I swear that I am not making this up. Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) said the following during a hearing on global warming last week, talking about a previous point in the Earth's history when greenhouse gasses were also amassed and caused widespread extinctions and a period of substantial warming and change across the planet (via ThinkProgress):
"We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows?"
They have the video, and you can watch Rep. Dinosaur Flatulence actually say this. Out loud. Now, I know it was probably some sort of smart-assed retort to protect whatever pollution-friendly interests were funding whatever was making Rohrbacher happy in the moment but…hello?!? Yes, I'm certain that we can all stop for a moment in our day to pause and reflect on how dinosaur farts could, indeed, be the cause of a mass, global extinction. Now THAT is some powerful tooting, if you ask me.
There is this whole branch of study that I like to call "science." Perhaps the Republican party might consider delving into it a bit more before violating Mark Twain's axiom if idiocy: "It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."
Of course, that doubt was removed a long time ago for Rep. Dinosaur Flatulence. (H/T to Atrios.)
TRex says: Oh, my gosh, I'm so embarrassed.
No more black bean burritos for me.
Here, I'll open a window…
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TRex!
& Taliban Dana.
He really is a prick, you know.
An embarrassment to Huntington Beach.
Being a flatulent dinosaur, Rohrbacher knows whereof he farts.
Somebody please link the pic of Dana with his Taliban pals in Afganistan.
[tap tap] Is this thing on?
Hi David!
Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-DF)
Tut-tut, shame on you non-believers. The Fartosaurus and Poofterdactyl tell me Global Whoopiecushioning is real.
Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-AssGas)
Rohrbacher is also a friend of Jeff “Skunk” Baxter (R-guitar)
Hi Steve!
Dana’s a Big Ol’ Closet Case, BTW.
OK, I’ll shut up now. I’m working on a studio for a famous rocker, and should get back to work.
David Ehrenstein @ 10
Your opinion, or you have that on good authority?
Rep. Dinosaur Flatulence (R- Dumb Ass) has been listening to Dear Leader Fartacus again!
Gives new meaning to the Pants On Fire Party doesn’t it?
Listened to Rohrbacher’s outburst as it happened. He wasn’t just nuts. He was rude, oafish and nuts. He interrupted the scientists so often and so abruptly, I thought I was listening to Bill O’Reilly.
Ed*ard Teller @ 14
He is legendary in Orange Co. politics for all those traits.
How is it that Olbermann missed this? Maybe needs another category? The stupidest person in the wooorrrllld!
have heard this fool speak before, it is always a laugh, except for his constituents. they probably aren’t laughing.
look at the things this guys has sponsored over the years, he helps the definition of absurd
The Odorable Dana Rohringfarter?
Wouldn’t those dinosaur farts have embarassed Adam and Eve, riding to church?
Asked a friend today on the phone if he had see the reports about Heritage Foundation offering $$ for scientists to diss reports on Global Warming.
He said, oh yes, that emails had been flying back and forth among members of the Union of Concerned Scientists about that- re: the perps being caught in the act. Nothing on that at the UCS site (yet?), but I did find a few things worthy of note:
Scientists’ Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science
An unprecedented level of political interference threatens the integrity of government science.
Yowsa!
Singer is among Hollywood’s most sought-after litigators and has represented Governor Schwarzenegger, Britney Spears and Bruce Willis, among others. His specialties include libel, copyright and privacy law.
Reid paid Singer $25,000 from his senatorial campaign account on December 14th, according to his most recent Federal Election Commission report.
Reid’s spokesman, Jon Summers, said Singer was hired to help Reid respond to a story by The Associated Press that was critical of a Las Vegas land deal involving the senator. He said Reid got approval from the Senate Ethics Committee for the expenditure.
From John at Americablog.
According to the President’s plan, dinosaurs will have a farting allowance- and if they fart less than they are scheduled for- they can sell their surplus fart allowance to other dinosaurs- or Mobil Oil.
Something like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq-BrPhNSjY 707
Roharbacher’s assertion is painfully reminiscent of Reagan saying that trees caused air pollution.
Except Dana hasn’t the excuse of Alzheimer’s, he’s just a prick.
Why does Global Warming bring out the stupid in people? We should use it as a litmus test to see who is capable of rational thought and who is simply a monkey wearing a business suit. The GOP is run by people who are convinced the world is flat, wow.
I think I’ll pass on this one. ;)
scarecrow @ 26
Does that mean you’re passing gas?
rwcole @
23
Perhaps that surplus could go to Sinclair Oil:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Oil
The Pat Methane-y Group thinks Dana’s a fissile fool.
Kevin Hayden @ 30
Make that fizzle fool, and I’ll believe it. :)
Steve,
No, not an anesthetist, ether.
San Diegans have a Dana sore that needs to be drained, preferably in La Brea’s Tar pits.
Try these Dino Boy !
cbl @ 34
With enough black bean burritos to create gas in a 60-ft. dinosaur, I’d say that lighting any sort of match in that sort of methane concentration would level a city block. :)
Butt of course! She oughta’ know, her ancestors walked the Earth with dinosaurs, or do you believe in that icky Darwin blasphemy?
Well now, I resemble that remark. Little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place around the corner, Arturo’s, that makes a killer black bean burrito, salsa verde, no cheese, sauteed veggies with chilies, rice, oh my. All for $5.25. Thank Goddess I spend the afternoon in my warehouse…or there’d be trouble, me thinks. Warehouse warming? After all it’s an ice house.
Shut that window, young man! I can’t afford to heat the whole outdoors!
what?
I don’t understand why this is hard to understand
don’t you know flatulence is the root word of turbulence?
of COURSE flatulence caused global warming back then, and even the winds from flatulence of yesteryear remain to this very day and are forever are known as turbulence because of it
sheesh, I’m surprised this is coming as a surprise to anyone
marksb @ 37
Arturo’s is about 2 blocks from the building where I work!
Maybe he knows for sure. After all, he who smelt it…
Kevin Hayden @
33
Tar pits up in West LA. Sorry. But there’s some lovely stretches of lonely coastal hills up in Camp Pendleton where you can lose things for a good long while. A capabara got lose from the Wild Animal Park a few years back and went wild on the base. Lots of tall tales from drilling Marines about a giant rat…
Rohrbacher has been an embarrassment to the entire state of California, my native home, for ages. This is a new low, even for him.
Next he’ll be saying that all the endangered species that interfere with industry are creating global warming with their “air production.” Spotted owl gas, marsh mouse gas, and so on.
Hey TREX….
How does it feel to be swiftboated?
Just wondering
Elizabeth de la Vega is on CSPAN2 right now.
12,000 years ago, there were no dinosaurs walking the planet…and farting.
Yet, an international team of scientists in the 1990s who were studying Antarctic ice core samples dating back 12,000 discovered (to their surprise) that just before the last Great Ice Age there was a “global warming” temperature spike. What really, really came as a surprise, though, was that within 30 years of this temperature spike the Great Ice Age began that lasted for several thousand years.
It couldn’t have been dinosaur flatulence. Increased solar activity, maybe? Scientists don’t know but the ice core samples indicate something happened to warm the earth’s air and oceans…and somehow triggered the Great Ice Age 12,000 years ago.
One theory advanced is that the “global warming” 12,000 years ago melted the ice packs, with the result that the huge amounts of freshwater entering the earth’s seas somehow disrupted the ocean currents, interferring with the thermohaline transfer of heat from the tropical zones to the polar zones. Voila!! Instant Ice Age!!
Is this what we now face? A “global warming” temperature spike that will melt enough ice that it will affect the earth’s ocean currents and trigger another Great Ice Age?
Rohrbacher is a fool, but in all the talking about “global warming” there are few who understand what “global warming” might eventually lead to…another Great Ice Age.
For further information: google ice core samples plus ice age plus ocean currents. There are articles that discuss this disastrous scenario for the world that appears to be unfolding this century.
And it really doesn’t matter what is causing the “global warming.” Average earth temperatures are rising, ice is melting and flowing into the seas as freshwater, and some British scientists reported last year that the flow rate of the Gulf Stream out in the Atlantic appears to be slowing on it’s southward leg on the west side of the Atlantic.
Oooops.
“Dana Rohrbacher” is college slang for “teh dumbass.”
Another thing, a joke my kid told me:
Q- If you get run over by a steamroller how do you get to the hospital?
A- In a “flatulance!”
OK- I wanna be the bumper sticker queen here.
I’m thinking I can find one for every new post.
Never misunderestimate the Power of Stupidity
I read an article a long time ago that criticized the destruction of rain forest to create grazing areas for cattle because cattle flatulence was a significant source of the greenhouse gas methane. Perhaps Rohrbacher had something like that in the back of his (mind?).
But the Wikipedia article on methane says that it is cattle belches, not farts, that produce the gas.
With this remark, Rohrabacher displays his low intelligence. There should be a minimum level of intelligence required to run for Congress. But then, how do we justify such a requirement, when the intelligence level in the White House is even worse?
t-news @ 50
Our end to energy dependence: put masks over the faces of cows. Convert our cars to run on methane, and there you go. Of course, this might bankrupt the oil industry. (The downside being..?)
Speaking of hot air…
National Public Relations’ (NPR)/Pox News “reporter” Mara Liasson carries more water today. Following Barack Obama’s speech, Mara Murdoch calls Obama an “insurgent candidate.” Ah Mara, each time you perpetuate a talking point do you get a little kickback, or Ferragamo shoes, or trip to see the aspens turn, or some such thing?
I remember David Broder calling Lamont supporter “elitist insurgents.” This probably wouldn’t be so annoying if I could find one instance of this kind of terminology applied to a Repubelickin. Just one…
David Ehrenstein @ 11
This is a juicy little bit of info..
Just saw over at Cliff Schecter’s place that someone is trying to get Mccain recalled.
http://www.azcentral.com/blogs/index……1&pb=1
A commenter at Glenn Greenwald’s blog points out that Anna Nicole Smith may be the Laci Peterson (disappeared in December 2002, during the runup to the War on Iraq) for the War on Iran.
TeddySanFran @ 56
I’m hoping that she died of natural causes. That should help put an end to it.
If she died of natural causes and the story still does not end, then we will know the TP have designated her as the bright shiny distraction.
ReneND @ 57
Not if Geraldo has anything to do about it, he was accusing Howard Stern of murder on Hannity the other night and they gave him back his show on the weekends
Suzanne @ 58
Define “natural causes.” Choking on one’s own vomit?
She had a fever and the flu.
With three men vying for paternity of her five-month old orphaned infant, and a possible half-billion dollar inheritance, I think TradMed can ride this one until Tehran is glass.
Kristine @ 60
especially when you have the flu
Had to have some fun with the dino gas image
It’s -4 wind chill here tonight. A good night to be in out of the cold, chattin’ on FDL.
Kristine, the coroner makes the actual determination of type and cause of death. In CA, the usual types are ruled to be natural, accidental, at the hands of another person, and suicide (from memory), with specific cause of death, ie blunt trauma, pneumonia, detailed on the cause. I guess we will have to wait for the coroner’s determination.
NOT ONE MORE.
Not one more life. Not one more limb. Not one more day.
Anna Quindlen has picked up Molly’s mantle.
Incan Sex God Hearts You . . .Upstairs
This is a good sign at least. Let’s make sure it’s not just empty rhetoric. Democrats can and MUST stop any attacks against Iran. C’mon, Ike! You can do it. We got yer back, baby…
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2….._0210.html
Piggies still at the trough, new ethics legislation notwithstanding.
Prairie Sunshine @ 67
Prairie-BTW, thanks for those Anne ginger cookies. They worked. Thank you.
lolo @ 63
Touche’
Suzanne @ 66
True. I shouldn’t get so flippant about another human’s death. She is/was a tragic figure, her death no less so. Having lost a brother to suicide, I guess I tend to get a little freaked out by these things, more so because they are so public. I so loathe the Tabloid Media that makes so much ado about people of dubious talent who are “famous for being famous” while stories of government corruption at the highest levels are almost ignored by most people. Sometimes I don’t know who I’m more digusted with: The people who publish this crap or those who read it.
Thus endeth the rant. Didn’t mean to go off on a tangent there.
no problem at all Kristine.
Dinsaur farts. Okay, Paleobiology is apparently not a prerequisite for running for office.
This whole cattle flatulence/methane theory raises some red flags for me. (I accept that global warming is happening, and that humans are primarily responsible for it)
I can dig that methane is a particularly effective heat-trapping gas insofar as the mechanics of global warming are presently understood.
But can we honestly say that we have more of a ‘net methane outgassing’ problem now via cattle than we did during the Pleistocene Epoch, when there were Wolly Mammoth, Mastodons, and Wooly Rhino, and Bison and Buffalo so plentiful it looked like the landscape itself was in fluid motion? It wasn’t exactly ‘globally warm’ then.
Is methane really such a causality? Are climatologists seeing methane signatures in past warming trends?
What are we feeding our cattle these days, McDonald’s and Heineken?
Suzanne @ 74
Thanks for being understanding. I just wish people were as interested in some of these more serious matters than who Brittney’s dating now. I would love one day to see the tabloid magazines like People, Us, etc. have pictures of Cheney with captions like “BUSTED–Did Aide spill all to Fitz?” or “Dick sneaking behind George’s back: The real story of the Leak” I’ll betcha if we sex the story up like that the story would get a lot more attention. OTOH, I did see a cover on the National Enquirer (or some other of its ilk) saying George & Laura are having marital troubles. A big squabble over funding for libraries in this years budget?
squiddy @ 75
If so, can I come back in my next life as a cow? :-)
t-news @
50
Yes, I read that too. It puts Dana’s comments in a new light and renders them a little less crazy. Maybe people here shouldn’t be so quick to spout off and ridicule? It’s entirely likely that dinosaur flatulence contributed to their climate millions of years ago. Life, in general, has terra formed this planet in ways to make it more habitable. It’s taken 4 billion years to do that and methane from the stomachs of dinos or from vast algae matts certainly made a difference. And it’s equally certain that ruminant flatulence contributes to our present day climate. But it still remains true that we far out strip them all in shear tons of CO2 dumped into the biosphere. There is no doubt about that at all, but I think there should be an important lesson here: what Rep. Rohrbacher said is not “ignorant”, even if he doesn’t fully understand what he said. It simply wasn’t far fetched. It is actually not that different from what most people think.
Flatulent Dana-saurs = Windbag Jesus Horses
SteveAudio @
25
no. not a prick. an arsehole……..
noen @
78
Of course, to cause a major climatic shift there would have to be evidence that the amount of methane production increased substantially. Dinosaurs existed as a taxonomic group for over 150 million years. They were just as diverse in the Jurassic as they were in the Cretaceous. So why would there have been some extraordinary increase in methane production? Did dinosaurs suddenly start eating bean burritos on the edge of the Xichuculb Crater?
Ahhhhh! That explains it….
Dr. Dino “I’m an idiot hear me” Rohrabacher :”My theory, which is a theory…and mine…and ius my theory…and no one elses..it’s mine… is that …ahem…the dinosaurs went extinct…aaaaheem…because they built up methane in their intestines…and self-immolated when a giant asteroid hit…That’s my theory!”
Kristine @
77
You would risk being a mighty unpopular cow, Kristine.
Only the best for my cows: Bass Ale or Guinness.
This guy has had 9 terms in Congress!
From his website:
Methinks he has had a few too many space flights himself.
DeanOR @
83
Maybe he’s an expert on long-distance zero gravity diapers as well as prehistoric flatulence.
Here’s another individual with a serious case of brain farts.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..D2A7WyFz4D
Me thinks Johnnie Howard thinks Gallipoli was an Australian victory!
” Dinosaurs or Dana Soars “
If hot air rises, Dana soars
On brink, extinct, departed
It’s not surprise, as brain o’ yours
does stink. It thinked half – hearted.
Believe the earth is flat, you’ll hence
Someday need be set for a shocker.
Dyslexic boy of frat rule whence
T-rEXXON had PETROhrabacher !
Methinks that all the hot air emanating from these dumbos is the real cause of global warming.
Rohrabacher’s closeted sexual proclivities have not been a tremendous secret. but with a marriage and triplets, he has managed to wiggle deep into a corner of the closet where they store the wigs and fake beards.
My sources on this information are very trustworthy, but, as with many of the Republican sexual scandals, there are few people who will come forward, knowing that their personal and professional lives will be destroyed by fanatics.
I thought that after the November elections dinosaur flatulence in Congress would be diminishing.
Correctimento! Back in the 80’s Dana was frequently spotted at the usual watering holes the closeted visit to pay for their pleasures.
And as we all know thanks to the Reverend Haggard, a wife and kiddies constitutes proof of gayness.
I swear I read a report from the UK last year, that some official was blaming current global warming on flatulant cows.
Stop farming animals. Look at this website: http://www.meat.org