Now (as of Dec. 6th) available on Youtube in high definition, courtesy of the producers, the 2011 documentary that looks at the history and failure of the “War on Drugs”:

If only our current administration would tackle this problem with enlightenment. Perhaps someday the US will have a political atmosphere where the President will have the room to admit publicly the terrible costs of this war.

A few days ago LGF and I got into a bit of a squabble with renowned climate change denier Marc Morano over an error I made concerning his “debate” with Bill Nye. I wrote that he used a talking point often trotted out by the denialists (and found on Morano’s site in several places), during that debate. He didn’t say it. At least during the debate.

He does, however, use that particular talking point on his fount of misinformation, ClimateDepot.com, here and here.

Although Morano did not use that talking point in this “debate,” and complained bitterly about my claim that he had, (no doubt to direct attention away from the substance of my post) he did throw out quite a few other howlers.

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Andrew Goldman interviews wingnut Dinesh D’Souza about his totally not-racist film predicting apocalypse if Obama was re-elected, inadvertent hilarity ensues: Dinesh D’Souza Looks Ahead.

This is what passes for an “intellectual” in today’s conservative movement; here’s a totally not-racist section in which he explains that he just assumed Obama’s Kenyan half-brother would be a “helpless slum kid” looking for a handout.

In your film, you traveled to Nairobi to interview Obama’s half brother, to get him to express frustration that the president hasn’t helped him financially. It had to be disappointing when he wasn’t upset at all.

Initially. Then I realized that this gives the story a more interesting twist. I expected George to be this helpless slum kid who had an outstretched hand. In fact, I find George to be a cunning, self-reliant guy — in a certain respect, a kind of conservative. He’s not looking for a handout. I admired George for that.

D’Souza wasn’t set back for long, though; when he discovered that his totally not-racist assumption was totally wrong, and that George wasn’t mad at Obama for not giving him a handout, he just used that to attack Obama instead. It’s an all-purpose totally not-racist accusation!

You suggest that President Obama may have decided not to support George because of his politics.

That’s right. It may be that Obama doesn’t want to help George because he sees George as an ideological enemy.

Perhaps the best glimpse into D’Souza’s character, though, is when he explains that he “didn’t know it was considered wrong in Christian circles” to get engaged to a woman while still married to another woman.

You recently resigned as president of the Christian-affiliated King’s College after it was reported that you brought a woman to a Christian convention and introduced her as your fiancée when neither of you had actually divorced your spouses. Did you do anything wrong?

I exercised imprudent judgment. In Christianity there is no intermediate status of being separated. I asked an attorney if there is anything problematic with being engaged while separated, and I was informed absolutely not.

You wrote, ‘I had no idea that it is considered wrong in Christian circles.’ I am not a Christian, but I’d guess that it would be high on the list of wrong things.

What I meant was I didn’t know what rule of Christian morality it violates. I recognize that there would be people who might say Dinesh has only met this woman a few months ago, Dinesh is rushing into things. But that is completely different from saying Dinesh is violating one of the Ten Commandments. Imprudent is not the same thing as wrong.

Corrected Dec 8.12 - see below…

Marc Morano, a infamous AGW denialist, debated Bill Nye the Science Guy on CNN recently. During the debate Morano peppered the air with a vituperative Gish Gallup aimed at Bill who was standing in for the climate science community.

Morano threw too many talking points for Bill to field effectively and as is common when a scientist goes up against a professional PR hack, he looked outclassed and flustered. I suspect Bill simply wasn’t prepared for the volume and blatant dishonesty.

It would take a rather lengthy paper to dismantle every point Morano made, so I decided to take a look at a couple of related arguments. One of Morano’s arguments revolves around the evidence for increased severe weather and the use of hurricane Sandy as an example of the effects of AGW on the Atlantic storm season.

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