Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck: Super Geniuses

With intellectual giants such as Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck leading and directing the right, one can easily see the disadvantage that this puts liberals at when it comes to the battle of ideas. The ease with which these powerful minds can penetrate the most difficult problems that face society is something to behold.
Most of us struggle with the difficulties that these complex questions present. Not so these right wing Titans of punditry.

On a daily basis listeners are privileged to hear just about every problem imaginable solved instantly with deep analyses that always reach the core of the matter. Rush is not using hyperbole when he tells his audience that he has "talent on loan from God".

What is the key to this ability, this talent?
Quite simply it comes down to the application of a severe, ultra right wing interpretation of the Bible to everything we can think of.

Is it any wonder that conservative Republican politicians repeat this wisdom word for word like a goddam parrot? As a liberal I can only say that if I had a Socrates, Plato or Aristotle telling me what to think, I would have no shame whatsoever in stealing their lines, and I would do so without the slightest fear that I might be saying something stupid. After all, it's Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

But who do we liberals have to guide us? Barbra Streisand? Shirley MacLaine? The guy who invented the Internet?
It's pathetic.

At no time has this mastery of logic and rational thinking been more evident than during the recent commentary following the two snow storms in the Washington/Baltimore area.

OK, I'm finished with the irony and sarcasm.

Have you heard what these jack-asses had to say?
Rush Limbaugh called the east coast blizzard the "nail in the coffin to the whole global warming thing" and asked: "Where's Al Gore?

On his Fox News show, Sean Hannity claimed that the recent spate of winter snow storms in the Washington, D.C. region clearly means that the planet isn’t warming. He then attacked Vice President Gore, calling his anti-global warming advocacy “hysterical”.

Glenn Beck said "Well, the snow is hammering Washington D.C. again. I believe God is just saying, "I got your global warming here, eh? You want a piece of global warming?"

The whole right wing world has followed the lead of their heroes, laughing at and ridiculing the very notion of global warming, claiming that the snow is proof that global warming is a fraud.

I love it when obnoxious jerks like these really go out on a limb and say things like this with such absolute certitude, when the risk of them being so badly wrong and looking like complete assholes is so high.

Let me see if I can explain how bad their reasoning is. They are using the technique of extrapolation.
Here's the dictionary def.:

"to project, extend, or expand (known data or experience) into an area not known or experienced so as to arrive at a usually conjectural knowledge of the unknown area - ∼s present trends to construct an image of the future b. to predict by projecting past experience or known data -"

Climate scientists use this technique too.
When scientists extrapolate they use data accumulated from decades and centuries from all over the entire planet.
But if you are a right wing radio/tv host that would take too much work and research. And the outcome may not support the idea that you are trying to convince your audience of.
So it's a lot easier to extrapolate from the data of one week in one part of the country. Especially when you can pick the particular week and place that supports your claim and ignore all the other weeks and places that don't fit.

See, that's the difference between those ivory tower, Harvard educated, liberal elite climate scientists and the right wing talk show hosts.

Some in the media have done a good job in pointing this out. They have also reminded us that climate scientists' models have predicted more extreme weather conditions as a result of global warming.

But the truth telling right wingers have responded with a devastating rebuttal.
They state that it's already been proven that all climate scientists who predict warming are lying frauds, so anything they say is a lie and a fraud.
What proof do they have that all climate scientists who predict warming are fraudulent liars, thus making everything they say a complete lie?

The emails, that's what. Those emails between a handful of scientists. Plus a few questionable methods used by a few other scientists.
Do you see a pattern here? Extrapolating from a small, selective set of data, while ignoring the vast amount of data that doesn't support your accusation?

But there is an even stupider bit of fallacious reasoning going on here that I haven't heard anyone in the media point out.
Apparently these shit-for-brains talk show hosts don't know the difference between precipitation and temperature.

precipitation : something precipitated: as a deposit on the earth of hail, mist, rain, sleet, or snow also the quantity of water deposited.

temperature : degree of hotness or coldness measured on a definite scale.

See the difference? Rush Dimbulb doesn't. Neither does Hannity or Beck.
I figure their reasoning must go like this;
If it snows, that means it's cold, therefore if it snows a lot, that means it's very cold.

But all that is required for snow is a temperature of 32 degrees. And being that Washington D.C. is in the middle of fucking winter where the average temperature is about 36 degrees, you can see that snow wouldn't be the most shocking thing to expect. Yes there was an unusually large amount of snow, but, then again, that's precipitation.

I know that the temp. for one of those days it snowed was 28 degrees. Again, not a shocking difference from the average. If it was 28 degrees below zero, then I would say you had an interesting argument.

So the other day I'm watching the "Fair And Balanced" network, you know, Fox News.
The show I was watching is hosted by a conservative, just like all the other shows on Fox.
But you can rest assured that just because the host is conservative doesn't mean that he's not "Fair And Balanced".
As a matter of fact, this host has a well known and deserved reputation for being "Fair And Balanced".
His name is Sean Hannity.

Do you know what I like about Sean? Even though he feels very strongly about his opinions he never resorts to exaggeration or hyperbole when making a point. Nor does he ever distort the facts or take things out of context. And if he ever makes a terrible accusation that turns out to be an honest mistake, he always acknowledges it and will never repeat that accusation again, even though the "mistake" has been pointed out to him on his own show, right to his face.
And also, above all, he always holds himself and other conservatives to the same standards that he applies to Democrats and liberals.
He's truly "Fair And Balanced".

So anyway, Sean has his "Fair And Balanced" panel on to discuss the D.C. snow storms.
The people on the panel change from day to day but a few things always remain constant. There are always three or four conservatives vs. one or two liberals. The conservatives are almost always aggressive and way over there on the extreme right, while the liberals are usually mild, much closer to the center, careful not to say anything that would offend Fox viewers, and seem to allow the conservatives to interrupt them and talk over them whenever they start to make a good point.

Also, whenever they have a female on the panel, it seems that she's often very attractive, under thirty five and preferably blonde. And when I say often, I mean that if you took this data set and tried to extrapolate it to the general population you would think that average looking to ugly, middle aged to old, dark haired females are as rare as a D.C. snow storm.
It's almost as if the Fox executives asked themselves "what would make 18 to 49 year old white males with short attention spans, in other words our core audience, less likely to change channels?"

So Sean has two conservatives on; Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, and this guy Greg Gutfeld, the host of Red Eye, a late night Fox news/comedy show.
For those of you not familiar with Red Eye, it's obviously Fox News' answer to The Daily Show, with Gutfeld being their Jon Stewart.

Fox has tried the news/comedy format before with an amazing piece of crap called "The 1/2 Hour Comedy Hour". If you want me to give you an idea how lame this show was, let me ask you a question. Do you think the title of the show is funny? Well that's by far the funniest thing that ever came out of that show.
As a matter of fact, take the funniness of that title, divide it by 6 and that's how funny the next funniest thing they ever did was.

This show was so bad that I loved it. I just couldn't help the giddy satisfaction I felt seeing Fox News fail so miserably, knowing how badly they must have wanted to put something out there to counter liberal comedians like Al Franken, Bill Maher, Stewart and Colbert.
I think the Germans have a word for that feeling, but I don't know how to spell it.

Well even the loyal Fox audience couldn't stomach that shit, because the show was canceled after a few weeks. I was very disappointed. Not that I could ever sit through more than 5 minutes of the 1/2 hour hour myself. It was just nice to know that Fox was airing something so embarrassingly bad, repeatedly.

But one part of that show was definitely worth going out of my way for:

"Presidential Addresses — Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh had a recurring cameo role as the President, with conservative pundit Ann Coulter as his Vice President." (Wikipedia)

Oh baby, was this great. In that it was really, really, really bad. Before I first watched it, I wanted it to be bad, I expected it to be bad, but it turned out to be worse than my wildest expectations. It was so bad it made my skin crawl, paradoxically causing me great pleasure.
Just the sight of the emaciated, anorexic stick figure of Ann Coulter next to the Orson Welles sized Rush Limbag was worth the price of admission. But then to witness them humiliate themselves by reading the god-awful script... well, it was like a jolt of champagne, reorienting the day, reassuring me that right wing bullshit had not disturbed the essential movements of the planets.

Anyway, getting back to Hannity's show, it's Sean, two other conservative hard-ons and, just to make it "Fair And Balanced", one liberal, a female who just happened to be attractive, under 35 and, believe it or not, blonde haired.

The three conservative pricks are going on and on about the snow storms, laughing and mocking the whole idea of global warming, "we told you it was all a fraud"...that kind of crap.
Finally the liberal female get's her 30 seconds to speak, and she says, "Well Sean, you know there's a difference between weather and temperature".
I'm stunned! Yes, yes, go on!
But then she pauses.
Go ahead, finish your point! Please let the audience know what a colossal bunch of dick holes they are. For the love of God, please let them know!
She continues..."You know me, I'm not a nut about the environment, you know, I'm 'drill, baby, drill.'"
Wait, what the hell are you doing? A complete segue? What about the difference between weather and temperature?
She never gets back to that point. God Damn it. She must have remembered the prime directive at Fox News! Never let the conservatives lose an argument! Fuck!