AccuWeather's BASTARDI, Global Warming, & My Local Radio Talkshow Wingnut

[UTUSN]

So there's this meterologist with AccuWeather that is or was syndicated with local radio stations probably everywhere, including my local radio wingnut station, named Joe BASTARDI. He now turns up on Faux. Over the years he has done the chitchat shtick thing with the local announcers, the jock talk over whose football team rules this week, and dipping into politics, wherein it is clear he is a wingnut, but he keeps it light.

So this morning there was this thread reporting he said there is no such thing as global warming. And I sent it to my local radio talkshow wingnut, who has frequently done the chat thing with BASTARDI for years:

************QUOTE*********
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4823410
O.K., Who Is This Idiot on Faux News?

His name is Joe Bastardi. His name fits him. He says that he is a meteorologist with Accuweather (sure doesn't sound like one) who says there is no such thing as Global Warming.

Can I scream at the TV now?

**********UNQUOTE********


So the local wingnut replied in an uncharacteristic huff: QUOTE::
Hurricane experts like Gray at Colorado State? Or U of Colorado have said the intense hurricanes are not as a result of global warming but just part of a long-term cycle of more intense and less intense storms and we are in the more-intense cycle now. Maybe you can explain why, when scientists disagree over whether or not there is global warming, those who believe there is man-made global warming (even when they are not climatologists) revile and personally attack anyone who disagrees with them? UNQUOTE

So my reply:

Often your responses change the frame ever so slightly or not so slightly. I didn't hear what BASTARDI said on the air, have only what this person said he said, but it wasn't about intense cycles or less intense cycles. This poster said BASTARDI said "there is NO SUCH THING AS GLOBAL WARMING." And I hadn't thought of it, but does the term "global warming" absolutely mean "MAN MADE"? You did get those articles I sent about the ice caps melting?

As for "scientists" disagreeing, the problem is whether the credentials are equal. A typical scam on the fare-UNbalanced cable outlets is to present one PRO and one CON on whatever issue, automatically EQUALIZING the two sides, which just might NOT be equal in documented credibility. A current case in point is the "intelligent design" scam, which is being put forth as on a par with the evolution THEORY---that is, evolution automatically has "theory" attached to it, while knuckleheaded fanatics are magically upgraded to mainstream status.

Another embedded thingy in your response is how the opponents to you wingnuts are described in the most bile-ridden terms, like "revile and personally attack". Today LIMBOsevic (there I am reviling) went off on one of his CONTINUOUS hate-filled rants on those "FAR LEFTISTS" in which he denigrated them as being "MONSTERS...BILE(-spewing)...INSANE." He has been doing this 5 days per week, 3 hrs per day for 15 years---spewing the most repulsive HATRED non-stop. Yet somehow he claims for himself some strange form of high ground and NORMALITY.

The problem with somebody like BASTARDI is that what-he-allows-himself or is-allowed to show on the air is only the TIP of the iceberg (rapidly melting, haha). Or the 3 comedians you admire on the air, Larry the Cable Guy. The other two are fairly sophisticated and keep the true raw roots of bigotry out of their material, but Larry is pretty out front with it.

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. That whack job was on Sean Halfnutty this afternoon- a shill for the right

Just tell us the weather Joe, and forget the other crap.