CelticBear’s Musings

Oh. My. God.
Right Wing News’ interview with Ann Coulter
This woman proves so often that she barely deserves to be taking up space on the planet, much less that she should be considered “intelligent” or “well researched” as her fans claim. Nearly every single thing she says in this is outright wrong, misleading, or a lie.
(Except the Michael Moore crack, maybe.)
I’m just going to take a couple of statements….

John Hawkins: Is global warming occurring and caused by mankind?

Ann Coulter: The temperature of the planet has increased about one degree Fahrenheit in the last century. So imagine a summer afternoon when it’s 63 degrees and the next thing you know it’s…64 degrees. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! Run for your lives, everybody! Women and children first! Help! Where’s FEMA, dammit?

This quip of hers shows she has absolutely not a single clue about how the planet’s ecosystem works. Heck, any 8th-grader who paid attention in biology or life sciences classes obviously knows more than she does. “Intelligent and well researched” my fat rear end!
Let me explain: When scientists discuss the average planet temperature and changes in a degree or two, this does not extrapolate into a 63 degree day becoming a 64 degree day. The effects of an average degree change to the ecosystem is much greater. Average global temperature changes affect ocean temperatures and ice caps and the currents and predominate weather conditions.
Think of it this way: The last great ice age 20,000 years ago in which huge glaciar sheets covered all of North America, the average global temperature was only 9 degrees colder than it is now.
Just a little research and Ann Coulter would know this.
Yes, there is much debate over how much humans are affecting the rate of global warming, as the planet does indeed go through natural cycles. But what isn’t in debate in science (although it sure is in the political realm, and boy those politicians sure are expert scientists,) is that the planet IS in a dangerous warming trend and it’s happening at a quicker than normal rate.
Why there is so much desperate need among the neo-cons to ignore this and dismiss it, I just don’t understand! (Yes I do, corporate greed.) But if it’s true than human activity is affecting global warming even a little, and changing our useage of fossil fuels and level of pollution could affect the trend in some way, for the good of humanity why not?!
(Corporate greed, and irrational ideological belief that God gave the Earth to humans to use as we see fit. I actually read in a Rush Limbaugh book where he says very bluntly that it is impossible for humans to harm the planet as God wouldn’t allow it.)
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/viewTopic.do?o=read&id=501
http://www.ucar.edu/research/climate/warming.shtml
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm
http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-basics/basic_science/
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/infodata/faq_cat-1.html

John Hawkins: Would you like to see the Miranda decision overturned?

Ann Coulter: Yes! But even more than that, I would like to meet one person, anywhere, anytime, who doesn’t already know from watching TV that they have the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney if they’re arrested. What class of TV-deprived wretches is this rule intended to help, the Amish? Mountain-dwelling end-timers? Survivalist cave people living in polygamous clans?

When it comes to crime and punishment, my libertarianism takes a steep turn into fascism. I believe in cruel and unusual punishments for capital crimes. But that’s once a serious, capital crime has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt. Until then, all citizens must have just as extremely protective rights to their liberty and freedom and ideas of innocent until proven guilty. Whatever flaws our legal system has (and it has many, although, mainly stemming from civil suits and corporate law,) the U.S. legal system is nearly unique in the fact that we err in favor of protecting liberty and the innocent over incorrectly jailing and punishing the innocent.
Ann is showing her hatred for American liberty and sense of justice by encouraging civil liberties be dismissed. But even moreso, she’s doing it with complete stupidity and arrogance in assuming everyone watches TV, watched crime dramas specifically, and those who don’t, should have less protection of their liberties than those who do.

John Hawkins: In your book, you explain that a number of medical breakthroughs have been achieved with adult stem cells while “embryonic stem cell researchers have produced nothing. They have treated nothing.” Since that’s the case, why do you think there’s such a big push for government funding of embryonic stem cells when they look to be so obviously inferior to adult stem cells?

Ann Coulter: There are lots of leftovers when you abort 1.5 million babies a year. This is the next logical extension of the obsessive recycling mentality. “Hey, don’t just throw away that baby you just aborted. Don’t you know how full our landfills are getting? Let’s see if there’s some parts of it we can re-use for other things, like…I don’t know…stem cells?”

God, the raping of logic and reason she performs is painful. First of all, stem cell research has absolutely nothing to do with abortions. (Not to say there’s not a moral controversy with how stem cell research IS performed.) Stem cells are harvested from fertalized blastocyst (an “embryo” that is generally only around 100 cells developed.) The blastocyst is created in a lab from a cultured egg and sperm in a petrie dish with the express purpose of harvesting the cells. There is no coitus, no womb involved, no emplantation of the egg into a uterus. Again, I recognize there’s still a moral debate about this, but let’s get facts straight: This is in no way abortion and the confusion of the issue to create emotional persuasion is deplorable.
Secondly, she implies that the presence of fetuses lead to the development of research upon them and then to stem cells.
And, fetuses, again, have nothing to do with stem cell research. But also, stem cell research is not a fanciful passtime of scientists poking around. Stem cell research has lead to a greater understanding of tissue and organ development, the treatment of diseases and tissue damage, and can lead to the cures of life threatening diseases. Whatever the moral objections, there’s still no denying that there is valid medical value to stem cell research.

John Hawkins: If you were to pick three concepts, facts, or ideas that most undercut the theory of evolution, what would they be?

Ann Coulter: 1. It’s illogical. 2. There’s no physical evidence for it. 3. There’s physical evidence that directly contradicts it. Apart from those three concerns I’d say it’s a pretty solid theory.

John Hawkins: If the science behind evolution doesn’t stand-up, why do you think so many people who should know better so fervently believe in evolution?

Ann Coulter: A century of brain-washing combined with a desperate need to not believe in an intelligent designer.

John Hawkins: Do you think evolution, intelligent design, or something else should be taught in schools?

Ann Coulter: I would say teach them the one that has the strongest scientific basis to it, and if there’s any time left over at the end of the day you could also teach them about the theory of evolution.

God, where does a person even begin with this. The evidence for evolution is so mountainous, so monumental, 20 minutes of looking will garner more than you could ever fully understand. Go to any museum of natural history and you’ll find more evidence than you need.
Here’s some help; just start right here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/ann_coulter_no_evidence_for_ev.php
What’s amazingly funny is that even Intelligent Designers like Michael Behe acknowledge the existance of evolution! Just not Natural Selection. Idiot woman.

[When asked to comment of U.S. Representitive John Murtha, she responds] The reason soldiers invented “fragging.”

Of all things, this one really made my skin go cold and my head light. In case you don’t know:
Fragging: To wound or kill (a fellow soldier) by throwing a grenade or similar explosive at the victim. I believe coined during the Viet Nam war.

Miss Cornell Law graduate and member of Delta Gamma is basically advocating or at least sympathetic with the murder of a man who voluteered for Viet Nam, earned the Bronze Star with Valor device, two Purple Hearts, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, and has been awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. Why? Because Rep. Murtha has the audacity to speak truth to power, and express his experienced opinions that the Iraq war was poorly planned, is being mismanaged, is unwinnable at this point, and we should start withdrawing our troops. And for that -itch Coulter wouldn’t mind seeing him dead.

I have nothing more I can say about her.