Monday, August 3, 2015

Will be offline for a few days

Make yourselves at home in the comments section.

16 comments:

Deborah said...

Offline...for a few...DAYS? Make ourselves at home? Thanks! No worries. But I'd get that memory looked at. Just sayin'.

Have a safe and good trip, Paco. Best wishes.

RebeccaH said...

I assume you never learned from Tim Blair's experience.

JeffS said...

zzzzzzzz........

rinardman said...

I assume you never learned from Tim Blair's experience.

Whatever do you mean, Rebecca?

DANIELBLOOM said...
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DANIELBLOOM said...

Climate skeptics have their own 'cli-fi'







by Dan Bloom​




When NPR produced a short radio segment on April 20, 2013, a new buzzword was was born and the English-speaking media took notice. Everywhere you look via Google searches, from the New York Times to the Guardian, with dispatches from Reuters and the Associated Press also chiming in, the cli-fi term that NPR reported has found a niche among headline writers and literary critics.



But the cli-fi meme didn't really begin in 2013, although that's when the mainstream media first took notice via NPR and subsequent follow-ups in the New York, the Guardian, and The Washington Post.


One must go back to March of 2009, when a rightwing blogger and climate skeptic going by the pen name of Paco, first posted a scathing, sarcastic look at what he deemed as "cli-fi" -- the climate fiction of people like Al Gore and James Hansen.





''Paco'' of Paco Enterprises, who by himself coined the cli-fi term on his blog as a humorous and gently mocking term to describe the books and essays and documentaries of climate activists such as Al Gore and James Hansen, does not hate climate activists or scientists who say they believe in global warming. He just find them fodder for satire and sarcasm.



For Paco, cli-fi means ''climate fiction'' and by climate fiction he means to say that the facts and figures and charts and arguments in Gore's work and Hansen's work are pure ''fiction'' and not ''scientific'' at all.


http://pacoenterprises.blogspot.tw/2011/08/one-would-have-thought-it-impossible.html




Just as sci-fi is a term that Paco understands to mean "science fiction'' movies and novels about space travel and gigantic squids wrestling on the Moon, he has turned his coinage of cli-fi into a mocking term to tear into the science-based work of Gore and Hansen and mock their work as mere fiction about climate, since as Paco maintains, global warming is a hoax and pure hogwash.



So from March of 2009 to sometime in 2011, for three years, Paco blogged about cli-fi as a mocking term, even posting a photoshopped photo of Al Gore and calling him ''Cli-Fi Man.'' Paco created such phrases as "The Church of Cli-fi" and "Cli-Fi Thuggery." And each time he posted a blog about these terms, his fellow denialists posted comments applauding the way he was mocking climate activists like Gore and Hansen.



Paco's blog fell silent on the key word of ''cli-in 2012 and he has not posted anything new using the cli-fi term since then.



However, one of my emails finally reached his inbox, since I was looking for him since the NPR story broke, and he replied to me that next day.

Deborah said...

We tried to remind Paco what happens when he leaves for a few days, but....

Ok Daniel, I'll bite, but please do us a favor. If you must post a story take the time to reformat it. Now, let's go over a few points. This is a Conservative blog, of which most of the readers have been with Paco from the inception. We met years ago on Tim Blair's old site where we were introduced to Paco's wit, clarity, and genius with writing. We are very loyal. Now, regarding climate change, or whatever it's called today. The only thing that so-called "skeptics" disagree with and can disprove is that climate change is man made. You know that already, but then the entire point of your post was to incite. Please don't view my response as success. I did not wish to leave your post unattended in Paco's absence.

DANIELBLOOM said...

Dan: PACO WROTE




I am delighted to hear back from you.



I am notoriously lax in checking my emails, and get so much spam that I frequently just quickly browse the sender names. I am horrified to learn that you have been emailing me for the last couple of years and have been getting no response. My apologies.




You sound like a splendid fellow. Seriously, I will try to delve into your writings, and trust that our mutual sense of humor will ameliorate any mere political, scientific or other differences.

DANIELBLOOM said...
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DANIELBLOOM said...

paco FIRST letter to me August 2, 2015...

Dear Mr. Bloom:




Thank you for sharing your post. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, but blogging is just a hobby and I have a full-time regular job, and I didn't want to respond until I had a chance to go back and check my previous blog posts to determine when I first used the word "Cli-Fi". Also, I had no idea who you were and wanted to do a little research on that subject, too.




You are correct in assuming I used the term strictly in a satirical sense. I had never heard or seen the word used before I employed it, but make no claim whatsoever as to having coined it; for all I know, any number of people may have used it previously, unbeknownst to me, in any number of contexts.




I do not listen to NPR, and have no idea of the program to which you refer, therefore it is incorrect to say that I [stopped blogging using the Cli-Fi term after the NPR show on April 20, 2013. I never heard that show and its subject matter.] On the contrary, I continue to be a climate change skeptic and consider Al Gore and his ilk to be alarmist frauds. Which, of course, does not mean that the premise of climate change cannot serve as the basis for interesting work in what I take to be a sub-genre of sci fi/dystopian fiction. I shall make a point of reading some of your work.




Cordially,




Paco

DANIELBLOOM said...

Deborah background info here; featuring AL GORE as Cli FI Man...

http://northwardho.blogspot.tw/2015/08/climate-skeptic-pushes-negative-version.html

DANIELBLOOM said...

And now I will wait patiently for Paco to return home and read his future blogs from here. I just wanted to say hello to everyone here first. I am not on anybody's side. I am just interested in good honest discussions pro and on, humorous and otherwise. But never name calling, I never do that. Climate PR guy Marc Morano is one of my best friends in the climate discission community the man who runs Climate Depot website. We are both PR guys. Okay, he's right of center, I am left of the intersection near Route 66 but we have been online pals for 8 years. Now Paco and I have decided to beomce friends. Wait.

RebeccaH said...

Welcome, Mr. Bloom, it's always good to see fresh ... er, names ... in the comment section. It was good of you to share the history of "cli-fi" with us, too; I had forgotten that. Paco's blog is a good place to come for laughs, as well as the occasional "serious" discussion.

rinardman, I couldn't find Paco's liquor cabinet, but he does have a lot of books. I don't suppose we better bother those. And he must have taken his car so we can't set that on fire.

rinardman said...

Yeah, Rebecca, Paco's such a tease. I guess we could burn the books....but that doesn't sound very civilized.

HAL9000 said...

Rebecca,
Check the basement. I've seen reports that Wronwright has got the TARDIS working again and it's been spotted near Paco's place. He may have Sumerian mead hidden away.
e

Deborah said...

Pssst...guys...the books are a "front"...a very good front. Now, don't tell the Chief. Don't let it slip.