Later: One of the funny places I link to on the web, at least since March 2003, is Saddam's Cyber Palace. Even though "Saddam" is currently detained, he still has time to post funny stories like this one:
Two Arabs boarded a flight out of London. One took a window seat and the other sat next to him in the middle seat. Just before take-off, a U.S. Marine sat down in the aisle seat. After take-off, the Marine kicked off his shoes, wiggled his toes and was settling in when the Arab in the window seat said, "I need to get up and get a Coke."
"Don't get up," said the Marine. "I'm in the aisle seat. I'll get it for you."
As soon as he left, one of the Arabs picked up the Marine's right shoe and spat in it.
When the Marine returned with a Coke, the other Arab said, "That looks good. I'd really like one, too." Again, the Marine obligingly went to fetch it. While he was gone, the other Arab picked up the Marine's left shoe and spat in it. When the Marine returned, they all sat back and enjoyed the flight. As the plane was landing, the Marine slipped his feet into his shoes and knew immediately what had happened.
"Why does it have to be this way?" he asked. "How long must this go on? This fighting between our nations? This hatred? This animosity? This spitting in shoes and pissing in Cokes?"
Take a look around the Cyberpalace. His stuff dated around the time of the spiderhole capture is hilarious.
I've always told my friends that nothing annoys me more about newspaper articles than science reporting. They almost always get the small details wrong and the main focus of the article, whether it's some new discovery or the publishing of some new study, is almost always obscured by the editorial slant of that particular newspaper. Any biological story gets tied to the environment and, these days, global warming. Physics stories, these days, are treated a little more straight, since they don't have the cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider to talk about anymore. Grr... don't get me started on that. But the aging hippies in the newsrooms can't seem to let go of Mother Gaia and how measly little us, whose contribution to greenhouse gases numbers in the tenths of a percent, has just got to stop, stop the madness.
This is why I love articles like this (The gods are laughing - Tom Harris), especially coming from Canada. The relevant quote is here: "[R]eal climate scientists are crying over Al Gore's new film. This is not just because the ex-vice-president commits numerous basic science mistakes. They are also concerned that many in the media and public will fail to realize that this film amounts to little more than science fiction."
And here: "[H]e then uses high-tech special effects to show how human-caused climate changes are causing more hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, infectious diseases, insect plagues, glacial retreats, coral die-outs and the flooding of small island nations due to sea level rise caused by the melting of the polar caps. One is left wondering if Gore thinks nature is responsible for anything."
There are two books I recommend on the craziness of the environmental movement which are pop-fiction novels that take the activists at their word about the lengths they will go to "inform" the public and "save" the planet. The first is Michael Crichton's State of Fear and the second is Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. If you can't stand the military hero worship of a Clancy novel, just read the Crichton book; he absolutely nails the green scare tactics.
As for me, this is my general attitude toward environmental activists who never took a science class seriously:
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