A New Metric For Absurdity & Illogic - Please Welcome The Inhofe Scale!

[hatrack]

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As hyperbolic as Barton's interrogation may have been, it was the model of rational clarity compared with the fulminations of Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., at the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Among Inhofe's observations as he confronted Gore -- a presentation laced liberally with Inhofe's rude, bullying interruptions -- was his characterization of global warming as "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." That's a pretty wide-ranging calculus, considering all the hoaxes perpetrated on the American people, but it's fast becoming part of Inhofe's standard spiel.

To provide some context for the remark and its author's general ideological predisposition, consider the senator's remarks earlier this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington: "I have been called -- my kids are aware of this -- dumb, crazy man, science abuser, Holocaust denier, villain of the month, hate-filled, warmonger, Neanderthal, Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun," Inhofe said, as reported by The Washington Post. "And I can just tell you that I wear some of those titles proudly."

For an idea of how competitive efforts at outrageous excess apparently became during the CPAC conference, back-bencher U.S. Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, said of Cindy Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq: "She's an idiot."

Such is the level of analytical discipline that helps to shape the preparation of some members of Congress to probe the challenges that confront the republic whose destiny has been placed in their care. Fortunately, a sense of humor in the face of the clear and present danger posed by some back-benchers can help neutralize a concerned citizen's anxiety and frustration. The Wall Street Journal reported that, in response to Inhofe's outburst last week, blogger Lou Grinzo has created "The Inhofe Scale" to measure statements "that exhibit a noticeable and willing detachment from reality." The scale uses Inhofe as the prime measure at 100, with 30 to 50 applying to those who refuse to see the gradual effect of such phenomena as peak oil, and 100 to 200 applying to what Grinzo calls "Apocalypticons," the extremist range of doomsayers, many of them misanthropes, who see the abrupt end of the world as we know it.

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http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/denton/wb/wb/xp-110463