Neither did I. But the Teabaggers there sure do.
The new city park in Corning, the creation of a county trails coordinator, and the appointment of two members to a non-profit economic planning agency were all fodder for Tea Party members Tuesday to accuse the Tehama County Board of Supervisors of pushing forward a 20-year-old non-binding United Nations sustainability plan.Sixty years ago, their grandparents in the John Birch Society were railing against the flouridation of drinking water as being some sort of Commie Plot. Without doing any research, I'll bet that the Wingers in the `50s thought the same thing of polio vaccine, because Real `Murricans Would Rather Die in an Iron Lung Than Take a Commie Vaccine.
Tom Mohler, a regular attendee of the board meetings, said Agenda 21 has been pushed in America for decades, but few people see it. ... Another Tea Party member told the board he wanted it on the record that he opposed creating a Tehama County Trails and Open Space Coordinator as it continued to push forward Agenda 21.
Morons.
Which brings me to Marco Rubio. He recently told GQ magazine that the age of the planet was "one of life's great mysteries."
Except that it is not. Geologists have estimated the age of the Earth at 4.5 billion years for a long time, probably longer than Rubio has been wasting oxygen. It is only a "mystery" for a gutless politician who is trying to pander to his base voters, people who put theology over things like "facts" and "evidence", and he is trying to do it in a way that doesn't make him sound like a total buffoon.
Which he most assuredly is.
We have a lot of problems in this country to deal with. We are being held back from addressing them by imbeciles who refuse to acknowledge reality because a book of ancient fables tells them otherwise. Then there are the "truthiness" jackasses, the ones who believe in their gut feelings over things such as data* And then there are the truly evil ones in the extraction industries, who know that climate change is real, in the same way that the tobacco industry knew that their products cause cancer, only they fight the reality because they're making money.
We cannot fix the big problems in this land, hell, on this blue pixel in space, unless we are willing to do research, evaluate the data critically and then act on what the data is telling us.
There is a word for people who do not accept reality and who, instead, act on what they believe to be true.
Delusional.
It is high time that we ease those who refuse to accept reality out of positions where they can influence the course of public events.
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*They were predominant on the Right during the most recent election, when they were reassuring each other that Rmoney would win in a huge landslide, when he only got 47% of the vote.
As a post script, please allow me to toss in Samuel Johnson's wonderful observation:
ReplyDelete"Nature is a hanging judge."
See y'all at the gallows. Or the next dustbowl. Or the next hurricane.
Crankily yours,
The New York Crank
I am no fan of the modern Rebublican. The term Taliban suits them fine. None the less, I have watched the "hissy fit" over and over and I cannot see what the hubbub is about. He wasn't out of control, he was miffed, yes, as any puppeteer would be in his place, but as to what has been posted and blogged about, ....I'm at a loss to see.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see you mention Tehama County Ca. As a 59 year California native and Survivor of Tehama County for maybe 10 years please allow me to explain them a bit. Rural is an understatement. Ignorant and proud of it an accomplishment. For a celebration they run half wild stock down main street of the county seat. I worked a job where the other employees would turn off the light when I was in the bathroom and throw in firecrackers and that was accepted by the owners.
ReplyDeleteIt is Very Hot there in season and I think the heat at over 110 for 3 weeks at a time actually warps people. You can see kids in cars and stuff with a "slack jawed" look that carries over to adulthood.
One customer at our auto shop told me " it was air conditioning that brought all the weak people up here", as we fixed his AC system and sent him back out.
No Bircher theory would be too much for these people.
Speaking of which how come the Birchers aren't called John Birchers' anymore?
w3ski