Stupid Republican idea of the day

[elucidator]

That awaits the development of clean horseshit.

[running_coach]

@Czarcasm

Maybe coal miners should retrain and start driving these. With the amount of horseshit Trump and the Trumpettes spread, surely they have enough horses to supply one for every miner.

Unfortunately, we failed to save the buggywhip industry.

[Rick_Kitchen]

@Little_Pig

House Republicans vote overwhelmingly to allow internet providers collect and sell their customers’ Web browsing history, location information, health data and other personal details.

Fuck’in pricks.

Actor Mischa Collins has started a move to raise money to buy the Internet histories of all of the Republicans who voted in favor of this.

[Typo_Negative]

@Rick_Kitchen

Actor Mischa Collins has started a move to raise money to buy the Internet histories of all of the Republicans who voted in favor of this.

Linky

Donate to Buy Congress' Internet Data, organized by Misha Collins

[eschereal]

At least two others, but, lacking the high profile, not doing nearly as well.

[levdrakon]

I’ve seen three posts on Facebook today about three different people who are going to buy politicians’ internet histories.

Can you buy someone’s history a la carte like that? Has anyone actually asked an ISP if they’d sell it?

[Rick_Kitchen]

A Republican candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania says global warming may be caused by the number of warm bodies in the world.
Badly Misinformed Lawmaker Thinks Our 'Warm Bodies' May Be Causing Climate Change | HuffPost Latest News?

[jayjay]

@Rick_Kitchen

A Republican candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania says global warming may be caused by the number of warm bodies in the world.
Badly Misinformed Lawmaker Thinks Our 'Warm Bodies' May Be Causing Climate Change | HuffPost Latest News?

And that the Earth is moving closer to the sun over time.

I’d just like to note that Wagner is the state senator for the NEXT county over…he’s also the reason that my husband and 500+ other unemployment employees were furloughed a week before Christmas.

[Little_Pig]

@levdrakon

I’ve seen three posts on Facebook today about three different people who are going to buy politicians’ internet histories.

Can you buy someone’s history a la carte like that? Has anyone actually asked an ISP if they’d sell it?

Do tell.

[elucidator]

Auction them off. Proceeds go to Planned Parenthood. And the Home for the Chronically Groovy.

[eschereal]

@levdrakon

I’ve seen three posts on Facebook today about three different people who are going to buy politicians’ internet histories.

Can you buy someone’s history a la carte like that? Has anyone actually asked an ISP if they’d sell it?

Given that they are congresscritters, they probably do not use a standard commercial ISP, at least in the office, and are able to claim some sort of national security privilege to protect themselves from exposure. Because, once we find out how much they are communicating with Goldman Sachs, ADM, AT&T, et al, and we start finding out who are really running the country, well, that could be a problem.

[Gyrate]

@Slash1972

It seems to me that adaher’s question is more along the line of "Why THEN? Why wasn’t this regulation written years ago? What happened around that time that necessitated this regulation?

Then why isn’t that the question he asked, rather than resorting to a feeble Neil Cavuto impression?

[Bryan_Ekers]

It’s a potentially interesting model for regulation - you can’t pass any new laws unless you can explain why you didn’t pass them sooner. As a corollary, if any new activity is invented but not regulated in its first year, it cannot be regulated or outlawed because it’s too late and the government had its chance to do something about it and they didn’t so therefore they shouldn’t.

[Gyrate]

@Bryan_Ekers

It’s a potentially interesting model for regulation - you can’t pass any new laws unless you can explain why you didn’t pass them sooner. As a corollary, if any new activity is invented but not regulated in its first year, it cannot be regulated or outlawed because it’s too late and the government had its chance to do something about it and they didn’t so therefore they shouldn’t.

This sounds vaguely familiar…

@Yes Minister

Bernard Woolley: What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Then we follow the four-stage strategy.

Bernard Woolley: What’s that?

Sir Richard Wharton: Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.

Sir Richard Wharton: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.

Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we can do.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.

[CalMeacham]

GOP Congressman Turns Science Committee Into Platform For His Own...

The actions of people in this administration are a continuing wonder:

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) — one of Congress’ most outspoken climate change deniers — is using the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology to push his own agenda.
In addition to harassing federal climate scientists and issuing subpoenas to seemingly everyone looking into oil giant Exxon Mobil’s suppression of climate change research, the committee chairman is loading hearings with witnesses who largely agree with his personal views.
It’s normal for the majority party to pick the bulk of a hearing’s panelists. What many find shocking, however, is who Smith is choosing to invite.
…
The hearing, titled “Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications, and the Scientific Method,” will “examine the scientific method and process as it relates to climate change” and “focus on the underlying science that helps inform policy decisions,” according to a hearing charter. To do that, Smith has invited a trio of prominent, like-minded climate change skeptics.
The ultimate goal, as the committee noted on Twitter, will be “making scientific debate great again.”

Bolding very definitely mine.

During his speech last week, Smith argued the Obama administration spent years promoting its political agenda rather than relying on “good, sound science,” and that the “days of trust-me science are over.”
“They often regularly claimed that extreme weather, hurricanes and severe storms were getting worse due to human-caused climate change,” he said of members of Obama’s administration. “They never let science get in the way of their assertions.”

While speaking at a climate conference hosted by the conservative Heartland Institute last week, Smith blasted the Obama administration and the “liberal political agenda.” He also praised President Donald Trump’s efforts to undo Barack Obama’s climate legacy and promoted the upcoming committee hearing to discuss climate change and the scientific method ― something he said is “repeatedly ignored by the so-called, self-professed climate scientists.”

Right…

The audience applauded each time the congressman read off the name of a chosen witness.
The first person he named was Judith Curry, president of Climate Forecast Applications Network, who retired in January as a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Curry defended EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt when he told CNBC that he does not believe carbon dioxide is to blame for global warming.
“If I am interpreting Pruitt’s statements correctly, I do not find anything to disagree with in what he said: we don’t know how much of recent warming can be attributed to humans,” Curry wrote in a blog post.
Second on Smith’s list of witnesses is Roger Pielke Jr., an environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado often cited by climate change skeptics.
“I believe climate change is real and that human emissions of greenhouse gases risk justifying action, including a carbon tax,” Peilke wrote last year in the Wall Street Journal. “But my research led me to a conclusion that many climate campaigners find unacceptable: There is scant evidence to indicate that hurricanes, floods, tornadoes or drought have become more frequent or intense in the U.S. or globally.”
And finally, Smith named John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama. The “danger just isn’t there,” Christy has said in reference to global warming, arguing that there’s no smoking gun to prove human activity is the main culprit.

…and let’s have our last contestant, Lamar!

Smith paused before reading off the final witness, who had been chosen by the committee’s Democratic minority.
“Before you applaud, let me read the name,” he warned, as the audience laughed. “Last witness is Michael Mann.”
The crowd booed loudly.
“That’s why it’s going to be a good hearing,” Smith chuckled.

Mann had a great comeback:

Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, tweeted that he found it an “honored to be booed” at the Koch Brothers-funded, anti-science, “climate denier” event.

…
Mann told HuffPost via email that he’s attending Wednesday’s hearing to “attempt to inject some actual facts and some actual climate science in a Washington D.C. atmosphere where ‘alternative facts’ and industry-funded science denialism have run amok.”

But at least Smith is honest about his intentions:

Smith acknowledged at the Heartland conference that the House Science Committee is “now a tool to advance his political agenda rather than a forum to examine important issues facing the U.S. research community,” Science magazine’s Jeffrey Mervis reported.

It’s wonderful that you can school scientists in the Scientific Method while simultaneously advancing your own Political Agenda. It’s true efficiency of form.

[bobot]

Republican politicians and science, they go together like mustard and jelly.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Gyrate

This sounds vaguely familiar…

Nitpick: that sequence is actually from Yes Prime Minister (A Victory for Democracy).

[CalMeacham]

According to three pieces in today’s Huffington Post, the Trump administration’s stand on Global Warming is opposed by
The American Public

A Majority Of Americans Disagree With Trump’s Hard-Line Stances On Climate...

The Pope

Vatican Urges Trump To Reconsider Climate Change Position

and even Exxon-Mobil, who thinks we should stick with the Paris Climate Agreement:

Exxon Mobil Urged White House To Stick With Paris Climate Accord

[Slash1972]

@Bryan_Ekers

It’s a potentially interesting model for regulation - you can’t pass any new laws unless you can explain why you didn’t pass them sooner

I don’t think it’s an interesting model for regulation. But it is an interesting discussion on the purpose of any new regulations and the timeliness of their promulgation and/or roll-back.

[CalMeacham]

Climate Change-Deniers 'Spam' Thousands Of Teachers With Anti-Global Warming...

One of America’s most prominent climate-denying groups, galvanized by the Trump administration listening to their claims, has set it sights on a new target: teachers.
The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that’s become one of the loudest voices when it comes to climate denial, has sent more than 25,000 science teachers across the country a package of material it hopes they’ll use in the classroom, according to a report from PBS Frontline. Alongside a note from Lennie Jarratt, the group’s project manager for transforming education, the package contains a book called Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming and a 10-minute video about using their guidance.
“I’m writing to ask you to consider the possibility that the science in fact is not ‘settled,’” Jarratt says in the memo. “If that’s the case, then students would be better served by letting them know a vibrant debate is taking place among scientists on how big the human impact on climate is, and whether or not we should be worried about it.”