This week in Not The Onion, Ted Cruz (R-TexAss), finally came out of the closet. Aping his role model, Humpty Dumpty, Cruz has gone beyond declaring words mean whatever he wants them to mean. He redefined science. Unable to dispute the findings of NASA, NOAA, Stanford University, Coke, Pepsi, WalMart, the Navy, the IMF, and every scientific society on the planet without looking as stupid as Inhofe (R-Snowball), Cruz declared Earth Science is not a "hard science".
No matter how far climate deniers jam their heads up their own asses, they can't deny the fact their old "I'm not a scientist" dodge doesn't work. No matter how much Republicans rant and rave, scientists are still out there making all sorts of scientific statements. It must be really frustrating. Building castles in the air is so much fun. But how can you move in and pay rent if your furniture keeps crashing to the ground? So what is the Republican response? "I'm not a scientist -- and you're not either!" The newly classified "non-scientists" at SCIENCE magazine are not amused:
The idea that the geosciences aren’t hard science comes as a shock to Margaret Leinen, president of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and a former head of the National Science Foundation’s geosciences directorate.
I bet it did.
Now why is Teddy and his anti-science minions going all schoolyard bully on Earth Science? Well it's all that (cover your ears Florida) "climate change" sorcery....
“We’ve seen a disproportionate increase in the amount of federal funds going to the earth sciences program at the expense of funding for exploration and space operations, planetary sciences, heliophysics, and astrophysics, which I believe are all rooted in exploration and should be central to NASA’s core mission,” Cruz said at yesterday’s hearing on NASA’s 2016 budget request. “We need to get back to the hard sciences, to manned space exploration, and to the innovation that has been integral to NASA.”
I could go on and have fun with that for days, but that would be about as unfair as kicking a drunk Palin when she's down. Besides, those of you in California (and pretty soon Texas) are going to have your hands full with other chores. In related news,
NASA reports:
California now has only enough water to get it through the next year.
Darn those Earth Scientists! Harshing the mellow with their ..... science stuff!
In an op-ed published Thursday by the Los Angeles Times, Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, painted a dire picture of the state's water crisis. California, he writes, has lost around 12 million acre-feet of stored water every year since 2011. In the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins, the combined water sources of snow, rivers, reservoirs, soil water and groundwater amounted to a volume that was 34 million acre-feet below normal levels in 2014. And there is no relief in sight.
Count on Ted to point out that prediction of "no relief in sight" is clearly wrong. I can see it now:
ABC NEWS reports, another "unprecedented" display in congress today as the inmates continue to take over the asylum:
Ted Cruz: (R-TexAss) [Jumps up on table, flings poop and screams] "Of course relief is in sight! Once the water dries up and people start dying we won't be hearing anymore of this "climate change" (sorry Florida, I forgot to warn you) nonsense. That'll be some kind of relief!
Cory Gardner (R-COckeyed): Snowball fight!!!!
[as if on cue, all "rising stars" in the Republican party join in like the Oompa-Loompas they are.]
Happy Pi Day! 3/14/15 9:26 ....
At least this moment is fleeting... and somewhat enjoyable. The damage these dumb monkeys are doing will take years, maybe decades, to undo. But while we have a quiet moment, here's some food for thought.