Report has 'smoking gun' on climate

AP science writer Seth Borenstein has a story out today about a report that is a 'smoking gun' on climate.

"The smoking gun is definitely lying on the table as we speak," said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who reviewed all 1,600 pages of the first segment of a giant four-part report. "The evidence ... is compelling."

Andrew Weaver, a Canadian climate scientist and study co-author, went even further: "This isn't a smoking gun; climate is a batallion of intergalactic smoking missiles."

This is why I banned a wing nut called Caniac over at Questions for Christians. At first I let him spew his anti-science bullshit, but as it went on and got worse (he said he was sure I was the devil), I realized that he was so far out there that reason couldn't reach him. At that point, what's the point. Just a waste of time to read what he has to say, and an even bigger waste of time to try to convince him that what he and his oil company sponsored friends that not only are the wrong, but their continued denials of the problem are criminal.

Richard Montoya at Sundance Screenwriters Workshop

Got the new Culture Clash newsletter today. This bit of excellent news stood out:

Richard is currently at the Sundance Screenwriters workshop working on the film version of his play.

That would be last season's hit at the Mark Taper Forum, Water and Power. I told Richard at the time that it would make a great movie. The themes are universal, and the geo-specific references to LA and So Cal are explained gracefully or are obvious in context. He said he was going to try to get into the Sundance Workshop, and I congratulate him for his success. It will be a terrific film.

Culture Clash's first hit play at the Mark Taper Forum was Chavez Ravine, the story of the immigrant community that once existed on the site that is now Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

Eat the Document out in paperback

My sister-in-law, Dana Spiotta, saw her second novel, Eat the Document, nominated for a National Book Award last year. It's now out in paperback. While updating her site, I poked around the net to see other mentions of her, and came upon this interview in Believer Magazine in which she said this:

Of course, ’70s American extremism really has nothing to do with Islamic fundamentalism. Even tactically. If you’re a suicide bomber out to kill as many people as possible, it’s a lot different than the Weather Underground setting off a bomb in an empty office building. Not to say that it isn’t incredibly dangerous and irresponsible to do these things.

Certainly it’s harder than ever to engage the idea of revolutionary violence, even if the intention is only property damage. It’s hard to make it legible. But I always think the novelist should go to the culture’s dark places and poke around. Pose a lot of hard questions. Tell me it’s forbidden, unthinkable, and that’s where I want to go. Because the chances are it’s complicated, and the complications are meaningful. One of the things I was contemplating in Eat the Document-and I wasn’t trying to come down on one side or another-is that violence, even property damage that isn’t supposed to include human damage, really does have a profound cost on the perpetrators. One of the tragic aspects is that people were drawn to act out of desperation or naiveté, people who in many cases were trying to do good and then ending up in a very different place than where they expected to be. When I was doing the book, I thought, What would it be like to think about it, years later, after the fact? And surely you must. You know, you can imagine that if Katherine Ann Power lived in a different time her life might have been different. She might have made some different decisions if things didn’t line up the way they did.

Check it out. And buy the book.

The Army's New Recruiting Tactic

Seems the army is either more desperate than we thought, or they just can't help making horrific mistakes:

Army urged dead soldiers to re-enlist

WASHINGTON - The Army said Friday it would apologize to the families of about 275 officers killed or wounded in action who were mistakenly sent letters urging them to return to active duty.

I wonder when the recruiters will show up outside here at the Mark Taper Forum to tap into the teenage deluge coming to see 13.