm. Toronto Centre aspirant (and political opponent of Campaign Confidential's Chris Tindal) Doug Plumb has been taping-up these breezy home-made slogans downtown, and while this sign may not even mention the party he's running for, there's a quaint spunk in comparing himself to a down-home dessert.
Other flyers feature the rather unimaginative call to "Be Canadian," and they don't allude to Plumb's cranky conspiracy-theorist views on 9/11 and global warming (an inside job and a swindle, respectively), but grammatically incorrect political signs slapped together with Times New Roman and a roll of packing tape have a certain rootsy je ne sais quoi, n'est-ce pas?
Photo by Marc Lostracco.
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The simplicity reminds me a lot of some anti-Hilary Clinton signs that popped up in the States recently that just said: "She voted for the war."
But––9/11 conspiracy theories aside––I will never vote for a candidate who cannot use a comma correctly.
Pfft. Grammar ain't what politics is about Topping. It's about spunk vim vigour conspiracy theories table manners image consultants backroom deals shady business practices etc. They don't need to know nothing about no little comma. The period is almost as overated
"But––9/11 conspiracy theories aside––I will never vote for a candidate who cannot use a comma correctly."
I am assuming the irony was intentional?
Whose irony? Em dashes, according to the Chicago Manual of Style, are appropriate when they "indicate a sudden break in thought or sentence structure" or when they "[set] off an amplifying or explanatory element." In the latter case, "commas, parentheses, or a colon may perform a similar function." Sigh.
Well, a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories does not a platform make.
Still, the hot, deep biosphere theory is an interesting one, and I think there are even some contemporary not-insane scientists who think it may have some validity (i.e., we don't know for sure that oil came from prehistoric plant & animal matter.)
But recovering that oil may be impractical, and the re-filling of previously dry oil wells may not happen fast enough to stave off a peak oil crisis. So it could be a moot point anyhow.
I've also read a bit about the vast Alaskan oil field discoveries that were allegedly hushed-up in the 1970s, but that story is basically written by one guy, and it doesn't sound all that credible. Then again who knows. (I wish I could find a link for this story - it's a fun read if nothing else. Unfortunately my google-fu is weak today and I'm coming up empty.)
I don't think that global warming - or climate change, sorry - is part of some secret global conspiracy to install a world government; though I do think it is at least in part due to a generation or two of climate "scientists" now who went into their field with their minds made up before they attended their first class. Perhaps better labelled as an "unintentional conspiracy", fast evolving into a massive saving-face effort.
On 9/11, I think it's odd for anyone who on the one hand thinks that government is too incompetent to do just about anything right also believes it could pull off a coverup of this scale. Kinda stupid to include that in your platform if you ask me; it makes it look as if you're pandering to anti-semites.
The basic premise that left unchecked the government will grow like an out of control fire... I tend to agree with that. But it doesn't mean I want a small group of conspiracy nuts in charge.
spacejack, when you wrote
Were you arguing with the temperature measurements themselves, which show the warming, or the theory that this warming is caused by humans?It would seem to be the latter, not that you said as much. There have been quite a few competing theories put forth for why the average global temperature is increasing. These weren't and aren't without their proponents in academia.
While it may be convenient to dismiss anthropogenic global warming as a psychological phenomenon amongst climatologists, doing so certainly seems like wishful thinking in light of the fourth IPCC report.