Great Moments in Uninformed Outrage

The gargling sound you may have heard earlier today came from deep within the throat of Noel Sheppard, who’s yowling about Newsweek‘s belated discovery — twelve years after Ross Gelbspan wrote about it in Harper’s — that industry-funded global warming “skeptics” have muddied the debate over climate change. For some reason, Sheppard is stricken with disbelief that an article about hired goons doesn’t present the valuable insights of said goons with the appropriate degree of reverence.

What the fuck is wrong with these people? Asking S. Fred Singer or Richard Lindzen about the plausibility of climate change is like asking Ann Althouse about the judicial moderation of Samuel Alito.

For the truly masochistic readers in our midst, I can’t recommend highly enough the Newsbuster’s comment thread on this piece, which — with its speedy references to 1984, Galileo, Luddism, and Al Gore — would pretty much fill your standard Wingnut Debate Bingo card. For instance:

The crux of the matter is [global warming] is the center point now, of the liberal religion. It includes their saints (Algore), etc. With their mecca, so to speak, in Washington DC. They have a creed, an othodoxy and all things religious. Do not for a minute think that these kooks don’t take their religion seriously. They drive nails into trees to injure lumberman etc, and a different sect of their religion sets fire to labs where animals are routinely tested for medical benefits. Anyone (with any sense) who speaks against it is a heretic and deserves to be punished (in their opinion). Well, I for one suggest a Crusade against these rascals and out them for what they are ,and shout on every corner against their nuttiness.

Ah, yes. Nothing bespeaks sanity quite so much as some dude bellowing on the sidewalk about someone else’s “religion.”