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I am filing this under humor, specifically ‘inanity defense’.  The explanation Anthony Watts has invented for his attempt to yank Peter Sinclair’s video off YouTube is the funniest thing you’re ever going to read — assuming of course you don’t read the laughable stuff that passes for “analysis” on WattsUpWithThat every day [see "Diagnosing a victim of anti-science syndrome (ASS)"].  ClimateProgress also has an exclusive interview from Sinclair on Watts and his wildly inappropriate attack on Sinclair’s family.

When we last left the former TV meteorologist and top anti-scientific blogger, his nonexistent knowledge of copyright laws had failed to stop the world from seeing Sinclair’s video (see The video that Anthony Watts does not want you to see: The Climate Denial “Crock of the Week”).  Thursday, Watts offered what might be called the “I have no friggin’ clue what I’m talking about but I am the world’s biggest hypocrite” defense for his failed censorship in a post with the unintentionally accurate headline, “On Climate, Comedy, Copyrights, and Cinematography.”

To understand the inanity defense, first take a moment to watch the video Watts is afraid of:

Yes, Watts actually claims that Sinclair has committed copyright infringement because “in the video Mr. Sinclair produced and posted on YouTube, I noticed that he did in fact use photographs and graphics from my published book “Is The U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?”.”  If Watts wants to claim authorship of a ‘book’ on his resume that is in fact a 31-page PDF ‘published’ by that world-class publishing house The Heartland Institute (!) and posted for free, well, heck, this is the age of resume padding and vanity presses.

But Watts is going to have a hard time convincing any judge that the reproduction of a small amount of material from a PDF given away for free on the Internet hurts the “the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work,” one of the four factors considered in lawsuits over the fair use doctrine, “codified by the Copyright Act of 1976 as 17 U.S.C. § 107,” which “permits some copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to same.”  Given how little material Sinclair used and the “transformative” nature of the work — he used it as part of a critical analysis — the whole notion that there was any copyright infringement here would lead any court to the simple summary judgment “ROTFLMAO.”

Watts would know that if he spent as much time on Wikipedia researching copyright law as he did investigating Sinclair and his family.  Since Watts’ ignorance of copyright laws rivals his ignorance of climate science, he actually and seriously and literally posted this must-read explanation on WattsUpWithThat without a trace of irony:

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See also A true American hero, Tom Perriello (D-VA), on Waxman-Markey: “The Republicans may win some seats because of this vote, but they can’t regain their souls for demagoguing the issue.”

h/t Schoolboy Heart

The lead story in the WashPost today is “GOP Focuses Effort To Kill Health-Care Bills.”  But really, the story could be about climate and clean energy (see “Hill conservatives reject all 3 climate strategies and embrace Rush Limbaugh“) — or anything else.

The article notes, “William Kristol, editor of the conservative magazine the Weekly Standard, implored Republicans to ‘go for the kill.’ ”

The GOP reminds me of Groucho Marx in Horsefeathers — though more Groucho than Marx brother, I’m afraid:

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To avoid maxxing out on my July quota of irony in the first week of the month, I will simply report this as a straight news story.  The UK Times reports:

With temperatures across much of France surging above 30C this week, EDF’s reactors are generating the lowest level of electricity in six years, forcing the state-owned utility to turn to Britain for additional capacity.

Fourteen of France’s 19 nuclear power stations are located inland and use river water rather than seawater for cooling. When water temperatures rise, EDF is forced to shut down the reactors to prevent their casings from exceeding 50C.

Now everybody who is anybody knows that no single weather event can be attributed to human-caused global warming.   And those same people know that nuclear power is the one and only possible solution to human-caused global warming.  So, to all those non-cognoscenti inclined to use this one-time, freak occurrence to diss nukes, let me say as loudly as I can, “NOTHING TO SEE HERE!  MOVE ON!”

Also, the image above is presented solely as an example of the kind of inappropriate humor one should eschew in these troubled times.  Any resemblance between the nuclear power plant employee depicted above and advocates of nuclear power living or mortified is purely coincidental.

The story explains:

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The debate over Waxman-Markey reminds me of what I love most about blogging.

No, it’s not what you think, it’s not the chance to be snarky.  I don’t need the blogosphere for that.

No, what I like about the blogosphere is that it ultimately drives a precision in language and a clarity of thought because it is filled with people like The Talented Mr. Pielke, people who are too clever by half [or is that half clever?], people who are ready at a moment’s notice to spin some slightly ambiguous molehill of phrase into a mountainous assault on you, people whose primary blog, the ironically-named “Prometheus,” just died – let us pause for a moment of silence … and weekend of celebration, barbecue, and fireworks.

The problem arises for many reasons, such as malicious mischief, but here I’m going to focus on just one — the generally humorless nature of the global warming deniers and delayers.

My father, a lifelong newspaper editor known for his sense of humor, always said that no matter how blatant the humor he might use, some reader would inevitably take it literally and write him an angry letter.  I have endeavored to address that problem here with the “Humor” category — but that doesn’t work for small bits of humor in an otherwise serious post.

So for the first time ever — and I hope the last — I’m going to explain two jokes for the sake of those cheerless cheerleaders for climate chaos, and their head cheerleader [jeerleader?], The Talented Mr. Pielke (Jr).

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Someone sent me this:

Coincidentally, I had a very similar idea when I saw this New Yorker cartoon a couple weeks ago [Note to self -- Bizarre minds think alike]

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The idea for this Father’s Day post came when I was putting my daughter to bed a few weeks ago, and she started to repeat, “Want tiny dog” — one of her favorite stuffed animals.  The room was dark, and so I asked, “Is tiny dog in the crib?”  to which she replied, “Not yet” or, rather, you have to imagine a certain sly lilt, “Not ye-et,” which might be translated as, “You have to find him if you expect me to go to sleep.”

As I’m crawling around the room looking to see if she’s tossed him on the floor or if he somehow got under the furniture, she said, “Must be frustrating.”  And so a post was born.

Since the floor debate on the Waxman-Markey climate and clean energy legislation is coming up (though probably not this week), let me, without further ado, offer

The Top 10 Ways the House GOP are like my Two-Year-Old daughter

10.  Core messaging is often infantile. It was, after all, on September 3, 2008 at 10:14 pm EST at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, that the entire GOP decided to make their central message a plea to the very youngest Americans — see “Drill baby, drill”: The moment the Republic died.

9.  Similar messaging tactics.  GOP messaging guru Frank Luntz once said, “There’s a simple rule: You say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and then again and again and again and again, and about the time that you’re absolutely sick of saying it, is about the time that your target audience has heard it for the first time.”  In my daughter’s case, the target audience is very small, and, her message, some variant  “Today is Carousel day,” gets heard the first time and the tenth.  For the GOP, the target audience is bigger, but the polling suggests that most people long ago understood they like drilling to the exclusion of pretty much everything else.

8.  Very ego-centric.  My daughter has become fond of saying of various things around the house, “Mine!  Mine!  It’s mine!”  In the same vein, former House leader Gingrich is fond of saying, “I am not a citizen of the world!”

7.  Love nonsense phrases that amuse them, if no one else.  See House GOP leader Boehner on ABC: “The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical.”

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By Alex Hallatt
From the Cartoonist Group (click to enlarge)

I’d be interested in readers’ opinion of this silly segment from NPR’s Morning Edition, “Dude, Where’s My Cap-And-Trade Primer?”

It’s funny, but the analogy makes little sense, and the whole thing is not terribly productive, I think.  I much prefer my musical chairs analogy from this NPR interview last month

Anti-cap-and-traders, feel free to do your thing, too!  That’s what weekend posts are for, no?

Anybody watching the tedious markup of the Waxman-Markey clean energy and climate bill, saw a rare moment of bipartisan levity:

[Note:  If a typical flash-in-the-pan gets 15 minutes of fame, it's only right that a speed reader get two minutes of fame.]

TPM explains why Waxman had a speed reader on hand in the first place:

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The dirty coal folks are still trying to prove they can be as musical as a Coal Miner’s Daughter.  The clean coal carolers got sent home (see “You won’t believe your ears: Frosty the Coalman, Clean Coal Night, Deck the Halls with Clean Coal).  Now they are trying again.  This post was first published by Think Progress.

The coal industry has taken incredible pains to make coal seem “clean,” “affordable,” and even “adorable.” In December, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity notoriously launched a campaign featuring animated lumps of coal singing Christmas carols.  Now, the West Virginia Coal Association has posted six “Coal is West Virginia Ringtones.” Among the tunes are the “New Orleans Mix,” “Male Voice Choir (Up Tempo Mix),” and “Gospel Mix.” A sampling of the lyrics:

Coal is West Virginia,
Coal is me and you.
Coal is West Virginia,
We’ve got a job to do.
Coal is energy,
Coal is energy,
We need energy!

Loretta Lynn, it ain’t.

If you saw the Late Show with David Letterman last night and are visiting this website for the first time, please click here:  “An Introduction to Climate Progress.”

For regular readers, yes, this is me with a ventriloquist’s dummy, but I can explain…. 

First off, it is now officially “Odd Day,” and everybody should do something odd to celebrate this rare occurrence:

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Capitol Words “lets you see what are the most popular words spoken by lawmakers on the House and Senate floor.”  It uses the Congressional Record to give “you an at-a-glance view of which issues lawmakers address on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis,” by “Congress as a whole, by state delegation or by specific lawmaker” including trends over time.

Who says “Kyoto” the most?  Why that would be Sen. James Inhofe (R-OIL), 94 times in the past two years — more than double that of the next 9 members combined.  In second place, way behind, is John Kerry (D-MA) with a mere 16.

“IPCC“?  Inhofe 87 times, next 9 members combined, 48.  Kind of sobering since the IPCC is supposed to be a body whose work is cited by those seeking to advance climate action in this country (see “Has the IPCC rendered itself irrelevant?“)

But I seriously doubt you’ll guess which member of Congress has used the phrase “cap-and-trade” most.  Or “caribou.”  Or “hell.”

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