That religious meme is mainly confined to evangelicals and southern baptists in the US. It's not their own dogma, it was deliberately fed to them by politicians. Many other Christian sects use the same passages to argue god gave us ownership of the natural world and therefore we are responsible for keeping it in working order. At no point does god say "Don't worry, if you screw up this planet I will replace it"..

Actually the Catholic church has been down with Science for many years. They don't perceive a contradiction between science and religion, modern catholics consider science a "tool to better understand creation". For example, it was a Catholic priest working in the vatican observatory who came up with the big bang theory, they have accepted evolution as "god's handiwork" since the 60's, they're still dragging their feet on birth control but I think they will arrive at the same place as protestants in the not too distant future.

Political parties have always thrived on loyalty at the expense of logic. It's the same in other democratic nations, albeit a little less extreme than the Tea Party.

Conspiracy - organising people to achieve a specific hidden goal. What you are describing is what Karl Popper called "The republic of Science". There is no "we" in Science to conspire, there's no central authority picking winners or handing out funds, there's just a endless list of groups and individuals with competing ideas and explanations. It doesn't surprise me at all that 3/4 of the papers submitted are never published, they can't all be interesting and many will be just plain wrong. These days people and groups can publish their own papers on the web, IMO it's easier than it's ever been for a wannabe Galileo to get a leg up.

PS:I figure you already know that..

Agree, climate denial is fueled and maintained by financially motivated propaganda, there have been several books written on the subject. In many cases today's climate propagandists are the same people who ran the propaganda campaign for the tobacco industry.

If your paper disproves it you get a Nobel prize.

The Chinese also had a plan to deorbit over the ocean, loss of control has screwed that plan. As for Skylab, as an older Aussie I remember it quite well, it was a huge news story here, NASA were not confident they knew where it would land (even with full control), Melbourne and Perth were real possibilities but they were hoping for the ocean. At the end of the day it landed closer to Perth than the ocean.

Christian extremists don't believe in psychology, they believe in demons.

Metal fans consider that a feature, not a bug.

The "free" in "free market" does not mean free of regulation, it means "open to all". eg: all markets, (free or otherwise), assume that property law exists and is enforced.

Mine used an old cassette player, video was on a tv via a video recorder.

The Arab spring is really,really, simple to understand when you strip away the politics and religion, it was a direct result of millions of empty stomachs. The worst drought ever recorded in the 10K years humans have been farming the fertile crescent caused 2 million Syrian farmers to surrender their land to the dustbowl and move into the already overcrowded cities seeking work. That was 2009-2011, severe drought had also occurred in Russia and Oz cutting their harvest in half for several years (2005-2009), 2010-11 grain prices skyrocketed in the ME and NA. There was a series of food riots in major cities such as Cairo and Aleppo in the lead up to the uprisings. The guy who very publicly self immolated in Libya in 2011 was credited with "sparking" the uprising, he was not demanding democracy, he was one of millions demanding bread for his family.

"Free market" does not mean a market free from government regulation.

As with God, one has to ask what kind of morality would lead our descendants to (re)create the pointless cruelty and misery seen in the media.

Yes old fashioned nets kill dolphins. No, the dead dolphins are not canned and sold as Tuna. Old fashioned nest are now banned in many jurisdictions, modern nets allow most Dolphins and seals to escape, a large proportion of canned Tuna now comes from open water fish farms. Some companies source Tuna only from fishermen who use a feathered hook on a rod (a common practice here in Oz). Some governments will only allow rod fishing for Tuna, those companies who insist fishermen use rod or are forced by size and geography to operate in rod only jurisdictions will heavily advertise their "dolphin friendly" status (even though most of them fought against the introduction of the laws).

CONservation : It might confuse you to know that I am an old fashioned "liberal" who has fond memories of working on farms, fishing boats, and old growth sawmills, let me know when you have managed to locate my political pigeon hole on your simple minded left/right axis of human behaviour.