A decade ago. They knew what was happening.

and that of women. For them to say the pope can't work in politics means they have to shut the fuck up too. Hypocrites.

Show me your evidence, your data, your models, your explanations... I do hope that Senator Inhofe has more to offer than a snowball show-and-tell when tackling the question whether the planet is a few degrees warmer than a century ago.

Look at you, college boy, with all your fancy book-learnin' talk. You think you're smarter 'n me? I got me a Bible that gives me all the science I need.

This Pope has a Masters Degree in Chemistry.

He worked as a chemistry technician before entering the seminary.
His Jesuit theological education would be the at the masters or doctoral level.

His secondary education was similar to European models of the period, where a specialty in a field of study such as chemistry made him very well prepared for a career as a chemical technician.

Conservatives believe that all that studying and book-learning stuff is just a tool for "scientists"/"intellectuals"/"professors"/"teachers" (yes, those are dirty words in the US) to elevate themselves over the rest of the population.

You elevate yourself over the rest of society by using exclusivity:
A certain amount of money is required, a certain object is required, a certain kind of family is required... All things that are hard to obtain. Rich people do it with possessions, aristocrats have that exclusivity in their inherited family-tree, racists have that exclusivity in their skin-color, misogynists have this exclusivity by way of owning a penis, religious extremists have this exclusivity by owning the one and only correct religion there is...

Being smart is something exclusive.
Science delivering data that cannot be coerced or bribed, that is also exclusivity.

They have no problems elevating themselves over homosexuals by using religious arguments or claims about parentship.
But don't you dare do or say anything that they could understand as meaning that you are better than them.



And all of that explains why conservatives believe that climate-change is a hoax designed to elevate scientists at the expense of everybody else:
Because that is exactly what they would do.

(Damn, I gotta find the links again where I read all this.)

I'm talking about the fact that no amount of money in the world can change the way nature works.

Burning carbohydrates produces CO2.
CO2 scatters infrared radiation very effectively and increases the amount of sun-produced heat that can be stored in the atmosphere while slowing down the release of said heat.
Global ocean currents are driven by temperature-gradients.
Global ocean currents have a huge influence on climate.
Climate has an influence on weather.
Weather has an influence on harvests and wear of man-made products.

You can bribe scientists all you want. It won't change the fact that your gas-guzzling car is partially responsible for dangerous weather.

HUH?

Science itself is just a way of looking at our world/universe. Scientists can of course can be bribed and coerced. While at about 97% of all scientist studying in the field of climate agree that it is changing and man is causing it. I agree with the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists. That leaves about 3% that don't. Sadly some of that 3% have been bribed and/or coerced.

Step 1: Get a scientist.
Step 2: Bribe that scientist to say that the product of your company can totally do that.
Step 3: The product of your company can now totally do that. It has to. You paid a lot of fuckin' money to get that result! IT BETTER F**KING BE ABLE TO DO THAT!

tell him what's true.

Bush said he thinks religion "ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting into the political realm." Totally oxymoronic.

getting into the political realm.

And the squaring of the circle goes round and round...

Destroying the environment that our grandchildren will inherit certainly is not making us "better as people."

Coming from that family of gangsters, what would he know about being a better person?

from commenting and interfering in everything else.

As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

I'll return the favor, and not expect him (or any other politician) to tell me what my Moral Value system should be.

If the Pope decided that OF COURSE the fossil fuel were put in the ground by Gawd for us to use until it's gone, (and fuck the Arctic sea ice) then Jebbie would be all over that, wouldn't he?

Even without having to actually BE divine, Jesus was right about the filthy rich fuckers, wasn't he? They're the same now, as they were THEN.

I will no longer accept the lesser of two corporate evils. Go, Bernie, Go.

Yes, I realize he's coming to this conclusion in the dumbest way possible.

than any one of them could

they'd go over hymnals and request removal of sufficiently-subversive church music; quotes from Isaiah and St Ambrose on a church calendar? American clergy involved get deported

Jeb was also Poppy's Contra go-between--and they weren't no fans of archbishops ...

summarize perfectly the Republican POV.


Yesterday, I heard a scientist (one who is also a very savvy and experienced political guy) note that, of all the developed countries, the US is an outlier on the issue of climate change. We are the only country with prominent politicians who work so actively both to deny climate change and to obstruct any attempt to deal with the problem.
What an embarrassment.
He (keeping his name out of this because I'm working from memory and don't want to inadvertently misquote him) also noted that LBJ talked about global warming 50 years ago.. At that time, we were in the forefront of environmental awareness. We were outliers on environmental issues then, but in a good way.
But now. . thank goodness the Obama administration (including the White House, EPA, Kerry's heroic persistence on these issues at State Dept., etc etc) has been pushing forward to do as much as it has done. But we could do SO much more on this urgent problem if only the Congress would wake up.

Oh, yeah, I heard Sen. Whitehouse speak briefly yesterday, too. He was great. Shall we say, he feels our pain.

(plus there's also the hypocrisy of the Repubs tearing after the "morals" of Catholic Democrats such as Kerry, Biden, Pelosi and others, most outrageously during the 2004 election. . very satisfying to see the holier-than-thou Catholic Republicans squirm right now. )

I can't wait to see Pope Francis tear them to shreds in September.
And I hope that he has EXCELLENT security while he is in the US.

but we're supposed to listen to the Republican Party on birth control,
reproductive rights, free choice, and family planning???

There's something wrong with this, Jeb! Jeb!

the Repugs would have given him an honorary Ph.D.