Well, we don't have to worry about global warming.  We're all going to bored to death by old Republican jokes.

The problem is his comments are the most reasonable of all the republican candidates.
It doesn't get any better than that.   This is the high point in republican science.

yah, ok, McCain.   Nevermind.

The Democrats need a 1932, and Freddie (his given name) Thompson is just the man to deliver it for them.

Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.

It is not clear why Thompson named Galileo at the end of that quote.  Because Galileo "discovered" the Solar System?

I do not know enough about the trial of Galileo to be able to say how close he came to being executed by the Inquisition.  It seems quite possible that had he comported himself more aggressively and disrespectfully, and less cooperatively, he might very well have ended up in a prison, or even put to death.  As it is, it seems the Inquisitors were not so much interested in what he believed, as in what he had already published and might go on to publish.  So he agreed to renounce his Dialogo, and to accept an imposed silence under house arrest.

On the "science" of the persecutors: Given the limitations of empirical evidence prior to Galileo and his telescope, there was nothing unreasonable about accepting the geocentric system described by Claudius Ptolemaeus.  To be sure, that system got a bit tangled when it came to explaining the apparently retrograde movements of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, but not so tangled as to make the whole thing unbelievable.  Copernicus, by hypothesizing a heliocentric system, showed how much easier the math became, for calculating the movements of the planets.  But he did not go so far as to assert that the Sun, not the Earth, was at the center of the planetary system.  Anyway, he had no evidence for that.

Where those old Aristoteliolatrous Catholic doctors, and the hierarchs who believed them, most disgracefully violated scientific reasoning, was in their insisting that the authority of the Bible supports the geocentric system, and only that system, and therefore any promotion of the heliocentric system would be an act of rebellion against the authority of both the Bible and the Church.

They also got bent out of shape by Galileo's observations of "imperfections" in the planetary bodies: the cratered face of the Moon; the phases of Venus; satellites of Jupiter; the "ears" of Saturn.  (I forget if his observations of Mars included anything of that sort, and if he observed the phases of Mercury.)  That reaction of theirs did not have anything to do directly with the Bible, I think.  Rather, I suspect those observations offended against certain hardened cosmological ideas, influenced by Plato and Aristotle, to the effect that the Moon and the planets were created by God as perfect luminary bodies.  Galileo's observations showed that they were not star-like at all, but were unique worlds similar in some regards to the Earth.

I would be interested to know what contemporary Protestants might have thought of all this.  Did they applaud Galileo as a hero for standing up to the Pope and to flawed Catholic doctrine?  Or were they as horrified by his conclusions as the Catholics were?

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

I think what he meant about Galileo is that people who think the evidence is in on Global Warming are the Catholic Priests who prosecuted Galileo.   those who are sceptical of global warming being greenhouse gas caused are as Galileo, standing for true science and skepticism.

politics is decided by the C student.  

Why can we land a man on the moon, but can't . . . (add whatever problem you want to solve here)  

The reason is because when developing the landing on the moon project, they could hire and fire due to competence.  

Not so with politics.  The same failed voters vote the next time.

"Helioater?" "Druid/"  I can think of some much more common words.  He sounds like James Inhofe. Clearly, being a snide, illiterate goon is a prerequisite to seeking the Republican nomination.  

to John: instead of relying on proof by bogus references why don't you actually post some of these "Statements" and "Petitions" so we can see what they actually say. Or at least your "long list" of "scientists" who have changed their views.

Sheesh. It never stops from some of these dunderheads.