Proud Members of the Alternate Reality-Based Community

Surber thinks the reason Guiliani is beating McCain in the polls by 2:1 is opposition to the McCain-Feingold Act, and Glenn Reynolds agrees. But if you're paying attention to public opinion, it's fairly clear that they're dead wrong. Iraq, terrorism, and national security are still the most important issues to voters, and Americans are largely in favor of campaign finance reform.

Of course, it's not breaking news that many conservatives do not reside in the reality-based community. Take one of Surb's commenters, Liz985:

Yes, it’s McCain-Feingold. For a U.S. senator to propose, lobby for, and get passed UNCONSTITUTIONAL legislation and then expect to have a chance at the presidency — the man is living in an alternate reality.

You mean the alternate reality in which President Bush signed decidedly unconstitutional legislation into law in 2003 and was reelected president a year later? Oh wait, that's not an alternate reality, that's reality.

What's also reality, whether Liz985 and Surb like it or not, is that the Supreme Court upheld the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. I wonder how Don feels about being on the same side as the ACLU.

Well, that didn't take long

I claimed that I was no longer going to comment on Surber's blog in solidarity with HK, and because I figured it was only a matter of time before he'd ban me too. Well, I couldn't stay away. (So much for solidarity, I guess.) My comment wasn't directed toward Don, though, it was a response to one of his sycophants (here). I just can't let blatant stupidity like that go. In a matter of minutes my comment was deleted and I received an email saying that my comments are no longer welcome. It's the end of an era, folks. I've been commenting on Don's blog since he started one almost exactly two years ago.

So here it is, my very last Surber comment ever. I'll cherish it.

A Unified Theory of Global Warming Derangement Syndrome

You know how right-wing bloggers are always accusing critics of the president of having "Bush Derangement Syndrome?" Considering the fact that approximately 70% of Americans disapprove of Bush, I believe Andrew Sullivan is correct that BDS "is more accurately applied to those who still believe the president is even minimally competent." Our muse here at The Surbinator has had a bad case of BDS for several years now.

He also has a raging case of "Global Warming Derangement Syndrome." GWDS is a very serious condition in which the afflicted goes berserk at any mention of global warming, causing the person to abandon all basic principles of logic and lose his grasp of fundamental scientific facts. Just kidding -- Surber never relies on logic or facts!

Take his most recent outbreak of GWDS: When Surber read a New York Times article entitled "That 'Drought' in Southwest May Be Normal, Report Says," he somehow concluded that scientists are claiming that "normal weather 'proves' global warming." My head hurts when I read sentences like this:

Wait: If drought-like conditions are the norm, how can Global Warming make it worse?

Hold on while I look for some painkillers.

Please allow me to explain. The National Research Council just released a report that reveals that extended periods of drought in the Colorado River Basin are more common than scientists had previously thought. In the future, the region is likely to face droughts of more frequency and/or longer duration than those that occurred in the 20th century. The significance of this finding is that decisions about how to use and allocate water resources in the Southwest have been based on an "overly optimistic forecast of future water availability." The Colorado River Compact was based on the assumption that the average annual flow of the Colorado River is 16.4 million acre feet, but recent studies of tree ring sizes have revealed that the river's average annual flow may be as low as 13 million acre feet. The NY Times article explains that the demands on this already scant resource will become even greater as the population in the Southwest continues its rapid growth and global warming continues to take its toll.

When Surber got to the part that said "global warming is already making things worse," that's when he spewed forth the stupid. I can only assume that when The Surb sees the words "global warming," his brain synapses begin wildly misfiring, impairing basic reading comprehension skills and causing him to forget anything he may have learned about science in elementary school (though he was probably too busy sticking erasers up his nose).

GWDS explains Surber's inability to distinguish between local weather and global climate. Actual Surber quote, from the vault: "Meanwhile it is 32 degrees outside, with a high of 35 expected. After that, temperatures will not climb above freezing for a week in Poca. Still, the global warming people march on." See, it was really cold in Poca, West Virginia for a week, so global warming can't be real!

I think there's more than simple stupidity going on here, though. I agree with Atrios:

Global Warming is one of those "fuck you liberals!" issues for conservatives. The merits of the issue are utterly unimportant to them, they just know that it pisses of[f] liberals and Al Gore and treehuggers to believe it doesn't exist.

Surber believes that global warming is a liberal fascist myth drummed up by elitists who want people to suffer in the interest of realizing some kind of anti-industrial utopian Gaia. He sees the miniscule number of scientists who disagree with the overwhelming majority of the scientific community as evidence of the oppression of people who are merely trying to speak truth to power. He thinks the only reason huge, multinational corporations have started coming around and taking steps to ameliorate global warming is because they were coerced into it by big, bad, meanie liberals. It may be the worst case of GWDS I've ever seen, and I'm afraid that so far, there is no cure.

Don Surber: Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer

I didn't want to let this post go, as it contains a couple of Surber's Greatest Blogging Hits: linking to any ol' shit as if it's gospel, and of course, armchair lawyering.

I am no lawyer but I am wondering why Scooter Libby was indicted. Richard Armitage was the one who ID-ed Joe Wilson’s wife to Bob Novak. But Libby is on trial and Armitage walked?

Seriously? You write for a damn newspaper, dude. You'd think that I shouldn't have to explain the news to newspaper columnists, but hey, this is Charleston. This isn't willful ignorance on Don's part. This is another conservative hack trying perpetuate the meme that obstructing federal law enforcement officers in the course of a criminal investigation isn't a big deal. Way to mislead your readers there, Don.

Hell, even a Washington lawyer is confused. In an op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post, Victoria Toensing, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, asked: “Could someone please explain to me why Scooter Libby is the only person on trial in the Valerie Plame leak investigation?”

Please. Victoria Toensing is a "Washington lawyer" in the same sense that Bill Donohue is "just a Catholic." They're both established Republican operatives who have axes to grind. Now, working in the AG office under Reagan does not a partisan hack make. But it just so happens that this is not the first thing Victoria Toensing has had to say about the Plame affair, and it's pretty clear that she made up her mind a long time ago, facts be damned. She's still trying to peddle the myth that Plame was not covert, even though her status as a covert officer was clearly established by both the facts introduced during the Libby trial, and by Plame's own co-workers. But I guess being close personal friends with Robert Novak will mess with your mind like that. (Nice of the WaPo to disclose that, huh?)

This trial is a farce and a tragedy. It also is illegal. Fitzgerald was charged with punishing the leaker. Instead, Fitzgerald turned this into punishing those who supported the war, while allowing the leaker to go because he opposed the war.

What, at first you're not a lawyer, but now you're some uber supreme jurist just because you read a deranged op-ed by Victoria Toensing? Please Don. You're free to espouse your half-baked conspiracy theories all you want, but by calling the trial an "illegal farce and tragedy," you're just making yourself sound like a retard. You're out of your depth.

My favorite part though is how Don's post is named "Toensing Speaks Truth to Power." Because at the Daily Mail, "feeding bullshit to your readers" and "speaking truth to power" are the exact same thing.

Hey Don! If You're Tired of Having Your Ass Handed to You on a Plate, Maybe You Should Get a MySpace Page Instead

Chances are many of the people reading this have left the occasional comment on Don Surber's blog. And so have I, for whatever reason. I guess when someone goes on about how we should have stayed the course in Vietnam, it's hard not to throw a bullshit flag.

But ever since Don moved his blog over to the Daily Mail's website, not one of my comments has made it out of Don's bottomless moderation pit. What's more, I learned that all of Raging Red's comments went right through--no moderation or anything. Apparently, he enjoys getting slapped around by a woman.

"But surely he hasn't banned me," I thought. I mean, why would he wait until now?

Curious, I sent Don the following email:

Dearest Don,
I have yet to see one of my comments make it out of moderation on your new blog--even the G rated ones. Am I not allowed to comment anymore? I sure hope you haven't taken a page out of the William Stewart playbook.
Best,
HK

To which I received...no response. Classy.

Ever the friend, Raging Red finally left Don a comment asking if I'd been banned. Which he promptly deleted, of course. He then sent Red this:

Dear Red:
I love your comments. HK is free to blog what HK wants. But everything has its consequence.
Don

Well, it is his blog--even though it is part of the Daily Mail, and even though Betty Chilton pays him a handsome salary for writing it. Don is free to take his bat and ball and do whatever he wants. But I would at least think a "professional blogger" would be a little more open about who is and who is not allowed to challenge what he says while atop someone else's soap box.

I can't help but wonder who else Don isn't letting through. Judging by the waning number of comments, I have a sneaking suspicion he has quietly become more parochial since moving his blog over to the 'Mail. But who can blame him? If I had a parade of "readers" lining up to eviscerate my every sentence and otherwise point out how much I have yet to learn about everything from the politics to music, then well, I wouldn't want my coworkers to see that either.

But guess what? If you write hateful, dishonest, illogical, ahistorical, inaccurate warmongering drivel on the website of one of the state's largest newspapers, people will occasionally stop by to tell you that you're full of shit. And they won't always be as nice about it as I am. That's how it works. I'm sorry if Don Surber's fevered ego can't take it.

If you just want to write stuff and have your friends tell you how great you are, there's a place for that on the internet too. It's called MySpace.

In response, Raging Red and I have scratched out our own place on the internets to respond to Don's "work" as we see fit. In the spirit of Malkin Watch and XeniSucks, we proudly roll out The Surbinator. Who knows how often we'll update--I'll admit, I can only take so much Surber. But check in from time to time. And feel free to comment, of course--I probably won't delete anyone. Why would I start now?