Not the reality-based community

[lederhosen]

Via Pharyngula, Mooney excerpts 'Rebel-in-Chief', which by my understanding is attempting to present W. in a good light. Remember that when you read this paragraph:

The president later provoked worldwide protests when he formally withdrew the United States from the Kyoto global warming treaty. The environmental lobby in this country fumed, but Bush didn't flinch. The treaty had never been ratified and stood little chance of winning Senate approval. Though he didn't say so publicly, Bush is a dissenter on the theory of global warming. To the extent it's a problem, Bush believes it can be solved by technology. He avidly read Michael Crichton's 2004 novel State of Fear, whose villain falsifies scientific studies to justify draconian steps to curb global warming. Crichton himself has studied the issue extensively and concluded that global warming is an unproven theory and that the threat is vastly overstated. Early in 2005, political adviser Karl Rove arranged for Crichton to meet with Bush at the White House. They talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement. The visit was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more.

In case anybody's been fortunate enough to forget it, John Birmingham reviewed State of Fear here. (Yes, it's the one where loonie environmentalists kill people by pressing blue-ringed octopuses into their armpits.) Less favourable commentary on the book's scientific 'merits' here. (BTW, next time I have a theory too shoddy to survive peer-reviewed publication, I'm going to make it into a bestselling novel just like Crichton and Dan Brown.)

But hell, why stop with climate? Crichton's the guy who brought us Jurassic Park and ER. Just imagine how much more advice he could give George W... or perhaps he already has.

Comments

Flame.

[xenex.livejournal.com]

State of Fear, the Bible... so the US President likes forming policy around fiction!

[elynne.livejournal.com]

..... oh for fuck's sake.

[djfiggy.livejournal.com]

If I see a plan in the near future to send a bunch of velociraptors, triceratops and tyrannosaurus rex on rampages near suspected al Qaeda hideouts, I will no longer be surprised.

[culfinriel.livejournal.com]

They won't tell you, you know. It'll be a secret project under some byzantine interpretation of some arcane presidential power that congress never actually authorized. So you won't see a plan. You'll just hear really deep booms and see the water rippling in your glass. And by the time you look in the side-mirror, it'll be too late *squish**crunch*.

[djfiggy.livejournal.com]

Chances are, they'll fail to clone the dinosaurs, and fall back on plan B: cloning Richard Nixon

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

One Copy of "State of Fear", free to good home, post paid, even!

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Gaak!

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

Wimp. Make ya a deal, Art; I'll read it first if you promise to read it when you get it.