While parked at Duke University I had a bumper sticker ripped from my car that simply said “Question Global Warming.”
Roy Cordato, 6/7/2009

The last entry in this series was impressed by a North Carolina politician able to say two contradictory things in one breath without laughing, which reminded me of the “Farmer Test” from an old Bloom County comic strip:

Milo (reading from “The ABCs of Farming”): “‘Say the following two things in one breath without cracking up:'”

Opus: “OK … Shoot!”

Milo: “‘Keep those flat-footed goombahs in Washington out of my hair…'”

Opus: “‘Keep those flat-footed goombahs in Washington out of my hair…'”

Milo: “… Hurry up with my federal bail-out check.'”

Opus: “‘… Hurry up …’ Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee!”

They have both been outdone by a commencement speaker who has this ability down to a science. He’s Bill Nye, speaking at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. As dutifully reported by ABC,

Nye challenged students to “change the world” and to always “question things,” —


Good! The next generation of thinkers must be truly able to think critically and never be complacent or unthinking in their assumptions and beliefs. It is a core of the scientific process to test rather than blandly accept hypotheses, and one of Western Civilization’s gifts to the world is its restlessness with, and not infrequent overturn of, mere conventional wisdom.

Then to finish the sentence:

and railed against those who refuse to believe in climate change.

“Always question things,” and then rail against those who question man-made climate change.

P.S. Our own Roy “Question Global Warming” Cordato recently posted that “The most up-to-date temperature data shows no warming for 17 and a half years.” Here is a chart from it. Bill Nye would champion you questioning it, but rail at you if you also questioned what it questions:

No warming for 17 yrs

Previous entries in “Drawing the Wrong Conclusion”: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII.