"Swift's essay is widely held to be one of the greatest examples of sustained irony in the history of the English language. Much of its shock value derives from the fact that the first portion of the essay describes the plight of starving beggars in Ireland, so that the reader is unprepared for the surprise of Swift's solution when he states: "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout. Jonathan Swift in "A Modest Proposal …"
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I emerged from an eye appointment today to learn that the Larouche Raiders had staged an embarrassment at an AOC town hall in which they had a young woman plead passionately for cannibalism as a means of saving the planet from the insidious effects of human population of the earth. Was AOC smart enough to laugh at this farce? Apparently she was not.
My learned committee members will of course recall that Jonathan Swift archly proposed in his essay "A Modest proposal …" that poverty in Ireland could be avoided in much the same way .. pl
The Soylent Green New Deal, indeed.
Not only was AOC left speechless but about a third of those present too. The True Believers. Does she have a challenger running against her in the democratic primary?
I wouldn’t touch this with a 10 foot Celsius temp probe
The Eat The Babies girl mentioned Sweden in her rant. Turns out this aspect of the farce was based on reality:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/swedish-researcher-pushes-human-flesh-eating-as-answer-to-future-climate-change-food-shortages_3068833.html
Years ago I looked at a website that showed pictures of poorly sited weather stations placed next to heat traps–south facing walls and exhaust fans. During a summer night in Tucson the desert is 20 to 40 degrees cooler than the city. Here’s a link to an analysis of a poorly sited weather staion.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/18/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-93-the-hottest-weather-station-in-the-uk-cited-by-the-bbc-has-some-interesting-exposure/
Pictures of more weather stations.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fprofile%2FGergis_William%2Fpublication%2F228410739%2Ffigure%2Ffig3%2FAS%3A393638195548164%401470862067510%2FConstruction-of-Instrumented-Slabs.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Ffigure%2FConstruction-of-Instrumented-Slabs_fig3_228410739&docid=IS2HfbbLTu9fdM&tbnid=3r3_OGrHVkUcBM%3A&vet=1&w=850&h=639&client=firefox-b-1-d&bih=608&biw=1280&ved=2ahUKEwiM14nHhoTlAhXaFjQIHUMsDmgQxiAoBXoECAEQHg&iact=c&ictx=1
With inaccurate climate data we don’t know the truth about climate change and with wide swings in modeling the effects of CO2 we don’t know how much is man-made.
I did post a comment about this young woman. Since I am an English major, I of course had read and studied Swift’s “Modest Proposal.” It did cross my mind that a person could say what she said only if she was being satirical. However her affect showed nothing other than a stupid sincerity about what she was suggesting. And honestly, the whole abortion movement has gotten to the point of basically approving the murder of babies while calling it abortion that I felt that maybe she was serious.
And, believe me when I say that having taught in our public schools before retiring several years ago, I had dealt with many students whose views about good, bad, evil, sin, etc., were so different from the views on those topics when I was growing up, that I though she was a victim, in a sense, of the decay in our country’s moral fabric.
When doctors can perform abortions that deliver live babies and ask nurses to simply take those babies and place them on a cold shelf to die, I thought maybe the slide into depravity had indeed hit bottom, especially when in some abortion clinics the people there have been caught making large sums of money for selling the body parts of aborted babies.
It would be interesting for me if someone, a journalist, would find that young woman and interview her. Was she being satirical or was she a victim of the whole climate change hysteria?
I once proposed on The Guardian website that over-weight Americans be boiled down and their refined body-fats be used to fuel American power stations rather than nuclear ones. I was immediately banned.
Thanks to science we are increasingly being ruled by strulbugs.
Yuck I say to Mr. Swift! Cannibalism, YUCK!
I’ll stick to my doughnuts and coffee, thank you very much!
Yuck……
Outstanding. And AOC fell for it hook line and sinker. Satire is exactly the right response to the lunacy of humorless progressive diktats.
I’m a little apprehensive about your next ‘Food and Drink’ tagged post – Enfant à la Swift on the grill perhaps?
Barbara Ann
Unfortunately, the recipes for the sauces were destroyed in the archives in Dublin during the Irish Civil War.
Enjoyed this girl thoroughly–the delivery was perfect! In fact, it was the only way to deliver it: voice, emotions, look of desperation. I am still laughing even today.
Give me a break
https://www.nws.noaa.gov/directives/sym/pd01013002curr.pdf
All stations used by the NWS which are both used for climate and to predict the weather that trillions of dollars that the US economy depends on are to standard.
Stations that do not meet these standards are not used by NOAA.
Full disclosure – my company manufactures a mobile weather station solution.
Yes, she did a perfect imitation of many young students I have taught. That is the reason I didn’t question whether she was pulling something over on AOC.
I did notice later on other videos of the even on different sites that AOC became concerned about her and actually said something to her to the effect that we don’t have to panic now or worry about it immediately, thus undermining her own statements about how little time we have to solve global warming.
Thanks for the inside information. It’s good to know the information on the website is bs. Truth is what’s important.
there is an element of truth in what was said. the deep ecology types do favour depopulation to save the planet.
I would strongly encourage them to lead by example, my mother always told me to eat my greens.
Eating human flesh?
Ugh. But humans are just another animal on the planet so why not.
Having never been on the brink of starvation I don’t know if I would eat human flesh or not….I tend to think not as I have been told starvation is somewhat painless and I dont like meat anyway.
I only eat meat for the necessary protein from animals that themselves are known to eat flesh of others, like fish, chickens and pigs. I won’t eat cows and lambs because they aren’t flesh eaters. That is my diet ‘fairness’ doctrine.
If I were dead in some accident however I would not care if my body was eaten by people if it helped them survive….it would somewhat like organ donation.
Look, aviation, agriculture, the military, the police, the coast guard, fire fighters, disaster responders, the US military for training in the US, fishermen, and on and on and on all depend on the best possible weather forecasts they can get. And lets not forget Goldman Sachs and the other speculators on the various markets. Oh, and people planning their weekend tourism.
If not for good weather, the US economy would have hundreds and hundreds of billions of losses and in disasters, such as hurricanes, thousands more would die. So the NWS works very hard to provide the best data they can. And congress is bipartisan in support of the NWS (unsurprisingly).
Climate models simply tap into these already available high quality data (why would they not -its freely available).
Now, other services like, weatherunderground tap into personal weather stations whose data is highly questionable. In some cases it is useful locally because it often is near where you are interested in and NWS stations are not.
The Urban heat island effect has long been known (maybe 70 years, now), and the climate models correct for it in their inputs; however, from a weather point of view its where most people live, and it is what needs to be reported.
I will note, that I am not arguing that the models do not have issues – its just that the problems are in their treatment of clouds and aerosols and ice loss and snow albedo, etc., But not the input data.
However, if one is trying to get a climate message into a 30 second soundbite, its easier to lie about weather stations than it is to try and explain the complexity of clouds.
Diane C,
I don’t know, there are also nut jobs out there and some of them are armed. I might have the desire to respond as Tucker Carlson suggested, but I think I would try to keep her talking while signaling to security….
now if she had a powerpoint presentation, I would laugh.
I know a lot of people in Sweden and I doubt few of them would take this seriously. A lot of things have happened there to food, since you can now get a moose kabob from a street vendor, but that is a bout as exotic that it will get. Of course, if you can eat fermented herring, as some there do, eating dead people is probably not hard. That stuff is the most evil smelling stuff on earth.
AOC thought the woman was mentally unstable and reacted accordingly. It’s a non story.
True, this is the essential point. Hence the biting nature of this satire. The banking and financial elite will try to lead these Lemmings over the cliff to save the planet, all the while hoovering their income for their NGD, Green Bonds and whatever sort of Tulip/Ponzi/CDO super fleecing scheme their fevered minds concoct.
We (anyone with an above average IQ) know that AOC is not the brightest bulb on the porch.
If anyone has a child at Boston Univ., get the kid out NOW.
You won’t get your money back, but you can save your child from continued brain cell depletion.
This place (BU) gave AOC a degree.
No more evidence needed.
ISL
I looked at a map that pinpointed local weather stations and went to find one. It was a residential neighborhood and, if there was a weather station, it must be in a backyard. My question is are they in residential backyards or was the map wrong?
ISL,
Goverment data can be trusted because it needs to be accurate, but commercial weather services can’t? “But not the input data.” I think that both of those are highly questionable statements. The polcy decisions made based off forecasts is what contributes to “losses and in disasters” such as hurricanes. The failure of leadership in Houston prior to hurricane Harvey directly contributed to the loss. That was a political decision and not relient even upon the forecasts, which were accurate.
The initial tracks on hurricane Dorian (this year) after it had hit the Bahamas were crap. Politicians across the globe want to change the entire economic structure of the industrialized world (not China or India) and engage massive spending on a global scale – but US money mostly – based on “science” like this? No thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3aTBxXGlvE
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2016/06/07/when-it-comes-to-u-s-weather-forecasting-private-public-or-both/#445e770d3a37
They’re (whoever they are) promoting insects to eat for protein. Then there will be the snobs that prefer the free range over the farm raised.
Diana,
AOC can not have rational assessment on “global warming” because she has “degree” in international relations. People like AOC wouldn’t last a minute against few serious properly stated scientific questions re “climate science”. This is not to mention the fact that she (AOC) is stunning in her superficiality (I still cannot stop laughing from her “immigration” protest in a front of empty parking lot). This is the nature of Democratic Party which is, for all my revulsion towards GOP, clear and present danger to what is left of Republic and American statehood. These are dangerous and very cruel, due to them never experiencing any serious life difficulties, people pushing radical and homicidal agenda. Dangerous freaks.
It takes one to recognize one?
“Like” button again. 🙂
All
Infanticide, practiced by hunter-gathere bands of humans,is well documented in ethnographic literature; e.g. in Australia. A way to remain in harmony with Gaia, a very harsh mistress, I am afraid.
Babak
Where on the scale of permissability between hallal and haram does does consumption of human flesh fit? Is there fiqh on this?
Babak
Yes, primitivism is gaining popularity. Devo was right, many are devolving intellectualy and spiritually.
Similar to Cannon Law, if I recall correctly; permitted in extremis, but is Haram otherwise.
I do not know the details, in analogous situations, the breaking of the Law is supposed to be followed by confessing repentence, prayers, and acts of charity in lieu of fines.
This Commitee of Correspondence is aghast at the suggestion of cannibalism… but seems totally okay with first “option”, i.e. “bomb Russia”?
Donate your body to the Home Town Buffet.
McCain is dead, Hilary is aging, Bolton is probably the second “whistleblower” Bomb Russia is not an option.
CK
IMO the whistleblower group are an organized CIA effort. Most government career people are left of center. This is Brennan at work.
You have expressed some opinions about Brennan in the past that indicate a personal familiarity with him. Do you think Brennan has the ability and the stay behind assets to pull off an impeachment of the president? How would one impede, prevent this?
CK
Yes. I knew him when he was on his first assignment in CIA. Unimpressive brooding presence with his nose jammed up Alan Feiers butt. How? Indict him as head of a seditious conspiracy.
I admit to having 0 knowledge of Alan Feiers. So I went looking.
Iran-Contra, “Cliff Grubbs”, CIA station chief in Riyadh. Responsible for the contra side of Iran-Contra for the Neo-cons during the Reagan years. Retired in 1988.
Pardoned by GHWB in 1992 for various political incivilities regarding the contras for which he was convicted in 1992.
CK
Feiers was CoS in Jeddah when I was DATT there. A more hateful man to try to work with can not be imagined. He learned life from his college football coach Woody Hayes. He schemed continuously against one and all, much like Brennan. He should not have been pardoned.
” I was immediately banned.”
It’s pushing it to expect anyone on the Guardian to understand irony. They’re more into spin.
I had to google Strulbugs. A long time since I read Swift, is my excuse. Read him as a boy and was more interested in how they managed to tie Gulliver down. Didn’t look all that secure, to me.
I suppose Swift’s strulbugs could be taken as emblematic of that odd set of politicians and ideologues who in the main rule us. Because it is an odd mixture – doctrinaire progressive, neocon, neoliberal, all in one. Swift says of them They “…would in time become proprietors of the whole nation, and engross the civil power, which, for want of abilities to manage, must end in the ruin of the public.”
Only trouble is, our rulers start young and the Strulbugs are old. So I shan’t adopt the term. Clintonites, or Blairites over here, is imprecise but good enough for everyday use. But whatever one calls these odd people and the journalists and academics who industriously expound their mantras to us, “ruin of the public” sums up their activities pretty well.