TRUMP EXITS THE PARIS AGREEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE

The fumes of liberal arrogance fill the sky.

by Brett Stevens

The usual nutcases and droolers are neurosing wildly over Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate accord:

"Citing a litany of statistics disputed by environmentalists, Trump argued Thursday that the pact would hurt domestic manufacturing and other industries and would put the United States at a 'permanent disadvantage' with China, India and other rising powers. Staying in the accord, he said, would cost the United States as many as 2.7 million jobs by 2025 and as much as $3 trillion in lost gross domestic product.

…'The rest of the world applauded when we signed the Paris agreement,' Trump said. 'They went wild. They were so happy. For the simple reason that it put our country, the United States of America, which we all love, at a very, very big economic disadvantage."

ANTEDILUVIAN FANCIES: DARREN ARONOFSKY'S "NOAH"

"It's gonna rain..." Noah (Russell Crowe) guards the Ark against raiders.

by Andy Nowicki

As audacious, ambitious, heterodoxically-conceived Biblical epics go, Darren Aronofsky’s new movie Noah somewhat recalls The Last Temptation of Christ, Martin Scorsese’s 1988 adaptation of the controversial Nikos Kazantzakis novel.

Both films were subjected to a pre-release drubbing by conservative Christian groups, who in each case complained of disrespect for Scripture and overall theological untenability (though the deluge of condemnation rained down upon Temptation—which featured a doubt-plagued and carnally-tormented Jesus—easily drowns out the contemporary Noah imbroglio, a fact which I daresay ought to demonstrate to right-wing pagan critics that Christianity, far from being a radically “egalitarian” monstrosity, is hardly without its hierarchy of heroes).