The great Texas Governor Rick Perry has smartly aligned himself with Galileo Galilei, that Renaissance maverick who famously took on the scourge known as "the scientific community." And we could surely use Galileo's science-debunking savvy now more than ever, huh, Rick? What with Dr. Alun Hubbard — who purports to be a "leading glaciologist" (whatever THAT is) — claiming that Greenland's Petermann Glacier has all but melted away faster than anyone could ever have predicted.

[Here's two side-by-side pictures of Petermann glacier, before and after a huge ice island four times the size of Manhattan broke off of it. Talk about "breaking the ice"! Right? "Breaking the ice"? Pic via AP.]

Two days ago, an "ice island" four times larger than Manhattan broke away from a Greenland glacier and is heading for the Nares Strait, and could reach the Atlantic Ocean within two years.