I'd rather have it eighty, ninety, one hundred degrees!
UPDATED AND BUMPED
It's not often that mainstream entertainment makes light of global warming. However, I recently found one example in a very unlikely place.
In 1974, stop action animation experts Rankin and Bass released "The Year Without A Santa Claus." Previous Rankin and Bass efforts included, "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," "Frosty the Snowman," and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." By this time, the animators had run out of stories easily adaptable from Christmas songs, so they had to pick a lesser-known story.
While the story left much to be desired, there was an incredible musical interlude that introduced supporting characters Heat Miser and Snow Miser, two sons of Mother Nature who fought over their ability to control the weather. Here are the famous introductory scenes:
Since Heat Miser and Snow Miser were the best part of "The Year Without a Santa Claus," it wasn't surprising that Warner Brothers, who bought the rights to Rankin and Bass' later works would resurrect them. Thirty four years after their initial appearance, the Miser Brothers (actually step-brothers, Mother Nature must have slept around a lot) became headliners in their own special, "A Miser Brothers' Christmas, airing on the ABC Family Channel."
While the reappearance of the battling Misers may not have been surprising, this series of dialog from one of their many fights certainly surprised me (Edited to provide pretty much the correct quote):
Heat Miser: My dear brother has been running a campaign of pure propaganda to give Global Warming a bad name!
Snow Miser: Oh yeah? Well how long have you been trying to scare people with reports of another ice age!
The liberal orthodoxy about global warming is that it is truly the worst thing that can happen. The fact that a title character who is one of the heroes of the story advocates it is surprising. The fact that his line is followed up by his co-star mocking the scientific community for their inconsistency also appears to violate the politically correct approach to climate change.
It's worth noting that the Heat Miser character is rotund, argumentative, and strident on his views on the environment. In this way, he could be Al Gore's brother.
Edit: The original "The Year Without a Santa Claus," will air on Christmas Eve at 5 pm CST on the ABC Family Channel. It will be followed up with "A Miser Brothers' Christmas" at 6 pm CST. This makes for some great TV for the kids before midnight mass.
Update: In 2006, NBC aired a live action version of "The Year Without A Santa Claus." Michael McKean plays a David St. Hubbins style Snow Miser. Harvey Fierstein plays opposite as Heat Miser. Appropriately enough, at the end of this clip, Fierstein has something stuck up his ass.
Nihilist in Golf Pants Person Of The Year For 2008: The Sun
It’s big and hot and yellow and without it there would be no Barack Obama and now, once again, it is the Nihilist in Golf Pants Person of the Year. It is the Sun. The Sun started out four and half billion years ago as several million tons of hydrogen. Over the years it has converted about a fourth of that to helium and in the process provided the heat and light necessary to sustain the evolution that has culminated in Barack Obama.
Some may criticize our decision to name the Sun our person of the year over Barack Obama. This award is meant to encourage and not end the debate. But only a moron would fail to recognize that without the Sun and its life-giving nuclear fusion, there would be no Barack Obama.
Barack Obama flocks to beaches to sit out in the Sun. He is sad when it is hidden behind clouds. He breathes the oxygen it helps to produce via photosynthesis. Barack Obama loves the Sun and so do we here at Nihilist in Golf Pants, and that is why we name the Sun our person of the year for 2008.
Previous NIGP Persons of the Year: 2007: The Sun 2006: The Sun 2005: The Sun 2004: The Sun 2003: The Sun 2002: Grant Potulny 2001: The Sun 2000: The Sun 1999: The Sun 1998: The Sun 1997: The Sun 1996: The Sun 1995: The Sun 1994: The Sun 1993: The Sun 1992: The Sun 1991: The Sun 1990: The Sun 1989: The Sun 1988: The Sun 1987: The Sun 1986: The Sun 1985: The Sun 1984: The Sun 1983: The Sun 1982: The Sun 1981: The Sun 1980: The Sun 1979: Killer Swampee 1978: The Sun 1977: The Sun 1976: The Sun 1975: The Sun 1974: The Sun 1973: The Sun 1972: The Sun 1971: The Sun 1970: The Sun 1969: The Sun 1968: The Sun 1967: The Sun
Top 11 Career Opportunities for Nick Coleman After Losing His Column
11. Fertility counselor
10. Sparring partner for Derek Boogaard
9. Co-author of The Blog House
8. Counter help at White Castle
7. Member of the St. Paul K-9 narcotics unit (while this job technically is supposed to go to a dog, Nick's bragging about his "big sniffer" makes us think he'd be perfect for the job)
Top 11 Reasons Governor Rod Blagojevich is separated at birth from George Costanza:
11. Both are bald and try wearing ridiculous toupees; unfortunately Blago didn't have someone like Elaine throw his out the window
10. Both were engaged to women from more successful backgrounds
9. Both are short, stocky, and slow-witted
8. Both lived by the motto "It's not a lie... if you believe it"
7. Neither found the success they were looking for with regard to charitable foundations (George spent too much of his free time stuck working time on the Susan Ross foundation and Blago was unsuccessful, as far as we know, at extortion of several charitable foundations)
6. Two of "the most deceitful, duplicitous, deceptive minds of their time"
5. Both wanted to grant favors so that people would "owe me big time"
4. Both pretended they were friends with black people (Blago - Barak Obama & George - the family that rented 'Breakfast at Tiffany's')
3. When busted for an enormous, career killing ethical lapse, both essentially responded, "Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing is frowned upon... you know, cause I've worked in a lot of offices, and I tell you, people do that all the time."
2. After essentially killing their career, both showed up at work the next day and acted as if nothing had happened
1. Both would have been better off following the opposite of their natural instincts
President-elect Barack Obama braced the country for more tough times Sunday, saying twice in an interview that the nation’s already dismal economy would continue to worsen after he moves into the White House.
Obama, speaking to Tom Brokaw on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” used some of his starkest language yet to underscore his plans for America's future.
If you look at the unemployment numbers that came out yesterday, if you think about almost 2 million jobs lost so far, if you think about the fragility of the financial system and the fact that it is now a global financial system so that what happens in Thailand or Russia can have an impact here, and obviously what happens on Wall Street has an impact worldwide, when you think about the structural problems that we already had in the economy before the financial crisis, this is a big problem, and it's going to get worse,
Obama said this in reference to the fact that his economic plans involve destroying capital through higher taxes and regulation.
Later in the interview Obama reiterated his downbeat projection that an Obama Administration would underperform that of George W. Bush, saying:
Things are going to get worse before they get better.
On a brighter note, he began to outline a diverse array of cultural activities to be hosted by he and his wife, Michelle, in the White House, saying they would especially focus on the arts and sciences with a hope of having kids involved.
We want to invite kids from local schools into the White House.
He also promised jazz, classical music and poetry at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. so “once again we appreciate this incredible tapestry that's America."
