The Great Immensity: NSF-funded AGW theater play

A musical that revolutionizes statistics, climatology, $697,177 – approved

I just received an e-mail from Barack Obama. It seems that he wants to promote his latest scientific project so let me quote:

Dear Luboš,

I noticed that you are interested in science. You have pointed out that William Keck, the founder of Superior Oil Company (now a part of ExxonMobil), established his W.M. Keck Foundation which initially funded the BICEP experiment that recently discovered the primordial gravitational waves.

So I believe that you might also be interested in the newest scientific project of my foundation, the National Science Foundation, which is actually 7 times larger than the W.M. Keck Foundation. It (NSF) has funded a $0.7 million theater play called "The Great Immensity" with songs by Michael Friedman, written and directed by Steven Cosson. The play received a Work-In-Progress showing on April 17, 2010 at the Berlind Theatre at the McCarter Theatre Center at Princeton University.

The implications of the play are far-reaching. For example, I attach the song "Margin of Error" that could be helpful in particle physics, too.

Your weblog may attract some viewers to the April 11th, 2014 premiere in Manhattan (Kansas City saw it today, on Saturday. Along with ObamaCare, this is one of the two most beloved projects of my tenure as the U.S. president. I hope that you will agree that the taxpayer money managed by an enlightened president is capable of producing equally sensible scientific projects as the Big Oil.

Truly Yours
Barack H. Obama

So I thought it would make the sender happy if I mentioned this NSF scientific project.




The song that revolutionizes the scientists' methods to deal with the error margins looks like this:



You may see that the percentage of numbers of the people who endorse the climate panic may be variable and confusing; but this fact didn't prevent the filmmakers from producing a wonderful song.




You may want to know something about the plot. Beware of spoilers:

In a thrilling and timely production, presented in association with The Public Theater, THE GREAT IMMENSITY is a continent-hopping thriller following a woman, Phyllis, as she pursues her husband Karl who disappeared from a tropical island while on an assignment for a nature show.

Through her search, Phyllis uncovers a mysterious plot surrounding the upcoming international climate summit that takes places either in Paris or in Auckland. As the days count down to the summit, Phyllis must decipher the plan and possibly stop it in time. With arresting projected film and video and a wide-ranging score of songs, THE GREAT IMMENSITY is a highly theatrical look into one of the most vital questions of our time: how can we change ourselves and our society in time to solve the enormous environmental challenges that confront us?

You see it's exciting yet firmly rooted in cutting-edge science. Phyllis' husband disappears in the Bermuda Triangle or another triangle so she has to uncover the conspiracy that wants to make the next IPCC summit in Paris or Auckland ineffective, in order to save the world.

You may want to see the web page about the play at the server of the Civilians, the artists and civil scientists who turned this play into reality, the theater play's own web domain, a report on the Broadway World, and various right-wing critics who praise Barack Obama for the first truly meaningful investment of the taxpayer money: The Daily Mail, The Daily Caller, Front Page Magazine, I Own the World, Tammy Bruce.



Because you liked "Margin of Error" so much, I added another song above, "The Next Forever". A monkey is singing about her being the last human being on Earth. The monkey statistically determined that in the next 50 or 100 years or forever, the bacteria will still be around but she doesn't want to be the last human, anyway. The song is highly scientific: the word "statistics" appears about 10 times, along with "contingency" and other proofs of the sophistication of the filmmakers. Dozens of additional videos from the play are available.

BICEP2 was kind of amusing but this project is groundbreaking. Congratulations to Barack Obama and the National Science Foundation for this scientific breakthrough. I am sure that between 2014 and 2016, billions and not just millions will be spent for similar projects that the NSF was created for.

More seriously, I would humiliate a skeptical musical about the claim funded by the NSF, too – not that it is likely to materialize anytime soon. These subsidies for people favoring the same ideologies as the officials who have the power to approve grant proposals are just wrong. The Civilians are not doing science; they are arguably not doing a top-quality art, either. They have gotten their money purely for the promotion of a predecided "right" policy, regardless of the quality of their arguments or arts. And that's just wrong. I find it troubling if someone on any side of the climate or other debates disagrees with me.

The Minnesotans for Global Warming have arguably recorded more catchy and clever songs about the climate. Instead of getting a $0.7 grant, their YouTube channel "M4GW" was just deleted along with all of their videos. (Update: the disappearance was temporary.) It seems clear to me that it was because of the message of the videos, not about any violation of impartial rules of anything. Scary on both sides.