"The trouble with the world is that stupid people are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt" -Bertrand Russell
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| Ian Bayne |
Well, guess what? He's still at it. Still at it meaning he's still introducing more than his fair share of stupidity into our world.
After Ian Bayne garnered less than 4% of the vote in the Republican primary for the 11th Congressional District of Illinois, where pandering to the stupid vote inspired his ridiculous Robertson/Parks comparison, he took a job with our own local conservative radio station, Cities 92.9, as the host of The Morning Buzz with Ian Bayne, a 3 hour talk show that airs from 5 to 8 am on weekdays.
What a seamless transition it was from pandering to stupid voters to commanding a microphone at the Cities 92.9 studios. It was as though Cities and Bayne were manufactured together, one for the other. Cities has a long history of peddling stupidity, and who could possibly carry that torch better than the guy who thinks the anti-gay and anti-Civil Rights comments made by Phil Robertson were Rosa Parks level courageous.
In Bayne's defense, there were a lot of white people in the South who were lynched during Phil Robertson's lifetime for simply expressing their Christian views. Not!
So, what sort of stupidity has Ian Bayne been involved with since becoming a part of the Cities 92.9 family?
I'm glad you asked.
I've already blogged about one of Bayne's brilliant bouts with stupidity. This one occurred this past summer when Bayne started a campaign called Flock the Tax Hike, which was promoted as a revolt against unnecessary increases in local taxes, and which blatantly misrepresented the purpose of those tax increases. That campaign fizzled out rather quickly as support stayed confined to a small group of the most credulous listeners of Cities 92.9.
A more recent example of Bayne's stupidity occurred on November 18th, when Bayne sent a Cities 92.9 employee he calls Fistbump over to the ISU campus to question students about their position on global warming.
Why did Bayne pick the 18th?
Well, it was cold outside, and in Bayne's world, cold days aren't possible in central Illinois in mid November when the planet is warming. I kid you not, you just can't make this stuff up.
Most of the students who were questioned in the audio clip seem to accept that global warming is occurring, and most credit science for that acceptance. Bayne's reaction to the pro science responses are met with derision as he wonders aloud if science is the new god on the ISU campus. You see, in Bayne's world, accepting what 97% of the world's climate experts tell us about climate change is bad, because it's akin to faith. Ironically, what never occurs to Bayne, who regularly promotes faith on his radio show, is that this line of attack works against the concept of faith itself, not science. Way to lean into your own punch, moron!
If you thought the pinnacle of that morning's stupidity occurred with the faith comparison, brace yourself for the following exchange between Fistbump and an ISU student:
FISTBUMP: I just wanted to see if you believe in global warming or not.
STUDENT: It's hard not to with the way things are going.
FISTBUMP: You do realize it's 18 degrees out in the middle of November right? Makes it a little bit hard to believe in.
So, according to our friend Fistbump, a local cold temperature makes it hard to believe in global warming. This is what passes for stimulating, informative talk, on Cities 92.9.
Climate Science 101 for the benefit of fistbump and the rest of the Cities staff: The operative word in global warming is the word global.
Had our scientifically illiterate friends at Cities 92.9 bothered to do just a tiny bit of research that morning, prior to putting their ignorance into the form of a question, they would have discovered that the average temperature over the entire Northern Hemisphere on the 18th of November was higher than normal, as was the average temperature for the entire planet, even though approximately 85% of the contiguous United States was experiencing lower than normal temperatures.
An oft repeated phrase on college campuses across the country is that there is no such thing as a stupid question, but on November 18th, that phrase ceased to be true at Illinois State University thanks to Fistbump, Ian Bayne, and Cities 92.9.
