Fifteen minutes with Rush and Sean.

While putzing around earlier today, I decided to check in on Rush Limbaugh, who I used to listen to quite a bit in the late 90's trying to understand the conservative frame of mind. Know thy enemy, or something. Anyway, I was subjected to three grievous assaults on reality within 15 minutes. Here's how that went, and the research I've done in the past 20 minutes to refute them:

Circa 2:55 pm EDT: Rush declares only ten people died in the gulf hurricanes.

Truth: Giving him the benefit of the doubt that he was only referring to Rita, the actual death toll stands over 300% above what he instructed his listeners to believe. The death toll from Katrina stands at 2,140, or 21000% over his estimate.

In the same sentence, we learn there were no murders or rapes at the New Orleans Convention Center.

There is some question about whether or not there were any rapes. No victims have come forward, according to authorities. The same is also being said of murder victims, although it appears that at least one major US news source has an account of a murder victim at the Convention Center.

Circa 3:10 pm EDT: Hannity was refuting the claims that global warming is influencing the climate and producing stronger hurricanes. To that end, he cited the 1900 Galveston hurricane, which was the most deadly natural disaster in American history, which occurred before - as Hannity stated - America was using fossil fuels.

Truth: Two major points where Hannity is intellectually dishonest or outright wrong. First, the 1900 Galveston storm does not even show up in the most intense storms to hit land from the last 150 years. However, four of the top five most intense storms - Alan (1980), Gilbert (1988), and Katrina and Rita - have occurred in the last quarter of a century.

The second point, and the obvious one, is Hannity's rewriting of history. The claim that America wasn't using fossil fuels in 1900 is laughable. The first coal mine incorporated in the US did so in 1820, and the first oil well appeared (quite famously) in 1856. The two sources had been used by other civilizations previous to that for thousands of years.

Unlike some Republicans (Hannity among them), I do not view conservatism as a mental illness. I am baffled, however, by the continued willingness of Republicans to tolerate the kind of foolishness displayed by Rush and Hannity today (and presumably on other occasions). And it's not like they're crackpot, tin-foil-hat conspiracy theorists. These are two commentators in the mainstream of the Republican party who have massive news organs and multi-million dollar fact-checking machines at their disposal (Rush and Hannity are both on ABC Radio, and Sean has the added benefit of the Fox News network to utilize). Yet for some reason, they weren't able to conduct the same sort of vetting of information I was using nothing but my internet connection and some Google and Wikipedia searching. It's almost as if they don't want to hear the truth, or disseminate the truth to their trusting listeners.

Anyway, after Hannity declared the absence of fossil fuels in America previous to the 20th century, I turned it off. I advise you to do the same.