Distraction watch: Big speech, tiny minds!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2012

The guild explains the guild: Back in November, Michael Barbaro hit the front page of the New York Times with a detailed, thoughtful report about Mitt Romney’s hair style.

On Saturday, he reported on Romney’s “major policy speech” about the economy. Or rather, he reported about all the empty seats he was able to see in Detriot's Ford Field, where Romney gave this address. Like many of his colleagues, the empty young fellow had been badly distracted by all those unused seats.

In his non-report news report on the speech, Barbaro ignored what Romney said and explained why this widespread distraction occurred.

First, the background. At the start of his report, Barbaro rattled the basic events of the day. Romney was giving a major address. But here’s how reporters reacted:
BARBARO (2/25/12): Mitt Romney set out on Friday to deliver a sweeping and sober vision for how to revive the American economy in a major policy speech here. In the end, he delivered something else as well: an unintended lesson about how poor visuals and errant words can derail a candidate's message in this modern political news culture.

In an unusual choice, Mr. Romney gave his speech inside Ford Field, a cavernous indoor football stadium with 65,000 seats.

To the television audience, it appeared perfectly normal. Mr. Romney could be seen standing at a lectern in front of a backdrop that had the logo of the Detroit Economic Club, the event's host. And when the stadium audience of about 1,200 people clapped, they filled the screen as cameras panned across them.

But in the age of Twitter and the Internet, that is not all that matters.


Before Mr. Romney had uttered a word, reporters began posting pictures online showing the stadium from every available angle—almost empty, except for the chairs set up on the field itself, near the 20-yard line.
The age of Twitter made them do it! Somehow, the age of Twitter explained the way the reporters stampeded, posting pictures online which showed the stadium from every available angle. “Row after row of barren blue seats across the giant stadium made the crowd seem minuscule,” Barbaro wrote as he continued. “Through the rapid-fire, reality-reshaping powers of the Web, a storyline for the day began to take hold that undercut and detracted from Mr. Romney's words: big speech, tiny crowd.”

Big speech, tiny crowd? Folk like this are easily mocked. At any rate, the reality-reshaping powers of the Web created a storyline for the day! This is the way these pitiful children explain their own disorders.

What really explains the way the children began posting all those photos? As he continued, silly boy Barbaro let the cat out of the bag. A mordant laugh escaped our lips as we pondered his scribbles:
BARBARO: Ordinarily, such imagery might be overwhelmed by the news of the day: a highly anticipated, substantive address packed with previously unknown details. Mr. Romney called for a 20 percent cut in income taxes; handing control of federal welfare programs to the states; and creating private sector competition for Medicare services.

But the Romney campaign had leaked most of the speech's contents several days ago, leaving members of the news media with little to focus on—except, of course, the scene itself.
"Of course!" It was the fault of the Romney campaign! They had leaked most of the content the day before! There was nothing left for the children to do but to gaze all about the venue!

In this passage, Barbaro tells you a secret: The empty minds of the modern-day “press corps” can’t focus on even the biggest issues for more than one day. Presumably, Romney’s proposals for the economy represent the most important part of his campaign. But in a nation where very few people understand anything about any of this, these silly children can’t think of a way to wrote two reports on this topic.

Only naturally, their attention wandered.

People, Twitter made them do it! That and the reality-shaping powers of the Web! Plus it was the Romney camp’s fault! Of course, the children have always been good at this skill—the skill known as making excuses.

The dog on the roof of the car ate their homework! Barbaro typed a brilliant text, a text which explains your world.

Please read all the way to the end: Barbaro went on and on with endless streams of irrelevant drivel. By the time you were done, you knew that Candidate Obama gave a speech in Boise to 14,000 people.

You still didn't know what Romney had said in his major address.

35 comments:

  1. well, yeah, except................ um, so what else was new, in mr. romney's speech, a speech that not only was given to the press the day before, but contained no new, breathtaking insights by the candidate himself? um, nothing.

    in fact, give me the right hairstyle, and i could be mitt romney, giving a speech on the economy, as could you, or anyone else who's paid attention these past few months. heck, make it a "family game night" game, fun for the entire family! ok, except maybe for the dog. hey, just kidding!

    but serially bob, that empty stadium actually was an important feature, whether or not you recognize it. it spoke to mr. romney's managerial skills, or lack of. since the substance of his speech was already known (and known, and known, ad infinitum), it wasn't entirely unreasonable for the news folk types to also pay attention to the visuals, and what, if anything, they might say about the candidate's bona fides.

    in this case, they said mr. romney's management skills ain't all that. important thing to know, about a guy running for president, i think.

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    Replies
    1. The substance of his speech (his economic proposals) is not already known by voters. The journalists are actively keeping their readers in the dark about policy.

      This post is written as if the most important thing is to keep the insider press corps interested, and it seems that their interests lie in trivia.

      "in fact, give me the right hairstyle, and i could be mitt romney," is an empty, empty perspective.

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    2. "the empty stadium is an important feature". good god.

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    3. "...it wasn't entirely unreasonable for the news folk types to also pay attention to the visuals..."

      A key here, is your "also."

      The press don't "also" pay attention to idiotic nonsense like stadium capacity, as a simple aside to their main role of giving us information and context about the policy proposals.

      QUITE THE CONTRARY!

      The idiotic nonsense is the main feature. And even there, we are typically deprived of context, including in this case. Hilariously you think you have learned something about Romney's management skills. Well that is what the novel says, but you are no critical reader.

      Meanwhile, your "also."

      If we really wanted to know a lot about Romney's management skills, we would perhaps pay attention to his business career.

      For myself, I couldn't care less about this as an indicator of his merit as a candidate, but it seems obvious on the face of things that you (and the novelists you defend) must be very wrong indeed -- Romney's business success hardly points to a man who is a managerial failure.

      So, "also?"

      There is very little "also" there. The reporting on the candidates' policies is very weak. Just as with the sideshow material you defend, context is drained away or invented.

      The mis- dis- and un-informed voters remain ignorant. And the press role -- not just in failing to correct this situation, but in causing it to begin with -- is as unexamined as ever.

      But you're happy with it?

      Jesus wept.

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    4. You are lying, just lying. What needed to be reported was the content of Romney's speech which was critically important. But liars and haters always want to keep voters ignorant.

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    5. "If we really wanted to know a lot about Romney's management skills, we would perhaps pay attention to his business career. "

      It's better to glean it from events that give us absolutely no indication of it, like "the visuals" how many stadium seats are empty. Jesus did weep, for sure.

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  2. Never thought I'd find myself defending the miserable American press corps, and if the Times still had a a Society Page, it would be the ideal domicile for its political reporters (not mention Mo and Gail), but the sheer inanity of the Republican primary campaign, the patent absurdity of the policy proposals, the preposterous views of the candidates on any number of questions of this life, has made of this contest a stupefying farce, albeit a terrifying one.

    How should a a reporter go about covering this nonsense "seriously"? Simply record Romney's or Santorum's or Gingrich's or Paul's latest absurdities without comment? Take upon himself to explain (followed, of course, by right-wing howls of "liberal bias") how preposterous there ideas area, based on empirical reality and what we know about economics, climate society, evolution, human sexuality, etc.? And how often does our ideal reporter explain reality? Every time one of these idiots opens my mouth? Every other time? Every third time?

    Faced with epistemological quandary, it's hardly a wonder they report on empty seats.

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    Replies
    1. Are the reporters tired of covering this seriously before they have even started? I see little evidence of the attempt.

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    2. Anon 1, you answered your own question:

      How should a a reporter go about covering this nonsense "seriously"?

      Take upon himself to explain (followed, of course, by right-wing howls of "liberal bias") how preposterous there ideas area, based on empirical reality and what we know about economics, climate society, evolution, human sexuality, etc.


      I'd say that was about right. That's what Bob has endlessly been advocating. Who cares if the stadium was mostly empty? (If it had been full, that'd be real news!)

      And how often does our ideal reporter explain reality? Every time one of these idiots opens [his] mouth?

      Yup. Every time. And if it becomes a pattern of lying and misrepresenting basic facts, write about that too. That's what it means to be a journalist.

      From Wikipedia:

      According to The Elements of Journalism, a book by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, there are nine elements of journalism.[3] In order for a journalist to fulfill their duty of providing the people with the information, they need to be free and self-governing. They must follow these guidelines:

      Journalism's first obligation is to tell the truth.
      Its first loyalty is to the citizens.
      Its essence is discipline of verification.
      Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
      It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
      It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
      It must strive to make the news significant, interesting, and relevant.
      It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
      Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.

      In the April 2007 edition of the book,[4] they added the last element, the rights and responsibilities of citizens to make it a total of ten elements of journalism.

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    3. If reporters had been covering this stuff seriously all along, the Republican Party would not have reached this point. This is what happens after a couple of decades with no checks placed on your behavior, no consequences for your worst excesses, no one to point out you are losing your grip. It's Lord of the Flies, with the Republicans as Jack. I wish I could say the Democrats were Ralph, but they aren't. They're Piggy.

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    4. I read Romney's speech and found it important and necessary to introduce to voters but prejudiced haters do not want me to know anything of a candidate they want me to hate.

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    5. "how preposterous there ideas area, based on empirical reality and what we know about economics, climate society, evolution, human sexuality, etc.?"

      What we know about what the "empirical reality" shows about ideal public policy as it relates to each of those areas is precious little.

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  3. Mr. Romney called for a 20 percent cut in income taxes; handing control of federal welfare programs to the states; and creating private sector competition for Medicare services.

    This is the substance Barbaro et. al. don't want to deal with. We cannot afford yet

    1) MORE tax cutting, especially given the current deficit and debt problems (eliminating the Bush tax cuts alone would bring back between $3-4 trillion to the economy over 10 years!);
    2) many states can barely stay afloat as it is, so what remains of "welfare programs" should remain federalized;
    3) and we have long had "private sector competition" for Medicare, which is, despite its problems, one of the most cost effective health insurance programs in this country.

    Romney's plans would explode the deficit in the short term and have the effect of increasing the cost of health care in the long term. In other words, his plans are disastrous. But we cannot get the media even to talk about them, let alone assess them. As it was with Reagan, HW Bush, Dole, and then W and McCain, so now with Romney. It's really astonishing when you think of it: the GOP frontrunner has dove into the economic and intellectual abyss.

    But

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  4. Mitt Romney's (and the GOP in general) economic proposals are HORRIBLE, a night mare. They have an absolute jihad against Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, unions, the post office or any social welfare programs. Romney wants to gut Medicare even more and hand what's left of Medicare to private enterprise to foster competition to lower prices?!? Private insurance companies are one of the big causes and drivers of skyrocketing health care costs in this country. Dear lord, I hope that Romney and/or the other crazed GOP right wingers never become president.

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  5. But of course it was Obama who saw the phony debt ceiling crisis as a great opportunity to cut social spending, apparently including SS and Medicare. And of course it was Obama who appointed a "debt commission" which took money from Pete Peterson, and whose conclusions were pre-determined, to the extent the two chairs (a Democratic investment banker and a right-wing Republican) could agree on terms (nobody else could).

    Which simply points to the fact that American political campaigns are vacuous, that politics is theaters. Accurate reporting of what the campaigns are saying is meaningless if the media doesn't get, and hasn't gotten, the larger narrative correct.

    Besides, anybody who doesn't know what Mitt Romney is about by now, will never know. Our disease much runs much deeper.

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  6. I agree with cpinva, in a way, about bad campaign management. It's not that the speech actually had bad visuals. As the Times points out, "To the television audience, it appeared perfectly normal." However, what Romney's campaign did wrong was to do something that the media could mis-represent as being a blunder.

    The same was true of Al Gore. What he did wrong was to make normal statements and take normal actions that the media could misrepresent as damning.

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    Replies
    1. "What he did wrong was to make normal statements and take normal actions."

      Can you hear yourself?

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    2. "...what Romney's campaign did wrong was to do something that the media could mis-represent as being a blunder. The same was true of Al Gore."

      The media's capacity to mis-represent "normal statements" and "normal actions" is seemingly limitless. Just as the only sure way to keep your computer virus-free is to keep it in a sealed vault with no external connections, the only way to keep the media from possibly misrepresenting things is to avoid all contact with them. Since doing that is impossible in this day and age if one wants to run for elected office, what is a politician supposed to do?

      But I'm glad to see you agree that Al Gore was subjected to appallingly bad, biased media coverage.

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    3. Wow. No. Bob's written about this many times: once the snark narrative had cemented and hardened against Al Gore, there wasn't ANYTHING he could say, ANYTHING he could do, ANY visual or clever campaign management that could keep the wilding press from twisting and turning it to fit the story -- that he was a hapless, lying, bumbling, cunning stiff. And when the media couldn't find something to twist, they'd simply make something up! (love canal, invented the internet, love story, etc.) The point is, once the media has made up its mind, you're screwed.

      I wouldn't vote for Romney on a dare, but not because of the "dog on the roof" story or this silly Ford stadium kerfuffle, or his awkward quotes about not being concerned about the very poor. It's because of paragraphs like these, which I would love to see dissected with the apparent brio of a speech setting:

      "Mr. Romney called for a 20 percent cut in income taxes; handing control of federal welfare programs to the states; and creating private sector competition for Medicare services." I mean, wow.

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    4. The narrative would switch to "phony" the moment Romney attempted to conceal how successful he is.

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  7. At least he didn't have to PAY people to attend and wear white coats like they were doctors or something.

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  8. Have at it, Howlers:

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/this-tribal-nation/

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  9. Re: Krugman's column: Chris Mooney notes that the more science knowledge and education people have, the more likely they are to be skeptical about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. From that fact, one might conclude that there are valid reasons to be skeptical. However, Mooney has decided that there are no valid reasons to be skeptical. Note that Mooney isn't a scientist, so his certainty is based on faith in others. Anyhow, Mooney then concludes that mental aberration must be the explanation.

    In reality, there are good reasons to be uncertain about the exact nature of global warming. For those who maintain an open mind on AGW, I commend to you a slideshow presented by a prominent MIT climatologist. It's a classic.

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    Replies
    1. Lindzen certainly is an interesting figure, an intelligent man who relishes being a contrarian. However, I wonder how much stock should be put in someone who doesn't believe smoking is related to lung cancer?

      http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2001/07/22/the-truth-about-global-warming.print.html

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    2. "the more science knowledge and education people have, the more likely they are to be skeptical about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming"

      Uh, you left out a word -- on purpose, one would guess. The word is "Republican."

      I fixed it for you:

      "Better-educated Republicans were more skeptical of modern climate science."

      Also, this group, "better-educated Republicans," (to which you claim proud membership?) showed a stronger increase in the nutso belief that "President Obama is a Muslim" during the study period than did the less-educated.

      These data don't point toward the conclusion that "there are valid reasons" to believe Obama is a Muslim, obviously. Logic demands that they are equally invalid in suggesting Republican climate skepticism is valid.

      Rather what the data suggest is the great power of indoctrination.

      That you were willing to elide the word "Republican" suggests something about you as well...

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    3. Swan, I was describing the actual study, which says,

      On the whole, the most scientifically literate and numerate subjects were slightly less likely, not more, to see climate change as a serious threat than the least scientifically literate and numerate ones.

      See http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1871503&http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1871503

      The word "Republican" doesn't appear in the abstract of the actual study.

      hardindr -- that Daily Beast article says, "[Lindzen will] even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking."

      Note that it nowhere says that Lindzen doesn't believe smoking is related to lung cancer. Furthermore, the Beast doesn't tell the reader what Lindzen actually said, so there's no way to evaluate Lindzen's position. E.g., if Lindzen said that the relation of lung cancer to 2nd hand smoke is weak, he'd be correct.

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    4. What David in Cal doesn't say is that the authors of this paper consider it a "tragedy" that citizens don't converge around the best scientific evidence available which, in this case, confirms the facts of global warming. And the whole point of the paper is to find ways to better communicate the best science of lay public.

      They note, additionally, that "More importantly, greater scientific literacy and numeracy were associated with greater cultural polarization: Respondents predisposed by their values to dismiss climate change evidence became more dismissive, and those predisposed by their values to credit such evidence more concerned, as science literacy and numeracy increased."

      In other words, among the better educated, there was more political polarization, so the slight association between higher levels of education and global warming skepticism actually correlates with prior right-wing beliefs, not higher level of education.

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    5. David-in-CA misleads the way, as always.

      We are pointed to a Krugman column, with a claim about *Republicans* and the relationship between their education and their level of (dis)belief in anthropogenic global warming. This claim Krugman links (through Digby) back to a piece at AlterNet by Chris Mooney.

      Where is Mooney getting his claim? From a graph in a Pew Research study published in 2008.

      The claim is indeed explicitly about Republicans. (It turns out, per the Pew report, that unlike Republicans, among Democrats, increased education was associated with increased acceptance of the scientific consensus.)

      You can find the Pew study graph about halfway down the page at http://www.people-press.org/2008/05/08/a-deeper-partisan-divide-over-global-warming/

      David-in-CA covers his tracks by bringing in a different study, one which does not track Democrats versus Republicans.

      This study, though also mentioned by Mooney, is not the source of the claim we see in Krugman, Digby and Mooney's columns -- the claim that "Better-educated Republicans were more skeptical of modern climate science."

      I didn't initially note, but should now, that David-in-CA has also misrepresented both Mooney and the Yale study he prefers to source:

      Mooney doesn't tell us "the more science knowledge and education people have, the more likely they are to be skeptical about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming" -- he explicitly notes that this view is associated with Republicans, basing that claim on the Pew Research study among others -- go ahead, read his article at http://www.alternet.org/story/154252/the_republican_brain%3A_why_even_educated_conservatives_deny_science_--_and_reality/?page=entire

      To give you a clue David-in-CA is misrepresenting Mooney, look to the title of Mooney's piece: "The Republican Brain: Why Even Educated Conservatives Deny Science -- and Reality."

      David-in-CA also mischaracterizes the Yale study whose abstract he links to. What did the paper think was its important result? "More importantly, greater scientific literacy and numeracy were associated with greater cultural polarization: Respondents predisposed by their values to dismiss climate change evidence became more dismissive, and those predisposed by their values to credit such evidence more concerned, as science literacy and numeracy increased."

      Some people are "predisposed by their values to dismiss climate change evidence." Some are "predisposed to credit such evidence."

      This is not a study that suggests skepticism about the anthropogenic sources of global warming has merit. Not at all.

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    6. DinC:

      Please see this passage from James Hansen's book, Storms of My Grandchildren who reports that Linzden told him he does not believe smoking is related to lung cancer (page 15). It is cut off, but if you don't believe me check it out at your local library:

      http://books.google.com/books?id=mwva_7dPyAcC&q=lindzen#v=snippet&q=lindzen&f=false

      I considered asking Lindzen if he still believed there was no connection between smoking and lung cancer. He had been a witness for tobacco companies decades earlier, questioning the reliability of statistical connections between smoking and health problems. But I decided that would be too confrontational. When I met him at a later conference, I did ask that question, and was surprised by his response: He began rattling off all the problems with the date relating smoking to helath problems, which was closely analagous to his views of climate data.

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    7. hardindr, your quote doesn't say that Lindzen does not believe smoking is related to lung cancer. It merely says that he thinks there are problems with the data.

      BTW note Hansen's feeble excuse for not asking whether Lindzen still believed there was no connection between smoking and lung cancer. Hansen says it would have been "too confrontational" to ask Lindzen that question. I wonder if Hansen's real reason for not asking that direct question is that Lindzen would have simply answered that he now believes that there is connection. Then Hansen wouldn't have been able to smear Lindzen on this issue.

      BTW Hansen asserts that Lindzen once said he believed there was no connection between smoking and lung cancer. I wonder if that's fully accurate. As I recall those days, the scientists supporting the cigarette companies generally said the relationship wasn't adequately proved, not that they believed there was no relationship.

      Incidentally, since we're attacking scientists for their past work, consider Hansen's role in global cooling alarmism:

      NASA scientist James E. Hansen, who has publicly criticized the Bush administration for dragging its feet on climate change and labeled skeptics of man-made global warming as distracting “court jesters,” appears in a 1971 Washington Post article that warns of an impending ice age within 50 years.

      “U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming,” blares the headline of the July 9, 1971, article, which cautions readers that the world “could be as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age, a leading atmospheric scientist predicts.”

      The scientist was S.I.Rasool, a colleague of Mr. Hansen’s at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The article goes on to say that Mr. Rasool came to his chilling conclusions by resorting in part to a new computer program developed by Mr. Hansen that studied clouds above Venus.

      http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/sep/19/inside-the-beltway-69748548/

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    8. "As I recall those days, the scientists supporting the cigarette companies generally said the relationship wasn't adequately proved, not that they believed there was no relationship."

      Does that scenario remind you of anything, DinC?

      The climate change arguments all come down to the question: are we going to grow up and treat the earth like a closed system, or are we going to close our eyes and pretend we are cowboys riding on the big frontier?

      This is a simple pollution issue. Hey, DinC, do you believe your climate skeptics as much as the tobacco company execs believed their testifying scientists?

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  10. David in C, we know the Earth has been able to maintain a state of equilibrium with the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
    It is the point when the Earth fails to compensate for the huge amounts of CO2 humans are producing that concerns climatologists, and most think that point is just around the corner.
    Your tactics of debate seem to be, "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."

    Romney's "Major Policy Speech" was about as major as the Old Man's "Major Award", (the leg lamp) from 'A Christmas Story.'

    ReplyDelete
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