Th_t Cr_azy P_t S_j_k

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Would you like to solve the puzzle? If not, go ahead and buy a vowel.

**********

In a short post at The Plank yesterday, Michael Crowley wonders how Pat Sajak and especially Vanna White haven't gone "completely insane" after "all these years".

I don't know about Vanna, but Pat does seem to have lost his mind.

In a P.S. to the post, Crowley links to a "Sajak says" on global warming at Pat's website -- yes, he has a website, and yes, he uses it in part to express his opinions on such topics as freedom of speech, the midterm elections, gay "outing," and the news media. And it seems he's a wingnut -- I had no idea, but conservative and Republican he truly is, and in such a knee-jerkingly reflexive way. He even lavishes praise on Republicans for being such "good losers" after the midterms. (Apparently he didn't see this -- the attack strategies of the House GOP.) And why did Republicans lose the midterms? Because, he seems to think, "Americans like their politics divided". Oh, right. It had nothing to do with Bush's disastrous presidency, including Iraq, and with a Republican Party that was corrupt and vicious.

Anyway, no "Sajak says" illustrates the author's wingnuttery more than the one linked to by Crowley. Pat admits he's not a scientist -- no, really? -- but then proceeds to claim that "there are some gaps in the logic of it all that make [him] skeptical and to contend that "the direct link between man and the warming is much more tenuous". (I'm sure he knows much more than the IPCC, which recently determined in a new report that the reality of global warming is "unequivocal" and that it is "very likely" the result of human activity -- that is, that there is at least a 90 percent likelihood that we are responsible.) And that isn't all. He goes on to accuse "the true believers" -- presumably those of us who don't think global warming is a hoax -- of being insincere, of not doing enough "to help reverse it," and then to trash Nancy Pelosi.

And that's just one of two successive posts on the topic.

The other one is a response to the IPCC report, and it's here that Pat gets Crichton-esque, as Crowley puts it. The presumptuousness that litters this post is astonishing. He may be just be the host of a popular game show -- so popular for so long that its success lies beyond my comprehension -- but he sure claims to know a lot more about climatology than, well, you know, climatologists. And so, from his elevated perspective, global warming, such as there is any, is just part a larger cycle of temperature fluctuation. And he's not alone. There are scientists who, like him, are "unconvinced that man is responsible". What he doesn't mention is that those "scientists" are industry-funded propagandists, not disinterested academics. What is truly impressive is that there is now such consensus in the scientific community, not that there is any serious disagreement.

But now let me quote Pat's conclusion, for it is truly one of the stupidest arguments pertaining to global warming -- or, indeed, to any issue -- that I have ever read: "There’s also the argument that we should take all steps deemed necessary by this panel 'just in case'. I say, let’s wait a bit before dramatically adjusting our lives. After all, if we can switch from an impending Ice Age to catastrophic global warming in just 30 years, we should be able, with some effort, to drop the temperature a degree or two in pretty short order."

What?

Oh, well, if Sajak says... I'm sure we have everything under control. His credentials are so impeccable.

Honestly, though, who the hell does he think he is? What basis does he have for any of this? He thinks we should "wait a bit" before dealing with an "unequivocal" problem that could destroy much of civilization as we know it? He's concerned about "adjusting our lives," as if global warming is just some inconvenience?

How fucking stupid. And what a fucking idiot.