Just as the world gets set to add a new nation, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean finds itself up next on the extinction list.
The resort owners of the Maldives, alleged financiers of a coup there this February, aren’t the likeliest nexus of evil, but they might be ultimately responsible for killing everyone who doesn’t get Raptured first.
The man they overthrew, Mohamed Nasheed, wasn’t just the nation’s first democratically elected president after 30 years spent under a tyrannical dictator. He was the world’s great climate hope, by far the planet’s most impassioned head of state when it came to stopping climate change. He spent a huge amount of time and effort lobbying the world about polluting less, so that there could continue to be some Maldives for ultra-rich people to hang out and propose to each other on. There’s a new movie out about him, if you like movies.
But the reason the resort owners (allegedly) overthrew him wasn’t because he wanted to cut into oil companies’ profits. It was because he wanted to tax their resorts for the first time in their history. The new regime, which is basically just the old dictator’s regime reinstalled, immediately switched back to its business-friendlier ways of taxing. According to the IMF, the new government’s changes to resort lease extension payments saw a 76.1 percent drop in revenues below projected figures from the previous president. Booyah: overthrow pays for self!
For once, America takes a nice stand on this issue, as does pretty much the rest of this world, in insisting that new elections be held there ASAP, a notion that the new/old regime is resistant to. The Obama administration pledged a half a million dollars when the Maldivans said they couldn’t afford to vote this summer. The British Commonwealth is this close to suspending their status as member. And in the meantime, this was just our hottest March on record (again). The Maldives are, on average, three feet above sea level. It would be a good time to buy some property on the mainland.
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First!
First they came for the firsters, and I said nothing, because I was like, good, fuck em.
Around here it's a purported art form vs. a curious compulsion, depending
who's doing the First!inghow many reply with fisting ~WHARS THE FIRST CERTIFICATE?
When most of the earth is underwater from the melted polar caps, etc, it will be only the rich people who will be able to afford habitable space. That's why the rich are urging the Repubs to deny climate science- lots of profits in real estate speculation.
Problem for them is, the most expensive real estate, which they own, is beach-front and will therefore be the first to submerge, which might (or might not) just save them from being first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Waterworld, fuck yeah!
Start eating them now.
Uh, it's raining in LA today so there is no such thing as Global Warming.
Jebus V Christ
Does your ass hurt from my upfist?
Ouch, that was the first reply I read this morning and my anus is shocked.
There is no such thing as Global Moistening
Maldives
The Food Network's new show sampling America's food courts.
There’s a new movie out about him, if you like movies
Sounds great, and I enjoy movies — picked up the habit again esp. after Oprah started promoting them w/ her Movie of the Month club! — but I think I'll wait and see the book first.
I'm waiting for the new Dish/Blockbuster Axis of Digital Evil service that Wi-Fi's movies direct into your brain and automatically reads your credit card number for you. Because, Entertainment JobCre.
A marriage proposal in a disappearing dictatorial archipelago? So romantic!
Love, like the Maldives, is fleeting.
The Maldives are just this much to the left of the current house Conservatards.
Good morning to you, too.
Last one to leave please turn off the beach.
Fuck this libtard hippy shit about pollution and global warming. [spit!] If Jesus didn't want us to drive SUVs, why did he say "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." You can't haul a bunch of kids around without an SUV now, can you? [spit!] Y'all are a bunch of commies and atheist tree-huggers who hate Jesus.
I worked with a Hispanic woman the other day who asked me about the Jews(I am- she is not) and was it true we did not accept Jesus and he did not die for my sins. I had to explain that we are waiting for the Messiah(ok, not me personally) and we do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah or died for us. I did not add that I do not think he died for anyone's sins nor is he God's son. The she asked me all over again- she had never heard of Jews or our beliefs. I felt like a unicorn. And yes, I am a commie tree hugging Jew who never bought an SUV to haul around the scouts/soccer players/brownies/hebrew school carpool
Where Will Billionaires Propose To Each Other If The Maldives Are Gone?
Lord Gingrich's moon palace. Duh.
The place needs some dikes. Lots and lots of dikes.
They recognize marriage equality?
I see the movie preview but no Zooey Deschanel ?? What kind of crap movie is this??!1
One with no happy ending.
She's too busy asking her iPhone questions like "Is that rain?" (yes) and "Am I cute?" (increasingly less so) and "How much longer until America vomits from my schtick?" (depends on how many of these commercials you make, Zooeeeyyee)
The cell pics of her that leaked a while back had much less of the quirky innocence. Turns out Zooey can be a very naughty girl.
They can build mountains from the mounds of dead polar bears and make mortar out of the hot ashes of our dreams.
You should write children's stories.
Needs more Mike Hoare.
I see that he founded "Ye Ancient Order of Froth-Blowers."
Tell me more.
Welcome to planet earth.Please keep your arms,hands inside the ride for your safety.
I think I have some Maldives in my spice rack. So, hoax, maybe?
I have some Belgian Maldives in my lettuce crisper.
The Maldives should be paved to put up a parking lot, obviously.
So, the guy who wants to create taxes on the resort owners is overthrown by the rich resort owning people who installed a government instead who will allow things to happen that destroy their resorts? How did these people get to be rich? I like to think I am smart enough to understand "taking care of what makes your money" but I don't have an island and these people do. And now I feel like stomping.
Is that any different from our possibly-soon-to-be Republican overlords? Sounds as if they've been reading the same Ayn Rand shit.
Isn't this where the Oompah Loompahs are from?
Damn. I guess I need to cancel my plans to marry my sheep.
One word: Waterworld.
Needz moar Brazilian hookers.
As the old, but hopefully not tired, joke goes "just how many is a brazillion?"
Taken over by resort owners?
Are we sure this isn't Florida?
The oceans need reefs too, pussies!
Glad I got to visit this place (twice!) before it goes from sub-aerial to sub-aqueous. What a shame.
wow, I thought about it but I was too poor- I did get to Sri Lanka though- before the war/tsunami
Once was a liberty call in Mali, courtesy of the US Navy, so that cost me 4 years of my life. Went again on a vacation after a deployment in Afghanistan, plane tix from Dubai were pretty cheap. I could never afford to go from the US.
Who is John Schoengalt?
He's shoing Galt?
Clearly, the enviro-hippies have gotten to the insurance industry, which is acting like maybe coastal areas are at risk. So now we know that insurance companies, like climate scientists, are a bunch of radical leftists who are perpetrating a global hoax to take away our freedom!!
Well, maybe the insurance industry will put their army of lobbyists to good use, for once.
Or just raise their premiums. Which seems more likely?
Mal-dive site!
In a few decades, the only way to see the islands will be to Mal-Dive
Listen, Editrix frere, none of your Socialist rabble-rousing!
Lowering taxes lifts all boats! Don't you see? Why do you hate
MaldivesAmerica so?Literally, in this case.
Another movie's waiting to get the green light: Inhofe Family Vacation
"The Island President" is the film, it's a documentary, it's getting a lot of attention in political, governmental, environmental and film circles, and it's opening either tomorrow, April 27, or it opened on April 20, in art-house theaters nationwide. In D.C., you can see "The Island President" at the Landmark E Street Cinema theater. Nasheed also recently appeared on "The Daily Show," and he's made other media appearances recently, too. He's a smart guy, and it's a shame that some psychos were able to overthrow his legal, democratically-elected government. The U.N. should be cracking down on the new militaristic government, issuing sanctions, and supporting Nasheed.
wait… rum diaries was real?
Also I saw Mohamed Nasheed on Colbert? Stewart? He is an amazing human being!
two choices: build the ark or grow gills and webbed feet.
It's their own damn fault for living on an island 4 feet above sea level.
GET OFF MY YHAWT YOU ALTITUDE SLACKERS
I will never understand people who feel they must go somewhere to have a good time. What the fuck are they fleeing?
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