Daily Douche-Sen. Brandon Smith (R-Mars)

For the life of me, I can’t understand this complete aversion to science that has become de rigueur with Republicans, but they sure are riding it for all it’s worth. Most recently we have Kentucky State Senator Brandon Smith denying global warming by claiming that the Earth and Mars have the same temperature. It will be no surprise when you learn that the good Senator owns a coal company.

So, during a meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on Natural Resources and Environment our friend Republican Senator Smith wanted to be sure and join the Obama EPA bashing (because, you know, we can’t be protecting the environment and shit like that). So the Senator made the following remarks:

“I won’t get into the debate about climate change, but I’ll simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There’s no factories on Mars that I’m aware of.”

I’d love to know to just what areas of “academia” our esteemed Republican Senator was referring? I’m pretty most “academics” at all familiar with Mars would agree he’s correct that there are no known coal mines or factories, but those not educated at say, Liberty University, or apparently the Republican Senator’s Alama Mater, Kentucky State University, would likely know that the average temperature on the earth is +57 degrees fahrenheit, but a very balmy 81 degrees on Mars (that’s 81 degrees BELOW zero).

Of course, this being Kentucky, the crazy wasn’t confined to Republican Senator Smith.

“All this stems, this carbon capture, all this other stuff, it stems back to a scare, generated years ago about global warming,” said state Rep. Stan Lee (R-Fayette County). “Finally it turned out there hasn’t been global warming in 15 or 20 years, then they changed the name to climate change.”

Another lawmaker said the extinction of the dinosaurs proved that climate change was not caused by humans.

“The dinosaurs died, and we don’t know why, but the world adjusted, and to say that this is what’s going to cause detriment to people, I just don’t think it’s out there,” said state Rep. Kevin Sinnette (D-Ashland).

So, we’ll award Senator Smith our Daily Douche award, with honorable mention of his friends on the Kentucky Senate committee with him.