NEWSFLASH: RNC Chair Michael Steele Says Something Stupid Again

You really think he'd get tired of it, but apparently, he can't help himself. Think Progress presents the stupid, which was delivered in an interview with (who else?) Rush Limbaugh, where Steele dropped this little ignorant heap:

We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? No very long.

Greenland is called Greenland because of an ancient marketing campaign combined with the fact that parts of Greenland really are green. Noted smartypants and syndicated columnist Cecil Adams explained it this way in 2001:

The real story behind the name is given in Erik the Red's Saga, based on oral tradition and written down in the early thirteenth century in Iceland. After the Icelandic landnám was over, Erik the Red and his father Thorvald were forced to leave Norway because one or both of them was involved in killings (details are not given). After Thorvald died, Erik was involved in yet more killings, for which his punishment was three years' vacation--er, I mean banishment from Iceland. (And you thought O. J. got off easy.

He used the time to explore the rumored lands to the west. When his term of banishment expired, he returned to Icleand to invite his neighbors and friends to settle the new country with him. He purposely chose the pleasant name Grænland ("green land") to attract settlers, but the choice wasn't exactly misleading. Some parts of Greenland, especially the parts the Norse settled, really are green, as these pictures from the tourist board attest (www.greenland-guide.dk/outdoor_life_photo.htm). He may have been a killer, but at least he wasn't a real-estate scam-artist. He didn't have that much to gain by lying anyway, since he didn't charge anyone for the land. As in Iceland a century before, the land was free for the taking. Natives had lived in the area in the past, but at the time of Erik's voyage, only the northern part of Greenland was occupied by the Inuit (Eskimos).

Further stupid comes in the fact that if the glacial ice melted, Greenland and much of the world would be under water.

Independent, 2004:

Scientists say the melting of the massive ice sheet on Greenland - which has been stable for thousands of years - could increase sea levels by as much as 7 metres (23 feet). Such a rise would inundate vast areas of land, including cities at sea level, such as London. Some densely populated regions, such as Bangladesh, may disappear.

Erik the Red named Greenland in the 10th century, when we know London wasn't under water. So there's that.

If you need even more stupid, there's Steele's own statement:

Q: Global warming, you say the earth is cooling. Michael how do you know for sure?

STEELE: I don’t! I don’t! But apparently neither does anybody else! Ok? I don’t. All i know is every morning I come on, I turn on channel 13 and I’ll see what the weather man tells me okay?

"I don't know if the world is cooling, I'm just pulling shit outta my ass" isn't the most persuasive argument. The fact is that this has been the hottest decade in recorded history, which kind of blows a hole in Mike's little hypothesis.

I think Michael Steele might be trying to outcrazy Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Glenn Beck. Personally, I think he falls just short, but they've set the bar pretty high and Steele makes a stellar effort here.