"Swift's essay is widely held to be one of the greatest examples of sustained irony in the history of the English language. Much of its shock value derives from the fact that the first portion of the essay describes the plight of starving beggars in Ireland, so that the reader is unprepared for the surprise of Swift's solution when he states: "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout. Jonathan Swift in "A Modest Proposal ..."
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I emerged from an eye appointment today to learn that the Larouche Raiders had staged an embarrassment at an AOC town hall in which they had a young woman plead passionately for cannibalism as a means of saving the planet from the insidious effects of human population of the earth. Was AOC smart enough to laugh at this farce? Apparently she was not.
My learned committee members will of course recall that Jonathan Swift archly proposed in his essay "A Modest proposal ..." that poverty in Ireland could be avoided in much the same way .. pl
The Soylent Green New Deal, indeed.
Posted by: Rick Merlotti | 04 October 2019 at 07:30 PM
Not only was AOC left speechless but about a third of those present too. The True Believers. Does she have a challenger running against her in the democratic primary?
Posted by: Fred | 04 October 2019 at 07:32 PM
I wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot Celsius temp probe
Posted by: Terence Gore | 04 October 2019 at 09:25 PM
The Eat The Babies girl mentioned Sweden in her rant. Turns out this aspect of the farce was based on reality:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/swedish-researcher-pushes-human-flesh-eating-as-answer-to-future-climate-change-food-shortages_3068833.html
Posted by: akaPatience | 04 October 2019 at 09:35 PM
Years ago I looked at a website that showed pictures of poorly sited weather stations placed next to heat traps--south facing walls and exhaust fans. During a summer night in Tucson the desert is 20 to 40 degrees cooler than the city. Here's a link to an analysis of a poorly sited weather staion.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/18/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-93-the-hottest-weather-station-in-the-uk-cited-by-the-bbc-has-some-interesting-exposure/
Pictures of more weather stations.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fprofile%2FGergis_William%2Fpublication%2F228410739%2Ffigure%2Ffig3%2FAS%3A393638195548164%401470862067510%2FConstruction-of-Instrumented-Slabs.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Ffigure%2FConstruction-of-Instrumented-Slabs_fig3_228410739&docid=IS2HfbbLTu9fdM&tbnid=3r3_OGrHVkUcBM%3A&vet=1&w=850&h=639&client=firefox-b-1-d&bih=608&biw=1280&ved=2ahUKEwiM14nHhoTlAhXaFjQIHUMsDmgQxiAoBXoECAEQHg&iact=c&ictx=1
With inaccurate climate data we don't know the truth about climate change and with wide swings in modeling the effects of CO2 we don't know how much is man-made.
Posted by: optimax | 04 October 2019 at 10:49 PM
I did post a comment about this young woman. Since I am an English major, I of course had read and studied Swift's "Modest Proposal." It did cross my mind that a person could say what she said only if she was being satirical. However her affect showed nothing other than a stupid sincerity about what she was suggesting. And honestly, the whole abortion movement has gotten to the point of basically approving the murder of babies while calling it abortion that I felt that maybe she was serious.
And, believe me when I say that having taught in our public schools before retiring several years ago, I had dealt with many students whose views about good, bad, evil, sin, etc., were so different from the views on those topics when I was growing up, that I though she was a victim, in a sense, of the decay in our country's moral fabric.
When doctors can perform abortions that deliver live babies and ask nurses to simply take those babies and place them on a cold shelf to die, I thought maybe the slide into depravity had indeed hit bottom, especially when in some abortion clinics the people there have been caught making large sums of money for selling the body parts of aborted babies.
It would be interesting for me if someone, a journalist, would find that young woman and interview her. Was she being satirical or was she a victim of the whole climate change hysteria?
Posted by: Diana C | 04 October 2019 at 11:36 PM
I once proposed on The Guardian website that over-weight Americans be boiled down and their refined body-fats be used to fuel American power stations rather than nuclear ones. I was immediately banned.
Thanks to science we are increasingly being ruled by strulbugs.
Posted by: johnf | 05 October 2019 at 02:34 AM
Yuck I say to Mr. Swift! Cannibalism, YUCK!
I'll stick to my doughnuts and coffee, thank you very much!
Yuck......
Posted by: j | 05 October 2019 at 09:49 AM
Outstanding. And AOC fell for it hook line and sinker. Satire is exactly the right response to the lunacy of humorless progressive diktats.
I'm a little apprehensive about your next 'Food and Drink' tagged post - Enfant à la Swift on the grill perhaps?
Posted by: Barbara Ann | 05 October 2019 at 10:17 AM
Barbara Ann
Unfortunately, the recipes for the sauces were destroyed in the archives in Dublin during the Irish Civil War.
Posted by: turcopolier | 05 October 2019 at 01:15 PM
Enjoyed this girl thoroughly--the delivery was perfect! In fact, it was the only way to deliver it: voice, emotions, look of desperation. I am still laughing even today.
Posted by: Andrei Martyanov (aka SmoothieX12) | 05 October 2019 at 01:27 PM
Give me a break
https://www.nws.noaa.gov/directives/sym/pd01013002curr.pdf
All stations used by the NWS which are both used for climate and to predict the weather that trillions of dollars that the US economy depends on are to standard.
Stations that do not meet these standards are not used by NOAA.
Full disclosure - my company manufactures a mobile weather station solution.
Posted by: ISL | 05 October 2019 at 01:57 PM
Yes, she did a perfect imitation of many young students I have taught. That is the reason I didn't question whether she was pulling something over on AOC.
I did notice later on other videos of the even on different sites that AOC became concerned about her and actually said something to her to the effect that we don't have to panic now or worry about it immediately, thus undermining her own statements about how little time we have to solve global warming.
Posted by: Diana C | 05 October 2019 at 02:52 PM
Thanks for the inside information. It's good to know the information on the website is bs. Truth is what's important.
Posted by: optimax | 05 October 2019 at 03:46 PM
there is an element of truth in what was said. the deep ecology types do favour depopulation to save the planet.
Posted by: Walrus | 05 October 2019 at 05:02 PM
I would strongly encourage them to lead by example, my mother always told me to eat my greens.
Posted by: Barbara Ann | 05 October 2019 at 05:55 PM
Eating human flesh?
Ugh. But humans are just another animal on the planet so why not.
Having never been on the brink of starvation I don't know if I would eat human flesh or not....I tend to think not as I have been told starvation is somewhat painless and I dont like meat anyway.
I only eat meat for the necessary protein from animals that themselves are known to eat flesh of others, like fish, chickens and pigs. I won't eat cows and lambs because they aren't flesh eaters. That is my diet 'fairness' doctrine.
If I were dead in some accident however I would not care if my body was eaten by people if it helped them survive....it would somewhat like organ donation.
Posted by: catherine | 05 October 2019 at 06:26 PM
Look, aviation, agriculture, the military, the police, the coast guard, fire fighters, disaster responders, the US military for training in the US, fishermen, and on and on and on all depend on the best possible weather forecasts they can get. And lets not forget Goldman Sachs and the other speculators on the various markets. Oh, and people planning their weekend tourism.
If not for good weather, the US economy would have hundreds and hundreds of billions of losses and in disasters, such as hurricanes, thousands more would die. So the NWS works very hard to provide the best data they can. And congress is bipartisan in support of the NWS (unsurprisingly).
Climate models simply tap into these already available high quality data (why would they not -its freely available).
Now, other services like, weatherunderground tap into personal weather stations whose data is highly questionable. In some cases it is useful locally because it often is near where you are interested in and NWS stations are not.
The Urban heat island effect has long been known (maybe 70 years, now), and the climate models correct for it in their inputs; however, from a weather point of view its where most people live, and it is what needs to be reported.
I will note, that I am not arguing that the models do not have issues - its just that the problems are in their treatment of clouds and aerosols and ice loss and snow albedo, etc., But not the input data.
However, if one is trying to get a climate message into a 30 second soundbite, its easier to lie about weather stations than it is to try and explain the complexity of clouds.
Posted by: ISL | 05 October 2019 at 07:19 PM
Diane C,
I don't know, there are also nut jobs out there and some of them are armed. I might have the desire to respond as Tucker Carlson suggested, but I think I would try to keep her talking while signaling to security....
now if she had a powerpoint presentation, I would laugh.
Posted by: ISL | 05 October 2019 at 07:24 PM
I know a lot of people in Sweden and I doubt few of them would take this seriously. A lot of things have happened there to food, since you can now get a moose kabob from a street vendor, but that is a bout as exotic that it will get. Of course, if you can eat fermented herring, as some there do, eating dead people is probably not hard. That stuff is the most evil smelling stuff on earth.
Posted by: Lars | 05 October 2019 at 09:05 PM
AOC thought the woman was mentally unstable and reacted accordingly. It’s a non story.
Posted by: Donald | 05 October 2019 at 09:14 PM
True, this is the essential point. Hence the biting nature of this satire. The banking and financial elite will try to lead these Lemmings over the cliff to save the planet, all the while hoovering their income for their NGD, Green Bonds and whatever sort of Tulip/Ponzi/CDO super fleecing scheme their fevered minds concoct.
Posted by: Rick Merlotti | 05 October 2019 at 09:50 PM
We (anyone with an above average IQ) know that AOC is not the brightest bulb on the porch.
If anyone has a child at Boston Univ., get the kid out NOW.
You won't get your money back, but you can save your child from continued brain cell depletion.
This place (BU) gave AOC a degree.
No more evidence needed.
Posted by: MP98 | 05 October 2019 at 10:02 PM
ISL
I looked at a map that pinpointed local weather stations and went to find one. It was a residential neighborhood and, if there was a weather station, it must be in a backyard. My question is are they in residential backyards or was the map wrong?
Posted by: optimax | 05 October 2019 at 10:13 PM
ISL,
Goverment data can be trusted because it needs to be accurate, but commercial weather services can't? "But not the input data." I think that both of those are highly questionable statements. The polcy decisions made based off forecasts is what contributes to "losses and in disasters" such as hurricanes. The failure of leadership in Houston prior to hurricane Harvey directly contributed to the loss. That was a political decision and not relient even upon the forecasts, which were accurate.
The initial tracks on hurricane Dorian (this year) after it had hit the Bahamas were crap. Politicians across the globe want to change the entire economic structure of the industrialized world (not China or India) and engage massive spending on a global scale - but US money mostly - based on "science" like this? No thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3aTBxXGlvE
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2016/06/07/when-it-comes-to-u-s-weather-forecasting-private-public-or-both/#445e770d3a37
Posted by: Fred | 05 October 2019 at 10:16 PM