It's getting warm out there!

Remember just a few days ago when the entire Flat Earth Society Conservative Establishment was gleefully cheering on the "heavy" snow to hit Las Vegas and other unlikely parts of the country?

You know how each and every last one of them prattled forth about how this wintertime snowfall proved that global warming was a hoax?

Well, you don't hear much from any them now that a rash of high temperatures is sweeping the country from the midwest to the southeast and threatening to unleash widespread flooding, do you?

(Image from http://www.weather.com.)

Not a peep on Drudge Report, the assignment editor for the Anti-Science Society of America. Not a word from the other wingnuts.

Because the truth doesn't fit their narrative.

But here's a sampling what's actually happening:

+ Dallas hit 83 degrees, breaking its 2005 high temperature of 81.

+ On Friday, Wichita, Kansas saw 70 degrees, easily breaking the previous record of 64. But don't get used to it: today, the high is expected to be 34 degrees.

+ In Iowa, the warm temperatures caused major visibility issues.

+ Madison, Wisconsin looked to hit a record high of 50 -- followed by a cold front snapping temps back down.

+ In the Sierra Nevadas, it finally snowed on Dec 13 -- weeks later than in years past. With an earlier melt, anxiety is on the rise.

+ Birmingham, Alabama also expected temps above normal. So far today, the high has been 73. The average: 56.

+ Tennessee also looked forward to warm weather. The headline: Today's forecast: Warm, wind advisory all day.

It goes without saying that the case for global warming does not rely on the list of news stories I posted above.

The scientific literature does not depend on cherry-picking.

But the fact is, the entire argument of the deniers does depend on cherry-picking. They seize on stories like the snowfall in Sin City and pimp the heck out of them.

Around the margins, their cherry-picking strategy has done them a little bit of good. In the end though, it mostly illustrates how close they are to losing the political battle for good.

Here's what their cherry-picking propaganda has delivered them: over the past few years, there has been a modest decline in the proportion of Americans who believe global warming is real -- down from a peak of 79% to 71% earlier this year. As you might expect, that decline is almost entirely attributable to a sizable drop in Republicans who believe global warming is real, going from 62% to 49% from January 2007 to April 2008.

Despite the mild success of the right-wing anti-reality machine, the absence of a coherent, intellectually sound argument in defense of their position will ultimately erode the power of their campaign of misinformation.

Their problem is simple: at the same time that the scientific explanation for global warming becomes more well-known, the cherry-pickers narrative will be increasingly betrayed by a torrent of weather events undermining the story they hope tell.

They've already lost the battle with everybody but the most rabid of partisan Republicans. Soon, they will lose that battle too.