Unless and until, that is, scientific endeavor impinges upon either A) religious belief, or B) the ability of tycoons to keep making money in precisely the way they or their ancestors have always made their money. Then it's every man and woman a climatologist, and every genuine expert an "elitist" enemy of God and the American way -- creationism with a thermometer.

Charles P. Pierce describes what he calls the "three great premises" of talk-radio populism in his acerbic book "Idiot America":



However, the kind of worldwide conspiracy conjured by global climate change deniers like Palin, Hannity and the rest -- that is, as an evidence-free, religio-political cult that's the mirror image of their own movement -- simply can't exist in a scientific context. Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice is vanishing, glaciers melting, sea levels rising, droughts and floods increasing, and the past decade -- according to the World Meteorological Organization -- was the warmest in recorded history.

But hey, look over there: some elitist e-mails!

We also have Christmas cards in the southern U.S.