cobwebs between the ears

this morning book tv played a talk by chris mooney, who wrote the republican war on science even before revelation of egregious antiscience actions of the bush administration like the ideological rewrite of a scientific report and override of a scientific opinion by nonscientist political appointees.

at the end of the q&a a biologist, who said he spent much of his career with the national science foundation, added that the reagan administration zeroed out the nsf's science education effort.

coincidentally, last night the pbs show now dealt with climate change and had footage of sen james inhofe (r-ok) claiming global warming is an environmentalist hoax, a phobic notion that, as far as i know, began with a writer named ronald bailey, who was supported by the cato institute and the inexplicably misnamed reason magazine, and who exhibited right-wing projection (in the psychological sense) in his claim that the environmental movement is a conspiracy to gain political power by terrifying the rest of us with urgent warnings of disaster.

if by now you haven't noticed who really has gained power by exploiting ignorance and using scare tactics, you need a louder alarm clock.