Samizdata

How can you tell who someone’s god is? You look to see whose name they invoke as the cause of all things, good or bad. By that standard, the god of the devout Left is Global Warming; here is the Psalm of Al, from which the faithful constantly quote (King James Version):

1. Great storms ravage our cities, and the wise man saith: Global Warming hath done this.
2. Drought keepeth all storms at bay, and the wise man saith: This also hath Global Warming done.
3. Global Warming maketh the oceans rise; it maketh deep snow to fall;
4. Flood and fire, feast and famine, typhoon and tornado, hail and lightning, all things good and bad that come from sky or sea, Global Warming hath made them all.
5. And when our homes are beneath the waves, we shall know that Global Warming in its wrath hath seen our sins.
6. For our vehicles that glut themselves on oil, for the trees we cut and land we clear,
7. For the cooling and heating of our houses, for the plowing and harvesting of our fields, we are punished.
8. Whenever we burn carbon and release it into the air, we shall know that Global Warming seeth it, and is wroth.
9. O man! Thou hast flouted the great god of the sky, and by three degrees of temperature we shall be burned,
10. For Global Warming is a jealous god, and small and annoying is man.

Orson Scott Card, via Tim Blair.

And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

Sir Thomas More, played by Paul Scofield in a Man for All Seasons. Even if Tudor history means nothing to you, I definitely urge folk to rent out this movie. It is an object lesson in what integrity means.

Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that I got Scofield’s first name wrong. It was Paul, not John. (Dolt!)

The bloody wombats were getting in over the fence. We had no idea they could climb.

– Australian farmer Bill deCorsie, complaining that local marsupials were eating his truffles. (The bigger picture behind this, which is that the Australian agricultural industry has over the last couple of decades been rapidly moving (shall we say) up the food chain from relatively low value (but high quality) basic foodstuffs to high value products largely for export is quite an interesting one).

Sartre said “Hell is other people”, and as usually he got it wrong. Hell is a foreign keyboard.
– Perry de Havilland