Year 2, Month 10, Day 19: Sciencey Stuff Is Easy!

The SF Chronicle reports on Rick Perry’s new energy plan.

West Mifflin, Pa. — Texas Gov. Rick Perry sought to recharge his flagging presidential campaign Friday by introducing an energy plan that calls for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and expanding oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.

Perry said his proposals would kick-start the sluggish economy and create 1.2 million new jobs through development and by rolling back clean air rules and other federal regulations.

Why on earth would anyone trust this guy? Sent October 15:

The revelation that his administration purged any mention of rising sea levels and global climate change from a recent scientific report should be a warning to voters everywhere: Texas governor Rick Perry has a very tenuous relationship with the truth. This act of government censorship was so egregious that all of the scientists involved in the extensive environmental study have requested their names be removed from the document.

Needless to say, it behooves all of us to regard the Texas governor’s newly introduced energy plan with a substantial grain of salt. Mr. Perry’s readiness to ignore problematic truths is surely matched by an equal readiness to replace them with convenient falsehoods. Given Republican primary voters’ preference for tough-talking liars, this may be a sound political strategy, but to those who know both science and history, it resembles Soviet-style revisionism far more than the finest traditions of American democracy.

Warren Senders