They Love Mike Milqutoast

The New DelawareGoatLovers.com mastehead is instructive on so many levels. Look how much they love Mike Castle in spite of his recent pandering to wingnuts. Bill Lee gets even less…

Updated: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up… Um, on second thought, I guess you can

What do Republicans have against science?  Is this really just a way to package corporate profits to God-Fearing Christians?  First, we have Fred Barnes making up crap, now George Will.

Over the weekend, the Washington Post‘s George Will, got in on the act. And it took us about ten minutes — longer, it appears, than the Post‘s editors spent — to figure out that Will, like Barnes, was essentially making stuff up.

Both of Will’s major “data points” fall apart after a moment’s scrutiny.

Here’s the first:
According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979. 

But within hours of Will’s column appearing, the ACRC had posted the following statement on its website:
We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined. 

It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.
So, nevermind then.

As for Will’s second claim, he writes:

[A]ccording to the World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade. 

This one is a little more complicated. But only a little.

Literary Delaware

From the Publisher: It is a land of wonders.  It is a land of mystery.  It is a land that time forgot (or chose specifically not to remember). Cut off…

The Making of a Conservative Lie

Steve Benen over at The Washington Monthly points out how a conservative set of lies became “news” this week. It begins with this lie from Betsy McCaughey who works for a wingnut think tank, published in the opinion section of Bloomberg:

Specifically, McCaughey insisted that the policy would create a “new bureaucracy” called the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, which will “monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective.” McCaughey said the federal government would then “‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions,” adding, “Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.”

You won’t be surprised to know that this National Coordinator infrastructure was created by BushCo (with no real achievements to its name, either), and that the text of the Final bill says nothing of the sort. (See pages 154 – 157; 442 – 450 of that pdf to see the entire provision and judge for yourself.) That didn’t stop the usual suspects — Limbaugh, Drudge and Fox Noise from running with it and trying to ramp up the usual fear and loathing, McCarthy-style.

Steve follows up his original post to talk about countering the wingnut echo chamber and the real limitations the left still has within the traditional media:

Jindal’s Belief in Hogwash

Since we are celebrating the 200th annivesarty of Charles Darwin's birth, it's time to bring this video clip back to the forefront. Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican minion favorite, supports…

Day 19: Mike Castle’s Betrayal of Delaware

The LTE that I submitted to the News Journal yesterday:

With his vote against the Stimulus Package (and against the largest middle class tax cut in history), Congressman Mike Castle definitively demonstrates that his allegiances are no longer with the citizens of Delaware he was elected to represent. Mr. Castle was quick to support every facet of President Bush’s agenda that increased both the deficit and the debt: tax cuts that took us from historic surpluses to historic deficits; voted for Patriot Act provisions that increased spending on multiple fronts, including unneeded surveillance of Americans; an unnecessary war in Iraq that adds to our debt burden every day; and Medicare Part D, which made sure that the government would not be able to negotiate preferred pricing of prescriptions paid for by taxpayers.

Complete these sentences

Tax breaks for corporations that are laying of tens of thousands of jobs create jobs because.... A government employee isn't in a job. He/she is just doing work because.... I…

SNL Tried to Parody the GOP

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iRWukDe4BI[/youtube] This parody from Saturday past is of the current GOP tactic of cheering on the failure of the economy so that they can get some electorial gain out of…