Santa Claus is Coming to Town Going to Drown

This is the kind of crap you miss the chance to mock when you're busy with school.

My friend Brian (aka Lurch) told me about this first -- a speech by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels in which he warns kids at a tree-lighting ceremony that if they don't help fight global warming, Santa and his reindeer (and presumably the elves too) would drown.

No, really. You can read the mayor's entire letter to Santa over at Michelle Malkin's Blog.

Wow. Where to begin.

I could go off on a rant about fear-mongering, about traumatizing little kids in order to indoctrinate them to your politics, about commandeering a public festivity for your own ends... but that's been done, in spades, by everyone who's commented on this at Michelle's, and by other bloggers.

That WAS, in fact, my first inclination when I heard about this story. While I haven't been able to find a transcript of the speech itself, Lurch heard it and says that Nickels included a dig at Bush in the speech, inplying that global warming was somehow worse because of the President. If that's true, that's the point where the reprehensible aspects of Nickels screed and the laughable parts overlap. It's bad enough to use a tree-lighting ceremony as a bully pulpit for advancing your own agenda regarding global warming, but when your fanatical adherence to the Party Line regarding Global Warming collides with BDS, you start to become self-lampooning.

Not that there isn't plenty to mock even without any reference to the President. First of all there's the irony in the fact that the mayor was offering flourescent bulbs to replace older incandescent bulbs -- missing the memo about the dangers of the mercury present in the ballast of flourescent bulbs. LED bulbs are even more efficient AND safer for the environment.

Or there's Nickels' comment in the letter, "Reindeer fly, but can they swim, too? I for one would rather not find out."

Ummmm... Your honor... Reindeer swim across rivers and bays every year during their annual migrations... I know your comment was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but given the earnestness with which you present your little screed as scientific truth, your lack of knowledge of such a well-known fact really does make you look a bit silly.

Oh, screw it. There's just so much here, and I'm still burned out. I don't have it in me to go off like I'd want to. Instead of cursing the dark, I think I'll just light a light in it.

Unless doing so puts the Easter Bunny at risk, too....

Dear Santa

With money tight in our family this year, for the sake of TFR I've limited mysef to relatively inexpensive items on my wish list, though I suspect there's a pattern to them:

Forschner 8" fillet knife
a new 8" nonstick skillet
Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn
a bird's beak paring knife (There's a Messermeister for sale for $5 at Hartwick's, and I wouldn't use it enough to warrant a pricier one -- great stockijng stuffer, hint hint...)
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
an immersion blender
The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson