Kentucky, you’re on notice.
The chairman of the joint Agricultural and Natural Resources Committee is holding hearings to promote ignorance and denialism. This is appalling.
Chairman Jim Gooch, D-Providence, a longtime ally of the coal industry, said he purposefully did not invite anyone who believes in global warming to testify.
“You can only hear that the sky is falling so many times,” said Gooch, whose post makes him the House Democrats’ chief environmental strategist. “We hear it every day from the news media, from the colleges, from Hollywood.”
Neither of Gooch’s invited panelists was a scientist.
What he is saying is idiotic enough, but look at the letter after his name: “D”. Isn’t it nice that we now have bipartisan inanity? How do these mouth-breathing ninnyhammers get elected into positions of power, anyway?
If I cover my eyes and bury my head in sand perhaps the boogie man will go away.
a longtime ally of the coal industry,
I think you answered your own question. There are corporate bootlickers in both parties.
“Neither”? Does that mean he only invited two? Not much a panel, is it?
That out of way …
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA “Gooch”! AHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaa …
Hey, now. One of my colleagues here is named Gooch — and he’s a smart guy and one of our department’s treasures. Don’t knock the name!
I have no clue what a “ninnyhammer” would be, but I’m using it.
Apparently if you make your living adding carbon to the air, and you don’t like the science about global warming, the proper response is not to invite scientists to give their “opinions.”
Of course that’s the real problem. Science has become just somebody’s opinion.
And yes, there are craven assholes in all political parties.
Man, the Republicans must have given him training in bringing up the “damn lib-rul media” talking point.
A nation of idiots (or in this case a township) will always look to a fool for guidance. It’s the way of the world.
You know, we all make our living adding carbon to the air, unless there are some plants reading this.
> You know, we all make our living adding carbon to the air,
> unless there are some plants reading this.
Not sure about the readers PZ, some of those talked about appear to be in a vegetable
state.
Maybe we should elect some plants to high office. The level of overall intelligence would be no less than before, and we get some carbon uptake instead of output. Works on several levels.
1) Perfect leaders would be selected by some magic, as-yet-unimagined process based solely upon merit and character.
2) Leaders and politicians in many modern democratic countries are selected based upon their ability to make pandering speeches, which consists primarily of lying, and raise fund money, which is mostly done by taking legalized bribes of varying sorts.
3) Ability to lie and take bribe money do not correlate well with merit.
4) Therefore … oh I’m sure you get the conclusion.
Gooch is a world-class fuckhead. The Democrats should add something to their platform that lets them kick people out of the party.
Because we have been social primates for millions of years longer than some of us have been trying to be rational thinkers, and we generally choose our leaders based on perceived tribal affiliation, status, height, attractiveness, wealth, and popularity?
..and, when some of us hear “Gooch”, we think of Arnold Drummond’s arch-nemesis. Very scary. The Gooooooch!
PZ said: “You know, we all make our living adding carbon to the air, unless there are some plants reading this.”
Well, if we’re picking nits, then the carbon we add through respiration is not responsible for global warming, since it came from the atmosphere quite recently.
If you’re point is that we all do some amount of environmental damage, and are likely to blame the damage done by others more than the damage done by ourselves, I agree. What that guy over there is doing will ruin the planet, but what I’m doing is no big deal.
How do these mouth-breathing ninnyhammers get elected into positions of power, anyway?
Bigots vote them in. Sexist, racist, homophobic, knuckle-dragging morons who like to watch WWF and stock car races.
yeee haww!!
As it happens, I found the article refreshing in that I did not expect the hometown press to basically point out that the distinguished representative from the Pennsylvanian Period is a full fledged loon who compares unfavorably to legislators in Florida. (Oh the wound, that) They did a hell of a lot better than the NYTs and WaPo frequently manage on energy politics.
My apologies – to you and your colleague (along with my commisserations …).
I have no other defense than that I would have reaacted similarly puerile if the ninnyhammer in question had been named Wang, Boner or Randy.
Damn, in late because I’m studying for Chemistry and my curriculum has a VERY STRONG GREEN component built into it with the realization that we can’t be perfectly green. The closer though, the better.
Anyway, this sort of tripe is nothing new here in Kentucky where the largest city is considered another state by the rest of the state and 50% think the 2nd largest city, Lexington, is the capitol. Kentucky is one of the largest coal exporters, we have a very poor education system outside of Louisville (and most of our politicians are rural people NOT from the urban Louisville), we have a lay minister for governor, Six Flags over Jesus, Jesusland, and Mitch McConnell (the Republican minority leader) belongs to us so what else did you expect? An Al Gore from Kentucky? A Michael Moore?
We don’t see this in our papers because it’s happened on a daily basis for so long we’ve gotten used to it. When the polar caps melt and flood the coal mines… they’ll only stop for 3 seconds to think about it and then say it was the result of terrorism and say coal burning was perfectly ok and global warming was false. Or that God is punishing us for letting our two largest state universities, UofL and UofK, allow partners of homosexual employees health benefits.
Micahel Moore got there first.
‘Ficus For Congress’ Takes Root In 24 Congressional Campaigns
Dan, you hit on 4 great points. We need to improve the way we choose our leaders. The one system, two party formula needs to be changed.
I’m almost starting to think that democracy needs to be re-thunk to its very core.
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” -Winston Churchill
If you can find a form of government that somehow defeats the failures of the species better than democracy, I’d be interested. The closest I can come up with is “rule by benevolent alien overlords”.
Short of that, politics is largely damage control.
That’s the Providence in Kentucky – not Rhode Island, just so everyone knows. I don’t want to see a bunch of torches and pitchforks around here.
“You know, we all make our living adding carbon to the air, unless there are some plants reading this.”
Are you being plantist? We plants have feelings too, ya know.
“Are you being plantist? We plants have feelings too, ya know.”
I need more sleep.
Well since the only pole that’s warming is the sea-based Arctic (the Antarctic is cooling and the major icesheets are thickening thus having a negative impact on sea-level rise) then I’d suggest you’re going to wait a long time for the Arctic sea ice melt to cause any rise in sea-levels (Hint: forever). Oh and before anyone mentions Greenland, although that icesheet is melting at the fringes, its gaining mass in the middle thus producing very little excess to contribute to sea-level rise.
But don’t let me step in the way of such scientific brilliance.
Why doesn’t PZ put himself up for Congress? It should be entertaining watching him avoid critical questions by repeating them back with the vowels removed…
Kentucky’s Democratic leaders are distancing themselves from a legislative hearing on Wednesday held by a Democratic lawmaker who tried to debunk global warming by inviting only skeptics and avoiding scientific testimony.
“I didn’t like it very well,” House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, said yesterday. “We all do acknowledge — or a great bulk of us do acknowledge — global warming and the problems there.”
But, despite the grumbling of some rank-and-file lawmakers, Democrats said, they don’t plan to remove Rep. Jim Gooch, D-Providence, as chairman of the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee, where he has defended the coal industry and stopped environmental reforms for years.
Plus the people who elected this guy are not making their livings (read: housing and feeding their children) by adding carbon to the air, but by knocking down mountains to get it out of the ground.
I’m reminded of a couple of poignant song lyrics:
Daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River, where paradise lay?
Well I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in askin’
Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.
–John Prine
Gotta get down to the Cumberland mine
That’s where I mainly spend my time
Make good money, five dollars a day
Made any more I might move away….
–Robert Hunter
John A. said:
Well since the only pole that’s warming is the sea-based Arctic (the Antarctic is cooling and the major icesheets are thickening thus having a negative impact on sea-level rise) then I’d suggest you’re going to wait a long time for the Arctic sea ice melt to cause any rise in sea-levels (Hint: forever). Oh and before anyone mentions Greenland, although that icesheet is melting at the fringes, its gaining mass in the middle thus producing very little excess to contribute to sea-level rise.
But don’t let me step in the way of such scientific brilliance.
Why doesn’t PZ put himself up for Congress? It should be entertaining watching him avoid critical questions by repeating them back with the vowels removed…
PZ Meyers is a brilliant biologist, but he is an incompetent politician. If he ran for Gooch’s seat, he would be soundly defeated.
Oh, sorry, thanks for pointing out the pole and not poles and all that stuff. It is good knowledge for those who aren’t aware. I only wrote it that way to exaggerate my point: in a doomsday scenario they still won’t admit their culpability.
Where’d the quote by Jody Green come in? Gaagh! Don’t tell me the Louisville paper missed this whole damn mess. Maybe we are a state separate from the rest of Kentucky after all….
Not all of us are that stupid, I promise. :/
John A,
Both poles are experiencing melting. Increasing thickness in the center of an ice sheet as the edges melt was predicted by global warming researchers. With Greenland, the increase is not a net gain.
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
Regarding that shit- heeled, motherfucking, waste of skin and organs, Christopher Monckton, there was an interesting piece on him in the last issue of Private Eye.
Basically, George Monbiot busted him for lying on his Wikipedia page (claiming he’d been awarded £50,000 damages for a piece Monbiot wrote on him in the Grauniad). But the really funny part was the evasions Monckton tried to avoid ‘fessing up;
– Claiming the lies had never happened (the information had been removed from Wikipedia by this time)
– Claiming he didn’t know who had done it (well, whoever it was, they were using Monckton’s email)
– Claiming he was on an email system with thousands of users, any of whom could have done it (anyone beginning to think AGW isn’t the only subject this guy knows fuck all about?)
Full hilarity here;
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/10/03/did-lord-monckton-fabricate-a-claim-on-his-wikipedia-page/
@#5:’ninnyhammer’ proves that PZ is a man of taste, who has knowledge of The Lord of the Rings.It’s a brilliant insult actually, cutting without being offensive.
@#16: Bigots vote them in. Sexist, racist, homophobic, knuckle-dragging morons who like to watch WWF and stock car races.
Well there’s an interesting opinion. The implication is that anyone who likes WWE (after they lost to the Panda of the world wildlife fund) and stock cars is a ‘sexist, racist, homophobic, knuckle-dragging moron’. Of course the fact that right-wingers are unlikely to vote for a democrat seems to have been missed (I am from the UK so I may not understand your confusing political system). This is along the lines of the ‘masculinity’ debate, where people are defined by those things they like….
Dear Global Warming anti-deniers,
you need to up your game. Quoting grist.org as a source? Srsly? Lame ad hominems? At least come up with some quality-sounding slanderous expletives. Something like “pig-f**king mouth-breather.” Honestly, we are getting bored out here.
Dear Global Warming Skeptics/Deniers/whichever,
you should know by now that you can’t invoke any politician or lobbyist organization (especially Heartland Institude) or anything owned by Rupert Murdoch. People simply won’t listen.
Kyle Huff said:
Dear Global Warming anti-deniers,
you need to up your game. Quoting grist.org as a source? Seriously? Lame ad hominems? At least come up with some quality-sounding slanderous expletives. Something like “pig-f**king mouth-breather.” Honestly, we are getting bored out here.
Dear Global Warming Skeptics/Deniers/whichever,
you should know by now that you can’t invoke any politician or lobbyist organization (especially Heartland Institute) or anything owned by Rupert Murdoch. People simply won’t listen.
I think we need more ad hominems, and Cowbell! ;D
/Sarc