Get those children out of the muddy, muddy:
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who will seek the Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship maintains that we do not have to worry about climate change because God promised in the Bible not to destroy the world again after Noah’s flood.
About half the newly elected Congressmen are climate deniers (and if past experience is any guide, about a third of them are criminals).
Do other nations look at us and just laugh?
thomas Levenson
Yes. SASQ
And no. They look at us and quake in terror, because we are doing our best to go all Sampson on their asses and bring those pillars down on everyone.
cervantes
Religion belongs to the childhood of humanity. Our survival depends on growing up, now, and leaving religion behind us. Religion makes otherwise sane and reasonably intelligent people believe dangerous nonsense — in this case, dangerous doesn’t even do it justice.
Culture of Truth
They would, but this affects them too.
General Stuck
No, they worry.
b-psycho
Y’know what would be nice? People who believe the apocalypse is coming according to a book of fables not insisting on speeding it up…
Alex S.
Well, when Jim Inhofe visited the Copenhagen Climate Conference as a one-man-army against man-made climate change the other nations laughed indeed.
Dexter
The other nations are just scratching their head because they can not figure out whether they should laugh or quake in terror.
Pangloss
Five years ago, the fight-or-flight response to a story like this would have been FIGHT! But there are too many of them coming too often now. Gotta get that passport updated….
Poopyman
@thomas Levenson:
Well that didn’t take long. OF COURSE they do. We are quickly becoming the laughingstock of the world, except we’ve got nukes and shit.
Tax Analyst
Imagine trying to negotiate or reason with this type of nonsensical idiot.
Culture of Truth
I’d like to see a Simpsons episode where Flanders realizes God wants him to care for the earth.
John - A Motley Moose
Hey Shimkus, do you even listen to yourself talk? The verse quoted says God will not destroy the earth. It says nothing about man destroying the earth.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Well, to be fair, from a cursory glance at history and current events, it’s my impression that every country boasts its own, culturally relevant, idiots and freaks. It’s just that they’re, you know, French, or whatever.
And having gotten that out of the way….Oh.My.God. OH MY GOD! Dude’s from fucking Illinois, land of Lincoln, Obama, Durbin, and my birthplace and current home! Nooooo…!
/hangs head in Illinoisan shame.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@John – A Motley Moose: Ooooh. That’s actually an excellent response!
Adopting it now.
Jewish Steel
I know air temp has too much signal to noise to be useful in tracking climate change, but I live just north of this god-botherer’s district and it’s gotta be close to record hot here for Nov 09.
daveNYC
Wouldn’t God’s promise only be binding to God? Seems to me there’s nothing to stop us from completely fucking up the Earth.
Does he think that if we had gotten into a full scale nuclear exchange with the Soviets back in the 80s that God would have stepped in in order to prevent a nuclear winter?
We’re so boned.
Pongo
Yes, when they aren’t crying. And they provide better analysis of why we are failing in all the things that matter than we do ourselves:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,726447,00.html
bcinaz
I’d image the more sane among our international friends are quite worried – we have a truly mindbending stockpile of nuclear weapons. And Sarah Palin might be President some day
Dave C
There is no facepalm large enough for this.
Bubblegum Tate
Yes, nervously.
bemused
Rightwing extremists don’t mind that the rest of the world laughs. To them, that just means they are on exactly the right path.
Dave
@John – A Motley Moose:
What? You expect right-wing bible thumpers to actually READ the book? The whole point of being a holier-than-thou asshat is making shit up and then claiming that’s what God said.
Bill E Pilgrim
More like a Twitter.
We’re not worth a whole laugh anymore.
Jay in Oregon
@b-psycho:
Especially when some Christian sects have decided that doing so amounts to the wholesale slaughter of people who may not have had the opportunity to be converted. Children, for example.
The Left Behind books sidestep that by arbitrarily deciding that everyone under the age of 13 gets Raptured too — yes, even gays, atheists, Muslims, Jews, etc. Otherwise, people ask too many squicky questions…
Culture of Truth
No they don’t read the book, except as a moral justification for selfishness.
Mnemosyne
@John – A Motley Moose:
But Gawd is all-powerful and would prevent us from destroying the earth with his mighty omnipotence, so we don’t have to worry. It’s like a toddler trying to stick a fork into an electrical outlet in the serene knowledge that Daddy will come along and prevent him from doing it before he electrocutes himself.
Basically, the guy comes from a religious tradition where free will doesn’t exist and everything happens because God says so. Those of us who come from other traditions look at him in horror and say, “What the eff is wrong with you, dude? If you choose to do something idiotic, God’s not going to stop you.”
Blue Neponset
I really can’t wait for The Rapture.
Winston Smith
@thomas Levenson:
I was explaining American politics to some Belarusians in Minsk today (which was 12 hours ago) and this is pretty much exactly right.
At first, they were laughing, but then when they realized what would happen to the world economy if America implodes, they got really nervous.
Jim Pharo
…only the ones that don’t cry.
Maude
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
#13 Don’t feel badly, NJ has Chrisite.
NJ transit has to pay back the Feds $271 million for the tunnel. The tunnel was started and then stopped.
Gee, I wonder how much Christie cost the people of this state with this caper.
The last little caper prevented the state from getting $400 million.
The 51% who approve of Christie haven’t figured out what this all means yet.
Comrade Javamanphil
Obama may not have apologized to the world on America’s behalf but I would be happy to.
chopper
they’d laugh, but we have more nukes than all of em.
General Stuck
Since the wingnuts are threatening to default on the US debt, unless Obama bows before president Demented, repeals HCR, and starts economic cleansing to purge poor people parasites from the national landscape and welfare, all this is moot and the global conflagration will commence, and baby wingnut jeebus will bend us all over for a little bacon makin’ pig fucking.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Yes, yes they do.
We have gone from being the shining city on the hill, to the haunted house behind the kudzu. In just my lifetime.
Nice work, Republicans.
rickstersherpa
yes, and then they begin to scream hysterically when they remember we have several thousand nukes.
The Moar You Know
Remember when the Soviet Union went to shit and there were all those nukes just lying around over there, sometimes just stored behind chain link fences with just one drunk guard on duty? Remember thinking “shit, that’s a bad scene and it wouldn’t take much – maybe just one psycho lunatic – to have some REALLY bad shit go down?”
You remember that, right?
Well, the world is getting to experience that feeling all over again. But worse.
Culture of Truth
We should raise taxes on $1 million to 90% because
God won’t destroy the earth, so no harm done.
jrg
I think I really am going to start praying to Darwin, because clearly the force that is responsible for culling the herd is very angry with us right now.
Shalimar
Jesus, I hope so.
ocean man
Hilarious. My understanding is that Lahaye and most of these other crapture enthusiasts interpret that part of the scripture to mean that God will not destroy the earth again by flood. All other means of destruction are still in Gods arsenal.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
I know, especially in France, it’s crawling with them. They finally realized that calling the odd weirdos French didn’t make any sense though, so now when you want to call someone weird you call him an American.
Winston Smith
Shimkus is right. Man can’t destroy the planet, and we can’t destroy all life on it.
We can, however, make it a miserable shit-hole, in which case God will likely be thinking (or whatever it is that omnipotent beings do), “I told you to take care of your planet, motherfuckers.”
If you study the Bible — and really most religious texts — you’ll see that God protects His people from all kinds of things, variously, but never their own stupidity. In fact, He kind of enjoys letting us experience the consequences without divine intervention.
Shimkus must of missed that part, which is only most of the fucking Bible.
Cermet
A piece of shit that stupid is in our congress!? People elected that asswipe!? Shame on them – that asswipe shit head is beyond the pale insane. Repug-a-thug policy is now as crazy as Iran’s!? This is not believable – maybe that missile launch (or some are claiming an aircraft contrail) was a sane navy captain trying to hit this guy with an inactive warhead?
Culture of Truth
The beauty of predicting that the earth will never be destroyed is that if you are proven wrong there will be
very few people blogging about it.
jayjaybear
The sad thing is that he doesn’t even read his own Bible. God’s promise was not to destroy the world in a flood again. Does he think that climate scientists expect the majority of the damage from climate change to be sea level rise? Because that’s only a relatively small part of it.
pj
Shimkus is the guy who withheld Mark Foley’s e-mails from the House Page Committee, because The Lord didn’t want the situation to become a political football.
Linda Featheringill
Representative Shimkus has the right to believe anything he wants to believe. But he doesn’t have the right to sacrifice the rest of us on his altar.
Is this the guy who wants to hold Un-American-type hearings to force scientists involved in climate study to defend their findings?
stuckinred
So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I’m very sorry, baby, doesn’t look like me at all
I’m standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they don’t let a woman kill you
Not in the Tower of Song
Now you can say that I’ve grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there’s a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song
John - A Motley Moose
@Mnemosyne: But God is perfectly willing to allow large scale deaths or even to cause them. Sodom and Gomorrah happened after the flood. There is also the likelihood that GW might wipe out most of humanity yet leave some remnant.
Look at me. What a dipshit. Trying to use logic to deal with people that believe in fantasy. Who’s the clueless one here?
Paris
To be fair, he follows up his Bible reading stating that there has been higher levels of CO2 in history. Unfortunately what he doesn’t understand is that man did not exist when the atmosphere contained that level of CO2.
What a sad little stupid man.
qwerty42
From the gospel hymn (which gave the title for James Baldwin’s work):
Chorus:
It’s gonna rain (2x),
you better get ready and bear this in mind.
God showed Noah by the rainbow sign,
no more water, but fire next time.
Linda Featheringill
BTW, I kind of suspect that cap-and-trade is too little too late anyway. It might not be worth getting into a brawl trying to defend it.
Bill E Pilgrim
@jayjaybear:
So is that the part where we walk away because the mortgage is underwater?
bkny
laugh at us … hell no. they are wondering how to contain this raging criminal enterprise.
Ben
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Even worse, he succeeded Durbin as Congressman. I don’t think there’s ever been such a downward shift in the quality of representation…
geg6
@cervantes:
THIS.
Maude
We are going to hear a lot about the Lord next year.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@cervantes: You don’t even really have to go that far. Jesus basically took the long way to say “Look, the Old Testament consisted of rules that you give to children. Now that you’re grown up, the world is far more complex, and you’re going to have to think, and interact with people not of your faith. The simple rules of your childhood will are no longer sufficient.”
Just Some Fuckhead
@Blue Neponset:
Yeah, like God wants a bunch of apocalyptic swine tearing up Heaven like they did earth.
Zifnab
@chopper:
Ah, nukes. That’ll solve the unemployment problem.
flukebucket
This entire country has morphed into a Bill Hicks comedy routine.
Anne Laurie
Didn’t Shimkus even listen to his own godbotherers?
“It won’t be water, be the FIRE next time…”
(White-guy singers of a certain age chosen because you know Rep. Schmuckfuss don’t listen to anyone not just like him.)
Michael
Things like this make me wish I had a high position in our defense establishment so I could betray the country in some meaningful way.
I wouldn’t even need to do it for money.
Mnemosyne
@John – A Motley Moose:
To be fair, people argue about fantasies all the time, or there wouldn’t be separate groups for fans of classic “Star Trek” and “ST:NG.” And you certainly wouldn’t have had people vocally pissed off about the planet Vulcan getting blown up in the JJ Abrams movie because it didn’t conform to canon.
The problem comes when people decide that their fantasy worlds should dictate public policy.
Winston Smith
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Well, if any of that stuff is true, I don’t think Heaven will be hosting Shimkus and his ilk.
Citizen Alan
We deserve to just slide into the sea and disappear like Atlantis. Has any other civilization in history risen so high and then collapsed so quickly through the willful embrace of abject stupidity? IIRC, it took Rome centuries to devolve to the point that an Emperor could get away with appointing his horse to a high government position. Now, a horse’s ass will be appointed to chair a Congressional committee!
ruemara
Yes. SATSQ. They also then drink, heavily and build better boats.
Michael
@Blue Neponset:
When they’re out of here, the world will be a much, much better place…
Quaker in a Basement
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who will seek the Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship maintains that we do not have to worry about climate change because God promised in the Bible not to destroy the world again after Noah’s flood.
But then again, God’s activities have been carbon-neutral for a few trillion (or four thousand, you choose) years now.
Redshirt
Saddest in all this is that these Wingnuts are not just sticking it to America – they’re sticking it the entire world.
I suspect this is a point of pride for them.
Sentient Puddle
Brings a song to mind: God’s Gonna Cut You Down
MikeJ
@Blue Neponset:
My theory is it already happened, but there weren’t enough people who paid any attention to what Jesus said for anybody to notice they were gone.
Calouste
Other countries not only point and laugh (rather nervously). The conviction is growing that the US is no longer qualified to be a super power on the grounds of, well, being too stupid and self centered.
You might want to read how the German Finance minister lays into the US yesterday in der Spiegel.
Part 1: ‘The US Has Lived on Borrowed Money for Too Long’
Part 2: ‘The EU Wasn’t Founded To Create Wealth for Financial Investors’
Mowgli
@stuckinred: We needed some Cohen in the house!
P.S. – Aren’t you stuck here in Jahwjuh too? Is it time to get together IRL for a drinking binge?
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
No, because if we go down the rest of the world will go with us.
artem1s
unless of course you are Haitian, or Feminists, or Liberals, or Homosexuals. Then God is just waiting to cream your ass.
please FSM let the Rapture come soon. I am so looking forward to a thousand years of not having to listen to these asshats.
in answer to your question…they’ve been laughing at us since Reagan. We are the world’s reality TV.
Culture of Truth
Yes but it’s a foreign laugh. In France “ohn ohn ohn ,” in Germany it’s ‘hech hech hech” so you don’t even know you’re being laughed at.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T (sorta) but HAHAHAHAHAHAHA:
——————————————————————————–
November 9, 2010
LaHood Turns Down Ohio Request to Keep Train Money
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:21 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is turning down a request by the newly elected Republican governor in Ohio to use $400 million awarded to the state under the federal high-speed train program for road-building and other projects.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a letter to Gov.-elect John Kasich that the Ohio train project — which would create regular speed passenger service between Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus — would be good for the state and national economy.
Kasich has promised to cancel the project, which he says the state can’t afford. He sent a letter to Obama asking to use the money for roads and freight lines.
LaHood said the money can only be used for the train project.
stuckinred
@Mowgli: Indeed but I’ve been sober for 18 years! Going to the Cirque tomorrow for my 61st!
Dennis SGMM
I’m taking this as a heartening example of how any moron can rise to high office in this proud land of ours.
That will hold me long enough to pick up a bottle of vodka to avoid banging my head against the wall for not emigrating to Australia when I had the chance.
General Stuck
And every time you hear this winger mating call, on whatever the issue, take a drink of whiskey for baby jeevus.
Don’t Tread On Me Motherfuckers
Dennis SGMM
@General Stuck:
Because all of the voters rejected all Democratic policies. It says so in the Bible.
John Wilkins
@bcinaz: We weep. Because what you lot do will be what we are forced to do in a decade or so.
Mike Kay (Team America)
I really don’t understand the protestations. Shouldn’t we leave climate change is God’s hands. God has a plan, and to the extend changes are occurring they are part of the plan. Case closed.
These matters would be so much easier to understand if you only concentrated on being better Christians.
fasteddie
If you look at a map of Illinois, the “mason dixon” line is I-80. Everything North is chicago and everything south is Branson.
“Row Faster – I hear banjos”
jacy
Other nations look at us and board up their windows.
Tsulagi
@Paris:
Shows what you know. Every homeschooler in the Bible Belt knows man and the dinosaurs peacefully coexisted together at the beginning 6,000 years ago in the big city of the day, Eden. Eve frolicked with vegetarian raptors while tending her garden as Adam rode to work on a brontosaurus.
Jeez, the willful ignorance of liberals is astounding. It’s all laid out on display in the hallowed Creation Museum, Rep. Shimkus’ think tank.
JohnR
The odd thing about these guys is that they have this weird combination of fixations and hates. They seem to want to die (to get to those virgins, or whatever they happen to believe in?), but they also want to take everybody else with them. We’ve seen this before, and it never ends well.
Surreal American
@daveNYC:
I was about to say that it fails even on its own theological premise.
Dennis SGMM
Here’s more good news:
WASHINGTON – Republicans plan to use the investigative powers of Congress to go after President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, and they’re focusing on questions uppermost in the minds of consumers…
Link
Brick Oven Bill
We are “Climate Deniers” now?
Let us review mathematics. Global Warming theory holds that rising concentrations of CO2 will increasingly insulate the earth. This then would make temperatures elevate at an increasing rate.
But temperatures peaked about ten years ago and continue to trend down.
Generations Investment, LLC is owned by Al Gore and his Goldman Sachs associate, David Blood. They stand to become billionaires if legislation passes.
Teabaggers are not easily led. I, for one, know there is a climate, and that it varies. I hereby define this as ‘weather’.
change
@Calouste:
So can we tell the Finance Minister that we’ll stop paying for Germany’s defense now? I wonder what he’ll publish in Der Scheißblatt after that?
New Yorker
Can someone please remind me again why I have to “respect” the religious views of people?
pk
No they look us and weep for humanity.
kdaug
He’s right – there will be summer and winter, day and night, for ever and ever (until the supernova).
Don’t mean people are gonna be around. God didn’t say crap about people.
russell
When Shimkus goes outside on a rainy day, does he bring an umbrella?
Or does he just leave it at home because God promised Noah not to destroy the world in a flood?
Emerald
@Linda Featheringill:
No, that’s my congresscritter, Crazy Issa.
Bill E Pilgrim
Yeah but
Will RogersGod had never met any Tea Baggers back then.geg6
@Brick Oven Bill:
You’re right, BOB. Teabaggers aren’t easily led simply because you are so stupid that you mistake “climate” for “weather.”
Bill Arnold
Keep listening. He said that in the age of the dinosaurs we were “probably at 4000 parts per million” (CO2). This is after saying that God’s word is infallible, unchanging, perfect, referring to the biblical flood. An interesting juxtaposition.
(Yes, it is possible that CO2 levels were that high or close. The evidence doesn’t seem to rate a probably, though I’m not a geologist.)
Poopyman
@Brick Oven Bill: @change:
Odd that these two show up together, eh?
FlipYrWhig
@russell:
Probably not. He’s using every last synapse to concentrate on not looking up with his mouth open.
Um, again.
Jay in Oregon
@Just Some Fuckhead:
No, it’s worse than that; you become an idealized, slightly passionless and neutered version of yourself who exists only to glorify God forever. Oh, and all of the animals become vegetarians.
…aw man, I was going to link to the first chapter of the final Left Behind book but it’s not on their site any more.
John - A Motley Moose
@Brick Oven Bill:
BOB – “But temperatures peaked about ten years ago and continue to trend down.”
Wrong.
“WASHINGTON — The decade ending in 2009 was the warmest on record, new surface temperature figures released Thursday by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration show.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Senators Want to Bar E.P.A. Greenhouse Gas Limits (January 22, 2010)
The agency also found that 2009 was the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began. The warmest year was 2005. The other hottest recorded years have all occurred since 1998, NASA said.”
——————–
BOB – “Teabaggers are not easily led.”
Really, really wrong.
Sorry everyone else. I couldn’t resist.
gwangung
@russell:
Moreover, civilization may not make it through global warming, but the world (and a lot of humans) would.
Not thinking very carefully because of his pride, Shimkus is…
FlipYrWhig
@Bill Arnold:
Yes, but what is that in cubits?
FlipYrWhig
@Jay in Oregon:
My cat is gonna be _pissed_.
Chyron HR
@change:
So in your home universe it’s the Democrats who want to spend billions of dollars “defending” countries all over the world? Fascinating.
kdaug
@FlipYrWhig: What’s a cubit?
El Cid
God may have promised not to commit total genocide (minus one family) again, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t let the Earth get hotter, and areas dry out, and inundate islands and coastal areas, or risk changing the course of major ocean thermohaline circulation, or ruin the growing of certain crops in certain former areas, or allow pest creatures to proliferate since cold winters don’t kill them off, or have freakishly large storms, or any of the other things.
Given God’s Old Testament thing for plagues, it might be just up his alley.
Bex
@Mike Kay (Team America)
If you mean (and I kinda doubt it) that being better Christians requires people to be serious about stewardship of the planet, OK. But what I think you mean is, G-d’s just gonna take care of it so la de da, what’s the problem? Actually, that’s the problem.
colleeniem
@kdaug: I love early Bill Cosbeeeee :)
Legalize
Yes, just like same Americans laughed at the idea of the Teabaggers getting their hands back on the levers of power in this country – ever, much less within 2 years. It reminds me of the weasels in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” who died when they couldn’t stop laughing.
Paris
@Brick Oven Bill: BOB, this is great. I like Al Gore a lot and if there’s someone who deserves to be a billionaire, its him. And you know what, you will be wealthy too, if you invest like Al.
According to you.
freelancer
Rubber Dingy Rapids, bro!
daverave
Notice the woman to his left in the video trying to suppress a giggle when he starts going off on his biblical conflation of climate change and the word of the FSM.
Ekim
Actually God only promised not to send another flood. He didn’t say anything about carbon dioxide.
SiubhanDuinne
@kdaug:
Oh, thanks. I loves me a little early Cosby action.
ETA: I see colleeniem beat me to it!
Joshua
@Alex S.: It’s funny because the media didn’t raise a peep about how Inhofe was interfering with the President’s Constitutional mandate to conduct foreign policy. Remember when Pelosi went on a fact-finding trip in the Middle East in 2006?
This country is fucked. And not even a little bit.
John PM
And this is why Chicago hates the rest of the State of Illinois.
I do have one question: Where the f-ck was this video during the election?!
Citizen_X
@Bill Arnold: He’s actually right on that one, shockingly. Here’s a graph of CO2 levels during the last ~580 million years or so; the Mesozoic (220-65 million years ago) was a time of elevated CO2 relative to ~300 million years ago (end Paleozoic). The upper level of estimates of CO2 levels for that time was about 10 times present day; so yeah, about 4000 ppm.
But for him to bring in Mesozoic CO2 curves after blathering about biblical infallibility was a bit of a jaw-dropper. The obvious question to ask him would have been, “So, dinosaurs. Was that 100 million years ago, or 5000 years?”
Corner Stone
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
Well to be fair, 117 years is actually a pretty good run.
ETA oh, you mean just since Kennedy. My bad.
Ash Can
::weeps::
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
::weeps some more::
MobiusKlein
@Blue Neponset:
Rapture already happened. Not a surprise that all those holy rollers are still here.
kdaug
@colleeniem: Riiiight.
Bill Arnold
@Citizen_X:
Yeah, I got bogged down reading the papers supporting that graph, and gave up due to real work to do.
What I was really looking for was an estimate of solar radiation over geologic time. I.e. how much brighter is the sun now, and would a larger greenhouse effect have been good (or a necessity) then.
Ash Can
@MobiusKlein: And that the rest of us are stuck with them. (OH SNAP)
Jim, Once
@Jewish Steel:
Yeah, here in Iowa, too. Hit 70 degrees out here in the sticks.
fourlegsgood
Yes. And then they weep.
Citizen_X
@Bill Arnold: I know the sun’s output has been increasing over its (main-sequence) lifespan, but I don’t have a graph of that handy.
Nevertheless, the Earth was significantly warmer during the Mesozoic, and (most of) the early Paleozoic, due to all that extra CO2.
Comrade Mary
Canadians giggle a little, then we feel very, very guilty and offer to buy y’all double-doubles.
Oh, and could some front-pager, pleasepleaseplease post this?
Robert Waldmann
Do other nations look at us and laugh ? Uh no. See when the icey icey melts the floody floody will drown them too. They look at us and wish there were a planet B.
Comrade Mary
@stuckinred: I love you.
Bella Q
Yes. And then they recognize that fear is also appropriate. Sigh.
ky
Yes, yes we do
El Cid
@Citizen_X: Also, one could point out that eras in which CO2 were very high or very low by natural causes might not be that good for human civilization. I mean, you could throw out the fact that there were periods of low CO2 / high O2, but millions of years of land evolution would be very different than dealing with fires caused by nearly anything.
Sure, I know the anti-AGW’s just throw out that the Earth has had variations in atmospheric makeup, as the Sun has varied in temperature, but in a discussion of AGW as it relates to human civilization, it’s about as relevant as pointing out that a few hundred thousand years after cosmic inflation, electrons and protons had formed but it was too hot / energetic to yet form atoms, so why are we so worried about pollution?
Angry Geometer
But Jerome Armstrong told me there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans!
CatStaff
@kdaug: How long can you tread water?
Viva BrisVegas
@Bill Arnold:
Everybody agrees that there was often more CO2 in the atmosphere than now, the particularly stupid point that Shimkus is trying to make is that if something happened in the far past then it is no problem in the present.
Which implies that if the Earth survived the impact of a giant asteroid, as it has often done in the past, then such an asteroid hitting the Earth now would be no problem for humanity.
I believe the estimate is that the sun has been increasing output by about 8% per billion years and was about 70% as bright as now four billion years ago. Which means that without a significant greenhouse effect the planet would have probably frozen over before life even formed.
It also means that it will likely be too hot for liquid water in about 900-1500 million years. That’s when the hothouse effect kicks in and we go Venus.
Of course by then I intend to be retired and living on Mars.
Comrade Mary
@CatStaff: FOOOOm-faw, FOOOOOM-faw, FOOOOOM-faw …
Twiggy
Speaking as an Australian, I look at right-wing, religious US politicians with a mixture of amazement and horror.
MattR
@Comrade Mary: Am I on candid camera?
He kept having to tell the rabbits. “Only two. Only two”
(link to the full bit)
eemom
Jeez, y’all are behind the times. God’s lawyers found a loophole in that thing years ago.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/god-refloods-middle-east,132/
Mowgli
@stuckinred: Enjoy the show, I saw ‘Corteo’ here in ATL a few years back, it was good but not one of their best IMHO.
So… how ’bout that Arnold Palmer??
bobbo
@daverave:
I got almost to the end of the comments and I was beginning to think I was the only one who noticed. Could she possibly be one of his legislative aides? Aren’t they the ones usually sitting behind the Congresscritter?
Zuzu's Petals
Of course believing the “rainbow promise” of Genesis requires believing the rest of the Noah story, which of course has a few discrepancies of its own.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Fire next time.
Pilgrim Travelers, baby. Beats the fuck out of those lame crackers at Anne Laurie’s #62 post above.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Sentient Puddle:
SP, the original (or something a step or two closer to the original than the Man In Black’s version) stomps it like a grape:
You may run on for a long time, but …
(Damn, finally figured out how to imbed links. You guys are officially in trouble. At least when I’ve been drinking.)
Jay in Oregon
@FlipYrWhig:
I read the first chapter of the final LB book because I wanted to see how the story ended and was horrified by what they described.
Jesus gathers everyone up, sorts them out, then tears open the Earth and sends all of the “goats” (followers of the Antichrist, which is, by definition, everyone who has not become a Real True Christian by end of the series) plunging straight into Hell — a Christian conservative’s wet dream!
And the book goes downhill from there…
Cacti
More of this please.
Voters need a good reminder for the next two years that the GOP never stopped being “teh party of stoooopid”.
colleeniem
@Comrade Mary: Hoooray! I used to listen to my dad’s LP of this when I was a kid.
Now I have to find the one about the chicken heart.
Bill Arnold
@Viva BrisVegas:
Re
So about -2 percent down to -0.5 percent in the “dinosaur era”. And the Earth hasn’t experimented with putting large amounts of fossil carbon into the atmosphere with current solar radiation levels, until now.
(That these right-wing-canon AGW deniers call themselves “conservative” is … galling.)
Jay in Oregon
@MobiusKlein:
Your comment reminded me of this: http://www.robandelliot.cycomics.com/archive.php?id=413
Mnemosyne
@Jay in Oregon:
Of course, when you read the actual parable, you can see that LaHaye and Jenkins didn’t exactly get their vision right:
__
__
So, yeah, unless there’s suddenly a whole lot more soup kitchen working, prisoner comforting, and stranger helping in the “Left Behind” books that they just haven’t gotten to yet, our friends the Tribulation Force are actually the goats, not the sheep, of this story.
chopper
@flukebucket:
heh. definitely, these people were sent here to test my patience.
seriously, i’m from illinois. these people make my look like more of a choad than i actually am.
Julie
Yes.
Also, earth will not be destroyed. It will be here. Whether or not we will be here is the real question.
chopper
@Comrade Mary:
heh. shwoo-pah, shwoo-pah (ding!)
noah!
Comrade Mary
colleeniem, here you go!
Chicken Heart Part 1
Chicken Heart Part 2
(You got it right, chopper. I was going on memory.)
colleeniem
@Comrade Mary: Thank you, thank you, thank you :)
chopper
@Comrade Mary:
lol, i still remember all those old cosby bits by heart. ‘it ate the new jersey turnpike!’
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
@Twiggy: This. From a Canadian.
THE
There is nothing to laugh at here.
This is a perfectly reasonable way to run an 18th century society.
ksmiami
Been busy, but now the reality of this monstrous election will kick in. Stupid Americanz were angry cuz the dems couldn’t dig out of the hole quick enough and now the Repuke congress will attempt to destroy everything. Enjoy the fukkin Hangover you Teahadist Blue haired morons who elected the people that are one less armpit hair away from being Talibani goat herders (though they would probably screw that up too.)
IDIOTS
The Republic of Stupidity
Shimkus…
Is that a gag name?
Yiddish for some part of the body considered embarrassing when exposed?
The Republic of Stupidity
@Twiggy:
What?
No deep seated physical revulsion, from the very pit of your stomach?
You’ve got some work to do…
John Bignucolo
No, because here in Australia the situation is little different. The conservative coalition is only a few years behind the Republican Party in the rejection of science/expertise/rationality and its embrace of biblical literalism.
The Australian Labor Party also has its share of deniers, but is in the back pocket of the fossil fuel industry/coal union nexus. At the end of the day, they’re really no different from the conservatives in seeking to block any effective action.
Jay in Oregon
@Mnemosyne:
Fred Clark over at Slacktivist has been doing an incredible job of deconstructing the Left Behind books.
A recurring theme in his analysis is that in these books, the newly-converted Christians (the “Tribulation Force”) know what is going to happen(*); that the Tribulation will occur, the Antichrist will rule, and after seven years Jesus will return, wipe out the bad guys and reign on Earth.
And they tell no one about this.
They are perfectly content to let billions of the unsaved masses be consigned to Hell. The primary goal of the Tribulation Force seems to be to not lift a finger to try to change what the Bible says must occur — in fact, one of the main characters lets an erstwhile love interest literally become the consort of the Antichrist!
(*) That is to say, know what is to happen according Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ skewed, mishmash interpretation of the Bible sprinkled with a little Bircherism and misogyny.
Mnemosyne
@Jay in Oregon:
Yep, I love me some Slacktivist (as you could probably tell by me cribbing from him. :-) He’s one of the people who actually gives me hope that religious people are not necessarily going to work against progress as a matter of course.
There are too many great posts of his for me to count (and that’s even besides the LB ones) but my current go-to favorite is “Charity, conclusions and cake.”
He just makes it so damn hard to give up hope for humanity the way I want to some days.
Jay in Oregon
@Mnemosyne:
I suspect there are more like him out there than we realize; he’s just one of the more interesting and entertaining ones to read. :)
Jamie
unfortunately, the sad kills the funny
Mister Papercut
They do not laugh, because they’ve conformed Sacha Baron Cohen’s whereabouts, so they realize that this Shimkus cat isn’t actually a deep-in-character put-on.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
About 4-5% lower solar output in the Ordovician.
And would a larger greenhouse effect be needed: Yes. That’s Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis.
Mnemosyne
@Jay in Oregon:
G’s best friend from high school caught up with him after 20 years. He comes from a very evangelical family (he flunked out of Moody Bible College) and now works for this organization. He and his wife have made quite a few sacrifices so he can dedicate his time to helping strangers in other countries, but it’s worth it to them.
So my theory now is that actual Christians like him are busy doing things like teaching modern farming techniques in Africa while the RTCs have lots of time on their hands to whine about how persecuted they are, so we hear from the RTCs a lot more.
Steeplejack
__
But did God say anything about us destroying the world? I think He left Himself a loophole there. Someone let Rep. Shimkus know.
Death Panel Truck
Dude, it ain’t yer Gawd that’s destroying the world.
We are.
b-psycho
@artem1s:
But wouldn’t that make God gay?
Oh, thought that said “cream in your ass”, my bad…