The Cabinet from hell

Okay, folks, I'm trying not to panic about a Trump presidency.  I won't say that I have a naturally sunny disposition -- my tendency when confronted by adversity is to shriek "Dear god we're all gonna die!" -- but I try to temper this with a "this too shall pass" attitude.

But my desire to keep my hopes for the future on an even keel were given a severe blow yesterday when I found out that the president-elect has chosen Myron Ebell to head the Environmental Protection Agency, and has his eye on either Forrest Lucas (of Lucas Oil) or Sarah "Drill, Baby, Drill" Palin for Secretary of the Interior.

And this has brought out my inner Chicken Little something fierce.

Ebell is one of the most vocal climate change deniers out there (I will not refer to them as skeptics, because that's not what they are -- skeptics respect evidence).  Ebell considered the U.S.'s participation in the Paris Accords to be "clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate’s authority."  He went on record in an interview in Vanity Fair in 2007 as saying that "There has been a little bit of warming ... but it’s been very modest and well within the range for natural variability, and whether it’s caused by human beings or not, it’s nothing to worry about."

For the record, July 2016 was the fifteenth consecutive "warmest month on record" and 2016 has broken the record for the lowest amount of Arctic sea ice ever recorded.  Which record was set in 2015, which broke the record in 2014, which broke the record in 2013, and so on and so forth.

But do go on, Mr. Ebell, about how the warming is nothing to worry about.

[image courtesy of NASA]

Then for Secretary of the Interior there's Forrest Lucas, CEO and co-founder of the petroleum products company Lucas Oil.  Lucas is not only a virulent climate-change denier, he's battled the federal government over the Endangered Species Act and been an outspoken advocate of opening up federal parklands for oil and gas drilling.  This is the man being considered to run the branch of the federal government in charge of protecting our natural resources?

Of course, he might be okay compared to the other choice, which is Sarah Palin.  I try my best to be charitable, but Palin is not only a nightmare on environmental issues, she might be the most aggressively stupid person ever to hold public office (the only ones giving her a run for her money are Louie Gohmert and Michele Bachmann).  The idea of putting our country's environmental health in the hands of someone who has almost certainly never read anything longer than the back of a cereal box is profoundly frightening.

And the outlandish weather keeps on happening around us, and we keep on sitting on our hands.  The day of the presidential election there was near-record rainfall on the island of Longyearbyen, which only is bizarre once you realize that Longyearbyen is 800 miles from the North Pole and it's the middle of the Arctic winter.

Okay, that's weather, not climate; a one-off, maybe?  Take a look at a study released this week from the University of Florida showing that 80% of the ecosystems studied are already showing effects from climate change.  "Some people didn’t expect this level of change for decades," said co-author James Watson, of the University of Queensland in Australia.  "The impacts of climate change are being felt with no ecosystem on Earth being spared."

The climate change deniers have characterized the scientists as being alarmists, and for the most part the public has bought that perception.  Part of it comes from our unwillingness to admit that there's a problem, because then it becomes incumbent upon us to do something about it.  Part comes from the fact that anything we could do about it would require a serious reworking of our society to lessen its dependence on fossil fuels, and that's pretty uncomfortable to consider.  The reality is, however, that scientists are the most cautious of people; they usually don't go public with information until they're absolutely sure, until their data has been checked and cross-checked and rechecked, because there's a high likelihood that if they jump the gun they'll get caught out and have to publish a retraction.  (Note the difference from politics, where you can pretty much say any fucking thing you want and no one bats an eye.)

So it's a little horrifying when scientists actually do start sound like alarmists, because at that point, we damn sure better sit up and take notice.  Which makes the report that came out just yesterday even more appalling; because it said that we may have already passed the point of no return, that it could be -- their words, mind you, not mine -- "game over for the planet."

"The results of the study demonstrate that unabated human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are likely to push Earth’s climate out of the envelope of temperature conditions that have prevailed for the last 784,000 years," said study co-author, Tobias Friedrich of the University of Hawaii.  "The only way out is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible."

Which, given the current slate of picks for filling government offices, is looking increasingly unlikely.

Debate debacle

I have a particular aversion to seeing people humiliate themselves.  I remember as a kid watching sitcoms on television, and when I knew a character -- even one who richly deserved it -- was going to be put in an embarrassing situation, I often couldn't bear to watch it.

Still, there are certain exceptions.  I have to admit to experiencing an emotion that can only be described as "glee" when I heard that Sarah Palin was going to debate Bill Nye on the topic of climate change.

What, it wasn't bad enough that Ken Ham had his ass handed to him in a debate with Nye?  Ham at least is somewhat articulate, even if he doesn't seem to understand the concept of "evidence."  Palin, on the other hand, often seems to be speaking in some weird dialect that involves replacing every third word with a randomly chosen noun or verb.

Either that, or she does her speeches while drunk.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So a Nye vs. Palin debate would basically be Godzilla vs. Daffy Duck.  It would be worth watching purely for the comedic value.

However, I did wonder what Nye thought he stood to gain by debating her.  When your opponent has a fourth grade vocabulary and thinks that saying "You betcha" followed by a finger-gun constitutes a valid talking point, there's nothing much you can do that will have any effect.  Especially given that the topic is science.

So it was with combined disappointment and relief -- along with saying, "Aha.  That makes better sense" -- that I found out that Nye isn't actually debating Palin.

Palin is debating clips from speeches on climate change Nye has made.

So in effect, she'll have a cardboard cutout of Bill Nye standing there, play some carefully chosen sound bites, state her rebuttals, and declare victory.

The whole spectacle is set to coincide with the release of the petroleum-industry-sponsored propaganda piece Climate Hustle, which will be about as scientifically valid as Andrew Wakefield's anti-vaxx film Vaxxed that caused such a kerfuffle when it was pulled from showing at the Tribeca Film Festival.  The difference is that the anti-science climate change deniers and Tea Party right wingers like Sarah Palin are being funded by people like the Koch brothers, who have considerably deeper pockets than the anti-vaxxers do, and therefore far more influence.

Despite my reluctance to watch a long exercise in self-humiliation, I might watch the Sarah Palin climate change "debate."  If for no other reason, to pick up a few more lines like the following, part of a speech in 2011 in which she was trying to talk about the bravery of Paul Revere:

He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.

Yeah!  Right!  What?

So I wonder what she'll have to say about anthropogenic climate change.  And whether she can pronounce "anthropogenic."  My advice: tune in on May 2.  When else will you have the opportunity to watch the spectacle of a person being defeated in a debate by someone who isn't, technically, there?

Duck amuck

I told myself that I wasn't going to write about Phil Robertson, the guy from Duck Dynasty who has become the darling of the Religious Right for saying that he has a hard time understanding gays.  I kept seeing article after article and tweet after tweet on the topic, and sat there going, "Uh-uh.  Nope.  Not doin' it.  Nope."

I think it may have been Sarah Palin's tweet that tipped the balance.

Free speech is endangered species; those "intolerants" hatin' & taking on Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing personal opinion take on us all

At that point, I said, "Screw it."  Just about everything I'd read about the situation from both sides was pissing me off, so I decided to write about it, because my cure for being pissed off is to write a post here on Skeptophilia and thus piss everyone else off.  So here we go; the 1,283,298th person to opine about the brilliance, ethics, and philosophy of Duck Dynasty.

Since I mentioned Sarah Palin, let's begin there, okay?  Starting with the fact that this is not about free speech.  Not one person I saw who objected to Robertson's pronouncement (which I shall quote momentarily) said anything about how he didn't have the right to say what he said.  They did, however, say he was bigoted and homophobic, and called him a variety of other epithets that I will refrain from mentioning, which is not the same thing.  A&E, the network that runs Duck Dynasty, suspended him because he'd crossed the line from homey and redneck and quaint into being offensive, a decision that the network executives have every right to make.  Free speech means that you have the right to state your opinion, but it doesn't protect you from the repercussions thereof with respect to keeping your job.

Of course, that didn't stop other political pundits from jumping on the bandwagon.  Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, who is considered a front runner for the Republican nomination in 2016, showed that his understanding of constitutional rights was a little sketchy for someone considering a run for the White House when he weighed in with, "I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment.  It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended."

Much as it pains me to admit that I agree with Jindal about anything, I have to say that in my opinion, the video of Miley Cyrus "twerking" was about as sexy as a dog humping someone's leg.  But that's as far as I'll go, and Jindal's claim that this has anything to do with the First Amendment is patently ridiculous.

So anyway, now it's time to throw out there what exactly Robertson said.  So here goes:

It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical...  Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong.  Sin becomes fine...  If somebody asks, I tell ’em what the Bible says.  All you have to do is look at any society where there is no Jesus. I’ll give you four: Nazis, no Jesus. Look at their record. Uh, Shintos? They started this thing in Pearl Harbor. Any Jesus among them? None. Communists? None. Islamists? Zero. That’s eighty years of ideologies that have popped up where no Jesus was allowed among those four groups. Just look at the records as far as murder goes among those four groups.

So, yeah.  I just have three things to say about all of this.

First of all, sexual attraction has very little to do with logic, so saying that it's logical for a guy to prefer a woman's naughty bits over a man's isn't so much bigoted as it is idiotic.  It's not like straight people sit around when they hit puberty thinking, "Hmmm, which set of parts do I find attractive?  Let's see, I dunno... but I'm sure I can use logic to figure this one out!"

Secondly, I'm calling bullshit on Robertson's claim of living biblically.  Let's start with all of the kosher laws in Leviticus, which I highly doubt that the squirrel-eating chaps on Duck Dynasty have even read, much less follow.  Also, it bears mention that anyone who lived by all of the precepts of the bible would be in jail, given that the bible has verses that explicitly command you to stone disobedient children (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), allow you to own slaves as long as they come from another country (Leviticus 25:44-46), and order you to burn to death members of other religions, along with all of their livestock (Deuteronomy 13:13-19).  To name just a few.  So the whole idea of living your life by the bible's commands is ridiculous.  Folks who claim to be fundamentalists are automatically cherry-picking the stuff they like, especially from the Old Testament, which means that the people who are using biblical justification to hate on gays are actually just bigoted assholes who are afraid to come right out and admit it.

But third -- and this is directed at all of the people who are outraged by what Robertson said -- what exactly did you expect him to say?  Did you not know he was a bible-thumper?  This guy thumps the bible so damn hard it's surprising he doesn't dent the cover.  Was it really such a surprise that he doesn't like homosexuals?  And for cryin' in the sink, this is a "reality show," which means that the whole thing -- including the article in GQ that started this tempest in a teapot -- was engineered for one reason, and one reason alone, and that is publicity.  If they can rile people up, even offend the hell out them, that's okay, as long as their audience keeps watching.  This is why I'm guessing that the executives at A&E will very quickly step down from their high horses and reinstate Robertson.  This is too good a money-making opportunity to pass up, especially given that #PhilRobertsonForPresident is now trending on Twitter.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Robertson.  It's just that the last thing anyone should expect from a reality show is reality.

So the whole thing is just annoying, and I am seriously looking forward to it all dying down, which considering the attention span of the average American, should take about three days.  The bloviators over at Fox News will probably try to string it all out for longer than that, but chances are, we'll be on to the next celebrity gossip really soon, and I'll be able to move on to more important topics myself, like the fact that Spike is going to be airing a show called 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty starting January 10.

Now there's a show that isn't afraid to look reality in the face.

Sarah Palin vs. Joe McScrooge

Sarah Palin, who is determined for some reason Not To Go Gentle Into That Good Night, is once again winning accolades from the Religious Right.  This time, it's for a book about the alleged "War on Christmas," called Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas.

(photograph courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons)

The book alleges that "joyless atheists," presumably including myself, are trying to "abort Christ from Christmas."  She collectively refers to people like this as "Joe McScrooge."  "Joe McScrooge," Palin opines, "armed with an attorney, is really dangerous."

"We were founded as written in our charters of liberty, in the documents that created America," Palin said, in an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network.  "We're founded on a Judeo-Christian faith that would allow forever the right to express or respect for faith in America...  The road that we are on today is too many of those angry atheists armed with attorneys would try to take away that freedom to express faith. It's going to end in ruin unless we do something about it.  I want this book to be a call to action, to take steps for school districts, for communities, for business owners, for families to understand they don't have to hide their faith.  They don't have to be embarrassed by it.  This war on Christmas is really the tip of the spear when it comes to a greater battle that's brewing.  And that battle that's brewing is those who would want to take God out of our society, out of our culture, which will lead to ruin as history has proven."

Well, wiser heads than my own have addressed her contention that the United States was founded as a "Christian nation;" but I will point out that one of the most staunchly Christian governments this continent has ever seen was the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in which a man was placed in the stocks for an hour for "indecency," because he kissed his wife in public after having been away for three months.   This was the home of floggings for heresy, and hangings not only for witchcraft, but for being the wrong kind of Christian.

Whatever your belief system, I don't think that leaving that sort of thing behind could be construed as "leading to ruin as history has proven."

My central problem with Palin's contention, though, is that the "War on Christmas" that she and her pals at Fox News and the Christian Broadcasting Network like to whinge about really doesn't exist.  No, we Joes McScrooge don't want taxpayer money paying for Christian displays; we don't want Christian messages in our public schools, courthouses, and government offices.  To do so would be exclusionary to the one in four Americans who are not Christian.

But as far as what people do on private property?  No atheist I know gives a damn.  You can erect a crucifix so high it obstructs light plane traffic, as far as I care.  You can put up signs, as a member of my community has, saying, "Who does not accept Jesus Christ will be cast into the fiery furnace" and "The wages of sin are death!"  You can have a Christmas tree in every window and a statue of Santa Claus on your roof.

Because that's what private property means.  As opposed to public property, which implies paid for, and therefore endorsed by, the government.  A distinction that Ms. Palin apparently doesn't understand.

Oh, and for the most part, the atheists I know don't really care whether someone says "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" to them, because besides operating under the assumption that there is no god, we also have a general rule for behavior, namely, "Don't be a dick."  And like anyone who is not being a dick, we generally respond to the intent of the person we're speaking to, not just the words, and will repay kind intent with kind response.  Of all of the atheists I know -- and I know plenty -- I can only think of one who might get pissy if someone said "Merry Christmas" to him, and launch into a diatribe about how that was making an assumption about his beliefs.  And even he probably would only do that if he was already having a bad day.

So, Ms. Palin, sorry to take the wind out of your sails, not to mention your sales; whatever you and your book may claim, the "War on Christmas" really doesn't exist.  We atheists have bigger things to worry about, like the fact that a good many of your buddies are still trying to get Young-Earth Creationism taught in public school science classrooms, are still trying to make sure that religious-based homophobia is cast into law, are still trying to use the bible to argue that anthropogenic climate change isn't happening.  Given all of the bigger issues we face, the last thing most of us care about is whether you put up a "Jesus Is The Reason For The Season" banner in the local laundromat.

And I'd like to think that's that, but of course, that is never that with these people.  The alleged "War on Christmas" has been going on for years, with the Call to Arms being issued on Fox News before the Thanksgiving turkey carcass is even cold.  And each year, pretty much nothing happens, which you would think would eventually convince them that the "War on Christmas" is a figment of their imagination.

But no.  In that way, they're a little like my dog, who enjoys protecting our house from Evil Farm Machinery.  The difficulty is, we live across the road from a farm, so he barks pretty much constantly.  And each time a tractor goes by, and he barks -- the tractor goes away.  So he thinks that he has accomplished something, something vital, and that without his barking, the tractor would have come straight through the wall, and the farmer would have stolen his rawhide bone.

So he keeps barking.  Because you never know.  You have to keep vigilant.  Never let your guard down for a moment.  Because that farmer, he's a wily guy.

Just like we "Joes McScrooge."

Mob brain

I told myself that I wouldn't blog about the government shutdown.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a very political person.  To my untrained ear, most politics seems to fall into one of two categories; (1) arguing about things that are blatantly obvious (such as whether gays should have the same rights that straight people do), and (2) arguing about things that are so impossibly complex that a reasonable solution is probably impossible (such as how to balance the federal budget).  Given that impression, it's no wonder that most political wrangling leaves me a little baffled.

So, any opinion I might have on the government shutdown, or what to do about it, wouldn't be worth much.  But I did hear one commentary on the shutdown, and President Obama's role in it, that left me feeling like I had to respond.  It came from one Larry Klayman, the attorney who founded the right-wing organization Freedom Watch:

I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Qu'ran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up.

This unusually stupid statement was made at an event called the "Million Vet March on the Memorials," which was an accurate name only if you believe the mathematical equation 200 = 1,000,000, but which did attract noted wingnuts Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz.  And when Klayman made his wacky pronouncement, the crowd went wild with glee and waved their anti-government flags they'd brought along for the occasion.

My thought was, "Are you serious?  You people still think President Obama is a Muslim?"  I thought that had finally been laid to rest along with the whole birth certificate nonsense and the question of whether Donald Trump is wearing a toupée or if a raccoon had simply crawled on top of his head and died.

But no, the whole thing is still a burning issue with these people.  Klayman apparently arrived at the position using the following logic:

1.  I don't like Barack Obama.
2.  I don't like Muslims.
Therefore:  Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Possibly augmented with a second airtight argument, to wit:

1.  Muslims have funny names.
2.  Barack Obama is a funny name.
Therefore:  Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Logicians describe two basic kinds of one-step reasoning, the modus ponens and the modus tollens.  The first is when you have an implication, and can show that the first part is true, and deduce that the second must be true ("If today is Wednesday, then tomorrow must be Thursday.  I know today is Wednesday.  Therefore I know that tomorrow will be Thursday.")  The second is the converse; if I have an implication, and the second part is false, the first must be false as well ("If it's July, the weather is warm.  It's not warm this morning.  Therefore I know it must not be July.")

Klayman appears to have invented a third mode of reasoning, the modus morons.  I guess I need to revise my notes next time I teach logic in my Critical Thinking classes.

But what gets me most about all of this is how ridiculous it is from another standpoint, which is to consider how President Obama would act if he were a Muslim.  Let's look around us at Muslim-dominated countries in the world, and see if we can see some commonalities.  Here are a few:

• Religion is overtly present pretty much everywhere you go.
• Religion drives law, policy, and jurisprudence.
• School curricula incorporate religious principles, and schools that are predominantly religious in nature are fully supported by the government.
• The holy book of the dominant religion is to be considered as literal fact.
• Women are subjected to subordinate roles, and any kind of reproductive rights issues are completely off the table.
• Homosexuality is condemned; acceptance of homosexuality is considered a sign of moral decay, to be eradicated by any means.
• Obedience to authority is one of the most fundamental virtues.
• The death penalty is justified for a variety of crimes.

So, really, folks; who does that sound more like, the Democrats or the Republicans?

I mean, okay.  Even if you think that Klayman and his idiot friends are right, and that President Obama is a Muslim, you have to admit that he's a really lousy Muslim.  I think that if he is a Muslim, he should turn in his membership card, because he's acting like...

... well, like a liberal American.  Go figure.

And even so, when Klayman said his piece about the President "putting down his Qu'ran," the people listening didn't seem to react that way.  They applauded.  They yelled for more.  Instead of doing what I would have done -- which was to laugh directly in Klayman's face and take away his microphone -- they cheered him on.

There's something, I think, that happens to people's brains when they're in mobs.  Somehow, being part of a mob makes you incapable of thinking rationally.  So maybe that's all that happened here -- one fool got up and babbled foolish stuff to the crowd, and the crowd simply agreed, because that's what crowds do.  It's like the inimitable Terry Pratchett said: "The IQ of a mob is equal to the IQ of the stupidest person in the mob, divided by the number of people in the mob."

Considering that this particular mob contained Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, and Larry Klayman, I think this formula results in a small number indeed.