Are Republicans in Denial About Global Warming Because They Are So Fond Of Their Own Hot Air?

It never ceases to amaze me how willing the talking heads are to lie in order to further their cause. Even more surprising is how easily people accept their bogus information as fact. I live in Southeast Louisiana, and I do not have satellite radio, so needless to say all the talk radio I get is embossed with the Republican seal of approval. Practically every third commercial is a doomsday smear against Cap and Trade. These ads quite literally attempt to frighten little old ladies into thinking that Cap and Trade will tax them into an early grave. From Boehner's lips to Limbaughs rear-end they are telling you the average household will see a $3,100 a year increase in energy bills!

Hannity peddles this same idea on his radio and television show in between rants about Obama being the ultimate socialist and baby killer. In fact, O'Reilly is on this band wagon as well. Down here in oil town Louisiana people get all bent out of shape about energy policy, and they practically foaming at the mouth over their electric bill going up $3,100 a month. The reaction is understandable. Hell, I can't afford another $300 a month either. The only problem here is we arent' going to have to pay anywhere near that. In true Republican fashion they have taken something some really smart people have stated and then mangle and chop it all up until they can scare people with it. In this case and M.I.T. study was butchered.

How do Republicans figure American households will be out $3,100? The figure is based in part on a 2007 study by the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. The study estimated that a cap-and-trade market for 2015 would be worth $366 billion in revenue. Republicans, figuring that that amount would be passed from the energy companies to consumers, calculated the average cost per household by dividing $366 billion by 117 million households (a population of 300 million divided into households of 2.56 persons) to get $3,128, or roughly $3,100.

However, one of the authors of the MIT study disputes that figure.

In a letter sent to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on April 1, John Reilly, associate director for research at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, said that the study he coauthored had "been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee." He said the GOP's calculation fails to account for Obama's stated intent to provide rebates to consumers to cushion the effect of increased prices: "[M]any of the proposals currently being considered by Congress and as proposed by the Administration have been designed to offset the energy cost impacts on middle and lower income households and so it is simplistic and misleading to only look at the impact on energy prices of these proposals as a measure of their impact on the average household."
-http://www.factcheck.org/politics/cap-and-trade_cost_inflation.html

You would think that after the really smart folks with advanced college degrees from one of the most prestigious universities on the planet earth told Mr. Boehner that he didn't have his facts straight and that he was misrepresenting their study, he would have recanted and at the very least, found a new angle of attack. Oooooh Nooooo. He stuck with it along with the rest of his party (for the most part) and ignored the facts. Amazingly enough some analysis of Cap and Trade show increase in rates being as little as $81 a year! That's a pretty big stretch to get to $3,100.

What disturbs me about this is not so much the deception. I've already accepted that these guys will liie blatantly to further their cause. Rather, my concern is that they are lying because they either do not care about the effects of Global Warming or do not believe in Global Warming. Either way it's a terrifying prospect. Here in Louisiana I listened to a radio interview with Commissioner Eric Skrmetta in which he flatly denied the existence of any planetary warming as a result of human produced greeenhouse gases. In fact he attends the school of thought which states that since we breathe out Carbon Dioxide it cannot be a contributing factor to Global Warming.

Oh and for any fundamental critics who say "but there are scientists who disagree with man-made global warming" please check out this list of 650 "respected scientists" who do exactly that. What a crock of B.S. I think my plumber is listed on it somewhere.

http://mind.ofdan.ca/?p=1922

You Know What Really Grinds My Gears...

When people cash their Social Security Checks and rail about Socialism it really grinds my gears.

When people describe drowning someone just short of dying as enhanced anything it really grinds my gears.

When people act as though transferring GITMO detainees to Supermax Federal Penitentiaries(which have never been broken out of) equates to turning them loose on main street it really grinds my gears.

When people act as though their religion is the only religion that has never killed in the name of their god it really grinds my gears.

When people believe that if a talking head on T.V. says it it must be true it really grinds my gears.

When Bill O'Reilly states that waterboarding was not used often when indeed it was used 128 times on one individual it really grinds my gears.

When Dick Cheney threatens the United States with the certainty of another catastrophic attack if we follow anyone but his own plans (especially considering his President's administration oversaw and allowed the only foreign terrorist attack in my lifetime) it really really grinds my gears.

Finally, when Rush Limbaugh does that weird gurgling breath thing he does it really grinds my gears.

Do We All Have to be Right?

It just sort of happens. One day you realize you have an opinion on some politician's views or legislation, and then it begins to snowball. A few opinions turn into an ethos, and then you are firmly entrenched into the political debate. Perhaps you lean right, and perhaps you lean left. In the end you definitely align with someone. I've been so caught up in it over the last political cycle and the landmark election that I haven't taken the opportunity to step back from it until just recently. When I did I asked the question... "Do we all have to be right?"

I suppose that's about as loaded a question as one can pose, but it's pertinent to where we are at as a society. I don't believe we do. Sure there are some issues and topics that there is just right and wrong ideologically. For instance, no Progressive is going to bend on their moral stance regarding torture or civil equity, and their are a variety of moral/religious issues that Conservatives aren't willing to bend on at all. However, is there truly not some middle ground?

Is it such a monumental stretch to say for instance as a Progressive that I would concede a ban on late-term abortion if there were a concession for allowance in the instance that the mother's health was in significant danger? I don't think this concession would nullify my liberal political viewpoint. Conversely, would a conservative be giving up his red/white/blue stripes if he conceded to large investments in the impoverished class pertaining to healthcare and public education if there were oversight to prohibit large-scale abuse and indefinite dependence?

My point is that we often stand so stratified in political ideals that nothing gets done that either of us want. I thought that President Obama exemplified this measured brand of thinking in his speech at Notre Dame recently. In essence what he said was abortion is legal, so let's put our heads together and figure out a way to reduce the number of abortions that are sought after each year. Still he is branded the biggest baby killer to sit the Oval Office. I just don't get it. Perhaps we all need to step back sometime and ask ourselves Do we all have to be right?

Nut Job Round Up

Glenn Beck blogs today about a vast conspiracy to misdirect the public in order to further President Obama's vast liberal conspiracy to turn the whole world gay. Oh, and logically this all somehow pertains to ACORN as well. You think I'm exaggerating

Miss California will keep her crown for now and Donald Trump will announce Tuesday if she'll keep her title. The state beauty pageant has been investigating whether she violated her contract by failing to reveal that she posed in her underwear as a teenager.

But while most of the media will be showing you racy pictures of this woman even as they talk about how awful they are, the one thing they won't talk about is the truth: The pictures are simply another example of misdirection.

Miss California's crown isn't at stake over the photo, but rather for having the same position as President Obama on gay marriage.

How could she be such a hate-monger?

She's not. It's misdirection: Make people look at the hatemonger and her hot pictures while a real agenda plays out unnoticed.

It's the same thing with ACORN, the community organizing group that became notorious for voter registration fraud allegations during the 2008 election. Everyone wants to focus on politics and make this out to be a left-right issue.

I guess the idea is that when people are outraged about a Las Vegas registrar saying he believes that almost half of ACORN's registration forms are fake or about the ongoing ACORN fraud investigations in 14 states, it's only because they're bitter about John McCain losing to ACORN's old pal Barack Obama. It has nothing to do with the rule of law or free and fair elections — it's just about politics.

But that's just noise; it's misdirection.

So let me understand this. Miss California knows the rules. She knows the consequences for the rules. She breaks the rules, and now it is a vast left-wing conspiracy that she may be held accountable? That's the kind of logic that places a man like Rush Limbaugh as their de facto figure head for sure.

Look, the fact that Miss California has been placed in the spotlight while making a very public statement about an important civil rights issue may indeed have caused individuals to delve into her past. However, almost anytime someone gets caught breaking the rules, it is because they did something that made others look. Those are just the breaks. So Glenn, you lunatic, why don't you sit down on your couch, pop in a copy of The Manchurian Candidate and leave the public alone?

Sean Hannity when he isn't pimping out gold for sale mail-in scams and erroneously offering to be waterboarded for charity, is apparently sending bounty hunter producers to corner Janeane Garofalo and demand an apology for calling Tea Party Protestors racist. Really Sean? You don't understand where she's coming from?

No clearly you're right Hannity. Racism didn't play into this at all. Oh, and guess what? If you strut around a gathering with folks holding these signs up and don't say word to call out there blatant racist bias, then you get painted with the same brush. Is that altogether fair? Possibly not, but those are the breaks!