hell’s handmaiden

The Heartland Institute is a not uncommon source for climate ’skepticism’, which term, by the way, I put is scare quotes as climate ’skepticism’ makes a mockery of skepticism and I find that offensive. Climate ’skepticism’ is an insult to skeptics everywhere. You see, the skeptic questions, the climate ’skeptic’ fabricates and misrepresents in an effort to mislead for the purpose of upholding preconceived notions– or maybe just for cash. Let me restart.

The Heartland Institute is a not uncommon source for climate ’skepticism’, and what a source it is. Let’s take a look.

I found a decently done review of Ben Stein’s idiocy, ‘Expelled’, but the reviewer has swallowed a little bit of the ID Kool-Aid and it happens to be a bit of Kool-Aid that annoys me greatly.

Having now watched the film — which is terrible, filled with specious reasoning, false dichotomies, and self-contradiction — I find that I did learn a thing or two. I had assumed that Creationism and Intelligent Design were the same thing. They are not. Creationism is the belief that God created the Earth more or less the way it’s described in Genesis. Intelligent Design merely holds that certain things about life on this planet are best explained by something supernatural. Where there are gaps in scientific knowledge, ID fills ‘em in.

John Pendleton has a series of videos on YouTube spotlighting his scientific inadequacies. Sadly, his video freezes several minutes in, at least on my system, so I’m linking to an analysis posted by ExtantDodo which reproduces (nearly) Pendleton’s entire film plus commentary. It is a long video, weighing in at over thirty minutes. If you don’t have the time to watch it through, skip to about minute 12 and see Pendleton make these mindbenders:

Its tempting to post my own ‘free speech‘ rant but…

“Senator Lieberman stated his belief, in a letter sent today, that all videos mentioning or featuring these groups should be removed from YouTube — even legal nonviolent or non-hate speech videos,” YouTube’s blog post states. “While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view. We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds.”

A quick redirect to an interesting bit of news. Ray McGovern, “veteran Army intelligence officer and a former CIA analyst for 27 years’ as per his signature line, has written a letter to Gen. Fallon about attacking Iran. In this letter he talk about oaths taken to uphold the constitution and about the general stupidity of attacking Iran. The letter has already been published online in a number of places. Check Google or read it where I found it–peterthottam.com

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