Cut & Paste Of The Day. . .

If One Doesn't Read It, Then How Can One Say “I Know” about it?
Found at the BobHarris.com web site.  (The posting’s link at BobHarris.com here.)

Study: 92% of Books Skeptical of Environmental Threats Funded
by "Conservative" Think Tanks - Monday, 09 June 2008
[ original article link  →  Go read this. ]

Keep in mind that most “conservative”* think tanks receive major funding from oil companies, defense contractors, and the world’s biggest polluters (along with stock brokers, drug companies, and other folks who stand to make even more money by getting rid of safety, health, and environmental regulations). Go find the nearest dumbass who repeats their reassuring nonsense without understanding where it comes from.

Explain to them the global-warming-is-a-myth crap they spew is no more honest or respectable than tobacco-funded “science” claiming that cigarettes aren’t proven to cause cancer.

It’s the same thing.

It's even promoted by the exact same people -- the Competitive Enterprise Institute, for example, has often been home to the anti-science talking heads on Fox News, most notably Steven Milloy, whose career reads like a case study of the flip side of reality — disputing the banning of DDT, the effects of passive smoking, the effects of CFCs on the ozone layer, and (lately) the role of human activity in climate change.

Not surprisingly, Milloy and his own non-profits have received funding from Philip Morris and ExxonMobil, something Fox somehow has never gotten around to mentioning much.

Fifteen years ago, when the EPA linked passive smoking to lung cancer, CEI whipped up newspaper op-eds across America confusing the issue so badly that some people are still unclear on the overwhelming scientific consensus. Same people, same goals, same M.O.

CEI has received major funding from Amoco, Coca-Cola, CSX, ExxonMobil, Ford, Pfizer, Texaco, and Philip Morris, among others.

Dig into any of the big “conservative” think tanks, and you find pretty much the same thing.

Rule of thumb: if there’s an emerging scientific consensus which means some powerful business is in direct conflict with the public welfare, and some suit on the teevee claims the scientists don’t know what they’re talking about — basically, the suit works for the business.

Or at least there’s a 92% chance.


*I put the word “conservative” in quotes here because there’s nothing conservative about abusing the planet to protect the edges of a profit margin while paying people to repeat carefully engineered falsehoods.  Creating that false association is one of the more successful propaganda coups of the last fifty years.

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A“Below The Fold” bonus - A video by the author of the above posting, Bob Harris. . .

- Enjoy -

The Day Anna Nicole Died: Other News The Media Ignored