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Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Peak wingnut was a lie.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

This blog will pay for itself.

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A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

We still have time to mess this up!

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

T R E 4 5 O N

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

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133Comments

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    It’s really a pity that the Rules Of Polite Media Discourse don’t allow Gore to reply “Sarah Palin doesn’t have the faintest hint of an indication of a clue about what she’s talking about. I’m not going to dignify such drivel with a response.”.

    -dms

  6. 6.

    Robin G.

    I guess Gore’s legendary “woodenness” worked to his advantage here. Otherwise, I don’t know how he’d keep a straight face.

    I really don’t understand why MSNBC is getting a good reputation among liberals. They’re as swamped with idiots as anyone else, and Mitchell is one of them.

  7. 7.

    soonergrunt

    It was ever thus. We only know more about it ourselves because now we have tools that our parents didn’t have. News and information flow used to be one way. Now we have access 24/7 and have learned.
    I really do have optimism for my kids’s generation, because they grew up with this from the get-go. Most of the people posting on this board are old enough to remember a time when we didn’t have this stuff. Some are even old enough to remember when terrestrial broadcast was the only form of TV transmission and there were only three networks.
    Andrea Mitchell and her ilk are the left-overs from that era. Trusted because they had all the news and information, which they fed to the rest of us. That’s all changing.

  8. 8.

    Dork

    AM: Al, some questions……Palin says that you are hysterical about CC b/c you crave too many burgers, and clearly you’re fat, so isn’t that an honest criticism?

    AG: Andrea, I’m not sure I unders….

    AM: (Interrupting)…Vice President Gore, why do you continue to claim CC is real in the face of such cold temps outside, emails that conclusively prove the Earth is actually in an Ice Age, and Sarah Palin’s nipples so erect that it cant possibly be warming up?

    AG: Uh, not sure where to go w….

    AM: We’ll leave it there. Remember, Sarah’s book is available for purchase. Thanks Al

    AG: What?

  9. 9.

    Atanarjuat

    Ex-Governor Sarah Palin, who ridiculed fruit fly research to the delight of her howling fanbase, is the obvious go-to person on climate science from the right-wing perspective.

    Andrea Mitchell obviously treats Palin with this legitimacy and affords her due respect. Why can’t everyone else?

    -A

  11. 11.

    geg6

    They did a story on this on the Today Show, too. Completely with a straight face, they made it sound exactly like there was some sort of actual equivalence to their expertise. They actually cited Palin’s living in Alaska as making her more knowledgeable about the polar ice caps than Gore. Cuz he’s in Tennessee and can’t see them from his front porch, I guess. All those years of studying the issue and even earning the Nobel for his work on it can’t trump living on the Alaskan tundra. Also, too.

  12. 12.

    Kryptik

    No, seriously, like I said in the Open Thread earlier…I give up.

    There’s seriously no way to penetrate the stupid anymore it seems. From Health Care, to Economy, to Evolution, to fucking ClimateGate, it seems like there’s no point in trying to be reasoned and measured, because it all comes undone because liars and morons are given more credence on any and all issues, precisely because they’re liars and morons, and somehow more accessible than people who know there shit and use fancy language.

    Nowhere is this more evident than Sarah Palin. And even if voters, by some grace of god, don’t accept her, her and her ilk’s ideas have already been internalized by so many of our goddamn leaders and an unswayable chunk of the populace that it feels positively Sisiphean to actually try and be reasonable.

  13. 13.

    Elizabelle

    I saw that and cringed.

    How’s that again, Mrs. Greenspan?

    soonergrunt: I remember when we got our TV a day late, from the mainland. (Lived in Hawaii as a child.) Believe Mrs. Palin, climate expert, remembers the same thing in her biodrama.

  19. 19.

    Xanthippas

    Those media elite, always ahead of the curve with technology. Anybody taking questions live via the Twitter yet?

    It’s almost enough to make me want to ditch Facebook, but that would be like surrendering to the enemy. And anyway it’s only a matter of time before they latch on to some other internet phenomenon that the young ‘uns are into.

  20. 20.

    ChrisS

    @Kryptik:

    Me too. I’m buying a hummer and I’m gonna live it up. Fuck it.

    I’ll eat corn-fed, agro-corp beef breakfast lunch and dinner and keep my house at 75F because I can afford it.

    Fuck ’em.

    I’m flying to London and back again tomorrow just for the miles.

  22. 22.

    burnspbesq

    Quoting from an old Toad the Wet Sprocket song:

    “Burn your TV in your yard,
    Gather ’round it with your friends,
    And warm your hands above the fire,
    Then start again.”

  23. 23.

    Col. Klink

    Mr. Gore, you claim you have a “theory” that states the earth is round, but Sarah says it’s flat and always has been. How do you respond to accusations that Roundists are nothing but elitists living in ivory towers and therefore the enemy of real Amerikans?

  24. 24.

    geg6

    On a more positive, but completely OT note…

    Via Digby, Tweety apparently interviewed Alan Grayson yesterday and asked him about whether Obama’s bow to the Japanese emperor was appropriate (is he still whinging about this? Seriously?). Here is Grayson’s reply:

    What about Bush Junior? I remember Bush Junior kissing Prince Abdullah on the cheek, and then holding his hand for an extended period of time. Maybe if he’d let him get to second base, gasoline would be a dollar a gallon.

    I love that guy.

  25. 25.

    John PM

    One of my favorite episodes of “The West Wing” was “Let Bartlett Be Bartlett.”. The President said that every morning he would wake up full of energy but by the end of the day he would be emotionally exhausted. Reading shit like this makes me feel the same way.

  26. 26.

    lamh31

    OT, but I’m watching the Oslo coverage now, listening and reading the commentary, I’ve come to the conclusion that President Obama can do no right or wrong. If he walks left, the right says come this way, if he walks right, the left says no come this way. Hell, when he walks a straight middle line, then no one is happy.

    Being President is truly a thankless job, everyone not doing it thinks they can do better. Why in the world would anyone want to do it. It’s getting ridiculous.

    It’s funny, the left says Obama doesn’t deserve the award cause he’s a war time President. The right says he doesn’t deserve the award casue he’s not done enough (translation: HE IS NOT WORTHY!!!).

    The man can do no right, but thank God he has Mrs Obama and his kids, and hopefully his own confidence to keep him going, cause from the looks of it, he sure ain’t gonna get it from most of the country he’s the leader of (and that’s from the left and right)

  27. 27.

    ed

    Contemporary politics, described up in a single sentence

    Hmm. That’s pretty good. I may still go with:

    From the debate between New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and FOX News Channel host Bill O’Reilly on August 7 edition of CNBC’s Tim Russert:

    That really happened. Really. No kidding. Look it up. Sums up where we’re at (that was in ’04, but still…). We’re so fucked.

  28. 28.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Allow me to help Andrea:

    Hey Al, it’s me, Andrea, Alan Greenspan’s wife. You know what, my husband used to run the Federal Reserve. Al, you said:

    ‘To paraphrase Shakespeare, it’s sound and fury signifying nothing. I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old. These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus.’

    Al Gore is Chairman of Generations Investment, Limited Liability Partnership, with David Blood (Goldman Sachs). The Federal Reserve is a private corporation, and Goldman Sachs is a senior member. Al has stated that his first priority is corporate performance (return on investment, or ROI).

    There are currently record cold temperatures in my neighborhood. There is no running water in the house.

  29. 29.

    Ash Can

    LOLZ! Boy, would I love to have seen what happened on the set once they cut away to the commercial break. Al: “Hey, guys, could I have a coffee, please? And while you’re at it, make it a double for my friend here. She’s having trouble telling shit from shinola this morning.”

  30. 30.

    scav

    OK, this calls our for YouTubing if Stewart or the Onion don’t get to it first. Series of interviews, one repeated guest. The random tweets source should be one interview. I’m thinking the others might involve (we’ll work on the best order later):

    a) clearly, breaking open and reading things off fortune cookies;

    b) cooking instructions off a ramen noodle package;

    c) horoscopes;

    d) aren’t there text bits under pages in coloring books?;

    e) the instructions on the clothing tags on their clothes.

    only rule, they clearly get weirder and weirder and the interviewers start ransacking the studio for things to read as questions as they’re clearly incapable of conscious thought themselves.

  31. 31.

    Bill In OH

    It is at moments like this that I am truly happy that I am childless and therefore have no stake in the future of the human race. Face it folks, the stupid has won.

    I would love to think that at some point the deniers and those who “don’t believe” in GCC will come to their senses, but I’m not holding out much hope. More likely, when it can no longer be denied, they’ll all just blame the scientists for not warning them loudly enough.

  32. 32.

    GregB

    Someone needs to tell the Vaudeville Media hacks like Sharon Andrea Mitchell that, in the words of Richard Crenna in First Blood:

    It’s over Johnny……………..OVER!

    -G

  33. 33.

    Kryptik

    @Bill In OH:

    Warning them loudly enough?

    They’ll probably blame the scientists for not allowing more CO2 into the air to offset the global warming. Since, you know, CO2 isn’t really a greenhouse gas and we’ve been LEAKING more solar radiation than trapping it in.

    (No, seriously, I’ve ran into this argument more times than I can count recently)

  34. 34.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Al Gore is fat and charges $1209 for the privilege of shaking his hand. He eats lots of meats and cheeses. He is partners with Goldman Sachs’ David Blood in a limited liability partnership.

    “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t… Our observing system is inadequate”

    -Dr. Kenneth Trenberth, Warmist

  37. 37.

    Trinity

    This is the kind of thing that makes me want to slit my wrists.

    Sweet Jeebus, the Villagers are going to be the death of us all.

  38. 38.

    Bill In OH

    @Kryptik: Like I said, the stupid has won.

    I know the answer before I ask the question, but where in the world did that ridiculous notion come from?

  39. 39.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Al Gore is set to become a billionaire. This is because he cares, and has a huge house. He also eats lots of meats and cheeses.

    “I’m not going to comment on the content of illegally obtained emails. However, I will say this: both their theft and, I believe, any reproduction of the emails that were obtained on public websites, etc, constitutes serious criminal activity. I’m hoping the perpetrators and their facilitators will be tracked down and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows.”

    -‘Professor’ Michael Mann

    Observing the details of publically-funded science is thus ‘criminal’. Balloon Juice is a facilitator, and thus should be prosecuted.

    Silence the Heretics. Four years prostrate to the higher mind.

  42. 42.

    Betsy

    This is really the most depressing thing I’ve read in months, and that’s saying something. Please, PLEASE let the Daily Show catch this.

  44. 44.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    I saw the segment. Mitchell appeared to be throwing Gore softball questions and giving him every opportunity to crush Palin’s ignoramus views. As much as I can’t stand Andrea Mitchell, I thought it was a pretty good session.

    Andrea also gave Rachel Maddow a lengthy session to talk about Maddow’s deconstruction of theories about converting gays to straights, and appeared to be approaching the subject in quite a favorable posture towards Maddow’s views.

    One could have come away from the whole broadcast with the idea that Andrea Mitchell was human, and intelligently liberal in her own views. I’m not sure that either of these are true, but the idea did cross my mind.

  45. 45.

    camchuck

    So sad. Palin wouldn’t do an interview on MSNBC if baby jesus asked her to. Still, MSNBC (and the rest) decide to lend her credibility by quoting Facebook.

  47. 47.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    Maybe if he’d let him get to second base, gasoline would be a dollar a gallon.

    I’m sooooo glad I learned my lesson and have the personal discipline to Not Drink Coffee In Front of the Computer anymore… or I’d be cleaning my keyboard right now… again…

    People are giving Stupidity a bad name these days… at this rate, I’m gonna hafta come up w/ a new panhandle one of these days.

  48. 48.

    Nylund

    Pop Quiz:

    Every time a 19 year old boy named Levi says something mean about her, Sarah runs to her computer to update her status on Facebook to say something mean back.

    Sarah is:

    A) a teenage girl

    B) the most popular figure in the Republican party

    Two years ago, there is no way anyone would have guessed the answer would be (B), yet that is where this country is at.

  51. 51.

    Shygetz

    Four years prostrate to the higher mind.

    Which is what the rest of us refer to as “education”. Your feelings on the topic of education are quite illuminating as to the bulk of your comments.

  52. 52.

    wilfred

    Base – Superstructure. The relentless vapidity of the intertrons – transmitted through the multiplicity of useless messages, facts and INFORMATION produced, produced, produced – becomes the subject of the discourse itself.

    People stopped thinking 60 years ago. They started drooling about 10 years ago.

  53. 53.

    jrg

    More likely, when it can no longer be denied, they’ll all just blame the scientists for not warning them loudly enough.

    F*ck all they will. They will just claim that they were warning thuh libruls about it all along.

    These are the same people who will attend a rally with pics of Obama photoshopped to have a bone through his nose, then five minutes later will claim that conservatives were responsible for the civil rights movement.

  54. 54.

    Zandar

    When the time capsule is discovered in the ruins of American empire and they find Sarah Palin’s Facebook page, they will understand precisely what happened to us.

  55. 55.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    Observing the details of publically-funded science is thus ‘criminal’.

    You seemed to have missed the salient point here.

    If some one did indeed hack into the college’s computer system, and STEAL the emails… it is indeed a criminal act.

    Is that really so hard to understand?

  56. 56.

    Col. Klink

    BoB, once upon a time the Dutch also had a crazy theory that wind could be harnessed via windmills for crushing grain and to help resolve flooding. Their observations helped elevate Holland and made them wealthy in the process. Holland didn’t invent wind, they invented tools to capitalize on it for the benefit of society. Kind of like Gore didn’t invent climate change, but he might make profitable solutions to help reduce it.

    And btw, when did being fat and making a profit become evil in the conservative world view? I thought those goals were the be all and end all of your entire conservative existence? Well, that and green balloons and page boys of course.

  57. 57.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    These are the same people who will attend a rally with pics of Obama photoshopped to have a bone through his nose, then five minutes later will claim that conservatives were responsible for the civil rights movement.

    And that you’re the racist for calling attention to the picture in the first place…

  58. 58.

    SFAW

    Dork –
    You ghosting for Bobblespeak? If not, you should consider it.

    And substituting Mrs. Greenspan for David Gregory, when it comes time to say “I heard you were a moron”, would be a seamless transition.

  59. 59.

    DougJ

    I saw the segment. Mitchell appeared to be throwing Gore softball questions and giving him every opportunity to crush Palin’s ignoramus views. As much as I can’t stand Andrea Mitchell, I thought it was a pretty good session.

    I figured as much. It’s why I said “contemporary politics” not “contemporary media”.

  63. 63.

    Mike in NC

    Sarah is:
    A) a teenage girl
    B) the most popular figure in the Republican party

    Two years ago, there is no way anyone would have guessed the answer would be (B), yet that is where this country is at.

    After a hard day of book-signing at Borders, Sarah would sulk and roll her eyes until daddy gave her a credit card to go back to the mall and spend a couple of hours trying on slutty outfits at Wet Seal and Abercrombie.

  64. 64.

    El Cid

    Hey, don’t laugh now — Sarah Palin was also in charge of the only missile defense battalion protecting us from a Soviet / Russian attack, as Commander In Chief of the Alaska National Guard.

    People who doubt the importance of her role are just like Hitler!

  65. 65.

    SGEW

    I have to admit that the public’s reaction to the CRU email hack and general skepticism about AGW is starting to make me challenge some of my (small d) democratic ideals.

    If: The U.S.A. is (nominally/aspirationally) led by the will of the majority of the people [1]; the majority is (please excuse my French) le stupid [2]; and said stupidity will prevent efforts to rectify and/or mitigate unprecedented global catastrophe; then – is the representational democracy model now a hindrance to meaningful action on limiting climate change?

    What is more practical and achievable: non-democratic governmental action or adequately informing the public? The former has been demonstrably effective, while I despair for the latter in this nation.

    While the “oh noes, teh peoples are teh dumb so democracy doesn’t work!” argument has always left me cold, the scale of the climate crisis and the depths of American ignorance gives the basic principle some significant heft on this particular issue, in my mind.

    In other words, fuck it; I’m now rooting for the E.P.A. do an end-run around the Legislature. Install a carbon cap by fiat, and to hell with the people if they don’t like it (or, rather, don’t understand it). And just hope the Executive branch remains staffed by scientifically literate people long enough to get a process institutionalized enough to meet some long-term GHG reduction targets.

    I mean, what’s more plausible? Keeping the White House in pro-science, (capital D) Democratic hands through bare-knuckle politics in order to perpetuate an Executive policy of carbon emission reductions, or educating the public to a degree sufficient enough so that a significant majority will recognize the enormity of the problem and call for national action? Seriously.

    Plus, E.P.A. regulation of CO2 is constitutional, so what the hell.

    [1] With huge caveats, of course, but let me run with the thought.
    [2] See, e.g., here.

    [ETA: Edited for orthography. Hooray for edit function!]

  66. 66.

    SFAW

    Dear God, what if they think all of us were like that?

    No need to worry. Zandar’s premise, although an interesting thought experiment, is a non-starter. After all – assuming things keep trending as they have since Saint Ronnie – by the time they open it, all they’ll be able to do is look at the pretty pictures, because none of them will be able to read.

    I, for one, would welcome our literate Overlords, if I thought they were coming.

    Also, too.

  67. 67.

    AngusTheGodOfMeat

    I’m not sure that the episode speaks to the state of modern politics as much as it speaks to the state of the modern media, which of course is sorry and tragic.

    I think that the whole thing speaks to a larger, unseen force, which I shall call the General Failure of Liberalism for the last forty years. I say this as a rather hardass liberal myself.

    About 45 years ago, this guy (who went to the same elementary school I attended, so I am pretty familiar with him) made a speech in which he said, among other things, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!”

    Well, not long after that, we had the Daisy commercial, which portrayed Goldwater as a dangerous possibility in the new nuclear age, and the poor guy lost the presidential election in a landslide. But after that, after LBJ fucked up the Vietnam situation, liberalism just rolled over and died and totally failed to stand up for itself for the next 30 years. Not because the media made them do it, but because liberals just failed to make their case. Corny retrograde populism shouted liberalism down. The themes of Weak on Defense, Tax and Spend, and Welfare State became successfully attached to liberalism, not because the media applied them, but because liberals didn’t fight back with a compelling message of their own, until just recently. So weak was liberalism that it could not even mount an objection to the insane Iraq War proposition seven years ago, never even came forth and asked the obvious questions that needed to be asked.* Never gave the media any reason to do anything but go along with the ruse.

    Just sayin’.

    * You know, like “We have aerial reconnaissance showing where every barrel of oil Saddam is selling goes, and who bought it, how come we can’t show and track those putative WMDs?” Stuff like that. I mean, if a cow out in Arizona can think up that question in 2002, how come our geniuses in government and the news media couldn’t think a few up? Again, just sayin’.

  68. 68.

    SFAW

    SGEW –

    I never knew that the abbreviation for “f***ing” was “le”. Thanks for contributing to my further edumacation.

  69. 69.

    Ash Can

    @AngusTheGodOfMeat:
    @DougJ:

    That does make me feel better.

    Maybe if he’d let him get to second base…

    And this made my whole damned morning. I second Republic of Stupidity on thanking goodness I wasn’t drinking coffee when I read this. I’d have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do to M-80 this evening on why the last functioning computer in our household had bit the big one.

  70. 70.

    truculent and unreliable

    @SFAW:

    by the time they open it, all they’ll be able to do is look at the pretty pictures, because none of them will be able to read.

    True.

    Dear God, what if they think we all wore Bump-Its and red polyester robes?

  72. 72.

    SGEW

    SFAW –

    No, it’s not an abbreviation. “Le” is just French for “fucking” or “goddamn,” used as an emphasis. As in, “I am le tired,” or “he is le ugly.” I believe it is a rare French gender-neutral word as well, so you may have usages such as: “This Palin – she is, how you say, le imbecile, non?”

    ;)

  73. 73.

    Elizabelle

    Angus re comment 44: interesting and likely fair assessment.

    Had I been watching, I probably would have switched the channel when the Palin Facebook pronouncements were raised. And not been as patient as you to see where Mrs. Greenspan was going with her questioning.

    It would have seemed equating Palin and Gore, and one of these objects is not the equal of the other. I am so tired of Palin getting so much attention.

    Per that scientific study a while back: hearing the Palin misinformation might reinforce its “truth” with some who hear it and are predisposed to believe it.

    So even if the interviewer was trying to debunk Palin’s assumptions, the sheer repetition of them will convince others.

    And: MSNBC gets to sound investigative even while the sick, inaccurate talking points are distributed again and get yet another round of credibility, because it was on TV, it’s got to be true, right?

  74. 74.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    @truculent and unreliable:

    Dear God, what if they think we all wore Bump-Its and red polyester robes?

    Or blue ones, for that matter…

  76. 76.

    Seanly

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    Observing the details of publically-funded science is thus ‘criminal’. Balloon Juice is a facilitator, and thus should be prosecuted.

    Yup, illicitly obtaining emails and cherry-picking them for quotes to deliberately take out of context is “observing” science. There’s even speculation that some of the emails have been tampered with.

    I’ve never understood why spending money on environmental issues was bad. If the feds spend a million dollars to clean up a Superfund site, there are salaries paid, maybe even contractors in addition to federal employees. Equipment is bought be it Tyvec suits or bulldozers. I can understand not liking the government spending money, but it’s not like the million dollars would be dumped on the site to soak up the spill.

    With the green movement, there will be private money spent. Companies will produce goods and services to alleviate climate change. Isn’t a big piece of capitalism finding new markets to make profits? If we don’t supply goods and services to meet the growing green demand then another country will be able to secure that market. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, several japanesse companies capitilized on slow adoption of green principles. They moved into an empty market while we denied anything needed to change.

    I just don’t get why spending on the environment is a bad thing. I’m not asking that the heads of companies actually care about the environment, just that they realize the potential markets and resulting profits they are going to miss out on.

    If I ran GE, I would be working on ways to cut electric losses in the grid. If I ran Ford, I would be working on finding ways to make greener vehicles while minimizing increase in costs. Etc. etc. Build a better mousetrap and profits will come. The US should be leading this charge. Why should we be buying wind turbines from Spain or whoever? We should be exporting them.

  78. 78.

    El Cid

    @michael pearce: The problem with George W. Bush Jr. was that he was too intellectual, too moderate in his politics, too hard working, too introspective, and too reserved in his actions.

    Only someone free of that intellect, moderation, fastidiousness, reflection and reservation can save us, and that’s Say-ruh Palin, who would be able to save Our Nation in the 18 months she would be willing to be Preznit.

  79. 79.

    harlana pepper

    @geg6: @geg6:

    What about Bush Junior? I remember Bush Junior kissing Prince Abdullah on the cheek, and then holding his hand for an extended period of time. Maybe if he’d let him get to second base, gasoline would be a dollar a gallon

    This is the first I have heard of ANYONE, on national teevee, referring to Bush cuddling with the Saudi Prince, I am surprised he got it through. It takes somebody like Grayson to bring up something that has been hiding in plain sight forever and you have got to be kidding, they are still talking about “the bow”? Thanks for reminding me why I no longer watch and am, for the most part, completely out of touch. My personal sanity requires it.

    Also, don’t need to be reminded of how most Dems are a bunch of pusses all the time and won’t grab the brass ring when it’s actually swinging in their face and hitting them in the nose.

  80. 80.

    El Cid

    All so-called “scientific” laboratories should be supervised by Tea Party members who should be able to choose who can say what to whom, what data will or won’t be used, and what is and isn’t a real and true result.

    Just letting scientists police themselves has proven wrong. Unlike in the business and banking world, where self-regulation works perfeck, scientists need people to help them and guide them, people who appreciate science all the more because they don’t practice it.

  81. 81.

    Citizen_X

    She’s gonna be the GOP nominee in 2012. Sorry, I have to break with left-bloggy CW here. If Palin keeps up the spotlight-whoring and fanbase-frothing (fluffing?), and the MSM continues its stupefied free-publicity policy, I cannot possibly imagine anyone beating her. Debates? Who cares? The Repub “debates” are fora for chest-beating and starburst-launching. Yes, Palin might get bored and quit before 2012, but it doesn’t seem to take much effort: appear in public a few times to spin up the rubes, and keep posting horseshit on Facebook; how hard is that?

    She can’t win the election, of course, if Obama and the Congressional Dems make the slightest progress towards fixing the country. Since they consistently manage to barely clear that line, I fear life will remain exciting for the time being.

  83. 83.

    Kryptik

    @Citizen_X:

    I’ve been saying this before. She’s too visible and given way too much credence and leeway, and she fires up the Teabaggers enough that Republicans almost have no choice (well, they do, but their choice seems to be one of wanting to fly headlong off the right-wing cliff as fast as possible).

    And honestly, with as much as has been going on, I’m no longer convinced that she can’t win the election. My faith in the American electorate and media has sunk that far down.

  85. 85.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Betsy: Got my paper, and I was freeeee!

    Fuck them all with a rusty pitchfork eleven-billionty ways of Sunday, and then fuck them back again with a rustier pitchfork twelve-billionty ways of Monday.

    More Alan Grayson, please.

  86. 86.

    truculent and unreliable

    @El Cid: Businesspeople and bankers are Galtian superheroes who can do no wrong. Scientists are just effete Ivory Tower elites. What do they know?

    @Citizen_X: Fucking bring it on. I will reinstate my cable subscription simply to see the debates between Obama and her.

  90. 90.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Greenpeace says:

    ‘If you looked through any organization’s emails from the last 10 years you’d find something that would raise a few eyebrows.’

    But Al Gore says:

    ‘I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old.’

    …

    ‘What we’re seeing is a set of changes worldwide that just make this discussion over 10-year-old e-mails kind of silly.’

    So the emails were all within the last ten years (Greenpeace) except for all of them that are all older than ten years old (Big Fat Al). This does not compute. The most recent email was date-stamped last month, so I personally believe Greenpeace.

    Al will not debate and has stated that his first priority is return on investment (ROI) for his partners. Since Al and Dave came up with their theory, and business model, world temperatures have trended down, even after potential data manipulation.

    Thus our Progression Of Terms (POT): Global Warming –> Climate Change –> Climate Chaos –> Climate Control

  93. 93.

    Brick Oven Bill

    The Four Generally Accepted Global Temperature Sets.

    Arctic Ice Data.

    People try to make Big Fat Al’s Theory complicated, but it really is simple.

    1. Carbon Dioxide levels are rising (they are, but only comprise 0.028% of the atmosphere).
    2. Increasing levels of Carbon Dioxide will increasingly insulate the earth, retaining heat, and causing warming.

    Mathematically, as Carbon Dioxide levels continue to rise, the warming should become quicker (acceleration). You could make Al’s mathematical model fit up until around the year 2000, and then the earth started cooling slightly. I would entertain the argument that data scatter could be interrelated to indicate that temperatures have stabilized.

    This means that the Big Fat Al’s model is either fundamentally flawed (yes), or we have had ten years worth of outliers (mathematically nearly impossible). For the first time in the history of my house, the well if frozen. AOL says it is minus fifteen (-15) degrees Fareinheit outside.

    It never gets that cold here.

  94. 94.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    (Big Fat Al)

    Gee… what a childish insult… and from a poster who likes to think he understands what prions are, and makes references to Orwell, to boot…

  97. 97.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Big Fat Al is an allusion to South Park’s Big Gay Al. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

    That last part was Seinfeld.

  98. 98.

    ruemara

    Had to, had to, had to bust this alien pod woman’s chops on twitter. I’ve decided stupid journalists deserve as much public mockery as I can serve up before work.

  99. 99.

    El Cid

    How come there ain’t no scientists who study the atmosphere and the Sun and stuff? How come it’s just Al Gore? How come none of these so-called “scientists” have ever just sit back and did some figuring on a napkin and used basic math to figure out what’s going on in the Earth’s energy balance?

    It’s a shame and a disappointment that it takes good, upright Glenn Beck conservatives to teach scientists that maybe they ought to study something instead of just copying whatever Al Gore said!

    By the way, how come no scientist never ever mentioned that the SUN is HOT?

  100. 100.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    Big Fat Al is an allusion to South Park’s Big Gay Al.

    As w/ the stolen emails, you’re missing the point.

    It comes across as petty, no matter what you assume.

    Try again…

  101. 101.

    Et Tu Brutus?

    Wow, so Brick Oven Bill thinks extreme cold in the Northern Hemisphere is evidence of the falsehoods behind climate change? Hard to understand that melting ice desalinates ocean currents partly responsible for weather patterns I guess( see EL Nino, or La Nina; specific gravity of salinated versus desalinated water- of course this is just hypothesis, albeit one of high probability) . On the other hand, I’m sure cap and trade is going to come down to being another scam designed to fatten the bottom line of corporations and those that serve them, and even if everything is on the up and up, will prove entirely inadequate to address the problem. The only real solution for Homo Sap is to stop ‘keeping all of our eggs in one basket’, which won’t happen until a sufficient profit margin can be shown to be derived from space exploration and resource exploitation.

  103. 103.

    Kryptik

    @El Cid:

    Don’t you know, all them there scientists are too busy trickin’ them there poor schlubs in Congress and Yurp into givin’ them billions of dollars so they can live like fatcats.

    And they’re payin’ for it out of the pockets of them poor downtrodden mom & pop oil companies who just want to teach us the wonders of coal ‘n fossil fuel.

  105. 105.

    kay

    I think it’s interesting that Palin doesn’t deny climate is changing:

    “However, he’s wrong in calling me a “denier.” As I noted in my op-ed above and in my original Facebook post on Climategate, I have never denied the existence of climate change. I just don’t think we can primarily blame man’s activities for the earth’s cyclical weather changes.”

    I like the weasel word, too, Sarah. “Primarily”.

    Sarah Palin is not real confident in this battle. She hasn’t read jack on climate change, if she didn’t get the distinction between “weather” and “climate”.

    I haven’t read anything either, but I’m not pretending to expertise in the Washington Post.

    She lies nearly constantly.

  106. 106.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    And they’re payin’ for it out of the pockets of them poor downtrodden mom & pop oil companies who just want to teach us the wonders of coal ‘n fossil fuel.

    That’s ***CleanCoal!™***

    It’s clean, see? That’s why it leaves places that once looked like THIS looking like THIS…

    It done wiped the area CLEAN of life!!!

    Did I mention that Al Gore Is Fat™?

  107. 107.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Just to clarify:

    Big Fat Al. Michelle Malkin is a snarling firecracker.

    Big Gay Al.

    I am not saying that Big Fat Al is Big Gay Al, or that Al Gore is gay, or that Big Gay Al is a mathematics-denier, just that they are both big, and named Al.

  108. 108.

    kay

    @Seanly:

    There’s even speculation that some of the emails have been tampered with.

    Oh, God, follow that lead. We know they edit these “exposes”, see: ACORN.

    Look for poor spelling.

  109. 109.

    Citizen_X

    Big Fat Al

    If we’re going to be bandying irrelevancies with idiots like Brick Oven Stupid, I will have to point out that Big Fat Al has been controlling his weight a lot better than Big Fat Huckabee these days.

  110. 110.

    SFAW

    By the way, how come no scientist never ever mentioned that the SUN is HOT?

    You know who else never ever mentioned that the sun was HOT??!?!

    Hitler.

    (He did, however, say “gruene Ballone” a couple of times.)

  111. 111.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    I am not saying that Big Fat Al is Big Gay Al, or that Al Gore is gay, or that Big Gay Al is a mathematics-denier, just that they are both big, and named Al.

    Yer thrashing around like an alligator trying to get off a fish hook now…

    Sorry… not gonna buy it.

    It came across as petty and childish… and now you’re just rationalizing.

    Try using ‘prion’ in a sentence… it might distract us.

    Or perhaps you could just defenestrate yourself…

  112. 112.

    harlana pepper

    @SFAW: And everyone knows Hitler was gay! Wait, where the fuck is this going, I am confused, I are in Palin/BoBLand

  113. 113.

    Dr Dave (a different one)

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    “1. Carbon Dioxide levels are rising (they are, but only comprise 0.028% of the atmosphere).”

    …showing once again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Though the absolute amount seems tiny, if we ignore water vapor (which is highly variable and at least somewhat self-correcting through precipitation) then according to my chemistry textbook more than 99.9% of the atmosphere consists of gases (nitrogen, oxygen, and argon) that are millions of times less effective at absorbing infrared radiation than carbon dioxide and therefore totally irrelevant to the greenhouse effect. If you look at the combination of abundance and infrared absorption, then carbon dioxide is a major player. It’s a shame that way too many people will be persuaded by the smallness of the first number in total ignorance of the second. Try again, BOB.

  114. 114.

    Zippity

    Why do all of these people ignore what is one of the most conservative doctrines?

    Better Safe than Sorry.

    If there’s even a small probability (we all know it’s more than that) that carbon emissions will make this planet uninhabitable, shouldn’t we take steps to prevent that? They all must believe that the “I’ve got mine, screw you” doctrine supercedes all other doctrines.

  115. 115.

    Brick Oven Bill

    Challenge accepted, as I am snow-bound.

    As a protein-o-phile, Big Fat Al approached the dead cow after spotting it from the road. This is a lot of meat, Al thought. And this cow is still warm.

    Should I eat it?

    As Al gazed down at the cow’s brown hide, he imagined its fresh loins wrapped in bacon and seared with nutmeg, with a big side of French-fries. And then some fried mushrooms with a buttered roll. Hmmm, how about a side of spaghetti. Ice cream tastes best with fudge and lots of whipping cream.

    So Al considered that this cow had already consumed its life’s worth of grass, and already farted its farts, and that he could thus eat it without being criticized by Michelle Malkin. Why won’t she stop putting up my fat-picture! Make her stop!

    So Al dug into the side of the cow, and steam spilled out of the cow’s carcass into the frigid air. It was really cold. Like minus fifteen degrees Fahrenheit.

    And then Al ate the tenderloin, and French-fries, and fried mushrooms, and the buttered roll, and spaghetti, and his dessert.

    Then Al got sick as the cow had died of prions.

  116. 116.

    truculent and unreliable

    @Zippity: I was thinking about that the other day. Most of these people have kids. Do they just not give a shit about their children? I don’t have kids and am saving up to build an off-the-grid farmstead, but I still fucking care.

    Maybe they all really do think it’s the endtimes.

  117. 117.

    El Cid

    @Dr Dave (a different one): Yeah, like increasing the amount of cyanide in the human body by a measly 0.00011% could be harmful.

    Are these quack doctors really trying to convince us that cyanide, a natural substance, increasing in a large, alive, blood-pumping human body by one ten-thousandth of a percent is going to kill somebody?

    Ridiculous. DO THE MATH!

  118. 118.

    mds

    @Citizen_X: Fucking bring it on. I will reinstate my cable subscription simply to see the debates between Obama and her.

    Yeah, because John Kerry totally schooled George W. Bush in two out of three debates, thereby becoming President.

    We’re talking about a woman who was in a three-way gubernatorial debate, and apparently won because she was far less informed than the other two participants. So put me down as another member of the “time capsule in the ruins of America” camp.

  119. 119.

    Comrade Dread

    You know, I think of Al as a pretentious douchebag, but at least he seems to have tried to do a bit of research on the topic and not just consulted his gut feeling that Climate Change is really a secret Communist conspiracy designed to force everyone to get abortions and put down Grandma and in this great state of America with our flags and majestic mountains, we just don’t do that, you know? Also Maverick.

    I’m willing to bet real money that you could get a more educated and coherent opinion about Global Warming from a drunken hobo and the voices in his head that you can from Palin.

  120. 120.

    Redshirt

    It occurs to me that trolls like BOB operate much like our MSM and the players who manipulate it today.

    Facts don’t matter, only repetition and vehemence. Logic doesn’t matter, nothing much matters – ironically, the neocon Wingnut is a perfectly post-modern creature.

    FUD; change the topic; focus on banalities; repeat-repeat-repeat.

  121. 121.

    El Cid

    Remember, George W. Bush “won” a debate by wandering away from the podium and screaming at the moderator “YOU TELL TONY BLAIR!!! YOU TELL TONY BLAIR!!!”

    The Tony Blair whose “45 minutes Saddam’ll killusall” was made up from a taxi driver (why do they even go to the trouble of having any source, instead of just making it up more realistically?).

    DON’T FORGET POLAND!!!

    So, yeah, any real debate with Sarah Palin is one that you ‘lose’ just like all the “creation science” fans walk away thinking that the anti-evolutionists win every debate and that it proves how persecuted and martyred they all are. YOU TAKE BACK WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT TRIG !!!

    (Apparently exclamation points are teh ebbil.)

  122. 122.

    truculent and unreliable

    @mds: Oh, I’m ready for the end. I just think it would be amusing to watch while we go down in flames.

  123. 123.

    Lex

    @Citizen_X: I don’t think she’ll get the nomination, for one simple reason: Winning a nomination is HARD WORK. Just for starters, is she going to have the discipline to spend hours every day for months on end with one ear to the phone, dialing for dollars? I could be wrong, but I just see nothing in her history to indicate she’d be willing and able to put in the effort.

  124. 124.

    licensed to kill time

    What is it with all these “news” stations reading stuff to us from crappy social networking sites? Are we children? Can we not navigate there and read it on our own if we are so inclined? Do they have 24 hours of “news” time to fill and choose this crap to fill it with? Why am I asking these stupid questions?

  125. 125.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    Then Al got sick as the cow had died of prions.

    Cool shovel…

    Nice hole…

    No cigar…

  126. 126.

    El Cid

    @Lex: She will declare that she will run an UN-campaign, and her minions will think this a revolutionary defiance of ‘the system’.

  127. 127.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    There once was a problem with climate…
    But harder again was to rhyme it…
    If the problem is gas and how much we pass..
    Perhaps we just all need to to time it…

  128. 128.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    Why am I asking these stupid questions?

    Indeed… inquiring minds want to know…

  130. 130.

    Chris Johnson

    “green balloons”.

    Okay. So the guy needs to be able to continue hurting her while she is saying no, and ALSO needs to be able to go on while she goes meta and says ‘red light’, which is your canonical safeword (red/yellow/green system)?

    Anybody who needs that badly to circumvent typical BDSM safewords should not be practicing it :)

  131. 131.

    SFAW

    Anybody who needs that badly to circumvent typical BDSM safewords should not be practicing it :)

    Thanks for killing what had been a fun string – even with Brick Oven Shill turning his usual make-no-fucking-sense mode up to 11.

    I suppose your next step will be to post pictures of Rushbo in a Speedo.

    (Shit! My keyboard just killed itself after typing that last sentence.)

  132. 132.

    Tonybrown74

    @mds:

    You know, if there comes a time where she had a realistic chance of becoming President, then I don’t even think the debates would matter.

    I remember when Kerry had the debates with Jr. and after, they interviewed two of the stupidest people on the planet. Of course they were the ever-insightful undecided voter (from Florida).

    One of them, in particular, stood out. When asked what it would take for her to vote for John Kerry, the stupid woman simply stated, “I want to hear him say that he won’t raise my taxes!”

    That’s when I knew Kerry would lose …

    I just drink more.

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