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Yale law professor prefers not to be confused with the facts

"There are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?" we quoted Schopenhaer a few years back on "the informational 'cascades' of sheeplike belief formation that cause flat-earthers to crowd the cultural ether in every era," noting that "Al Gore's lie-laced Inconvenient Truth comes to mind." Above, the early morning light works its magic on the salt piles across the street.

I don’t know a single person who identifies with the Tea Party,” Yale law professor Dan Kahan admits, bemused by the results of his own study on "the relationship between science literacy and political ideology":

Tea party members know more science than non-Tea Partiers.

How could that be? Aren't Tea Partiers flat-earthers?:

"I fully expected…a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension,” Kahan wrote.

That's what comes of relying on the Tea-Party-demonizing Democrat Media Complex for information outside one's area of expertise:

“All my impressions come from watching cable tv — & I don’t watch Fox News very often — and reading the ‘paper’ (New York Times daily, plus a variety of politics-focused Internet sites like Huffington Post and POLITICO). I’m a little embarrassed, but mainly, I’m just glad that I no longer hold this particular mistaken view.”

We're glad, too, although the professor's lack of intellectual curiosity about the Tea Party in light of his new data is troubling, as are his reflexive acceptance and promulgation of the now seriously outdated AGW narrative:

While Kahan cautioned against thinking the results can be used to explain deep ideological fights over climate change and other politically relevant science…he said the results wouldn’t change his negative views of the Tea Party.

Don't confuse him with the facts!

Climategate: "I'm cold," Snowden wimpered, "I'm cold."

Our Thanksgiving wishbone drying out on the window sill  — with a little help from Photoshop's "paint daubs" filter — recalls Georgia O'Keeffe's "Pelvis with the Distance."

"The spirit gone, man is garbage," Joseph Heller's alter ego Yossarian thinks to himself as he watches Snowden's secret spill out all over him and the back of the plane in Heller's WWII satire Catch-22. While many — including ourselves — have used the house-of-cards analogy for Climategate, Snowden's secret rings more viscerally true. Yossarian had bandaged what he took to be a superficial wound on the radiogunner when he realized "Snowden was wounded inside his flak suit":

Yossarian ripped open the snaps of Snowden's flak suit and heard himself scream wildly as Snowden's insides slithered down to the floor in a soggy pile and just kept dripping out … 'I'm cold,' Snowden wimpered, 'I'm cold …'

A last ironic gasp for the big lie that was Anthropogenic Global Warming.