Really?

While speaking to Rush Limbaugh yesterday, presidential candidate and former Senator Rick Santorum called global warming “patently absurd” and “junk science.” In addition, Santorum said that climate change science was simply a “beautifully concocted scheme” to allow the “government to come in and regulate your life some more.” In 2006, Santorum claimed that “scientists have not decisively concluded” that climate change is real and received a zero percent score from Republicans for Environmental Protection.

Now, I'm no conspiracy freak, but you can't tell me that reading the news - whether it was severe droughts in Russia last year that killed hundreds, the rash of wildfires that have consumed hundreds of thousands of acres in the US alone over the past five years, the rash of tornadoes this summer (and summer is hardly here) that have killed hundreds, the retreating glaciers that we've known about for years . . . this type of ignorance is just appalling.

It reminds me of something I read in a Stephen King book, Thinner, years ago.  In a scene where the protagonist is trying to convince another character that there is something mysterious - and rather unbelievable going on - the main character offers this example for why he actually believes the main character: I was in a drug store once waiting for a prescription.  While there, I saw an incredibly obese man lumber in.  He saw one of those machines that - for a quarter - can tell you your weight.  He put the quarter in and stepped on it.  The meter immediately shot all the way to the top.  The man just shook his head and said, "Fucking thing is broken" and lumbered back out.

Santorum is simply in denial.  Plus, I don't see why caring about the environment - especially what kind of world we will leave our children - is so liberal and morally wrong.

But, hey, he was on the Rush Limbaugh show.  I think that fits the definition of 'patently absurd' better than just about any thing.