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Open Mind 
Mr. Smith is only one of the idiots from Texas. There is also Barton and Cruz. There are intelligent people in Texas but they must not vote or they are a small minority.
Well, it may be accurate to say that we Texans who accept the reality of AGW are in the minority, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say a “small” minority. But even if it is 49% against 51%, you still lose. It’s even possible that more Texans than not accept AGW, but the people that keep getting elected (GOP) are doing the bidding of the FF industry, and the people who elect them are often voting on other social or tribal issues. AGW is really a back burner issue here, but it’s changing albeit slowly.
Wonderful Texans Katharine Hayhoe ( http://katharinehayhoe.com/ ) and Christopher Keating ( http://dialoguesonglobalwarming.blogspot.ca/ ) come to mind.
Having just escaped Texas–there are plenty of good people there. However, the Neanderthals have taken over the political system and do not work with the minority. If they can wangle one vote more, they take that as a mandate, and often get that one vote by a whole variety of bad politics.
I have a feeling that the chickens may finally be coming home to roost on the fossil fuel industry-funded misinformation/harassment front. The investigation into What Exxon Knew by the various U.S. (and U.S. Virgin Islands) attorneys general has already resulted in libertarian think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) being subpoenaed for decades of their communications between them and Exxon. And with smoking guns like this in the public domain:
GCSCT 1998
(h/t to John Mashey over on Rabett Run)
Well, I think we can look forward to quite a few popcorn moments in the coming months, no matter how it all pans out in the end. Also reading Jane Mayer’s Dark Money, and there’s a mountain of well documented, incredibly damning stuff concerning the beyond greedy/sociopathic/anti-humanity behaviour of the likes of the Koch brothers in there that might just spark a new round of investigations as well.
Yes, people like the Koch brothers have incredibly deep pockets, but that can’t protect them forever if their behaviour becomes well-known to the public at large.
Can we please have access to all of Lamar Smith’s emails in the context of his role as a US Congressman? I am especially interested in any communications with the representatives of fossil fuel interests. Surely someone, like he, who is a champion for public disclosure and is deeply interested that the truth about global warming come out, would have no objection to making the same sort of disclosure that he is demanding from NOAA and other government-funded scientists. After all, his salary is also paid by US taxpayers. Perhaps a petition to this effect ought to be started.
One presumes Rep. Smith is careful that no compromising messages are exchanged through his House email account.
Probably not. One of the apparent idiocies of people like this is not merely that they get to be hypocrites on disclosure, but that they will never find themselves the butt of the law.
See for example the US state law (forget which) that made some concession for religion in schools that was then applied for the muslim faith. At that point the christian state legislation was reinvestigated to knock it down. the law was for christians, not muslims, and they didn’t even consider the possibility that it would apply anywhere else.
“I don’t need your weather satellites because I have the weather channel.” Says the clown with an expensive suit to the lady with a PhD.
You can’t make this stuff up. This is the kind of retarded buffoon that people elect to represent them. We get what we deserve I guess…
W.r.t. the “clown with an expensive suit”, that might be an “administration” myth. Check out:
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=82938
[Response: The video in this post, at about 7:20, shows Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NASA administrator, relaying the story. I believe her.]
rockandrolldoctor, I quoted what the NASA administrator says in the video, that’s why there are quotations marks in my post. There is no shortage of other nonsense to support my description and the suits they wear really are expensive, so I stand by it. The immense majority of these representatives and committee members are lawyers, too many of them are scientifically illiterate.
Tamino and Philippe, Believe me, I agree that any number of idiots in Congress COULD have been responsible for that idiotic statement, I just want us to be careful not to fall into the sloppy (read, nonexistent) fact checking that is so typical of the science deniers. It’s not just congress. I know too many professional geologists to whom I point to the peer-reviewed literature and well vetted data in hopes of enlightening them. Then they hear uninformed, though entertaining, opinions spouted at a society luncheon by somebody trying to sell a science denier book….. and it’s back to square one.
It is a good idea to keep in mind the Snopes piece. It is a reminder that we need to be able to refer back to the specific NASA administrator by name, or better yet, with a link to the video lest some denialist link to the Snopes and with our having no ability to respond.
Surely it’s likely that more than one Congressman (it is always men, isn’t it?) picked up that cute line — not needing satellite because:weather channel — from one of the professional rebunkers who consult with them to feed them talking points? Likely more than one of them has repeated it. It’s always hard to backtrack far enough to find the original when bunk propagates.
Has anyone updated the Snopes page?