Denialville?

I read this in today’s Press

LUDINGTON — A library employee in this Lake Michigan resort community has been fired for writing a book that describes a range of unpleasant patrons, from the merely unpleasant to online sex fiends, in a town she calls “Denialville.”

At first it sounds like the grumpy, mean old library people can’t take a sharp wit in their midst.  But some things about the description of it gives me pause:

Publish America issued the book, and its online catalog offers this description:

“The Library Diaries reads like Seinfeld meets Lou Dobbs meets Glenn Beck. Issues that most of us are afraid to talk about, issues we have had to veil through humor, are talked about candidly by the author, who has seen the terrible consequences of us not talking about these issues — children’s lives.

“Open this book and you’ll meet the naked patron, the greedy, unenlightened patrons, destination hell, the masturbator, horny old men, Mr. Three Hats, and a menagerie of other characters you never dreamt were housed at your public library.”

Sexually creepy patrons are creepy indeed, and libraries are a place where people often hang out who have nowhere else decent to go, so you see a lot of folk you won’t see at upscale family restaurants, say.  But Seinfeld meets Lou Dobbs meets Glenn Beck? Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck are best known for hating people.  Especially people who aren’t upper-middle-class white conservative male Americans.  Especially Mexican people.  (They would say, not Mexican people, but “illegal aliens.”  As if it’s purely a concern for legal niceties, not xenophobia, racism, or eliminationism, that moves them.)

What would inspire a comparison to those people?  Is this some kind of code talk on the part of Publish America to indicate that this is a hyperconservative hate rant, and people who enjoy that should pick up the book?

Weird.

From The Things To Panic About Dept.: “The Sun’s Face is Dead And It’s Getting Cold” — not so much

UPDATE: it’s complete BS. Thanks Eric A and Phil O on the climate science and Tom S on the sunspots.

Sunspots have an 11 year cycle. In March 2007 they were supposed to hit a low and start rebounding. Instead they disappeared completely.

In the late 17th century, there was a 50-year “little ice age” which coincided with a period of no sunspots.

Guess what! Global temperature dropped 0.7C in 2007, reversing 78 years of temperature increase in one year!

Warning: Science often undergoes wild permutations and distortions between its production and its appearance in the news media. God only knows if there’s anything to this whatsoever.

Sun Goes Longer than Normal Without Producing Sunspots

Prepare for New Ice Age, Says Scientist

Iron Man vs. Mystic Supervillain From The Kingdom of Grand Rapids

I thought Brian at Again With The Comics was kidding when he wrote the following:

BLACK LAMA

The Black Lama was actually Prince Jerald of Earth-7511, who had taken over leadership of the kingdom of Grand Rapids after the previous leader had been exiled for unspecified indiscretions. The pressures of leadership were such that he retreated to the Marvel Universe for a break, where he promptly went insane and started pitting super villains against each other in an attempt to find a worthy successor to his throne. Prince Jerald was essentially Gerald Ford of Earth-7511, an alternate world where America was called the Kingdom of Grand Rapids, and the exiled king was Richard Nixon, and Baron Rockler, who later showed up to war with Jerald, was Nelson Rockefeller.

But no. It’s all true.

I agree that making him the main villain in Iron Man II would be the whip.