Updated - What would it take for reality to be non-partisan? Check out this poll from National Review. Only 13% of Congressional Republicans believe that human activity is causing global warming.

My Uncle is one of my favorite people in the world. Unfortunately, he's also one of the most closed-minded. He gets all of his news from Fox and from Rush Limbaugh. He has no interest in learning any more about the subjects from any other news sources, because he's been sold the parity line that all other forms of news have a left-wing bias.

There's a fundamental condition of obstinacy on the far right that views intellectual curiosity as a sign of weakness. And to me, it's most laughable, and at the same time most tragic form, is in the efforts to deny the existence of global warming.

Two examples from Rush Limbaugh this week:

Try this one from yesterday's stack. I don't know if you people know this or not, but Al Gore has been out at the Sundance Film Festival out there in Park City, Utah. This is one of Robert Redford's big do's, and apparently Al Gore is working on a movie that -- what is the name of this movie? Oh, that's right, "An Inconvenient Truth," and the movie will document his efforts to raise alarm on the effects of global warming, and so he brought Tipper and the kids out there.

He's attending parties and posing for pictures with his fans. He's enjoying macaroni and cheese at the Discovery Channel's soirée. He's palling around with Laurie David of Curb Your Enthusiasm, who is the husband of Larry David, who drives the Prius and then flies the GV. Larry David says, "You know, Al is a funny guy, but he's also a very serious guy who believes humans may have only 10 years left to save the planet from turning into a total frying pan."
Now, the last time I heard some liberal talk about "ten years" it was 1988, Ted Danson. We had ten years to save the oceans; we were all going to pay the consequences, which would result in our death. Now Al Gore says we've got ten years. Ten years left to save the planet from a scorching. Okay, we're going to start counting. This is January 27th, 2006. We will begin the count, ladies and gentlemen. This is just... You have to love these people -- from afar, and from a purely observational point of view.

and

I don't know if you've checked the Drudge Report page yet today, but it's gotten to the point it's even beyond laughable, this global warming business. You've got to see this. There is a picture of two polar bears on some ice out in the ocean, which is something that happens all the time. Polar bears wander all over their environment. They can swim, and they're out there, and they're just having a good time. The deception, the deceit, the misleading tendencies of this. When you look at the headline, and the accompanying story ought to inform everybody of the utter desperation and phoniness of the entire global warming effort.

The headline says: “Global Warming Sees Polar Bears Stranded on Melting Ice -- They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming. Captured on film by Canadian environmentalists, the pair of polar bears looks stranded on chunks of broken ice. Although the magnificent creatures are well adapted to the water, and can swim scores of miles to solid land, the distance is getting ever greater as the Arctic ice diminishes. ‘Swimming 100 miles is not a big deal for a polar bear, especially a fat one,’ said Dr. Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service. ‘They just kind of float along and kick. But as the ice gets farther out from shore because of warming, it’s a longer swim that costs more energy and makes them more vulnerable.’”

Now, I'm just telling you that this picture is a total misrepresentation of the current state of circumstances for polar bears. It's as though they wandered out on this ice floe, and it broke off, and it's fading off now toward the equator and the polar bears cannot do anything about it and they're going to melt and they're going to die.
Or, if they do jump off they may have to swim hundreds of miles and expend lots of energy because ice is all melting around them. Of course, this picture has all the ingredients of the fraud and the deception. We just went through what we went through with Barbaro. Now we've got polar bears, stranded polar bears, animals, essence of innocence, so cute, so lonely, so frightened, so panicked, bellowing out for hope from the nearest human. Meanwhile, the Canadian film crew is just content to let them float off to their deaths for the sake of grabbing the photo to mislead you and your kids, who will no doubt be shown this by a bunch of worthless teachers who are promoting a political agenda.

This whole thing is totally misleading. They're not even stranded on an ice floe that's broken apart. They're just out there just playing around. They're just out there. You know, just like your cat goes to its litter box. When's the last time your cat got stranded in its litter box? Just like your pit bull attacks and kills the neighbor's baby horse, whatever, I mean these things happen. It’s called nature. The spotted owl, remember that? I'm going to go through all these scare tactics that the environmentalists have tried since the sixties to prove this to you today. What did I just say before I interrupted myself? Remember the what? You guys don't even remember, either. You're not even paying attention. No, not the pit bulls killing baby horses, documented to have happened in Pittsburgh.

If it's okay for Pat Robertson to call for the assassination of an elected official, and suggested the stroke of another to be God's will, would it be okay if I wished a grabber on Rush?

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 04, 2007 at 11:30 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.