VP debate, a hurricane, and Americans in denial: Today's news for October 5th

Fox News:

Kaine, Pence trade blows over 'insult-driven campaigns' in VP debate

This is the extent of my coverage of the vice presidential debate. There is a link above. Feel free to use it.

I did not watch the veep debate, nor do I care about it. If anything interesting had been revealed, it would have been headline news. Instead the headline could read, "Two boring guys had argument".

In a presidential election year where the two major candidates are so retch-inducing awful, it is hard to care about the vice presidents.

Moving on to real news...

CNN:

Hurricane Matthew: US evacuations begin ahead of storm

After its harsh winds and heavy rains assailed Caribbean nations, Hurricane Matthew continued early Wednesday its march toward the US, where people have already started to stock up on supplies and evacuate their homes.

The deadly hurricane, which has sustained winds at 125 mph as it heads toward the Bahamas, late Tuesday triggered a hurricane warning for parts of Florida -- and started to cause headaches elsewhere along the East Coast.

Forecasters predict a Category 4 hurricane will brush up against the East Coast -- including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina -- sometime between Thursday evening and Saturday.

Some areas have already begun evacuating, so if you are in any of the states mentioned, please check the news.

Just so you folks know, I live in the storm's possible path, in Savannah, Georgia. If I have to evacuate Thursday, you may not see any posts from me on Friday (although I will endeavor to post as always). You can follow me on my Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/1EMcGon1 (which you are welcome to do anyway).

I will admit, it isn't often that a hurricane seems to take such a perfect course right along most of the southeastern coast. This could get ugly.

In less important news...

CNS News:

Pew: Most Americans Don’t Believe in ‘Scientific Consensus’ on Climate Change

Nearly three-quarters of Americans don’t trust that there is a large “scientific consensus” amongst climate scientists on human behavior being the cause of climate change, according to an in-depth survey on “the politics of climate” released Tuesday by Pew Research Center.

According to the survey, only 27 percent of Americans agree that “almost all” climate scientists say that human behavior is mostly responsible for climate change, while 35 percent say that “more than half” of climate scientists agree on this. An additional 35 percent of those surveyed say that fewer than half (20%) or almost no (15%) climate scientists believe that human behavior is the main contributing factor in climate change.

While Americans aren't necessarily the smartest group (see "Presidential election", "Trump", and "Clinton"), they have gotten their B.S. detectors on for this topic.

Pew contrasted this to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which “stated in the forward to its 2013 report, ‘the science now shows with 95 percent certainty that human activity is the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century.’”

What do you expect? A report from a group which hates America anyway? If Chinese state-controlled Media had issued the report, it couldn't have less credibility than the UN.

It should be noted that "scientific consensus" doesn't equate to "fact", even if it is 95%. That was the size of the "scientific consensus" which thought our solar system was Earth-centered until Galileo proved otherwise. Contrary to what Al Gore says, science is rarely "settled".

Additionally, Americans were skeptical about the expertise of climate scientists. 

Just 33 percent of those surveyed said that climate scientists understand “very well” whether global climate change is happening, another 39 percent said climate scientists understand this “fairly well.” Twenty-seven percent of those surveyed say climate scientists don’t understand this “too well” or don’t understand it at all. 

When it comes to the causes of global climate change only 28 percent say climate scientists understand them “very well” while 31 percent say the scientists understand them “not too well” or “not at all.”

Most Americans are perfectly capable of looking up in the sky and seeing that big glowing ball that appears every day, coincidentally with the highest temperatures of the day, and recognizing that it is the cause of the overwhelming majority of global warming. It takes a special kind of elitist stupidity to claim otherwise.