Sapere Aude!

Rick Santorum: The Idea Of Climate Change Is A Liberal Conspiracy | TPMDC

Santorum was on Rush Limbaugh's radio show Wednesday, where he was asked whether he agrees with Mitt Romney's comments from last Friday, embracing the universally accepted science of man-made climate change.

Santorum replied:

I believe the earth gets warmer and I also believe the earth gets cooler, and I think history points out that it does that and that the idea that man, through the production of CO2 -- which is a trace gas in the atmosphere, and the manmade part of that trace gas is itself a trace gas -- is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd.

Santorum continued that the idea of man-made climate change may be part of a liberal conspiracy: "To me this is an opportunity for the left to create -- it's really a beautifully concocted scheme because they know that the earth is gonna cool and warm. It's been on a warming trend so they said, 'Oh, let's take advantage of that and say that we need the government to come in and regulate your life some more because it's getting warmer.'"

"It's just an excuse for more government control of your life," he added, "and I've never been for any scheme or even accepted the junk science behind the whole narrative."

via tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com

Santorum is the anti-science candidate. Conservatives think climate change, evolution, and the notion that sexual orientation is influenced by biology are all liberal hoaxes based on "junk science."  But, the GOP is a "big tent" party that has room for reasonable disagreement, right?  Wrong!  Mitt Romney dares to deviate from GOP ideology and Rush Limbaugh declares there's no way he can win the nomination.  Meanwhile  . . .

The Inappropriate Injection of Religion into Politics

Here's a perfect example of the inappropriate injection of religion into politics. 

We don't need to worry about the environment because God said so.  

Extreme Weather, Climate Disinformation

The Red State "Perspective" on the Oil Spill

A Little Perspective on the BP Spill | RedState.  I guess the appeal to keep some perspective on the oil spill is supposed to be an appeal to impartiality or objectivity.  But, it seems to me that's an attempt to down play it, which is weird to me. Just keep perspective on the worst environmental disaster in US history.  I don't understand the Right's downplay of this problem.  Mainly, because it is so obviously a problem that we should worry about.  But, secondly, because it seems politically stupid.  The GOP is already reduced to a regional party.  The South is its stronghold.  But, it's also the part of the country that is going to be completely screwed by the oil spill.  So, downplaying the oil spill or using it to play national politics seems like its likely to backfire in your own political backyard.  Here's a somewhat different perspective on the oil spill.

Summer Is Looking Awesome, huh

Jon Stewart on the GOP's Corporatism

Joe Barton's apology to BP is the stuff late-night comedians dream about.

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Gasland: Documentary

Even switching to natural gas is going to be fraught with environmental hazards that the industry will probably ignore.

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How Not to Stop an Oil Spill

Louisiana Oil Spill Day Of Prayer: State Lawmakers Propose Religious Solution To Stop BP Oil Spill.  Idiotic waste of time.

Baton, Limbaugh Side with BP Over "Small People," Environment, Responsibility

Here are two guys that either don't understand that BP is responsible or have their heads so far up the asses of corporate America that they have completely lost touch with "middle America" that it's laughable.  First up, is a pro-business GOPer from Texas.

The Texas Republican, recipient of $100,470 in oil industry campaign contributions, apologized Thursday for apologizing to the chief of the British company that befouled the Gulf of Mexico with a massive oil spill.

His double mea culpa plus a retraction, executed under pressure from fuming GOP leaders, succeeded in shifting attention from the tragedy, BP's many missteps and the stoic British oil chief at the witness table, to his own party's close connection to the oil industry.

The subject of Barton's ire was the $20 billion relief fund for victims of the spill sought by the White House and agreed to by BP.

"I apologize," Barton said to BP CEO Tony Hayward, who was sitting at a witness table for another of Congress' ritual floggings of wayward corporate heads.

"I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is — again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown," Barton said. "So I apologize."

Unbelievable.  Here we have a company that was more concerned with the bottom line than safety, and whose shortsightedness is destroying the Third Coast, and Baton is apologizing to them.  Next up, it's that fat-ass whose supporters proudly call themselves dittoheads in full acknowledgment that they are incapable of thinking for themselves, Rush Limbaugh.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised since these folks suffer from "Obama Derangement Syndrome."  They are utter incapable of being impartial and critical about their own views.  They're just irrational.  Period.  All that fund does is make move in the direction of BP making good on its public promises to take care of the mess that they created.

GOPer Floats Oil Spill Conspiracy

(via The Huffington Post)  It seems like conspiracy theories are increasingly becoming a more mainstream part of the American political scene. Conspiracy theories are usually attempts an abductive reasoning that try to explain some known facts.  But, they all seem to appeal to some dubious motivate on the part of various people in order to explain those motives.  If somebody made money or stands to make money from some tragedy, like 9.11 or an oil spill, then they just must have orchestrated the events behind the scenes.  So, they are essentially abductive arguments that commit an ad hominem circumstantial fallacy and posit all sorts of dubious assumptions and it's typically more assumptions than alternative explanations that do not posit a conspiracy.