Dirk Pitt is Fictional, and so are Grand Conspiracies

If there is one thing that the oil disaster in Gulf has demonstrated, it's that there is no real life character corresponding to Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt. If you don't know, Dirk Pitt is Cussler's recurring hero, a sort of combination of James Bond and Jacques Cousteau. Pitt works for the fictional NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency) of the Federal Government, and regularly finds himself involved whenever any underwater derring-do is called for. Well, the Gulf disaster is just the sort of crisis Pitt and his trusty sidekick Al Giordino would solve in thrilling fashion, just barely escaping with their lives and Pitt (never Al) landing the requisite hot babe. Unfortunately for us and the Gulf coast, this disaster has shown there is no one like Pitt on the vast Government reservation.

It also shows the silliness of conspiracy theories like the 9/11 "truth" movement - the idea that G.W. Bush somehow orchestrated the 9/11 attacks without leaving a trace of evidence. If the government can't stop an oil leak in a couple of months, how could it possibly pull off a massive conspiracy like 9/11? They just aren't that good.

George Will and pop culture

George Will sometimes tries a little too hard to be clever and makes a fool of himself, as in this column on global warming. The global warming commentary is fine, but he ends the column with this self-inflicted wound:

"And why, regarding climate change, the U.S. government, rushing to impose unilateral cap-and-trade burdens on the sagging U.S. economy, looks increasingly like someone who bought a closetful of platform shoes and bell-bottom slacks just as disco was dying."

Platform shoes and bell-bottom slacks were early '70s, disco late 70's, the difference an eternity in pop culture. Marcia Brady wore platform shoes on the Brady Bunch in 1972 when I was in 4th grade; by the time I was in high school in 1978, when disco was king, no one would be caught dead in them, especially white-suit wearing disco divas like Tony Manero (John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever). Even the nerds like me had figured it out. Will is trying to make the point that the U.S. government is catching the climate-change wave just as it is petering out, but he's really only proven that the clever pop culture references should be left to the experts.

Or in, other words, there are some times of nerd - the clever, bow-tie wearing kind - that are just embarrassing.