polar_House_Means.jpg This weekend in The Washington Post, two deans of the Washington establishment, the Brookings Institution’s Thomas Mann and the American Enterprise Institute’s Norman Ornstein, finally stated what has been increasingly obvious: The problem with U.S. politics is coming from the right, not from “both sides.” In their piece, provocatively
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DeSmogBlog: Heartland Institute Attacks Forecast the Facts, Denies Its Climate Change Denial
heartland logo.jpg This is a guest post by Daniel Souweine, Campaign Director, Forecast The Facts On April 24, Heartland Institute President Joe Bast issued an angry missive attacking Forecast the Facts, a new campaign that successfully petitioned automobile giant General Motors to end their financial support of Heartland earlier this month.
Continue readingbastard.logic: IOKIYAR to Infinity.
Ok, so I know IOKIYAR is (and has been for ages) SOP in DC. Still, the manner in which the Village took Rosengate oh-so seriously (and turned it up TO ELEVEN) but is now suddenly backpeddling re: The Nuge’s semi-coherent call for Obama’s assassination (gosh, campaign surrogates sure do say
Continue readingbastard.logic: Dueling Ledes (Compare & Contrast), Redux
AP video, Feb 15, 2011: A recent [US] government report states the terrorist threat from Canada is greater than from Mexico, and that only 50 kilometres of the border is adequately patrolled. CBC News, today: Major job cuts at the Canada Border Services Agency could undermine national security and public
Continue readingbastard.logic: Today In The Annals of Stupid Backlash Tricks
Flash: Aggrieved Daily Caller Ex-College Republican thumbsucker (is there any other kind?) has a megasad cuz his bike was stolen (if stats hold true, by a blackity-blackblack black kid!), causing him to boldly and ham-fistedly declare: “I am Derbyshire! (Burp.)” Roy Edroso: Judge must be over 30 by now, but
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Conservatives versus Science: A New Scientific Validation of the Republican War on Science (and Republican Brain) Thesis
rwos.jpg For a while now, I’ve been aware of a powerful new paper that directly tests the central argument of my 2005 book The Republican War on Science—and also validates some key claims made in my new book, The Republican Brain. I’ve had to keep quiet about it until now;
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: How Do You Build a Scientific Republican?
411px-Jon_Huntsman_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg It’s widely known that Republicans, far more than Democrats, reject modern climate science. And more and more, it has become apparent that this is at least partly because Republicans have a deep distrust of scientists in general, or at least environmental scientists. But there are many other causes for this
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: The Science of Truthiness: Why Conservatives Deny Global Warming
Final Cover.png These are notes for remarks that Chris Mooney gave recently at the Tucson Festival of Books, where he was asked to talk about his new book on a panel entitled “Will the Planet Survive the Age of Humans?” Video of the panel is currently available from C-SPAN here. Please note:
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: See No Evil At George Mason University
monkeys.shutterstock_10567591.jpg George Mason University (GMU) has labored for 2 years on simple plagiarism complaints. It has just written self-contradictory findings that avoided seeing plagiarism in the 2006 Wegman Report (WR) while admitting the same text elsewhere was plagiarism. In March 2010, climate scientist Ray Bradley complained to GMU of 2.5 pages
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Is James Inhofe Shilling For God, or Oil? The Correct Answer is “Both”
hoaxbook.jpg Last week, we were treated to one of those facepalm moments that make those of us who care about the future of planet intensely frustrated. Or worse. Senator James Inhofe, climate conspiracy theorist, was on a Christian radio program talking about his new book The Greatest Hoax: How the Global
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Fox News’s Attacks on Climate Science Now Include The Denial of Basic Physics
varneybastardi.jpg There was a time, believe it or not, when Fox New’s Shepard Smith openly mocked global warming deniers—seriously comparing them to a man who got stuck in a portable toilet. (Hat tip to D.R. Tucker for showing me this clip.) But since then, Fox has become a veritable misinformation machine
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Provincial and State Corporate Taxes
The following commentary also appears on The Globe and Mail’s Global Exchange blog: What Obama’s Corporate Tax Proposal Means for Canada Last week, there was much consternation in Canada’s business press that some modest reversals of provincial corporate tax cuts and President Obama’s proposed corporate tax changes could erode our
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: New Data: 81 Percent of Climate Deniers Think Scientists Are In It “For Their Own Interests"
logo_brookings.gif The Brookings Institution has a new report out on the public's views about global warming, and most commentators are going for the predictable headline. It's this: Following the post-ClimateGate decline in belief that global warming is happening, we're now seeing a bit of a rebound. More people believe the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: A Call to Support Michael Mann
hockeybookmann.jpg I've been a great ally of my latest Point of Inquiry guest Michael Mann, and even called him a climate hero. I've blurbed his new book, saying the following: "Although not initially of his own choosing, Michael Mann has been the most important, resilient, and outspoken warrior in the climate battle—responding to
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: James Inhofe Takes the Climate Conspiracy Theory to New Heights—While His Home State Reels from Record Heat
hoaxbook.jpg James Inhofe, Republican Senator from Oklahoma, has a new book out. It is entitled The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. I have not read it yet. So I cannot say much about its contents, but I can say this: The title suggests that Inhofe, like
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Well, This Is Awkward
Israeli F-16 Showing Seven Syrian Aerial Victories and the Bombing of Iraq’s Osirik Reactor. Iran has warned it may strike pre-emptively in the face of persistent threats of imminent attack by Israeli or the United States’ forces. It sort of sounds like George w. Bush’s reasoning when he
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Rick Santorum, Attacking Scientists, Claims He’s not Anti-Science
Rick-Santorum3-460×307.jpg Rick Santorum is becoming the anti-science gift that keeps on giving. Yesterday, while speaking in his home state, the former Pennsylvania senator once again tilted at the idea of human caused global warming, saying that it is based on “phony studies,” and really a case of “political science.” This is, you
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Fakeducation For Years From Heartland
indoctrinated.PNG The NY Times, LA Times and many others criticized Heartland’s inept plan to hire David Wojick to create an alternate-reality K-12 climate science curriculum. But Heartland's school ground attack on science is nothing new, as is evident in the organization's own commentary: “Heartland has tried to make material available
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Fake science, fakexperts, funny finances, free of tax
heartland.png Modern anti-science was created by the tobacco industry in the 1950s and then used against climate science, often by the same well-experienced think tanks and individuals. Tobacco anti-science is strangely entangled with climate anti-science, as the attached report shows in detail involving Fred Singer's SEPP, Joseph Bast's Heartland, and more.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Republicans Aren’t the “Truth Party,” Mr. Santorum. They’re the “Certainty Party.”
225px-Rick_Santorum_official_photo.jpg Rick Santorum has been talking about the “politicization of science” a lot lately—although (a pet peeve of mine) he seems to have a problem with pronouncing the phrase. He says “polititization.” Check it out here. Not as bad as the people who say "political-ization," but don't get me started. Anyway,
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