Earth Day Makes Me Angry

Well, not Earth Day per se. It's the satellite radio and right wing blogs that make me angry. They're all railing about being inundated with Earth Day and how bad and bullshit it all is. Right now I'm listening to Fox Across America with Spencer Hughes and he's crapping himself about what "brainwashing" his kids are going to come home with because they might have discussed Earth Day in school, because the War Against Global Warming is "war against capitalism" and "war against Western Civilization."



The far right wing has gone from questioning popular and well-accepted science to abject quackery. Many believe the following:

• At the top tier of batshit crazy is those folks who refuse to believe that global warming is even real, often citing the ignorance of Global Cooling in the 1970's and claiming we are going to be looking at more cooling to come. None of them acknowledge that a piece of Antarctica four times the size of Manhattan collapsed into the ocean a couple weeks ago.


• If they do believe that Global Warming is a reality, it is not because of humans, but a long-disputed idea that it is solely because of a complex variety of the Earth's tilt and proximity to the sun. Wingnuts say it is insane liberal egomania to think that little ol' us humans could affect the environment, could affect the planet as a whole. These folks ignore well-established theories, basic scientific understanding, and anything any liberal has to say.


• Not only is Earth Day a horror and brainwashing, but because of alternative and bio-fuel research, we have food riots (and that is the sole reason, of course). This is a first: because of a generalized liberal focus on Global Warming, we've got Conservatives to give a shit about poor people - in other countries.


• Global Warming is a hoax and liberals are purposefully misleading the world in order to make themselves rich, damage American industry/jobs, and institute Socialism. No mention is made of conservatives beginning wars in order to make themselves rich, damage American industry/jobs, and institute a Police State.


• The obviously pagan Liberals treat the Gospel of Al Gore as their Religion.

No, this is not a joke.

And Al Gore is to blame! Understand that most people who think that Global Warming is a hoax are Conservative Republicans. Right Wing whackjobs hate liberals so damned much and, by association, Al Gore. Al Gore has made the world more aware of the problems we face with "An Inconvenient Truth." So at the detriment of the entire planet Earth, conservatives will refuse to agree with a liberal, because to do so might somehow, indirectly lead to admitting that Al Gore should have been the president, legally, about eight years ago.

Wingnuts are not only sadly attacking liberals and science, but their own. The attacks have gone from "try the science" to "I'm throwin' my shoe at the stupid train because it's stupid. Trains 'r' stupid. Trains." Bush recently announced a focus on climate change and then there's Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, sitting on a couch with - gasp! - Nancy Pelosi addressing - GASP! - Climate Change. Take a look:



And then there's NewsBusters, the self-proclaimed Right Wing equivalent to Media Matters. Unfortunately for them and as is par for all direct comparisons between Liberals and Conservatives on the internet, we're piloting advanced aircraft and they're wearing a shit grin over the two pence kite they just bought. But we're on Global Warming on Earth Day today, so let's address Brent Baker's "NBC 'Green with Envy' Over Swedes for 'Showing Kindness to Planet'."

Let that title sink in for a second, because that's the meat and potatoes of it. Brent Baker is apparently outraged that NBC turned Earth Day into "Earth Week," changed their logo to green to signify something to pay attention to, and did a story on how Sweden pays attention to the planet by lauding and providing an accessible public transportation system, is trying to be fossil fuel (an admittedly-limited fuel source) free by 2020, and keeping the environment clean.

Thank God for Brent Baker for exposing "the network's activist agenda." Earth Day - or Week - is about understanding and trying to eliminate the horrible things us human beings are doing to our environment, an environment that we need to support us: plant trees, stop pollution, etc. You know, the basics.

Based on this outrage for keeping our planet habitable, Mr. Baker is ostensibly shitting on his dining room table, eating from the rim of his toilet, or both.

Athletes are fearing going to China for the 2008 Olympics because of what the Chinese have done to the environment. Of course, it's pure hubris to think that we can affect the planet.

This is the politics of Global Warming. Here's the reality: no matter what you believe, dumping tons and tons and tons of waste into the environment in the form of solid, liquid, and gas is going to affect the environment. Lil ol' us nothin'. No, even if we fired every nuclear weapon in every arsenal we would not "destroy the Earth," but we would make life as we know it impossible. We can affect the planet. We are affecting the planet. And should our houses not be in order very soon, it shall be a plague on both them, Conservative and Liberal alike.

But We Don't Impact the Environment

Since the fallout of Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize (and by "fallout," I mean the sour grapes green envy wrapping itself around and enlivening the deniers of pollution and global warming), we've been treated to a gross swelling of the subcutaneous fart bubble that is the ignorance of right wing talk radio and others that claim - unequivocally - that we don't impact the environment and that to argue such is foolhardy.

In Time Magazine's report, "Peak Possibilities," it states that "In July 2006, the world's oil rigs pumped out crude at a rate of nearly 85.5 million bbl. a day" (current goal is 100 bbl. a day). To put this in perspective (at 42 gal/bbl), at peak, we were pulling the equivalent of 7 and a half Giants Stadiums - full to the brim - out of the ground. Every day. Even now, every three to four hours on this planet, we are extracting a Giants Stadium worth of crude. How does that not affect our planet?

But idiots still say global warming is a scare, that we're not impacting the environment.

I guess if we're taking, we should talk about putting back. And we put back like hell. But, again, we're going to need something of relevance to convey the staggering numbers. How about the Sears Tower? It weighs 440 million pounds or 220,000 tons.

Let's look at some numbers from Wikipedia on Pollution:

Millions of Tons of CO2 per year:

• United States: 2,790
• China: 2,680
• Russia: 661
• India: 583
• Japan: 400
• Germany: 356
• Australia: 226
• South Africa: 222
• United Kingdom: 212
• South Korea: 185

US Specifically from 1970 to 2006:

• carbon monoxide emissions fell from 197 million tons to 89 million tons
• nitrogen oxide emissions fell from 27 million tons to 19 million tons
• sulfur dioxide emissions fell from 31 million tons to 15 million tons

So according to the previous numbers, the United States alone pumps 12,682 Sears Towers into our atmosphere. The top 10 polluters together pump 37,795 Sears Towers into the air.

And please do not forget to mention carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide. Combined, the United States pumps out 559 more Sears Towers into the air. Yes, those are even more dangerous - to us - than carbon dioxide, and that's the same air we breathe.

I know; it's hard. Imagine the Sears Tower in Chicago. Imagine it being launched into the air and dissolving into breathable particles. Now do that 558 more times: almost twice a day every year.

But we're not impacting the environment.

The numbers, even with the relative, real-world comparisons, are still hard to imagine, but what is very real and very apparent is that we're affecting our environment by pumping out of the earth and into the atmosphere at a terrifying rate. And we're breathing it in.

And we're still wondering what's causing increasing rates of breathing problems and disease as our medical establishment slowly rises to the concern. And that doesn't include the filth corporations are dumping into our water supply by error or effort, the hormones and antibiotics that are in our source water that aren't checked for in water treatment plants, and how those things affect the sad animal casualties of nonchalance and ignorance.

And there are still those saying we're not impacting our environment.

I guess my only question is one of threshold: what the fuck has to happen before some of these whackjobs will admit "Eh, yeah, maybe we're screwing something up."?

Maybe when they can't be connected in a Six Degrees of Corporations game?

Hannity Shenanigans: War is Peace

[NOTE: This post has been updated with a 2 transcript pieces. Enjoy the headache.]

In today's Sean Hannity radio show, in a move meant to surprise no one, Hannity spends the first chunk of his show ignorantly hating on "undeserving Al Gore" and his wonderfully successful Nobel Peace Prize win. The logically retarded Hannity then goes on to ask his audience if we know who is deserving and nominates the brave American troops in Iraq.

Damn it, Sean, you ignorant douchebag. It is called the Nobel Peace Prize, and people who have illegally invaded a country (granted, by the order of Grand Dragon Asshat of the United States), killed thousands, and motivated insurgents to invade and kill thousands more are not fucking eligible!

SEAN HANNITY: Obviously the big news is Al Gore and the Nobel Peace Prize. You know, we ought to be proud. You know, sure he deserved it, about as much as Yassir Arafat deserved it - the terrorist (laughs). I'm sure he deserved it as much as Jimmy Carter deserved it - the incompetent one. Nobel Peace Prize are given to those who are considered outstanding in his field. I wonder which one of his three mansions had the field, of Al Gore. You know what the big question is, folks, nobody will ask him? I have it on good authority that Al Gore - within the last 48 hours - was seen getting off a private jet. In the last 48 hours; I don't know if it's true, we've got calls into all Gore's office, once again, but whenever Hannity calls, we don't get a response - what a shock - it's like Hillary Clinton's office. What do they do Sweet Baby James every time you call over there? They laugh, right, they pretty much laugh (laughs). We get the old Hillary laugh, showing the world that she's funny and happy. [Hillary laugh audio]

So here we've got Al Gore is the recepient of the Nobel Peace Prize a few years after Jimmy Carter was awarded the prize, same prize back in 2002. Basically we see a trend here: Norway's the place to go for failed Democratic politicians who want to recessitate their image by glomming on to the very bad policies that would damage their country. For Carter it was by embracing these anti-Israeli policies in his foreign policy. For Gore it was embracing anti-growth policies and this insane environmental extremism that he's bought into here. I guess both men have similarities: they both come from the South, they both have angry mean streaks [GORE: He betrayed this country, he played on our fears.] They have absolutely no grace out of office. They are very petty in their criticisms. They've got more radical and more extreme and more left wing after having left office. They're both bitter that their place in history is non-existant for the most part. They both win the Nobel Peace Prize for exactly that reason. You know why they win the Peace Prize? Let's be honest. For embracing the extreme left - that's what that Peace Prize is about. You got the Norwegian Nobel Committee made up of five persons who reflect the makeup of the Parliment. What a shock that they consistantly award people on the left. Prizes like this, they're meant to reward excellence; it's supposed to award achievement. It's too bad when those standards are cast aside in favor of advancing a leftist ideology. That's what's happened here, that's why at the end of the day, the Nobel Peace Prize is meaningless - absolutely, completely meaningless and it's also why the MoveOn.org mainstream media is going to make as big a deal about this as they possibly can. The American people utterly rejected Jimmy Carter and Al Gore. It's no surprise that they'd find a home in a committee that is characterized by its left-leaning ideology and its fierce opposition to real peace.

You want to talk about who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, here's nominations: how about Ronald Wilson Reagan? How about George W. Bush? Those that believe that you should be the master of your own destiny, those that confront and defeat evil in their time. Those that use - How about Winston Churchill as a great example? Ohh, we can't - How about Harry Truman? How about FDR? How about those that recognize the forces of evil in their day?

What's ironic about this is - as we reported earlier this week - a British judge has ordered that when Al Gore's global warming hysteria film is shown to student audiences, it's now got to be accompanied by a warning that the film is a political propaganda film and riddled with false claims.
...[junk science, why the UN sucks]
The undeserving Al Gore, who had a press operation second to none, who flies around the world polluting the planet in his own big, old, fuel-consuming gulfstream, he gets the award. What about the troops in Iraq? How about the troops in Afghanistan? How about the troops all over the world that are really securing the peace for our country and millions of other people? They're treated like garbage by members of their own congress; they're treated like garbage in the international community. You know who deserves the Peace Prize? How about I nominate our brave men and women, our soldiers in Iraq? How about we nominate our soldiers in Afghanistan? The sad reality is that they'll never get the because it's become corrupted, political, meaningless, as evidinced by giving it to Jimmy Carter or Yassir Arafat or others who have done nothing for peace and frankly, through their weakness, quite the contrary, who have made the world a more dangerous place. It was Carter who brought us the Iranian people the Islamic fascist regime that now terrorizes the world.

Yes, that asshat just said "the Nobel Peace Prize is meaningless - absolutely, completely meaningless" and then proceeded to nominate people for the meaningless prize.

This is patriotism elevated to the level of absurdity, and it would be funny if it wasn't the terrifying, genuine thought process of someone with an audience of 12.5 million listeners per week. You could almost feel the small tremor of "Fuckin' A right!" reverberating through ignorant, conservative audiences across America.

UPDATE: Hannity's talking to Haditha Marine Justin Sharratt and his father about Rep. John Murtha's Haditha comments and how Justin was cleared of all charges. Hannity pledged to help in every way possible to aid Justin should he choose to run for U.S. Congress against Murtha (they're from the same voting district), stating "you're old enough to carry a Marine weapon," you can hold Congressional office.

SEAN: You know, you're in his district. You could run against him.
JUSTIN: That is a possibility.
SEAN: Would you consider that?
JUSTIN: If I was old enough, that is a good possibility -
SEAN: You're old enough. You're old enough to carry a Marine weapon, you're old enough.
...
SEAN: I'm going to make a promise to you, Justin, if you decide to do this, if you decide to run against John Murtha, I will do everything I can do to help you raise money and defeat him. I think the ultimate justice is, I believe the people in his district, if given the choice between somebody who is serving their country and is falsely accused, I think this could be an incred- I know you're a young man - how old are you?
JUSTIN: Twenty-three.
SEAN: You're twenty-three years old, but you know what? You have the strength and maturity - If you can go out in Iraq, in the streets of Hadditha, and withstand multiple IED attacks and sniper gun fire on a daily basis, you've proven you have the character, the toughness, the strength to take on John Murtha. And I can promise you that this audience will back you up and support you in every way imaginable, financially, we'll do everything - I'll give the maximum donation I can if you decide to do this.

Unfortunately for Sean and Justin, the Constitution of the United States of America states that you have to be 25 to hold office in the House of Representatives (30 for Senate, 35 to be President). Justin is 23. Then again, Sean Hannity doesn't read the Constitution.

Hannity Shenanigans - Bash Gore Express, Terrorist Environmentalism

Yesterday, Media Matters talked about a couple media outlets (cough, cough, FOX) that mischaracterized Gore's responses to the nutjob Inhofe. They should've held on for just a little longer. Thursday's Sean Hannity radio show pooped out the following excerpt:

SEAN: I wanna give a, a little bit of a follow up to this. Uh, James Inhofe questioning Al Gore about taking a vow of responsibility not to consume any more energy than the average American. Here's how this went down.

INHOFE: You're asking and you've asked people all over America 'Are you ready to change your way of life? Are you ready to, ready to change the way you live?" I would have to ask you that same question because we started my term on would you take a pledge to do that? I think the answer to that is "no," but in terms of changing the way you live, I think it's very difficult for you to ask other people to do it unless you're willing to do it. Are you willing to do it?

GORE: We live a carbon neutral life, Senator.

SEAN: That's not the answer!

Hannity was right: That's not the answer. As the Media Matters article points out, there was much more said by Mr. Gore. About wind energy. About solar panels. But Sean skipped all that, followed it by bringing up the unsubstantiated claims from Tennessee Center for Policy Research about his energy bills. Then to "Al Gore is a global warming hysterical alarmist and a hypocrite" and on to Senator Boxer being a blind supporter. "It's like having Bill Clinton lecture us on marital fidelity."

And then, this:

SEAN: Bruce is in Jackson, Mississippi. What's happening Bruce?

BRUCE: Hey Sean, how you doin'?

SEAN: Good sir, how you doin'?

BRUCE: Look, I was listening to your show yesterday and you were talking about Al Gore and this announcement came - Al Gore is, I know this sounds strong, is no different than Osama bin Laden in this fact: Osama wants the poor, uneducated followers of his cause to give everything - their life - for his cause but he's much too important for that. He's off hiding somewhere probably in luxury. Al Gore wants us to live in a 400 square foot house, cut off the lights, cut off the air conditioning and the heat, and ride a bicycle....

What the Christ!? Since when does a religious nut like bin Laden who wants to rule the world with a Muslim extremist fist (and is currently, successfully evading us) have anything to do with a man who wants people to recognize a scientific pattern and do more to make our relationship with the planet a little more copacetic?

And Sean did not correct Bruce or even question the analogy. Jesus, man. Now, by extrapolation, there are a handful of people out there that are going to equate buying an energy-saving light bulb to strapping yourself with explosives and walking into WalMart, relating "eco-friendly" to "terrorist."

Somebody turn off this man's mic.