On Wednesday I spoke to New England radio colossus Howie Carr about Paris, Isis, John Kerry and the pitiful reaction of the United States government. You can hear the full interview here.
~Paris, meanwhile, is pressing ahead with its Big Climate jet-set jamboree in order to defy the terrorists and show that, no matter what they do, they'll never stop us from obsessing about rising sea levels in the Maldives in the 22nd century. Because if we do stop obsessing about sea levels in the 22nd century, then the terrorists will have won! Along the way Howie was kind enough to mention my new book on the warm-mongers' cartoon climatology and Michael E Mann's fraudulent "hockey stick", "A Disgrace to the Profession". It's available in print, in Kindle and in Nook.
Howie was even kinder to mention my forthcoming cat album Feline Groovy, dedicated to my own beloved cat Marvin, which is available for pre-order at Amazon, and which I see is already (somewhat improbably) cleaning Harry Connick Jr and Billie Holiday's clocks on the jazz chart. (As an aggrieved Mr Connick would be entitled to point out, there's a lot of stuff on there that isn't the least bit jazzy.)
~Tonight, Thursday, I'll be back with Sean Hannity on Fox News, coast to coast at 10pm Eastern/7pm Pacific.
~A couple of items from Mark's Mailbox. Reader Bob Lackey writes:
Mark,
Humans want to be a part of something. We encouraged our three children to participate in marching band in high school, not to further some musical talent, but we realized that the band kids were a little geeky, somewhat studious, and fairly harmless. They could have found their friends in the goths, the rednecks, or the jocks, but with the band, they multiplied their friendships in a positive way. When we moved from Atlanta to Knoxville, our raising junior attended band camp then entered the first day in a new school with 100 friends.
The ISIS thing is something similar. Most of these jihadists have not been to an ISIS meeting, haven't paid dues, nor do they have the decoder ring. But they see a group like themselves that is winning. They can cause some mayhem and share the credit with the victors in Syria and Iraq. It is a huge force multiplier and one that will be difficult to counter – people want to be a part of something.
Bob Lackey
Something always beats nothing. Twenty years ago, I wrote that a "counter-culture" needs something to be counter to. Once you've killed off the culture it's countering - to the point where "Imagine" and peace symbols are now as ritualistic and formal observances of terror events as poppies and the Last Post are of "Remembrance Day" - a counter-culture has nothing to feed off. Imagine there's no ...nothing. For a proportion of young men around the western world ISIS is a genuine counter-culture, offering far more transgressive thrills than the pabulum of multiculturalism.
On the other hand, Louise McKelvie writes:
You are a silly noisy person. And all the clamour and noise you make do not matter a damn. You are just against everything remotely humane and everything sane is left wing. The worst thing that can happen to you and, it will, is that no one gives a hoot about what you say. You are a red-haired piece of very old lace on the lunatic fringe. Mostly you are boring.
Louise McKelvie
On the subject of red hair, Bookworm Room reminds us that gingerphobia is leading Brit redheads to convert to Islam.
