You might have wondered, like I did, how Ken Ham was going to deal with the revelation that his prize Allosaurus specimen was the gift of a freaky neo-Confederate crank. We now know: he’s going to ignore it indignantly.

Rachel Maddow had a segment on the allosaur, the creationists, and the neo-Confederate. She makes some good points: why is this kook being given tax incentives to build another pile of bullshit in the state of Kentucky? How can they claim that this ancient fossil supports their claim of a young earth? And what about Michael Peroutka? Watch it yourself and see.

Ken Ham calls that “Rachel’s Rant”, and claims that she was obviously upset and angry, but, in reality, she is angry at God . I don’t know about you, but what I saw was Maddow laughing at the folly of Answers in Genesis. He only tries, feebly, to reply to two of her points.

He declares that no Kentucky taxpayer money is being used to construct the Ark Encounter , but that is a claim no one made. Maddow says quite clearly several times that the Ark Park has been given $43 million in tax incentives — that is, Answers in Genesis has been exempted from a requirement to pay taxes on their for-profit enterprise, and will also receive rebates on sales taxes. So all Ham has done is rebut a claim that Rachel Maddow did not make.

Maddow mentioned how dinosaur fossils ought to be awkward for creationists — they’re millions of years old, and these loons claim the earth is only about 6,000 years old. Ham’s answer: Nuh-uh, nope. That’s it. He has declared by fiat that the fossil allosaur is only 4500 years old, ignoring all the evidence, so therefore it’s no problem for creationists. It’s remarkable how many problems they solve by closing their eyes very, very tightly.

What about Peroutka, and the association of their “museum” with a treacherous racist neo-Confederate and political weirdo? That gets one sentence. One dismissive sentence.

In one part of her rant, she uses a sleazy tabloid approach in her attempts to bring disrepute to creationists.

He will not dignify the facts with a response, apparently, and my, but isn’t it rude of this woman to reveal the actual facts behind the donation?

Deny, deny, deny…pretend the facts aren’t out there. It’s the standard creationist play.