McCotter said,

“Remember, the people who talk about the melting of the glaciers and others — imagine if you were in a peninsula around 1,000 B.C. or so or earlier, and your name was Thor and you were out hunting mastodon. And you didn’t notice that the glaciers were melting and leaving the devastating flooding in its wake that became the Great Lakes in the state of Michigan. So what I think that what we have to do is go back in history and look at this and realize that the Earth has been here a long time. To take selective periods of time and say that somehow this proves that there’s a manmade global warming occurring is absolutely wrong.”

The scientifically literate among our readers will have taken note of a few things in this passage. First of all, there was no Ice Age in Michigan, or anywhere in North America, in 1,000 B.C. Not anywhere close to it. There were no people named Thor either, as Thor is the name of a Germanic god, believed in by ancients in Europe, not in North America. There once were mastodons, elephant-like creatures native to North America, living in Michigan, but they died out long before three thousand years ago. The Great Lakes were not created three thousand years ago. They are, as well, much older than Thaddeus McCotter claims.

In short, all the prehistorical details of Thaddeus McCotter’s parable about how global warming couldn’t possibly be true are wrong – “absolutely wrong”, as McCotter would put it.

McCotter is also wrong to assume that models of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming are based on temperature data from just a short period of time that has been arbitrarily selected. In fact, climatologists have come to their conclusions by looking at data from an extremely long period of time using multiple methods of calculating past climate conditions. One recent study concludes that the current rate of carbon emissions is likely to be greater than at any other time on the history of the Earth, directly contradicting McCotter’s assertion that the climate change taking place right now is typical and natural.

It’s bad enough that Thaddeus McCotter’s ignorance, both of science and of the history of his home state of Michigan, has been allowed to influence his policy decisions in the United States Congress. Tomorrow, McCotter will announce that he wants to take his ignorance to an even higher level: To the White House. McCotter will begin his 2012 presidential election tomorrow.

Those Americans who believe that their leaders should be well-informed, and not merely depend upon fanciful fables they come up with in their own minds, have a responsibility to take a stand and oppose the presidential campaign of Thaddeus McCotter. This bumper sticker is designed to help people do just that, reminding McCotter’s supporters that global warming is for real – and McCotter’s fables are not.

Tell Thaddeus McCotter – The Earth is getting Hotter.

Last year, Bachmann came to California too. Then, she was preaching in favor of Proposition 8, and discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Using circular arguments, Bachmann said that Proposition 8 must be a good idea, because many Californians voted for it, and whatever large numbers of people want must be a good and rational idea.

Was slavery a good idea? Was the Third Reich a good idea? They were popular ideas.

Michele Bachmann lacks depth in her ideas of right and wrong. She lacks historical depth. She lacks rational depth. She lacks depth of compassion.

California has more depth than Michele Bachmann, and that’s why, for the 2012 presidential campaign, California will vote against the Bachmann for President campaign.

Governor Christie wants public schools to get better by competing against charter schools, he says. What Christie doesn’t say is that he wants public schools to compete with one hand tied behind their backs. Christie wants some regulations to apply only to public schools, but not charter schools.

For instance, Blue Jersey points out, Chris Christie wants there to be a cap on the salary public school administrators, but wants charter schools to be exempt from that cap. Fiscal responsibility is all well and good for public schools, but terrible for charter schools, as Christie sees it. It looks more like a plan to suck the best administrators out of public schools into charter schools.

Bad plan, Christie. Sabotaging public schools is an attack on New Jersey’s communities. Though Governor Christie would gut New Jersey’s public schools, the current crop of adults in the state are educated enough to know better.

The decision by President Barack Obama to bring the United States into the civil war in Libya was made with just 24 hours of warning to the American people, on a Friday, with no time for citizens to express their opinions. The entry of the United States into war also took place without any congressional authorization. That makes the war plainly unconstitutional, as Congress, not the President, has the power to declare war.

In Albuquerque, protester Gary Lowe spoke out against the war, saying, “I think we should keep out of it and mind our own business. We can’t take care of the world’s problems. We can’t even take care of our own problems.”

Anti-war protester George Everett commented, “It’s too dangerous. A no-fly zone would lead to more violence.”

On Facebook, a new group is organizing opposition to American involvement to the war in Libya, while opposing the violence by Moammar Qaddafi as well. The group states, “Limited U.S. military engagement can lead to long, costly entanglements. Consider what the no fly zone over Iraq led to one of the most disastrous wars in American history. With record breaking budget deficits in the United States, Americans cannot financially afford to support another war. Uncertainties abound, yet President Barack Obama has rushed America into war in Libya without the constitutionally required congressional approval.”

Few from Montana will be able to make the long trip to Washington D.C. for the protest, but citizens of Montana can feel confident knowing that they have at least one U.S. Senator who is lodging a protest against the Patriot Act in their names. Speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Jon Tester stated his position on the Patriot Act quite clearly:

“Montanans sent me to the U.S. Senate to bring accountability to this body, to make responsible decisions, and to protect America and the freedoms we all enjoy. I took the oath of office to defend the Constitution.

Like REAL ID, the PATRIOT Act invades the privacy of law-abiding citizens. And it tramples on our Constitutional rights.”

Now it seems that Florida Governor Rick Scott has done the same. Scott has refused to accept federal dollars for a high speed rail line that would have connected the cities of Orlando and Tampa.

It’s an stupefying decision, costing Florida a large number of jobs and not saving any federal money at all. New York State has announced that it’s happy to take the money that would have gone to Florida.

Rick Scott has an ideological attachment to the inefficient automotive transportation system, an outdated arrangement that costs Floridians time and money as they sit, stuck in traffic, burning gasoline and polluting the atmosphere. State leaders are seeking an alternative arrangement that gets around Governor Scott’s blockade of the funding, but they now have less than a week to do so.

Finding Ulysses writes: “If you think about it, it makes perfect sense for a principled Republican to vote against the renewal of the Patriot Act. Republicans assert that they’re against big government, and the Patriot Act is the worst kind of big government program there is.”

If only more Republican politicians could follow that logic.

Why? It’s because Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is playing ideological games. Walker has refused to apply federal dollars to the portion of the high speed rail project that’s in Wisconsin, even though the project would boost business productivity in the northern Midwest, revitalizing the economy and thus helping to reduce the federal budget deficit.

No one’s claiming that there aren’t opportunities for spending cuts in the federal budget – cuts of military pork barrel programs that even the Pentagon says have no strategic value, for example. Scott Walker’s stubborn blockage of high speed rail in the Midwest isn’t an example of smart cutting. It’s an example of partisan posturing, and it’s putting Wisconsin communities at a dramatic disadvantage.

It’s no wonder that Wisconsin voters regret their decision to elect Scott Walker as Governor. Look out for a Wisconsin Against Walker bumper sticker near you – because Wisconsin needs better leadership.

Some people will assume that’s a bad thing, but if you look at the facts, it seems that Vermont’s godlessness serves it well. Vermont residents are among the most educated in all the USA. Vermont crime rates are among the lowest in the nation. Vermonters also feel more trust in their neighbors than people in other state. Whereas the level of stated trust of other people in the nation as a whole has declined to just 34 percent, the level of trust in other people among people living in Vermont is at 71 percent.

Maybe the rest of the nation ought to try going godless, as Vermont has done.

Now, as President of the United States, Barack Obama hasn’t done one thing to stop this Big Brother spying against Americans. He hasn’t even reformed it. George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping against Americans is continuing on under Barack Obama.

At least one American remembers this, and was there to confront Barack Obama when he arrived in Columbus, Ohio last week:

One sign on a sidewalk on a windy day for Barack Obama to see as he drives by in his limousine: Does it make a difference?

Well, it makes more of a difference than if no signs on the Bush-Obama spying were there at all.