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Two stories caught me attention this morning. Can you see the connection?

Feathered Dinosaurs Drive Creationists Crazy

Biblical literalists are on a campaign to "take dinosaurs back."

And

Polls favor Obama. A conspiracy by Democrats and the media?

What struck me was the mindset it exposes; the conservative mindset.

When stuff starts happening that defy the conservative narrative, it does not occur to them that they might have gotten it wrong, but that someone else has fiddled or fixed the whole cause and effect thing.

Organized religion's war with science goes back thousands of years, It began the day when the first inquiring minds decided that not everything that happened in the natural world was the work of spirits. Back then religions protected their turf by just eliminating the problem. Later scientists like, Galileo and Copernicus were locked away until they agreed to stop spreading facts.

These days believers just create their own parallel reality. They produce junk science to counter any actual science that threatens their mystical belief structure. They then dress their fictional world up to ape the real world of science by building their own "museums" and theme parks where believers can experience a world that never existed -- Disneylands of delusion. So, forget about trying to dissuade these religious conservatives of any of it. They are immune.

It's not enough for creationists to just create this parallel reality fabricated solely on wishful thinking. They must also libel the competition - real scientists -- whose findings are based on actual research and where the provable must always trump theory and wishful thinking.

Whether it's evolution, climate change or the actual age of the planet, if religious conservatives find their beliefs threatened by science, then the scientists must be up to something. They must be lying. Why? Because they are liberals. Or they must be lying because they are trying to drum up more "science business" for themselves. Whatever the reason, they MUST be lying.

Now, with their candidate slipping so badly in the polls against the president they hate so much, we see this conservative characteristic come once again to their emotional rescue. In response to the unimaginable - that voters might not care much for conservative remedies, their first instinct is to circle their self-delusional wagons. It can't be. It simply cannot be possible. Therefore it's not. Something must be rotten in Denmark... or is it Kenya?

You betchya. Their candidate, like Genesis before him, is a victim of that secular-humanist-gay-liberal- media conspiracy (the SHGLMC) Someone in there is "cooking the poll numbers." Why? Well, damn it, it's obvious; the SHGLMC is trying to take the wind out of the sails of conservative voters. They want conservatives to loose faith in their thing, to make them believe that the majority of Americans not only don't believe their myths and mythologies, but actually find the other guys the more believable and acceptable for leadership.

Fortunately campaigns don't last long enough to allow them to build creationist-type conservative campaign theme parks, where pollsters always show the conservative candidate ahead and the Todd Akins of politics run seminars on the difference between "real rape" and whatever the hell is supposed to be the flip side of that.

But the forces of mendacity and madness will still do what they always do at times like this. They will rally their base. So it's "Onward cretin soldiers, marching as to war...."

Then again, maybe this all actually proves at least one of their claims about natural history. While humans and dinosaurs didn't actually coexist millions of years ago, they apparently do these days.

Creationist Dinosaur with Saddle From BuzzFlash 2009