Television Quotations

Alas, irreverence has been subsumed by mere grossness, at least in the so-called mass media. What we have now, to quote myself at my most pretentious, is a nimiety of scurrility with a concomitant exiguity of taste.
– Tom Lehrer –

Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television’s message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth and fresher breath.
– Dave Barry –

Cable TV is now evenly divided between shows about preparing food and shows about losing weight.
– Andy Borowitz –

How can you put on a meaningful drama or documentary that is adult, incisive, probing, when every fifteen minutes the proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper?
– Rod Serling, speech at Ithaca College (New York), quoted in Reader’s Digest, vol.121, 1982 –

I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go into the library and read a good book.
– Groucho Marx –

If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.
– Erma Bombeck –

If it weren’t for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn’t get any exercise at all.
– Joey Adams –

If television’s a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who won’t shut up.
– Dorothy Gambrell, Cat and Girl Volume I –

If you have to get your news from TV, get it from the Comedy Channel. It’s just as accurate, with the added benefit of making you forget your Prozac for a few minutes.
– Greg Tamblyn –

If you surveyed a hundred typical middle-aged Americans, I bet you’d find that only two of them could tell you their blood types, but every last one of them would know the theme song from The Beverly Hillbillies.
– Dave Barry –

I wish there was a knob on the TV so you could turn up the intelligence. They got one marked “brightness” but it don’t work, does it?
– Leo Anthony Gallagher –

Remote controls are quite handy. They let you see that there’s nothing worth watching on TV a lot faster.
– Melanie White –

Seeing a murder on television… can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you haven’t any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.
– Alfred Hitchcock –

So long as there’s a jingle in your head, television isn’t free.
– Jason Love –

Television has changed a child from an irresistible force to an immovable object.
– Author Unknown –

Television is a medium because anything well done is rare.
– Fred Allen (1894 – 1956) –

Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn’t have in your home.
– David Frost –

Television is like the American toaster, you push the button and the same thing pops up every time.
– Alfred Hitchcock –

Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
– Bill Gates –

The publishers and others should quit worrying about losing customers to TV. The guy who can sit through a trio of deodorant commercials to look at Flashgun Casey or swallow a flock of beer and loan-shark spiels in order to watch a couple of fourth-rate club fighters rub noses on the ropes is not losing any time from book reading.
– Raymond Chandler, 1946 –

There are days when any electrical appliance in the house, including the vacuum cleaner, seems to offer more entertainment possibilities than the TV set.
– Harriet van Horne –

We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.
– Steve Jobs –

We owe a lot to Thomas Edison – if it wasn’t for him, we’d be watching television by candlelight.
– Milton Berle –

Hop-on or Hop-off the Climate Change Bus!

Sometimes the best way to help people accept differences of opinion is to use an analogy that everyone can understand and possibly agree with.

Since Climate Change is one of these divisive issues, let’s pretend it is two Hop-On Hop-Off Buses on different routes and look at the stops each has made to get to today.

(An afterthought: it has been pointed out to me (in the comments below) that this post has a derisive slant and that it is highly unlikely that the varying schools of thought will agree on much of anything. I agree completely that I present politicians, mass media, alarmists and extremists in an unfavourable light. I apologize in advance if I offend you, but I’m not going to rewrite the post, so let the chips fall where they may.)

Bus One, Stop 1, in modern times, was at a location called Global Cooling.  Global average temperatures cooled by about 0.2°C after 1940 and remained low until 1975. It is believed this was caused by a rise in aerosols in the atmosphere released by industry and a number of volcanic eruptions.

Bus One, Stop 2 was at a location called Global Warming.  That was the first place many people, scientists for sure, boarded. There is general agreement that the Earth’s surface temperature has risen by .8 degrees Celsius or 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. Scientists believe global warming has been caused by both human activities (such as the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests) and natural causes.

Bus One, Stop 3 is at the location called Climate Change (the scientific version), which can be changes in Long-term averages of daily weather and/or Short and long term change caused by El Niño (the warm phase of ENSO); La Niña (the cold phase of ENSO); volcanic eruptions; solar radiation; earth’s orbital changes; continental drift; seasonal changes; and arctic oscillation.

Bus Two, Stop 1 is a bus that was called into service by people who didn’t think Bus One went far enough or fast enough. This bus stop is called Climate Change  (the political version) and now Climate Emergency. It is a popular boarding place for politicians and the mass media. Their goal is to create fear in the general population, stop the use of fossil-fuels and facilitate the redistribution of wealth.

Fear mongering is the deliberate use of fear based tactics including exaggeration and continuous repetition to alter the perception of the public in order to achieve a desired outcome.
– Wikipedia –

Bus Two, Stop 2 is at a location called Severe Weather Events. This is where  people board if they have been led to believe that weather is the same thing as climate and that storms, fires, hurricanes, floods, cold weather, hot weather, rain, and drought are all caused by Climate Change.

Sadly, this is also the Stop of Deception for two reasons: Weather isn’t Climate and Climate Change hasn’t, so far, caused extreme weather events.

Good weather, bad weather – these are the conditions of the atmosphere  over a short period of time – minutes to months. They are not Climate, which is how the atmosphere has behaved over relatively long periods of time – 30 years or more.

If you have unlimited time and patience, read the recently released IPCC -SR15  Chapter 3 Impacts, (the observed sections) which state that most of the actual ‘observed changes’ of floods, hurricanes, monsoons, etc were “non-statistically significant”.  In other words, extreme weather events cannot yet be linked to Climate Change.

Pragmatic Environmentalists will happily verify this. They produce data, charts and graphs that show that today’s extreme weather event is usually not so extreme if you look at historical records.

Bus Two, Stop 3 is popular with Climate Alarmists or Extremists – people who believe Climate Change is an existential threat (a threat to human existence that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity’s potential). These people sometimes demonize opinions or facts that are contrary to their beliefs and some have suggested that ‘Climate Deniers’ should lose their jobs, go to prison, or be killed.

Bus One, Stop 4 is home base for Climate Realists. They are skeptical of some of the claims made by government, mass media, alarmists and extremists. They believe Climate Science is rapidly changing and that humans will figure out ways to both respond to and adapt to Climate Change in a strategic, thoughtful and fact based manner that doesn’t denigrate or demonize anyone.

To be clear, no particular absolute global temperature provides a risk to society, it is the change in temperature compared to what we’ve been used to that matters.
– Real Climate.org –

Last but not least – think about the vast difference between the climate of the Middle East and the climate of Canada. People are extremely adaptable… and think about a wider range of solutions than those presented by a single special interest group.

Interesting further Reading: Politics Disguised as Science: When to Doubt a Scientific ‘Consensus’

What Say You – are you on Bus One, Bus Two or do you hop-on and hop-off both of them?

Chaos in the Garden

This is one of my flower beds. It has been over 20 years in the making. In that time, a small tree grew – casting more and more deep shade. The plants that liked sun weren’t so happy about this. Some died – I thought. So I planted others, only to have the dead sometimes reappear (yes, tulips, I’m talking about you and your splashes of red in a bed that once was yellow, blue and purple!)

This year I gave up on order and accepted plant Chaos. Even chaos will take time, though. There are bare spots where some things, like my bleeding hearts, all died this past winter. As George W. Bush said:

Topaz Studio filter “Ghost Town”

What George Bush actually said was “…And, you know, it’ll take time to restore chaos and order – order out of chaos. But we will.” Some media outlets shortened the quote to “It will take time to restore chaos” which triggered the usual crowd to make fun of him – but I think the shortened quote perfectly describes my new gardening mantra.

Topaz Studio filter “HDR”

Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.
– Henry Adams –

Topaz Studio filter “Rock”

Chaos is roving through the system and able to undo, at any point, the best laid plans.
– Terence McKenna –

Topaz Studio filter “3D Sketch”

Chaos is not the lack of order, it is merely the absence of order, that the observer is used to.
– Mamur Mustapha –

Topaz Studio filter “Abstract”

All of these photos were altered with Topaz Studio filters.

What say you – which photo is most chaotic?