According to my brother, because arson was involved, the CA fires prove Global warming is a hoax.

[devilgrrl]

:wtf:

That's right folks, my brother the OC living, MBA/Finance, WorldNutDaily enthusiast believes that to be the case.

I asked him if he heard about what was going on in Atlanta with the drought - he said he hadn't - it appears that his two prime sources of news (the LA Times and Yahoo) haven't reported it yet. However, both did report that arsonists (blackwater) started some of the brush fires - which of course means global warming isn't really happening - what more proof do you need?

I just thought I'd share that nugget of wisdom because there's probably too many more that feel the same way. :eyes:

[gateley]

1. You obviously got the brains in the family. nt

[devilgrrl]

3. His fiance is pretty with it

She does a decent job balancing his stupidity.

[asjr]

2. My dear, there is at least one in every family.

[rucky]

4. To put it in terms he can understand.

Fires need dried-up shit to burn.

Global warming is drying shit up.

[RogueBandit]

7. Too cute...

I like it. Gave me a good chuckle, and I so desperately needed that!

[devilgrrl]

9. That's what I said...

"So, the fact that it hasn't rained in the past year played no part????"

Then he went on to rattle off state fire statistics, claiming that there were worse fires back at the turn of the last century, etc...

On fridays 'Real Time with Bill Maher' he showed a map of the burn areas that were twice to three times larger than normal.

He's full shit - I told my niece that too.

[silverweb]

5. He would get along great with my brother...

...the "Objectivist" and "Libertarian," who said the 2003 fires were because of "too many trees" and "everything should be privately owned and paved over."

He shares Inhofe's notion that global warming is a "hoax" and believes the motivation is so that "eco-terrorists" can just make money off the naive.

Sounds like they'd get along great!

[Odin2005]

21. I have never met a Libertarian who was not a global warming denialialist.

They all seem to think the Global Warming is a leftist plot to scare people into the hands of "evil big government." :eyes:

[silverweb]

22. Exactly.

Their arguments are full of contradictions, too, and any attempt to question these is met with belligerence.

I quit participating in such "discussions" quite some time ago because I got tired of the ad hominem attacks. The last time I declined to "debate," I was called names and threatened with physical violence.

Now that's the hallmark of a rational philosophy, isn't it? :eyes:

[Canuckistanian]

6. So, it's beyond his comprehension that BOTH could be involved?

That's the problem with so many conservatives. The universe is an either/or, black/white place.

[immoderate]

10. As my Philosophy teacher said to me when I spouted some equally...

ignorant theory, "You forgot the doctrine of multiple causalities."

Oh.

--IMM

[Canuckistanian]

18. Sounds like a "False Dilemma"

A False Dilemma is a fallacy in which a person uses the following pattern of "reasoning":

1. Either claim X is true or claim Y is true (when X and Y could both be false).
2. Claim Y is false.
3. Therefore claim X is true.


http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/false-dilemma.html

[immoderate]

20. That may be what the OP's brother meant.

I was talking about the fact that there could multiple contributing factors causing the fires.

The classic False Dilemma for those of us who opposed the Iraq war was, "Would you rather have Saddam Hussein dropping nukes on you?"

--IMM

[gratuitous]

8. Oh yeah, well tell your brother

That I just drew the three of spades off this deck of cards, so obviously that means global climate change is REAL.

One dumbass assertion deserves another.

[greyshade]

11. My former boss told me Climate Change wasn't real

because two Russian scientists published a dissenting paper. Thank goodness we have people like this to save us from the overwhelming evidence!

[rox63]

12. Tell him about the severe drought happening in Australia

It's much worse there than in Atlanta.

[devilgrrl]

16. Oh, but the LA Times and Yahoo news isn't talking about it, so it must not be happening.

:sarcasm:

[niyad]

13. point out to him that only a couple of the 24 fires are related to arson--what does he think

is responsible for the other 20+

[devilgrrl]

14. It was one of those situations were you can't argue with the person...

you know what I mean?

[orleans]

15. i saw an interview with the firefighters and this top guy said that

EVERY FIREFIGHTER BELIEVES GLOBAL WARMING IS TO BLAME for all these fires they have had over the last several years.

it was on 60 minutes: read the transcript of the show
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/18/60minutes/main3380176.shtml

this was from alternet

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/65883/

Our Make-Believer in Chief loves firefighters. Remember? Right after 9/11, do you recall how he said he "could hear" them?

Well, well, well, can you hear them now, W? Because last night on 60 Minutes they were loud and clear. And you know what they were saying?

Tom Boatner, who after 30 years on the fire line, is now the chief of fire operations for the federal government, said this:


"We got records going back to 1960 of the acres burned in America. So, that's 47 fire seasons. Seven of the 10 busiest fire seasons have been since 1999."

Why would that be? Too many matches? Nah. Squirrels and chipmunks becoming arsonists? Absurd! Too much hot air emanating from D.C.? Maybe.

Tom Swetnam, one of the world's leading fire ecologists:


"As the spring is arriving earlier because of warming conditions, the snow on these high mountain areas is melting and running off. So the logs and the branches and the tree needles all can dry out more quickly and have a longer time period to be dry. And so there's a longer time period and opportunity for fires to start. <...> The spring comes earlier, so the fire season is just longer. <...> The fire season in the last 15 years or so has increased more than two months over the whole Western U.S. So actually 78 days of average longer fire season in the last 15 years compared to the previous 15 or 20 years."

And what would be the reason for that phenomenon?


Swetnam says that climate change -- global warming -- has increased temperatures in the West about one degree and that has caused four times more fires. Swetnam and his colleagues published those findings in the journal "Science," and the world's leading researchers on climate change have endorsed their conclusions.

No way! One teensy weensy degree can do all that? But W and his buds don't believe in science. Not even one degree of it!

And global warming? That's just some silly story made up by Al Gore. And who's gonna believe him?

But you believe in firefighters, don't you, W?


"You know, there are a lot of people who don't believe in climate change," <60 Minutes correspondent Scott> Pelley remarks.


"You won't find them on the fire line in the American West anymore," Tom Boatner says. "'Cause we've had climate change beat into us over the last ten or fifteen years. We know what we're seeing, and we're dealing with a period of climate, in terms of temperature and humidity and drought that's different than anything people have seen in our lifetimes."

Maybe he can convince W and his pals to have a little faith in his firefighting heroes. And W, isn't that what you keeps you going? Faith?

Or is that make-believe, too?

p.s. he hasn't heard of the drought in GA because the gop hasn't found a way to spin it or blame it on some obscure clinton business

[DefenseLawyer]

17. And don't forget, the only way to stop forest fires is...

LOGGING!!!!

[verse18]

19. Sounds like your brother is an idiot.