Global Warming is Not a Big Truck, It's a Series of Tubes!

By: Lowell
Published On: 1/23/2008 7:19:42 AM

Remember when Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) talked about how the internet is not a "big truck" but a "series of tubes?"  Remember how much ridicule Stevens was (rightly) subjected to, like the YouTube video here?  

Well, now it looks like we have our own version of Ted Stevens right here in Virginia -- Del. Frank D. Hargrove Sr. (R-55) believes that global warming doesn't matter because...uh, "Virginia is a small dot on the map" and "[a]bout 8 million years ago, the glacier came right on my farm."  Apparently, the voluminous evidence collected by scientists that global warming is not only taking place, but that it's anthropogenic (man made) and leading to potential catastrophe, is less convincing to Hargrove than...uh...glaciers on his farm or whatever it is he believes.  And, apparently, it's not just Hargrove, because "After Hargrove spoke, the Republican-controlled Rules Committee voted along party lines to indefinitely delay a vote on the bill [to create a permanent commission to study climate change], effectively killing it."

Of course, this is the same Frank Hargrove who said that blacks should "get over" slavery, and who also says, charitably, about the Jews: "I don't know who killed Christ; I wasn't there."

Anyway, folks, this is YOUR Virginia Republican Party.  Abuser fees!  Massive budget deficits! Baby pesticides!  Chemical love canals for frat house playboys!  Gun show loopholes!  Anti-gay amendments!  And now, global warming deniers who won't even create a commission to study what we can do about it!  But just remember, you can't fit Virginia Republicans in a big truck.  Unfortunately for them, you CAN send their crazy words around on this "series of tubes" we're using now. :)

P.S. In some ways, this is even worse: "'I'm not really sure what Virginia can do on this issue,' House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith said."  You mean, things like this or this  or this or even this?

Comments



Who keeps re-electing this relic? (TheGreenMiles - 1/23/2008 9:53:14 AM)
Hargrove is ignorant on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin. Let's start with the biggest misstatement of fact -- the federal government is currently doing nothing about climate change. Not only has the Bush administration refused to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, its EPA has refused to grant a waiver to California so it can regulate automobile carbon emissions. That's why states like Kansas and Florida are moving aggressively on their own.

One thing that's not clear from the article - was Hargrove an eyewitness to this 8-million-year-old glacier?  



Funniest comment so far (Lowell - 1/23/2008 9:57:06 AM)
comes from "Meteor Blades" at Daily Kos.

Yep. Glacier came up on my farm ...8 million years ago and liked to scare the chick'ns somethin' fierce. But we lit a big bonfire and it went away.


Poor Old Man (Waldo Jaquith - 1/23/2008 10:07:09 PM)
Having seen Del. Hargrove in action around the General Assembly enough times now, I mostly just feel sorry for him. He's an old man. The world long ago passed him by. He moves slowly, he's terribly hard of hearing, and I get the sense he might be a little foggy these days. I can't bring myself to make fun of the guy. He's just too pitiable.


Well then why doesn't he retire? (Lowell - 1/23/2008 10:10:24 PM)
The thing is, however pitiable he is, the harm he's doing is real.  How about some pity for the millions of people and species that will die (or go extinct) because idiots like him refuse to do anything about global warming?  I care a lot more about them than I do about this doddering, bigoted, ignorant old fool.