OK, I get people complaining that when I point out how dumb government officials are when it comes to science, I only pick on Republicans. Now, that has nothing at all to do with the systematic neocon attacks on stem cell research, global warming, evolution, sex education, the CDC, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the FDA… OK, you get it.
But hey, Democrats can be dumb, too! Well, at least one Democrat.
Please welcome Jim Gooch, a Democrat representing Providence, Kentucky in the state legislature. Gooch has plenty of ties to the coal industry, which of course means he is completely unbiased when it comes to issues of global warming. Sigh. He held a press conference where he had “experts” denying global warming exists.
Get a load – and I do mean load – of the experts:
Lord Christopher Monckton, the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, is a British journalist and onetime adviser to then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Monckton generated controversy during the 1980s with his recommendation – which he repeated for lawmakers yesterday – that people diagnosed with HIV or AIDS be locked up for life.
Um, yeah. OK. The other guy, a lawyer named James Taylor, contributed this:
Similarly, Taylor said most scientists don’t believe in global warming. Not that warming is bad, he said. Hotter weather means more vegetation and crops and more diversity of wildlife, as in the tropical rain forests, he said. He distributed a report that urged Americans to burn more coal, oil and natural gas so “our children will therefore enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life than that with which we now are blessed.”
Wow, the first sentence is a lie, and the rest is horrifying. These are the best Gooch could do?
Well, he certainly couldn’t ask any, y’know, scientists to come (even though “most don’t believe in global warming”). After all, where would he find any?
“Well, I mean, where are we going to get scientists?” Gooch asked. “We’re limited here in Kentucky to what we can do. I don’t know how we’d necessarily get scientists to come here.”
Wow, don’t you want him representing you? Incidentally, the University of Kentucky is located a few miles east of where the press conference was held. I bet they have scientists there! If so many believe GW isn’t real, you’d think they’d be easy to find.
Evidently Gooch did ask some people to provide evidence for GW: two folks, hastily assembled at the last minute, given five minutes each to make their case during a two hour press conference.
Did I mention that Gooch is the Chairman for Kentucky’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee? No?
So, all in all, excellent work Mr. Gooch! I expect you’ll be given an appointment by President Bush to be head of the EPA any day now.
Tip o’ the propeller beanie to Fark.
