Climate & Climate Politics
- Global Warming: Climate Scientists Say Effect Like ‘Weather on Steroids’ – ABC News
- Global warming: Politics overwhelm the science « Summit County Citizens Voice
- His Weirdship Lord Bonckton: Why Nobody Wants to Be Seen with This Guy « Climate Denial Crock of the Week
Yesterday’s Toast-of-the-Tea-Party Renaissance Genius has become today’s embarrassing crazy uncle.
2 years ago, the congressional GOP chose “Lord” Chris Monckton as their sole witnessin hearings before congress on climate change. (see above)
Last month, Monckton was conspicuously absent as a signatory from the “Wall Street 16″ climate denial polemic printed in Rupert Murdock’s Wall Street Journal (which included economists. why not a classics major?). I haven’t seen him on Fox News in ages. About the only reliable venue he has left is, predictably, the loony bin over at Anthony Watt’s Tea Party.
Monckton’s ravings, – that he’s won a Nobel Prize, (he hasn’t), that he’s a member of the House of Lords (he’s not), that he’s cured AIDS (what do you think?), are delusional, sure, but no more delusional than the idea that every significant scientific group on the world who has studied global climate is wrong, and part of some global UN plot to raise taxes. [read on…]
- Graph of the Day: Arctic Oscillation and the Winter of Global Weirding « Climate Denial Crock of the Week
- Debunking Climate Skeptics: Chuck Kutscher, Ph.D. « New Anthropocene
- Rick Santorum is literally the worst | Grist
Santorum swamped Romney (sorry) at two caucuses and a nonbinding primary yesterday, suggesting that his candidacy is a less funny joke than previously thought. Well whatever, they’ve clearly been playing King of the Mountain all campaign season, knocking each other off the top of the dung heap — at this point, do we care which of the anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-healthcare climate deniers gets the nod? Yeah, because when it comes to climate change (and everything else), Santorum doubles down on the wild-eyed conspiracy theories.
While campaigning in Colorado — one of the caucuses, by the way, that he went on to win — Santorum called global warming a “hoax.” This is far from a new meme, but as Chris Mooneyexplains at DeSmogBlog, it goes well beyond Romney-style mealy-mouthed denialism.
A hoax, after all, implies nothing if not a coordinated effort to make people believe something that is known not to be true. So there has to be a cabal, a conscious effort at deception. And if the issue is global warming, then the cabal itself has to be global—for so is the scientific community and the international community seeking action on the issue.
What such a hoax would actually entail boggles the mind—it could never be pulled off—but never mind. The point is that Santorum is now lending implicit credence to the idea.
There are plenty of troglodytic voters who will respond to the idea that the scientific elite is fabricating evidence, probably to get all that sweet sweet science money. Hell, that delusion is what led someone to hack the Climatic Research Unit’s emails, not to mention leading a lot of bloggers and pundits to pretend the hacked messages pointed to some sort of nefarious scheme. But it’s a measure more chilling when the person pulling the Foucault’s Pendulum schtick is also the one who could be in charge of environmental policy and research funding for the entire country.
- Michaels Misrepresents Nordhaus and Scientific Evidence in General
- The well paid propagandist hack and serial science denier James Talyor fills the Forbes Blog with his crap here: Santorum Sends The Right Message On Global Warming – Forbes
Politics
- Reid, Senate Dems accuse GOP of seeking to derail economic recovery – TheHill.com
- Barack Obama | The threat to a fair election
- FORGET JOBS: The 2012 Election Is About The Culture War
Everyone thought that the 2012 election would be about jobs, jobs, jobs. They were wrong.
First corporate profits went up. The market has been strong for almost two months. Unemployment is falling. And there are even signs of life in the housing industry.
Yes, America still has long term debt problems. And Americans are saddled with lots of household debt.
But the last three weeks prove that what gets Americans really fired up is the culture war.
Yesterday we saw the 9th Circuit Court overrule the popular referendum in California that banned gay marriage…[read on…]
- Sue Myrick Retires: So Long, And Thanks For All The Muslim-Baiting | TPMMuckraker
- Daily Kos: Donald Trump is an idiot (but you already knew that)
- The Maddow Blog – What a difference 11 years makes
Republican lawmakers’ manufactured outrage over contraception coverage would be easier to believe if so many GOP officials weren’t already on record agreeing with the Obama administration.
We talked yesterday about thesimilarities between Mitt Romney’s 2005 position and that of the White House this year, but Igor Volsky moves the ball forward today with an even better example.
The Obama measure closely resembles state laws providing equity in insurance coverage for contraception in six states and actually offers far more conscience protections than previous Congressional efforts to expand women’s access to birth control.
For instance, a 2001 bill co-sponsored by Republicans Sens. Olympia Snowe (ME), Susan Collins (ME), Lincoln Chafee (RI), Gordon Smith (OR), John Warner (VA), Arlen Specter (PA) — S. 104 — sought to establish parity for contraceptive prescriptions within the context of coverage already guaranteed by insurance plans, but offered no opt-out clause for religious groups who opposed contraception.
- Right-Wing Media Aren’t Concerned About Helping the Poor, but They Sure Want to Help the Rich | NationofChange
Economics & The Economy
- Why economic inequality leads to collapse | Business | The Observer
…the central lesson of the last 30 years is that a widening income gap and a more productive economy do not go hand in hand.
An economic model that allows the richest members of society to accumulate a larger and larger share of the cake will eventually self-destruct. It is a lesson that is yet to be learned.
- Robert Reich (America’s Jobs Deficit, and Why It’s Still More Important than the Budget Deficit)
- Black Helicopters Hover Over Economic Reality: Caroline Baum – Bloomberg
Science
Health Care
- Wendell Potter: The Battle for Vermont’s Health — And Why It Matters for the Rest of the Country
- Single-payer campaign to begin new push | TheUnion.com
- Single Payer Falls 2 Votes Short In California Senate | Common Dreams
Nan Hayworth
I did a little bit of looking around to see what kind of record and position my local representative takes on global warming and climate change,…it doesn’t look good. In fact she her record looks awful and she looks awfully stupid (she thinks climate scientists are wrapped up in a conspiracy! Oh geez)