Free Republic

Netflix’s Don’t Look Up director Adam McKay has used Oscars season to re-invent himself as one of Hollywood’s most vocal climate change activists. He has called climate change the most serious threat facing mankind, demanded the defunding of a natural gas pipeline, and even claimed that anyone who dislikes his movie isn’t serious about global warming. But there’s one inconvenient truth lurking beneath the Vice director’s woke facade: McKay and his wife have owned homes in Los Angeles and Ireland — a 10,000 mile roundtrip that gives the celebrity couple an elephantine carbon footprint.

Last weekend, between dealing with Winter Storm Izzy and a torrent of work to complete, I squeezed in a viewing of Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up. So much has been said about it in the last week or two that it felt like a moral obligation, albeit a second-tier one. This is not a movie review so much as it is a resounding thanks to the writers, cast, and crew. I commend them for making a film so long overdue with the urgency required. Be respectfully forewarned: there are many spoilers ahead. The plot is relatively straightforward: a graduate student...

Russia's biggest “space wars” rocket launch in decades failed and may send 20 tonnes of payload screaming back to Earth, it has been claimed. The new generation Angara A-5 heavy carrier rocket malfunctioned and only made it to “low orbit,” leaving it short of its target and set to fall back to Earth. Although only a mock-up satellite it was crucial to Russia as a new military weapons delivery system and most of it is likely to burn-up on re-entering the atmosphere. Footage showed the spectacular unmanned launch from Plesetsk spaceport on Monday marking a new stage in Moscow’s space...

The rumor that the Netflix film, Don’t Look Up, is an allegory about climate change is true. Writer/director Adam McKay, a self-declared democratic socialist and Bernie fan, has admitted as much. In fact, McKay calls climate change “the biggest story in 66 million years. It’s the biggest story in the history of upright apes.” That much acknowledged, my skeptical friends on the right have found the film much more amusing than those on the left. My only question is whether McKay is Bernie Bro’ enough to have intended that outcome. Spoiler alert: Don’t Look Up tells the story of a...

Two months ago, after much lobbying by the biggest satellite company in North America, DigitalGlobe, the US government relaxed restrictions to allow for commercially available satellite imagery up to 25 cm resolution—twice as detailed as the previous limit of 50 cm. Now, the first commercial satellite set to capture these high-res images, DigitalGlobe's Worldview-3, will launch this Wednesday. The extra sharp images from Worldview-3 will greatly increase the maps' level of detail to the point where it can make out 10-inch objects, which means Google will soon be able to see “manholes and mailboxes” from its hired eyes in the...

CHICAGO (AP) A bus driver for the Dave Matthews Band pleaded guilty Wednesday to dumping 800 pounds of human waste from the vehicle's septic tank onto a sightseeing boat on the Chicago River last summer. The driver, Stefan Wohl, was sentenced to 18 months probation, 150 hours of community service and the maximum $10,000 fine, which will be paid to Friends of the Chicago River, said Tom Stanton, a spokesman for the Cook County State's Attorney's office. Wohl, 42, of Selma, Texas, pleaded guilty to the original charges filed against him in January, reckless conduct and discharging contaminates to cause...

Sadly, we are very close to war with Iraq. This war is being called 'needless' and the president is being excoriated as a warmonger. The war isn't needless, but it's hard to admit the truth of why it is essential to the welfare of mankind. If the preparations Saddam Hussein has been making since the end of the Gulf War mean anything, it will be a dangerous and difficult affair. Unfortunately, the American people are expecting an easy war. If that’s what happens, all will be well. But if it gets hard, then our resolve will obviously be tested. What...