No Experts Here

Utah's Supreme Court filing on gay marriage contained an unusually frank admission about the depth of thought that the state government put into its position. When discussing the conclusions of professional groups who disagree with its arguments, Utah stated "we are not ruled by experts."

Seldom has a phrase done more to encapsulate a group's position than this phrase does. Utah's government may as well have stated, "don't confuse us with the facts, our mind is made up."

Arguments in court confirm that this is a correct reading of the state government's indifference to what serious study of the questions may indicate. On Dec 4, Judge Shelby asked whether same-sex marriage was of “any relevance at all” to the state's stated desire to promote heterosexual marriage. Stanford E. Purser from the state Attorney General's office said, “It may end up that there is no difference. It may end up that there is. We just simply don’t know.”

Snow Trolls Re-Appear

As happens at least once a year, the appearance of chilly weather has brought out the troop of climate change deniers that Chris Hayes has dubbed "Snow Trolls." As it turns out, the re-appearance of cold weather is a phenomenon known as "winter" and is brought on by the earth's axial tilt. (By the way, that last link was to a nice gif illustrating axial tilt.)

All of this has been said ad nauseam before. I have to wonder if the snow trolls are cynical, stupid, or just care more about scoring political "points" than thinking about actual facts. Then again, it doesn't really make much difference.

What I find most distressing is that people seem persuaded by this strange illogic. Just walking around town, I hear smug morons cheerfully parroting whatever Fox "News" is vomiting forth. Maybe Jon Stewart is right, and the best thing to do is to just laugh at them.

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