Sometimes the story is in the links, and I set one up deliberately earlier this week in the first paragraph. But you don't get the joke unless you click all the links in turn. Hilariously, though, the joke came alive yesterday on an investor call with Ireland's finance minister Brian Lenihan (pictured above).
Lenihan had been speaking for less than two minutes on Friday before a mistake by the organiser, Citigroup, meant that the bank's clients were all able to be heard on the line. Between 200 and 500 investors are understood to have been on the call, and as they realised their lines were not muted many began to heckle Lenihan.
Some traders began making what one banker on the call described as "chimp sounds and, as the call rapidly descended into farce, Citigroup were forced to pull the plug. What is truly terrifying though is that the "chimp noises" were entirely misplaced. On current form, primates would probably do a better job than the buffoons actually in post.
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UPDATE: It looks as if the message is getting through - the video has been pulled from youtube ... but there's always other copies, and Anthony Watts has a neat update.
This cinema advertisement is being portrayed as a humorous "attention-grabber", the warmists' idea of gentle fun to promote the idea of individuals cutting down their "carbon" (meaning carbon dioxide) footprint.
The central idea is that disparate groups (and individuals) are invited to join a "groupthink" campaign. The "refuseniks" are then asked to identify themselves, all under the catch-phrase "no pressure".
Invariably portrayed as sullen and humourless, the "unbelievers" - having been "outed" - are publicly executed in a manner that leaves little to the imagination. The effects are not dissimilar to that of a terrorist bomb, their deaths "activated" by a little grey box with a red button, very much in the manner of triggering a bomb. The whole thing is lovingly documented in this post (now marked "access denied") and
There is a very obvious message to the faithful. The unbelievers must die.
The parallel with Jihadi videos is unmissable the authors display the same fundamentalist mindset which no pretence at humour can disguise.
Most chilling of all is the casual attitudes and lack of emotion of the cold-blooded killers, the blood-splattered "teacher" happily smiling while giving homework instructions to her shocked class, after having murdered two of her charges. The SS would have been so proud of her.
This is not the first time we have got a glimpse into the foetid minds of the warmists – one exampleCaroline Lucas last year, who famously announced that air travel was worse than stabbing someone in the street – despite her own addiction to this form of travel.
Dellers has a go and as he earlier points out, the eco-fascists are fond of their violent parallels and barely concealed references to 9/11 and concentration camps. But this is the first time they have portrayed (and thereby tacitly advocated) the public execution of unbelievers, in a film that elevates adherence to a belief system above the value of human life.
Had any other religious group done similar, in such a graphic form – Hamas, for instance, suggesting that Jews should be blown apart (as they often do) – even under the guise of humour, then, rightly, there would be outcry.
It appears, though, that for the warmists to promote violent, public murder is acceptable - at least, according to The Guardian. But, if Leni Riefenstahl had made this film about the Jews, would The Guardian have found that funny as well?
The enemy, in this Eco-jihad video, is revealing its true face. And above is that face - Richard Curtis producer of the film and director Dougal Wilson, with the 10:10 gang. The scene looks normal and the Greenshirts look human, but they are not. This is the face of evil. When do we see the yellow armbands and the gas chambers?
And DEFEAT. The 10:10 organisation has now issued an apology, text reproduced above. "We're all about trying new and creative ways of getting people to take action on climate change. Unfortunately, in this instance, we missed the mark. Oh well, we live and learn ... Onwards and upwards," they write. Do they think that is enough?
Yet, clearly, the warmists are incredibly sensitive. The Guardian website did not like me posing the question: "if Leni Riefenstahl had made this film about the Jews, would The Guardian have found that funny as well?" The result is pasted above.
Whatever this paper might like to say about its moderation policy, this is evidence of censorship. That is what we have come to, a newspaper which endorses murder - as long as it is presented as "tongue in cheek" - and which actively practices censorship when it is criticised.
To prove the point, a post asking for an explanation of why the earlier comment has been removed disappears completely - there is no trace of a question ever having been asked. And a slight change is made to posting arrangements, as can be seen from the above notification. One is not only censored, but punished for complaining about it. The Nazis and The Guardian now have a great deal in common. On this paper at least, the eco-fascists rule.
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This figure is described as "horrible" by an Irish government official. It will swell the deficit for one year to a staggering 32 percent of economic output, the biggest in post-World War II Europe, equivalent to €10,000 for every man, woman and child in Ireland.
The Wall Street Journal reckons it's a gamble, swelling the government's own debts instead of allowing the banks to default on payments to creditors. The tactic, says the paper, increases the risks that the government itself will default – and there is certainly doubt about the ability of the Irish state to prevent default on the sum total of its own debt and the bank debt.
The Guardian, however (amongst others), is saying that the markets seemed "reassured" that Ireland had faced up to the worst of its troubles. Irish government bonds actually rose, while losses were capped on European stock markets. This paper is also telling itself that leading business indicators in Germany and the US are fuelling hopes that the world would avoid a double-dip recession.
Meanwhile, the Irish are having to vote with their feet: over 100,000 Irish workers expected to leave country before 2012. With a jobless rate of 13.6 percent, it means return to Ireland's culture of emigration as the double dip recession bites - the very recession that the pundits say isn't going to happen..
Peter Bunting, the Irish Congress of Trade Union's northern general secretary, warns that, in the north and the south, there is a danger that the unskilled and semi-skilled unemployed, the sector least able to migrate, could become a new pool of disaffection that might be exploited by dissident Republican terrorists on either side of the Irish border.
He is maybe not wrong there, although this could be a little alarmist. But such talk is becoming common currency (more so than the euro), with the additional news that Portugal's minority socialist government is urging the opposition to back tough austerity measures for 2011, or "catastrophe" will be the result. Portuguese unions, on the other hand, are warned they could step up industrial action in response to cuts which they say will hurt workers.
Nevertheless, there is always the danger here that one is seen to be a "chicken little". For all the warnings, the sky has not yet fallen in. It is, though, interesting to see the events in Ecuador, where president Rafael Correa has been pelted with tear gas by police angry at a new law that cuts their benefits. They have launched a chaotic rebellion that has put the president in hospital, recovering from the effects of the gas.
Ecuador, of course, is a long, long way away – and South American countries are not a good model for predicting events in Europe. It is fair to say, though, that we have something in common - a breaking point. Few would care to predict how far we are away from ours here. Then, the sweet aroma of tear gas in the morning may be the least of the administration's woes.
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