Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, should be an outstanding leader. He has 8 degrees and “several honorary degrees and doctorates from various international Universities“.

But, unfortunately, he is a complete and utter failure, and a prick to boot. He has utterly destroyed Zimbabwe. It used to export food, now it is on the brink of famine. It’s economy has collapsed and it has rampant inflation.

I’m not expert on Zimbabwe but I do agree, in principle, that white ownership of all of the arable land is untenable. Like South Africa, the transition to a more representative government and some redistribution of wealth was probably necessary. But what Mugabe has done has obviously not worked and he has hurt all of the people of Zimbabwe in the process.

I think he has been absolutely corrupted by power and/or is completely insane or perhaps both. I wonder when the people of Zimbabwe are going to take their country back…

I had a fairly long email exchange with someone who was adamantly a “creation science” person. He believes the Earth and the universe are only thousands of years old. He believes in Intelligent Design (ID), of course and thinks evolution is nonsense.

A few things struck me about our debate. First of all, the guy isn’t dumb and he is not just spouting dogma. He has thought about it, read about it and feels he is extremely informed on all sides of these issues. He thinks science is intentionally blind to the influence of design. Here is a quote:

Actually I was once in that place and was emotionally revolted by the idea, but after about a year of letting it settle I started looking and was astounded at the way I had been brainwashed. It took several years more before I could actually see the case for a young earth, but it is indeed there. Because mainstream science is so inbred, incestuous in fact, it SEEMS to all fit together. What has happened it that anomalous evidence is ignored.

So here is a religious conservative with radical scientific views, rejecting entire disciplines of science as quakery. And here I am, a social and political liberal who always sides with the establishment when it comes to science.

I, of course, think this dude is batshit crazy. These folks start with a conclusion, that God is involved in our every day lives, and project it on everything. Anything that contradicts the Bible is wrong. Scientists are atheists who “MUST believe in evolution because they would otherwise lose intellectual respectability. Therefore they are not open to the evidence for creation.”

It’s amazing to me that someone can look around this amazing world that science has created for us and still call scientists frauds who purposefully ignore evidence to support their idealogical beliefs.

But only, of course, in those areas addressed by scripture. For some odd reason they don’t quibble with electromagnetism or chemistry. No, it’s just geology, astronomy, cosmology, paleontology and biology they have a problem with, thanks to the insane young Earth theory and ID.

But, their minds are made up and no amount of direct evidence or scientific consensus will ever convince them. The Book was written and that is the end of the story.

WTF.

Democrats’ Plans Help Al-Qaida, Cheney Says

Barf.

What a fucking deranged, bitter old fuck Cheney is. They have proven, beyond all doubt, that what they think is right does not work. Yet he still comes out with this same old tired bullshit.

They know that the only tool Congress has at this point to affect this fucked up situation is their power with the purse strings. That is what Cheney is fighting. They want an endless supply of our children’s children’s children’s money to fight this dumb war with their old boy’s club partners.

Fuck them.

All you theists better fret
PZ Myers is not dead yet

I guess Ann Coulter is a genius if you take into account the fact that she continues to fleece the Right of millions of dollars every year with her absolutely juvenile and inane drivel. On an objective basis, of course, she is a complete fucking moron with not an ounce of logic, rationale or sound judgment.

Take for example her recent essay entitled LET THEM EAT TOFU!. (Note, the previous link goes to her home page so won’t point to the correct article after a while. Apparently she is not smart enough to figure out permalinks.)

What is clear from this article is that she has not a single piece of evidence, fact or rational basis for anything she says. One can paraphrase her article quite easily: Liberals hate America, hate human beings and want us all to live like cave men eating bugs.

Here is an example:

But global warming is the most insane, psychotic idea liberals have ever concocted to kill off “useless eaters.” If we have to live in a pure “natural” environment like the Indians, then our entire transcontinental nation can only support about 1 million human beings. Sorry, fellas — 299 million of you are going to have to go.

Hmmm. Her logic seems to be, global climate change can’t be true because we don’t want it to be true. That is the entirety of her argument. We depend on industry therefore there is absolutely no risk of human causes to global climate change.

Do any of you buy that rationale? Anyone? Compare and contrast with experts who have intensely rigorous data, methods and models whose results are verified by other researchers around the globe. You are going to believe this bitter, retarded cunt from hell over thousands of climate scientists?

No, we all know, if Ann Coulter believes it then it is certainly not true.

OK, micadelic has been at it again. Because I don’t blog all that much, I’m taking it out to the main page.

First, the soft ball:

And Michael, you should know that science is not based on “consensus, it’s based on facts. Politics are based on consensus and that’s exactly what this global warming scam is, politics. Socialists looking for another reason to tax the rich and give to the government.

This is, of course, completely wrong. As I’ve written about elsewhere, theories don’t become facts, facts become theories. A fact in science is something like “We measured the temperature at time t and it was 64.3 degrees”. That is a fact. Theories, even fantastically successful ones, like the universal theory of gravitation, are never considered facts by scientists. Science is absolutely about consensus, peer review, repeatability of results and all sorts of messy social constructs. Still, it is unbelievably successful, which is why your cell phone works and a billion other little miracles you now take for granted.

As to your point, yes, there will always be disagreements. No theory is accepted by everyone. There are people, some kooks and some not, who still argue with the universal theory of gravitation. The number of scientist who don’t accept gravity is tiny and the number of scientists who don’t accept human causes of global climate change is tiny. If you want to “listen to the science”, on the issue of global climate change, the only rational uneducated opinion is that human beings are influencing Earth’s climate, in a way that may be dangerous.

I just don’t fucking understand what is so hard to understand about that. We have billions of people, billions of cars, millions of smokestacks belching forth crap, what the fuck is so mysterious about human causes of global climate change? It is fucking obvious.

Now the harder one:

So, let’s sum this up: Here we have a major American politician who is calling for policies that would impose huge costs on society but appears to be profiting handsomely himself; who is leading an extravagant lifestyle while demanding sacrifices from ordinary people; and who is calling on the media to suppress the views of those with whom he disagrees, while at the same time urging more government regulation in the name of “fairness” to his partisan and ideological allies.

First of all, I can’t take all of this as fact without researching it and I haven’t had time. My point on Al Gore was simple: he is rich. Rich people use more resources than not-rich people. To compare the energy used by Al Gore’s mansion with the average home in Tennessee is dumb. Compare him to other millionaires and I bet he is not above average. Go run the math on Rupert Murdoch and get back to me.

On the issue of carbon credits, I think being conscious of and paying money to offset carbon release is better than not being conscious of and not making payments to offset it. That’s obvious. Again, go report on what Rupert Murdoch or Rush Limbaugh do to offset their carbon. I’ll tell you what they do: nothing. So Al Gore is already doing more than your average rich Rightie.

Is Gore profiting off of his movie and book? I suspect he is. Is the global climate change issue “good” for Al Gore? It probably is. Is he some tool who is making up a fake crisis to line his pockets? Of course not. That is the mistake the Right always makes on this issue: they attribute to the Left the same shallow, money-grubbing motivations that they are used to on the Right.

The notion that the Left is manufacturing this global climate change business for monetary reasons is completely, fucking insane.

I’m not a huge fan of Al Gore and I can believe that he is imperfect. But this whole story started because a the Right reported an absolute baseless hatchet job, comparing him to the average Tennessean, an area which does suffer from poverty, and that is obvious political bullshit designed to discredit global climate change, which has growing acceptance by the experts who study it, in spite of the fact that we all wish it wasn’t true.

The Right is completely politically motivated on this issue, they don’t even try to understand the science (go to the GCDIS for example, and read up a bit) and their newest tactic is also their oldest: character assassination, and it should be obvious to everyone.

Read this: Private prisons make money from locking up immigrant families — including young children — indefinitely.

Written by my hero, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

(who, by the way, is a nun!)

I think this is comically retarded: Think Tank Blasts Gore for Hypocrisy

First of all, I suspect that if you compared Gore’s resource usage with people in his tax bracket, he is not above average. Second, he claims that he offsets his usage through various means (as the article above describes). Third, neither Gore nor the rest of the “hey, let’s be smart about global climate change” movement are saying that we should live off the grid. They are saying we, as a society, should embrace things which reduce our impact on global climate change and reject those things which do not. For example, the pussy, lobbyist-written energy policies of George W. Bush, which are soft on mercury emissions, provide incentives to not modernize coal-fired plants and subsidize big oil, with our dollars and our military, are wrong-headed and leading us in the wrong direction. The only time Bush does anything remotely “green” is during his state of the union address, in between a bunch of pie-in-the-sky bullshit. You wanna talk about walking the walk?

The fact is, if you compare Gore with any rich Right Winger, there is no question who stands for “green” policies more, in words and in deeds. This is a hatchet job designed to undermine someone who has been very successful in educating people on the data and risks of global climate change.

And I’m not necessarily a huge Gore fan.