American Apparel is ruining my life The 1980s are best forgotten By Matthew Stefanson, The Sheaf (University of Saskatchewan) SASKATOON (CUP)—I understand that American Apparel is something of a big deal to the kids these days. Young people think it is extremely correct to buy and then wear their clothes. This is becoming a problem for me. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the store’s strategy to clothe women in as little skin tight lycra as possible; I understand that motive entirely. And it’s not that I resent the minimum $30 you have to spend just for entering the store. I solved that dilemma by never buying any of their ridiculously overpriced clothes. I don’t even have a problem with the cruel mock-ups of feety pyjamas they are tricking adults into wearing in public, because that appeals to my twisted sense of humour. I do have a problem, however, with their unfortunate taste in decades. Their products are a throwback to an earlier time and this in itself isn’t really a problem since I don’t mind nostalgia. I just wish they hadn’t chosen the worst decade in the last century to base their retro style on. The ‘80s were a Technicolor nightmare of sexual ambiguity, political conflict and Gorbachev’s disgusting birthmark. It was a decade so confused by itself that it produced N.W.A. and Frankie Goes To Hollywood at the same time. It was a screaming curtain of neon colours There were some good things to come out of that horrid decade: Ghostbusters, and sideways the last two ponytails that good Star was so vile “The ‘80s were a Technicolor nightmare — Wars movies it can still of sexual ambiguity, political conflict and and most of wake me in a Gorbachev's disgusting birthmark.” _the people I cold sweat. It know—though spawned the we can’t be first Lost Boys blamed since movie and Rick Astley in the same year —we’ve held war crime tribunals for less serious offences than that. we were too young to hate the time in which we were born. Had we been formed as more mature human beings we would Qivare have run screaming for the nearest window immediately after birth. Admittedly it’s not fair to blame the whole problem on American Apparel. Musicians and celebrities and the time- delayed nostalgia that every decade probably leaves behind are really to blame. The good folks at American Apparel are just savvy business people who like dressing their models up in as little clothing as possible. More than likely the company founders are ruthless profiteers taking advantage of a new trend in the confused microcosm of indie hipster douches. If nothing else, I can respect the desire to separate young people from gigantic quantities of their money. But I can blame them for making it so ubiquitous. Before American Apparel, I saw fewer neon leotards—almost none, in fact. I can also resent their choice in time period. In my humble opinion, the ‘30s and ‘40s are just itching for a comeback. Everyone all dressed up in a nice pair of slacks or a flapper dress, watches on a chain and everybody wearing a hat to hide from an angry god so that he doesn’t start another world war or a drought or give you polio. Man, those were good times. Fuming? Nodding? Tell us what you think; contact opinions@theotherpress.ca with your opinions about this or any other article Climategate reveals a big steaming pile of... By Chloé Bach, Assistant Editor buy this whole climate change and global warming shtick. Not one bit. I think Al Gore and his posse of scientists are wicked smart people who figured out a way to spell global warming with only dollar signs. I think Stephen Harper likes the extra spending money... I mean, tax dollars for his “climate change initiatives” and I think that any average Joe willing to check accurate historical records will see that climate change has been happening since the beginning of time. Yes, before us humans and our awful carbon dioxide screwed everything up. So, on the heels of the recently leaked e-mails from Professor Philip Jones, the big- shot leader of the CRU (Climate Research Unit), which show that pretty much all the research the CRU has released is doctored, I’ve decided it’s time for me to call bullshit on this thing. I’m not claiming to be any sort of scientist here, but I am smart enough to follow paper trails and this one just got a whole lot more interesting. In fact, this whole fiasco has already been coined: Climategate. Catchy. I love it. Climategate involves a very important, closely knit group of scientists at CRU and IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) who have really been the driving force behind the worldwide shock and awe over climate change. Professor Jones and the IPCC provide important sets of data including those on global temperatures that governments rely on. And guess what? The gist of his report is that if we live [= a confession to make. I don’t much longer it will be in a hot, desolate wasteland unless trillions of dollars are spent to prevent it. This coming from the IPCC board, upon which there are no sitting meteorology or geology PhD’s whatsoever. Anyhow, one would hope that scientists in these kinds of advising positions would be conducting accurate, procedural research, but they’re not. The recently leaked email conversations between CRU and IPCC elite show three major issues that are garnering attention and warranting an explanation. The first head-scratcher, is that they contain in-depth discussion on how to deviously avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws. This on the heels of Dr. Jones’ unwillingness to provide basic data for his hugely influential temperature record, because international data culminated from around the world had been “lost,” is shady at best. If their science is legitimate and groundbreaking, one would think that they’d be itching to show the world proof, after all reputations are on the line here. The second shocker is that the emails show that the scientists have been trying to augment their data to corroborate their global warming claims with the help of their trusty computer programs. It shows their attempts to make “adjustments” to past temperatures, making them lower than they actually were, and current temperatures, making them higher than they actually are. All this to convey an image of accelerated global warming so that they can keep milking the proverbial academic funding cow. The last issue made clear in these emails is that anyone who speaks out against their findings is academically excluded. They refuse to disclose data to anyone who opposes their ideas and then discredits any journal that chooses to publish those ideas. Sounds pretty Stalinist if you ask me. Geologist Dr. Arun D, Ahluwalia a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet has gone so far as to say that “the IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds... I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists.” The fact is that warming and cooling trends greater than what we are currently experiencing have been happening since the beginning of time. There are documented warming trends during the Roman Empire and in the Middle Ages (Vikings were growing crops in Greenland, folks!) and cooling trends in the Dark Ages more extreme than ours. It has even been asserted that Carbon Dioxide levels have been up to 1,000 times higher than they are today. This makes sense considering CO, levels are actually more dependent on solar and volcanic activity, cosmic radiation and changes in the earth’s orbit than you driving to McDonald’s for a Big Mac. Iam by no means saying that our society shouldn’t strive to be more environmentally friendly or that there are not changes occurring in our climate because there are. I’m just saying that I Al Gore don’t think these changes mean the end of the world is coming. It’s all a big weather cycle. The whole scenario is bigger than Joe Blow choosing to car pool with Sally Smith. It’s scary to me that these people at CRU and IPCC are the ones providing advice to the top of almost every government in the world. We all rely on the information that they, obviously, “choose” to present. And their actions are far from credible. Professor Ian Pilmer, author of Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, The Missing Science, said in response to this latest scandal, “If you have to argue your science by using fraud, your science is not valid,” and quite frankly I totally agree. I call bullshit.