Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
On Tuesday, Olbermann had a great Worst Persons in the World segment. Video below the fold. O'Reilly and Gingrich wanting to hang drug dealers, O'Reilly threatening to boycott Spain (they should be so lucky) and a Republican congressman named John Shimkus blathering about how global warming must be wrong because God is in control. Funny stuff.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Here's the video of Shimkus talking about how the Bible says there won't be global warming.
Politics
Comments
There is such a debate? Where? Is it a public debate or is it limited to stuffy upper rooms?
Congressman, can you tell me who is debating whether the planet has too much carbon or too little? Who are the minds behind the Great Goldilocks Gabfest and how can I horn in on the argument?
*last time I looked there was just as much carbon as there used to be*
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | April 4, 2009 9:57 AM
I'm trying to corner the market in carbon.
After I own all the world's carbon, you'll wish for the easy days of OPEC and The Spanish Inquisition.
Bahawwwhahahwahahahahahwhahahahahaahahah!
Posted by: blf | April 4, 2009 10:27 AM
They used up the carbon for making pencils! No wonder it's a carbon starved planet! Pray for carbon!
Posted by: 386sx | April 4, 2009 10:53 AM
Carbon prayer vigils! Pray for more carbon!
Posted by: 386sx | April 4, 2009 10:56 AM
Apparently the Nicene Council left out all the biblical books that discussed climate change and population overshoot. Blame it on bad editing.
Posted by: carey | April 4, 2009 11:40 AM
No climate change because:
I wasn't aware that climate change models were predicting an end to these things.
Posted by: Dr X | April 4, 2009 12:30 PM
Somebody might want to point out to Mr Shimkus that there was extreme climate change in the age of the dinosaurs and that the dinosaurs became extinct
Posted by: dan | April 4, 2009 4:30 PM
Somebody might want to point out to Mr Shimkus that there was extreme climate change in the age of the dinosaurs and that the dinosaurs became extinct. I am glad Olberman made that point.
Now what is it the bible says about banking again?
Posted by: dan | April 4, 2009 4:36 PM
Ah, the great Carbon Schism. I only hope too many people don't die in the Carbon-Anticarbon holy wars.
Posted by: Taz | April 5, 2009 12:53 AM
Anyone who puts forth the proposition that the drug war doesn't go far enough should be spit on in public.
Posted by: Taz | April 5, 2009 12:57 AM
It's the fucking whales, they're stealing all the carbon; them and the squids.
Posted by: democommie | April 5, 2009 7:41 AM
I did not want to watch the video because I knew it would be absolute nonsense--it was.
When I hear some fucking idiot like Shitmug run his piehole about the bible being the inerrant and everlasting word of GOD, it makes me want to puke. Either he's an idiot or a charlatan. More to the point, the folks that elected him are idiots. This goes so far beyond having faith in a supreme being that I don't think you can develop "BCM" (Batshit Crazy Metrics) for it.
Posted by: democommie | April 5, 2009 7:47 AM
God has only to say the Word to make us end. Do you think atheist words even reach his ears? Everyone will gladly beg forgiveness is His presence soon. He could also forgive and forget right now if you ask, but you don't know how do you? Directions are in the Living Everlasting Bible, God's Word. I promise.
Make your choice now whom you will follow, The Creator or The Destroyer. Are you insulated?
Posted by: Harlow Stephenson | April 5, 2009 8:08 AM
My dear Stephenson,
You follow your petty little god. The one that orders his people to commit genocide and mass rape to get his sexual jollies. The one that forces his abject followers to murder for trivial offenses that hurt no-one, whilst hypocritically saying they are not permitted to do so. The one that likes to think he destroyed nearly every living thing on earth because he had a temper tantrum*. I'd prefer a creator (and creative) god.
But thanks for (trying) to play.
DINGO.
*Of course the evidence shows this is not so, merely the delusions of grandeur created by a weak & frightened people with a god to match.
Posted by: DingoJack | April 5, 2009 9:10 AM
Am I insulated?
No I'm a semiconductor - ;) DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | April 5, 2009 9:13 AM
Harlow Stephenson:
Peddle your tripe elsewhere. The GOD you believe in isn't even the GOD I believed in before I became aware of the illogic of beleiving in any god.
Posted by: democommie | April 5, 2009 9:50 AM
God has only to say the Word to make us end.
There is no such thing as god.
Do you think atheist words even reach his ears?
There is nothing to reach.
Everyone will gladly beg forgiveness is His presence soon.
I don't do magic mushrooms.
He could also forgive and forget right now if you ask, but you don't know how do you?
I don't do magic mushrooms.
Directions are in the Living Everlasting Bible, God's Word. I promise.
Liar.
Make your choice now whom you will follow, The Creator or The Destroyer.
I prefer reason backed by independently verifible evidence.
Are you insulated?
WTF?
Posted by: blf | April 5, 2009 10:18 AM
Hmmmmmmm. Wonder if Harlow means "insulted". In any case I'm not; annoyed yes, insulted or insulated, no.
Posted by: demcommie | April 5, 2009 11:13 AM
Oh boy, this is too much fun.
God has only to say the Word to make us end.
Yet another reason why, if he were real, God would be the greatest genocidal tyrant ever to live, and worthy of resistance and opposition rather than thoughtless servitude. Besides, Grease is the Word.
Do you think atheist words even reach his ears?
Why atheists would be talking to a being they don't believe in is a mystery to me. Do you think your words reach Bilbo Baggins's ears?
Everyone will gladly beg forgiveness is His presence soon.
Yes, very soon. Any time now. As it has been for the last two thousand years.
He could also forgive and forget right now if you ask, but you don't know how do you?
So he's basically a spoiled, petulant child? When confronted with an issue that cannot possibly be of any consequence to a vast and immortal being of limitless power - hmm, does insignificant being number five billion, eight hundred and six thousand and fifteen believe in me or not? - he could spare you a life of endless torment, but you have to get on your knees and beg him first? What a sick, petty bastard, especially considering what the stakes are.
Directions are in the Living Everlasting Bible, God's Word. I promise.
No, this isn't a Jack Chick tract. People aren't suddenly going to leap up and go "Wow, I can get God's forgiveness by praying? I had no idea! I'll start right away!" I'm willing to bet that everyone here is broadly aware of the Christian doctrine of salvation and redemption, as we are the Bible. Many of us have studied it and rejected it. The world is not divided into "People who are Christians because they've read the Bible" and "People who aren't, because they haven't."
Make your choice now whom you will follow, The Creator or The Destroyer. Are you insulated?
Yes, my house has been lovely and warm these past winter months.
Posted by: Der Bruno Stroszek | April 5, 2009 1:59 PM
Der Bruno Stroszek:
Perhaps I need to rethink what I said in my last comment. Maybe Harlow reference to "insulated" was referring to my unfortunate corpulence. I think he's just plain mean!!
Posted by: democommie | April 5, 2009 2:12 PM
Please don't quote the Bible. We already have too much 'faith based' junk science. For the past 15 years I believed global warming was caused by CO2. Now, I'm not so sure. My interest in global warming and energy policy is so great I launched www.energyplanusa.com. I've waded through the wellspring of man-made global warming theory, the United Nation's IPCC reports, and conclude they lack the 'smoking gun' that proves global warming is man-made. The reports are jargoned-up and rely heavily on computer models that are not proving terribly prescient (similar to the ones the predicted that the global economy was a perpetual motion machine). Most importantly man-made global warming theory ignores evidence from reliable studies. For instance, it's widely understood that the globe was warmer 1,000 years ago, when CO2 levels were normal, then it is today. Then, Vikings grew grapes in New Foundland--even named it Vinland. There are many examples of the Medieval Warming and Roman Warming Periods that need to be reconciled by man-made global warming proponents. ...not ignored.
Posted by: Rmoen | April 5, 2009 4:43 PM
Rmoen:
I'll leave it up to the scientists who frequent the blog to provide the facts, but I think you're being disingenuous, to say the least. There are, no doubt, some number (possibly in the hundreds?) of actual scientists who disagree with the thousands of mainstream, highly educated and well respected scientists who ARE convinced that global warming is real and that man is a contributor.
Posted by: democommie | April 5, 2009 8:04 PM
Bruno posted (in part) "if he were real, God would be the greatest genocidal tyrant ever to live, and worthy of resistance... "
Hmm don't insulators have high resistance, by definition? :)
____________________________________________________________
Rmoen - sorry but you are in error. The 'Medieval Warm' was cooler than the present temperatures (see here), and the increase/decline in temperatures took place over centuries, not decades, as is occurring now.
I am not aware that colonists on "Vinland" actually grew grapes. Could it be that "Vinland" had grape vines, in the same way that the largely glacier-covered Greenland was 'green'?
Posted by: DingoJack | April 5, 2009 11:59 PM
(Perhaps more importantly, climate models show conservation of energy.)
Posted by: llewelly | April 6, 2009 12:32 AM
Posted by: llewelly | April 6, 2009 12:38 AM
Mr. Moen - I went to your site to see if I could find one of my favorite statements regarding global warming, and sure enough I did. You wrote:
"Changing the Earth's atmosphere." I find it amusing that people fly right over that to argue about exactly how much the change will contribute to global warming. I have the radical idea that it is not a good idea to change the composition of the air we breath if we can help it - sort of a guiding principle.Posted by: Taz | April 6, 2009 8:47 AM
If you're really interested in a subject, the usual place to start is with an undergraduate degree course, not a website where you second-guess the results of people with PhDs.
Posted by: Dunc | April 7, 2009 12:06 PM
Evidently Mr Moen never got around to 'wading through'* Briffa et al. 2001, Jones et al. 1998, Mann et al. 1999 or Jones & Mann 2004. Instead he just regurgitated the Denialist 'Medieval Warm' talking points whole. Speaks volumes about the value of his arguments in general. -DJ
*Better hurry Mr Moen, the sea level is rising; "those than can't swim will sink like a stone".
Posted by: DingoJack | April 7, 2009 12:25 PM