I must say, begrudgingly, that the coal industry is nothing if not resilient.

Anyone — a-n-y-o-n-e — can see that coal is evil, filthy crap that, though it may be in use today, should be removed from the world's energy mix at the first possible opportunity. Unquestionably. Undeniably. Demonstrably.

Anyone who says different is a) ignorant, b) stubborn beyond the point of personal safety, c) under direct economic threat from acknowledging otherwise, d) all of the above.

Some of those people are operating coalcandothat.com, which peddles one absurd, dishonest notion after another, represented by a not-nearly-cute-enough character, Lumpy, an actual lump of coal made "cool" by giving this sooty, dirty

 rock a pair of sunglasses. Please, go take a look at this frippery — the adage says that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I don't want to spend my day exposing all of the site's ridiculous contentions, but maybe just one or two:

One passage asks for a leveled playing field for coal by giving it the same subsidies that wind power has gotten. Got that? Pity the poor coal baron, looking in from the outside, unsupported by the body politic while King Wind gets all the government spoils. Is that how reality strikes you? The stones of these people!

Another squib contrasts "America's popular president-elect" with coal, and coal wins! Obama got 52 percent of the vote, while a recent poll (not a vote) conducted by the coal industry (but surely fair) put coal's approval rating at 72 percent. Why, if 52 percent is "popular," then 72 percent must be ... yes, a "landslide."

Here's the thing about that: Even if the poll were legit, and I don't believe it for a minute, it would be immaterial. Of no intellectual, spiritual, or legislative value. Popularity is not the point here. Coal is objectively bad. If people don't know that, then they don't know that. OK. But it doesn't make coal any more useful.

But these guys continue to trot out this bullshit, regardless. I have to admire them for that, almost as much as I have to continue to point out their grubby, profit-over-public-health pronouncements, which is to say "lies," "half-truths," and "euphemisms."

Don't let them get away with it.