Don't mess with Texas!

“If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas.”
—Ma Ferguson, 29th Governor of Texas (possibly apocryphal)

“Being able to own things that are your own is one of the things that makes America unique.”
—Rick Perry, 47th Governor of Texas (for real)

Where do they find these people?

Preview of future Investors' Business Daily editorials

Stephen Hawking is a tough act to follow, but they may try some of the following:

Mikhail Gorbachev wouldn't have had a chance in the USSR; if he had tried his reforms there, he would have been sent to the Gulag.

If LBJ had ever been elected President in his own right, maybe he would have had some credibility for the policies he pushed.

The Beatles would never had become famous if they had tried to compose their own songs; they probably had no creative talent at all.

If New Yorkers ever experienced a terrorist attack, they wouldn't be such unpatriotic latte-sipping liberals.

If Mark Twain had ever traveled to the Mississippi river, he wouldn't have written such unrealistic nonsense about it and the people living around it.

If Martin Luther King, Jr. had grown up in the South, he'd never had gotten the education to become a minister.

If Charles Darwin had seen the Galapagos islands, he would have realized that only the Almighty God could have designed the beaks of all those finches.

(P.S. IBD has now "corrected" the editorial. That's futile; such idiocy is incorrigible and eternal.)

Paul Campos is a big fat idiot

Actually, that's not true. Unlike the title character of Al Franken's book, he doesn't seem to be particularly corpulent. But his "obesity myth" crusade is not just dumb, it is drugged-up-radio-talk-show-host dumb.

The prevalence of obesity among US adults has more than doubled in 25 years. Among US adolescents, it has more than tripled. If a change like that had been observed in prevalence of homosexuality, the scientific consensus would be very different regarding its origins (innate vs. acquired) and probably also regarding whether it is a normal variation or a health problem. But, as an empirical matter, there is no evidence that the prevalence of homosexuality has changed over time. Therefore, reality-based people, who value empirical evidence, do not pretend that obesity is analogous to homosexuality.

O'Reilly turns the stupidity knob up to 11

This is making satire and parody impossible. Satire requires taking something stupid and exaggerating it, caricaturing it to make it patently absurd. But it just doesn't get more stupid than this. Like loudness in This Is Spinal Tap, the stupidity of some right-wing talking heads now goes to eleven.

Absurdly Strained Neutral POV

Brendan Nyhan wrote a ridiculous post, and it's ridiculous right from the title:

Liberals go soft on Sykes's Limbaugh "jokes"

Putting "jokes" in quotes implies that they aren't really jokes, and the rest of the title implies that they deserved being gone hard on, whatever that means. Such a title is not a good sign that the body of the post will be well thought out.

there's no avoiding the fact that what comedian Wanda Sykes said about Rush Limbaugh at the White House Correspondents Association dinner was loathsome

Fact? Loathsome?? Give me a break! Humor can only be loathsome when it mocks or humiliates the weak and powerless. The way Brendan describes it, one would think that Rush Limbaugh is a rape victim or a mentally retarded person - those would be likely targets of loathsome jokes - and not the man whose words make the most powerful Republican politicians soil their pants if they let slip a less-than-flattering opinion of him.

Adopting the language of GOP attacks on dissent since 9/11, Sykes equates Limbaugh's political speech with treason and compares him to a terrorist.

Um, no, Brendan, she satirizes him, making him the target of words paraphrasing his own. I don't think you'd get a good grade in an English class if you didn't recognize what was going on. That she is a comedian and was speaking as one at an event that was supposed to be comedic might be a hint, too.

Like many conservative talk show hosts, she also uses aggressive language expressing a desire for a political opponent to be physically harmed -- specifically for Limbaugh's kidneys to fail and for him to be waterboarded. This echoes the practice of many conservative hosts who make "jokes" about waterboarding liberals.

That's a patently fallacious comparison: those conservative talk show hosts were not joking when they said it, or at least I am not aware of any theory of humor that encompasses their statements. They were trash-talking or bullying, which a lot of people evidently confuse with joking, but I would hope that a PhD in political science wouldn't be among them. There is no discernible intent of irony, surprising incongruence, absurd, or exposing the target's hypocrisy in waterbording "threats" that come out of mouths of babes like Limbaughs and O'Reillys. They are just expressing aggression. By contrast, Sykes was obviously applying standard satirical forms. She "echoed" her targets' words, all right, but that's a standard tool of her trade. But Brendan is implying that the echoed words are morally equivalent to the originals. That is just absurd.

What's striking is how liberals -- who were frequently outraged about accusations of treason during the Bush years -- have sought to downplay Sykes's comments.

Wow! It is striking that people understand the difference between earnest accusations and jokes! Or between bullying and satire! How remarkable! Oh, wait... isn't it more striking that a professional analyst of political communication cannot tell the difference?

Of course, as Media Matters and Tapped's Adam Serwer pointed out, Limbaugh makes similarly offensive "jokes" on his show attacking dissent and comparing liberals to terrorists. And yes, he is far more powerful and influential than Sykes. But if it's wrong when Limbaugh does it, then it's wrong when Sykes does it too.

It would be if they were doing the same thing, but Brendan's pox on both their houses is logically similar to stating that if it is wrong to kill for material gain, then it's wrong to kill in self-defense. The fallacy is in asserting (without support and contrary to evidence) that two superficially similar acts are the same.

The hypocrisy here is staggering (especially in the Media Matters case).

The idiocy of Brendan's post is the only staggering phenomenon here. But it gets worse:

Imagine that a conservative comedian had accused Keith Olbermann of treason at the WHCA dinner back in 2004 and said he should be waterboarded. Would liberals have minimized the comments as "jokes" and catalogued all the offensive things Olbermann has said on his show? I don't think so.

That is extremely stupid, and Matt Yglesias aptly calls Brendan's bullshit:

But these aren’t symmetrical cases. Jokes advocating that conservative proponents of waterboarding should be subjected to waterboarding make a real political point, namely that this practice the right dismisses as “dunking” is, in fact, horrifying torture. The point of the joke is that this would be clear enough to Limbaugh if it was done to him. A comparable case, I guess, is if a conservative comedian were to say “if Keith Olbermann likes higher taxes on the wealthy so much, then he should have to pay higher income taxes, too!” But I don’t think Olbermann or his fans would find that particularly stinging since I take it he already understands the basic implications of Obama’s tax policies.

Brendan noted and quoted that, and had a chance to graciously say "Touché!" - but instead he just dug himself deeper:

First of all, it's not clear that Sykes was making a point about Limbaugh's support for waterboarding -- if that was her intent, she didn't make it especially obvious. The more general point was calling for physical harm to Limbaugh, which was quite clear

I can't believe this was written by the same guy whom I put on my blogroll. Last time I checked his blog, he had a brain. Where and when did he lose it?

Oh, by the way, Brendan didn't criticize the artistic value of Sykes' jokes anywhere in his post, so that issue is irrelevant to the discussion. But to prevent attacks on straw men, l'll say that I found the quoted jokes lame; however, my arguments do not depend on the artistic value of the jokes at all.

Jeebus!

This is why I don't normally watch TV. I don't need to be constantly reminded of the idiocy of powerful people.

Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Council, refuses to answer Chris Matthews' simple question whether he believes in evolution. Instead, he keeps talking complete gibberish.

It is the Retarded Party. How can anyone respect it?

Family Feud?

On CNN, after the presidential debate, 14 talking heads are arguing about which candidate did better at winning the votes of the undecided voters. As far as I know, not one of those people is a professional bookmaker and none of them runs a horse race betting establishment, so how can they add value predicting race outcomes?

It would be helpful if some qualified people discussed the issues raised in the debate in some depth, but most of those clowns obviously aren't qualified to say anything substantive, and the two or three who are would be beaten up by the rest if they tried.

Thus we are not allowed to get any more information than what the candidates advertise. Well, not quite... we get to hear thoughts from a group of people who have proven their stupidity by being undecided 20 days before the election and after almost 2 years of campaigning.

I just feel bad for the people who have to clean up the studio after all this bullshit was dropped in it.

Cokie, you ignorant slut!

Actually, she is an ignorant jerk:

During coverage of the October 2 vice-presidential debate on PBS' Charlie Rose, Rose asked, "Did either of them make any mistakes that you noticed?" National Public Radio senior news analyst Cokie Roberts responded that Sen. Joe Biden "talked about the Bosniaks." Roberts later said: "[I]f [Gov. Sarah Palin] had said 'Bosniak,' everybody would be making a big deal of it, you know." In fact, Biden correctly referred to certain residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Bosniaks.

Why does Cokie Roberts have a job as a journalist? She is clearly not qualified to be a "senior news analyst" if she comments on things she knows squat about without doing any research. Actually, why does Cokie Roberts have any job at all? She is clearly not qualified to be a maid or a cashier if she lacks decency and respect for fellow human beings.

High

Think of some substances that can make people talk like this:



Whatever she's smoking must be pretty strong. I'd be curious to see what's growing under the UV rays of the tanning bed she installed in the governor's mansion.

War wounds my ass

Another bullshit ad: McCain can't use the computer because of his war wounds, and Obama is an evil ogre for bringing that up.

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I know quadriplegic people who use the computer very well. What kind of war wounds prevents McCain from doing so? McCain is a liar and a whiner.

Heads in the sand

While McCain is trying to hide and avoid debating Obama, his supporter Kevin Hassett is trying to hide and avoid debating Brad DeLong.

Daisy alert

The Revelation of Sarah Palin:

Munger also asked Palin if she truly believed in the End of Days, the doomsday scenario when the Messiah will return. "She looked in my eyes and said, 'Yes, I think I will see Jesus come back to earth in my lifetime.'"

Translation: the world as we know it will end in the next 40 years. And if she gets elected, she can make sure it happens.

The scariest thing is that, in the best case, we'll avoid putting this fanatic in the co-pilot seat by a margin of 2% or so in the 3-4 key states.

If English was good enough for Jesus Christ...

Ma Ferguson probably never said "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for Texas", but Sarah Palin not only said, but actually wrote, something very similar:

11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

Jesus Christ! Thanks to JLFinch for pointing this out, as well as explaining why Palin's statement is ignorant drivel, so I don't have to. (I have little patience for elementary stuff like that.)

To be fair, Palin doesn't suffer from double standards in the area of education; she supports the right of everyone else to grow up to be as ignorant as she is:

Parents should have the ultimate control over what their children are taught.

However, she may have to negotiate this one with her new boss:

6a. Do you support the expansion of gambling in Alaska?
SP: No, in so many cases, gambling has shown ill effects on families and as Governor I would not propose expansion legislation.

Ooops. McCain loves playing craps, for thousands of dollars at a time.

UPDATE: As Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum has scrubbed the page that's embarrassing for their friend Palin, I updated the link to the web archive of the page. H/T to Michael Heath.

General Idiotic

The Olympic-themed Ecomagination commercial is the newest contribution to the imbecilization of America. Its setting is clearly suggesting ancient Olympic Games, but shows an athlete wearing clothes, and women in the audience. Come on, GE, the Greek Olympians competed naked, and women weren't allowed anywhere near. Sport nudity was not confined to the Olympics, either: the words "gymnastics" and "gymnasium" come from the Greek word for "naked". This is the same type of idiocy as showing cavemen co-existing with dinosaurs.

Is Hawaii in US and A, anyway?

There's the real reason the Constitution requires the President to be a US citizen by birth: we don't want to allow candidates to take those elitist trips home. Imagine, for example, if Arnold Schwarzenegger went to Austria! Who does he think he is? Mozart? A celebrity? Un-American? (Question for homework: Why would this not work?)

Note to aspiring candidates: if you want to run for President, make sure you are born in Dead Possum Hole, Redneck State, and you go there for vacation. Alternatively, you can run as a Republican.

Imbecilized

On the day Russia invaded Georgia, the top story in the news is John Edwards's affair. That is so incredibly stupid that I can't find adequate words to describe it. It is a perfect occasion to quote Zbigniew Brzezinski from a few weeks ago:

And we’re probably as ignorant as ever about the rest of the world, because everybody now lives in a kind of simplistic, trivialized virtual reality in which fact and fiction, impressions and impulses, are mixed up in an incoherent fashion. The public really has no grasp of complexities, no sense of intellectual refinement in judging them, and our political leaders have become increasingly demagogic. The way George W. Bush campaigned for the war in Iraq, with reference to fictitious WMDs, and with sweeping, simplistic, black-and-white generalizations about freedom and tyranny, is a case in point. But he was responding to our increasingly imbecilized societal condition. This is very troublesome.

Imbecilized. The perfect adjective for our society. Zbig, you da man.

What if Osama bin Laden is taping a message when we find him?

Should we let him finish before arresting him?

Apparently, the police in Jackson, AL, think so:

Police allowed Hopkins to finish his sermon before arresting him

WTF!? He is a murderer and (probably serial) child rapist! What is the point of the police waiting? So his holy message wouldn't be lost?

Looks like you can get away with almost anything in the name of religion, and even when you cross all bounds, you still get way more respect than other criminals.

UPDATE: Over at Pharyngula, many commenters think the police did the right thing because (1) Hopkins was not about to flee or commit another crime, and (2) he is only charged with those crimes at this point, not convicted. Those people are completely missing the point. Commenter karen (#31) has it right:

The police wouldn't wait for any other type person to finish his business before arresting him. This is just pandering to the woo.

The procedure for arresting a preacher must be exactly the same as that for arresting anyone else. If it is not, the police is violating the Constitution, specifically the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment.

UPDATE 2: It gets interesting. A comment by "Doug the Trucker" (#104) challenges my (and PZ's) view in a valid way:

OK, former LEO here.

We try to avoid creating a scene when arresting someone, especially if it in a public place where an arrest might stir up an even larger problem. From the description, Mr. Hopkins was in a controlled area, wasn't planning on fleeing, and was quickly arrested after the sermon. If there had been reason to believe he was armed, or was about to take off and run, then the officers would have moved in for an immediate arrest.

We try to do this for everyone, not just clergy.

If this is factually correct, I am ready to agree that the police did the right thing. But, for now, I find it hard to believe that the police would normally wait when arresting someone for murder.

UPDATE 3: Another police officer says this is standard. Well, I would hope it would be, but how then do we explain numerous accounts of SWAT team drug raids, high-speed chases, and so on?

Facts should be reeducated

The most pernicious mass delusion in America is the delusion that the mainstream media have a liberal bias. The most recent instance is documented in a Gallup poll:

Americans are more than twice as likely to say media coverage of Obama is unfairly positive as to say it is unfairly negative. For McCain, the opposite is true, with many more seeing coverage of him as unfairly negative than as unfairly positive.

This is as absurd as believing that grizzly bears are harmless fuzzy friends who like to be petted, or that red hair is a sign of moral depravity. It is extremely well documented that the media have avoided challenging McCain's false statements or even cut his most preposterous gaffes out of interviews. There is no way to characterize the belief that the media are unfairly negative in their coverage of McCain as anything other than delusional.

But why are Americans so stupid? Why do they so readily embrace this ludicrous myth of the liberally-biased media? How is it possible for those who spread the lies to convince most people all the time? (Note that the belief is not limited to Republicans or conservatives or McCain supporters: a fifth of intended Obama voters also believe that the media coverage of McCain has been unfairly negative.)

I think it's the fault of those goddamn liberally-biased facts. For decades, the Republican candidates have consistently been so much dumber, meaner, and more dishonest than their Democratic counterparts that it is hard for most people to believe that such pervasive differences are real. Surely, God created the two parties equal, so the vast difference in quality must be an illusion created by the media.

This has an interesting corollary: the best way for the Right to perpetuate the myth is to support incompetent, cranky, and mendacious candidates. And if that's part of the plan, then all I can say is, they are getting more and more successful!

UPDATE: I just found this Daily Kos diary, which discusses the same issue and shows every step of the reasoning - user-friendly for the pedestrians.

Attack of the Weathermen

It really pisses me off when a TV station interrupts regular program to tell us about bad weather. I don't mind weather alerts on the edges of the screen; I can deal with a smaller picture. And in a real emergency, say if a tornado was coming, it would be OK to interrupt the program just long enough to say what's necessary. "A cell is forming here and moving in this direction, so places X, Y and Z may be hit by a tornado." Thank you, we got the message. Now, if we live in X, Y or Z, we want to prepare for the approaching twister, and if we don't, we'd like to continue watching the show. You can still keep us informed on the margins.

So tonight a tornado was possibly forming about 20 miles west of where I live. But, instead of just giving us the necessary information, the station interrupted the regular program with almost 10 minutes of detailed explanations of observed weather patterns and how they conclude from those patterns that a tornado may be forming. Interesting stuff, if you wanted to see it; however, if you are seeing it, chances are you were trying to watch something else and would rather keep watching that. (More accurately, chances are you'd also like to wring the neck of the person responsible for the length of the interruption.) The unscheduled weather report is nothing but an intrusion.

No valuable public service is provided by a report that goes beyond necessary emergency information. Furthermore, it can't be good for business, as it will almost certainly annoy more viewers than it will keep glued to the TV waiting for updates. It may even have a negative net effect on public safety, as bored viewers surf away to channels not showing weather alerts. So why do TV stations do something so idiotic?

McImus for President?

OK, people, here is the pronouncement from the Politically Incorrect Gods.

The Chelsea Clinton joke was actually funny. Tasteless, rude, and crude, but funny. And "Bomb Iran" would have been funny, too, with a little better delivery. Those are fine jokes to tell your close friends while smoking pot. They just aren't something you should be telling in public as a candidate for political office.

On the other hand, the marvelous ape "joke" isn't even a joke; it's a splattering of vomit. If he really said that, it might have been more considerate of him to just puke on the audience.

The Gods have spoken.