I've been following Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Twitter now for a while.  For no particular reason, other than I thought she was cool, and I like to follow cool people on Twitter to see what they have to say.  

I have to confess, I didn't know a ton about her.  I knew she was a feminist, and championed women's rights in the Middle East.  

I knew Christopher Hitchens really liked her, so during my Christopher Hitchens phase I was inclined to think positively of her.  

And I'd seen her on TV before (Daily Show, Real Time, etc) and thought I liked what she had to say.

I had heard some people say she was part of the Islamophobic group, but given her biography I thought she had earned her right to be critical of Islam. 

But... she tweeted out something the other day that I thought was just insane.

If sea levels rise, then what? Apocalypse?
No, the situation is called the Netherlands.
Perhaps, we should all learn how to build dikes.
Next climate summit and all climate summits after that should be held in Holland. Proost!

— Ayaan Hirsi Ali (@Ayaan) November 8, 2021

This is insane for all the obvious reasons I probably don't even need to point out.  Rising sea levels is only one of many problems that we are going to be facing under climate change--food shortages, fresh water shortages,  natural disasters, killer heat waves, etc.

But, even assuming that you accept Aayan Hirsi Ali's presumption that all we need to do is build more dikes to combat climate change, it still doesn't make sense.  How about we just stop climate change, so we don't have to build all those dykes?  I mean, it's got to be way cheaper to solve the problem now than just deal with it later, right?

So I chimed in.

Or... we could cut emissions so that the sea levels don't rise. It would require some investment, but it would be a lot cheaper than having every coastal city in the world learn how to build dikes.

— Joel Swagman (@JoelswagmanJoel) November 8, 2021

And of course, because I had chimed in on a famous person's twiter feed, I got the usual crazies responding.

“We” could cut emissions. You first.

— vernon farquhar (@vernonfarquhar2) November 8, 2021

Hobbit

— Piet Roorda-📷🎨 (@pietroorda) November 8, 2021

But then I started looking at Aayan Hirsi Ali's tweets. (Despite having followed her for years, I haven't been seeing her tweets. Must be something to do with the Twitter algorithm.) And a quick glance through indicates she's full on into this conservative culture war grift.  

This is how to defeat CRT: through the ballot box.

— Ayaan Hirsi Ali (@Ayaan) November 3, 2021

This one was also in her Twitter feed because she retweeted it:

.@AsraNomani is an American hero. https://t.co/J3NglQaeFR

— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) November 2, 2021

But to me it looks really dodgy.

"Are these books that are in our classrooms here in Virginia?" "They are in Virginia."
...but, not in the classrooms, right?

— Joel Swagman (@JoelswagmanJoel) November 9, 2021

Looking at her bio on Wikipedia, it looks like she's been associated with Right-Wing nuts for a long time. It was on me for not knowing more about her I guess.