As IF Times

Source: Venice will vanish underwater within a century if global warming is not stalled, climate change study warns | The Independent

It’s so difficult to discern reality from satire these days that they may soon require disclaimers at the top of ‘news’ articles.  Who knew that editorial directions were converging at the New York Times, The Washington Post and The Babylon Bee?  They may as well work from the same office to save money and reduce their carbon footprint.

The majority of the supposedly sober news outlets continue to bleat about the weather, as if it was an imminent existential calamity. The weather.  The Climate Change (originally Global Warming) charade survives, stronger than ever actually, despite the passage of the doomsday time window  expertly calculated by renowned expert, Al Gore. It turns out he missed counting a finger during his complex calculus and so fortunately for all of us, we apparently have another (only) 12 years before buying green bananas and holding long term bonds is a bad bet.  Time magazine just named a 16 year old whiny hand puppet as their Person of the Year.  I didn’t even know Time magazine still existed.  They’re about as relevant to news as Mad Magazine, which sadly doesn’t really exist anymore.

Everything that’s out of the ‘usual’ can be traced back to Climate Change: polar bear counts, missing bees,  excessive crabs, wildfires in California and the Patriots losing at home. But the most recent impact of Climate Change was even more alarming: Venice flooded.

Yep, one of the most iconic tourist destinations in the world experienced  a surge of ocean water as a result of storms which caused shock to observers and residents alike….apparently.  Venice has never been a good place to rent a basement suite and hasn’t been for, oh…600 years! The city, which consists of a number of small islands connected by waterways, was built explicitly on shallow lands which were subject to flooding as a defense mechanism back in the day when that was necessary.  Somehow, over the ensuing years, residents acclimated themselves to their unique geography and in fact flourished as it transitioned from a commercial center to a tourist mecca selling more tchotchkes than pasta.

The Gondoliers who ply their trade in the city’s canals are iconic and their images are known throughout the world. People didn’t just recently create makeshift canoes and started charging 200 bucks a throw. They’ve been doing this for well over a hundred years.  It’s a profession.  There are schools for that vocation, licenes to be had, rules to follow.  Gondoliers did what their fathers did and they of course followed their fathers.  They adjusted to their environent.  It’s an MBA course in making lemonade from lemons.  In fact, if global warming is a thing, cities that may be subject to flooding should send scouts to Venice to figure out how to copy their model.

It’s chutzpah for these idiots to claim that Global Warming is the cause of Venice’s imminent demise. It’s like the old joke about a boy who kills his own parents and then throws himself at the mercy of the courts because he’s an orphan.  Venice has been around for hundreds of years and will continue for as long as the foundations hold in those waterlogged basements.  We can blame that on the city planners from 600 years ago.

link George Clooney and Amal Alamuddins wedding cost £8m – Telegraph.

Eight million pounds sterling is almost 13 million US dollars based on recent exchange rates.  Think about that.  $13 million dollars…for a wedding.  That’s approaching Rap star money.   In truth, we have no idea how this number was arrived at, since who would actually know?  Of course the ‘lucky’ father of the bride will have bills of some kind, the hotel, the food, maybe the dress and of course the booze bill.  If we take at face value the estimated count of high profile guests at the wedding which apparently hovers at around 100, that means that each person’s attendance cost somewhere in the neighborhood of between $100,000 to $130,000 apiece.

They must be good friends.  But how does that even possibly add up? We’ll assume George sprung for the odd water taxi and picked up the occasional bar tab.  So that leaves a lot of money thrown around for the guests and their comfort on the grand occasion.  Having first hand knowledge of the extortionate prices in Venice for everything involving food and fun, it still stretches credibility that the $13 million tab can be accurate.  It makes good headlines; who wants to say that it was a $50,000 wedding?

But let’s just say the number is accurate and the father of the bride gets stuck with the bill that resembles a telephone number.  That’s a lot of money to pay to get rid of a daughter, even if it is to arguably the world’s most eligible bachelor George Clooney.  Based on what’s known about the bride, Amal Alamuddin, she seems to be more the catch!  She’s young, an accomplished lawyer, attractive and obviously from a wealthy family.  George…well George is an actor… a good and famous one of course, but…to spend $13 million to get the deal done?  Seems molto costoso to us.