Conservatives
mikethemadbiologist | March 14, 2011On what was essentially a party line vote (one Democrat and one Republican each crossed the aisle), the Republicans in the Missouri Senate voted to strip out most of the legislation passed in a referendum that would have regulated Missouri's dog breeding facilities. Missouri has been known as the 'puppy mill capitol' because of its lack of regulation regarding dog breeding: thirty percent of puppies raised in puppy mills hail from Missouri.
So what is the Missouri GOP removing from the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act, in the service of liberty and freedom? Well:
Apparently determined to…
mikethemadbiologist | March 13, 2011Last week, I described how the Texas Republican party proposed legislation that would require a woman who wants to have an abortion to receive a vaginal exam (two actually). Well, the Texas Democrats at least fought back (which is more than the national Dems ever do):
Houston state representative Harold Dutton got the most coverage for repeatedly making the point that "pro-lifers" drop all pretense of caring about life the second it can't be used to punish sexually active women. In rapid order, he introduced three amendments that were tabled by the majority, who really didn't want to…
mikethemadbiologist | March 13, 2011Rightwing lunatic and Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who has been exploring a presidential campaign run, was giving a speech in New Hampshire, where she uttered the following (italics mine):
"What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty," the potential GOP presidential candidate said. "You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord. And you put a marker in the ground and paid with the blood of your ancestors the very first price that had to be paid to make this the most magnificent nation that has…
mikethemadbiologist | March 12, 2011And I'm not talking about the four-legged kind. As I've noted before, whenever some right-wing associated nut shoots someone, we always hear it described as the actions of a 'lone wolf.' Because members of another militia group were arrested for planning to kidnap and murder police officers and judges:
Five people in the Fairbanks area were arrested Thursday by state and federal law enforcement on charges connected with an alleged plot to kidnap or kill state troopers and a Fairbanks judge, according to the Alaska State Troopers....
An investigation "revealed extensive plans to kidnap or…
mikethemadbiologist | March 10, 2011If you haven't heard, a NPR executive was forced to resign after an undercover recording by the minions of James O'Keefe. I don't see why anyone's getting bent out of shape because said executive called the Tea Party "racist"--some of them are quite bigoted, and other are scary, gun toting people (remember, they brought weapons to townhall meetings about healthcare). But I digress. What seems to have become a talking point is this statement:
Republicans play off the belief among the general population that most of our funding comes from the government. Very little of our funding comes from…
mikethemadbiologist | March 2, 2011That's really the only way to think of it. Fox 'News' Bill O'Reilly's show has an average viewership age of 71, which isn't 'middle-aged', but elderly. Anyway, one of the propaganda pieces Fox has been catapaulting is the false notion that the Wisconsin protests are out-of-control or violent (police have described the crowd as 'civil'). So this video from O'Reilly's show shouldn't be surprising:
What is surprising is what you see at the 0:16 mark. Go back, look at it again.
That's right: Palm trees. In Wisconsin. In February.
They're not even trying anymore.
Seriously, how is this any…
mikethemadbiologist | February 28, 2011There's been so much lunacy these last couple of weeks that it's hard to keep track of it all. In case you haven't heard, an assistant attorney general in Indiana (whose state reps have also fled like Wisconsin's) was fired for tweeting this vile hatemongering:
On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building--something that didn't end up happening--one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."
From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He…
mikethemadbiologist | February 27, 2011Mike Konczal put together this nice graphic of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's roadmap to a batshitloonitarian paradise:
Konczal notes:
There's a three-prong approach in Governor Walker's plan that highlights a blueprint for conservative governorship after the 2010 election. The first is breaking public sector unions and public sector workers generally. The second is streamlining benefits away from legislative authority, especially for health care and in fighting the Health Care Reform Act. The third is the selling of public assets to private interests under firesale and crony capitalist…
mikethemadbiologist | February 24, 2011I'm a bit late to this story (although STOOPID does age well...), but Kansas Republican state representative Connie O'Brien had a minor bigot eruption--she apparently has a fool-proof way to identify illegal immigrants:
She explained that she took her son to a financial aid office, and as she was waiting in line, she believed there was a girl waiting in line with them who was "not originally from this country." Fellow committee member Rep. Sean Gatewood (D-KS) asked O'Brien how she knew this student was "illegal." O'Brien replied that she knew because the student "wasn't black, she wasn't…
mikethemadbiologist | February 23, 2011I want to follow up on something from a post about the educational failure committed by our political press corps (italics original; boldface added):
That so many people lack even a basic understanding of how government works and what it does--even among likely voters (keep in mind that your average Tea Buggerer spends a lot of time gathering 'information' and is a likely voter)--is a catastrophic failure of our news media.
The more I roll that around in my head, the more terrified I get. For those not familiar with wonky political terms, a low information content voter is a euphemism for…
mikethemadbiologist | February 18, 2011Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, has claimed that he needs to bust unions in order to deal with a budget crisis. Well, he's lying, since this is a 'crisis' entirely of his own doing:
The reality is radically different. Unlike true austerity measures -- service rollbacks, furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money -- rolling back worker's bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker's doing it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits immediately.
Furthermore, this broadside comes less…
mikethemadbiologist | February 16, 2011For those who haven't heard, CBS news reporter Lara Logan suffered a "suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers." Just last week, conservative pundit Ann Coulter uttered the following while at the Conservative Political Action conference:
...conservative commentator Ann Coulter was asked what is more important to America's values: maintaining a strong relationship with Israel or "knowing there are jailed dissidents and journalists."
"What do you mean, 'knowing that there are jailed journalists?'"…
mikethemadbiologist | February 16, 2011Tom Levenson responds to the articles by John Tierney and Megan McCardle which ask why conservatives are so rare in academia (in science, anyway, creationism might have something to do with it. Just saying). Anyway, Levenson makes a good point, although I think he misses one thing:
...the only other Haidt evidence Tierney references comes from an email from an allegedly victimized student:
"I consider myself very middle-of-the-road politically: a social liberal but fiscal conservative. Nonetheless, I avoid the topic of politics around work," one student wrote. "Given what I've read of the…
mikethemadbiologist | February 14, 2011I've often discussed on this blog how the advantage of having a fiat currency is that one can deficit spend when you need to (think of it as being on the gold standard, except that you can mine as much gold as you need, when you need it)*. Of course, if you deficit spend when there is no idle capacity (human or mechanical) in the real economy, this can lead to inflation. Likewise, if you flood a sector or group of people with dollars when they don't need it, this also will lead to inflation and price distortion, and can result in socially undesirable outcomes (e.g., rampant income…
mikethemadbiologist | February 12, 2011For those who don't know much about the great Commonwealth of Virginia, Loudoun County is not only the wealthiest county in Virginia, but it has the highest median income in the U.S. ($107,207). These are not stereotypical 'rubes.' Yet Loudoun County has a very serious problem according to Loudoun County Board of Supervisors member Eugene Delgaudio:
When the young men are sufficiently intoxicated, homosexuals dressed as pirates whisk them away to God knows where to take advantage of them sexually.
There are even countless stories of any number of immoral sex act being performed by open…
mikethemadbiologist | February 3, 2011Recently, I claimned nothing in movement conservatism makes sense except in the light of creationism. One example is Paul Krugman's recent observation:
It's kind of shocking if you think about it. Here we have a huge, hard-won intellectual achievement [the recognition that depressions are caused by inadequate demand], one that accounts very well for the world we actually see, and yet it's being thrown away because it doesn't go along with ideological preconceptions. Once that sort of thing starts, where does it stop? The next thing you know, the theory of evolution will get the same…
mikethemadbiologist | February 2, 2011Does failing to teach evolution qualify as bad teaching? Because, then, I might get behind the idea that teacher tenure should fall by the wayside:
Now several Republican governors have concluded that removing ineffective teachers requires undoing the century-old protections of tenure.
Governors in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and New Jersey have called for the elimination or dismantling of tenure. As state legislatures convene this winter, anti-tenure bills are being written in those states and others. Their chances of passing have risen because of crushing state budget deficits that…
mikethemadbiologist | February 2, 2011If you haven't heard about Sarah Palin's latest inanity (it's hard to keep current...), she offered an ungrateful nation this utterance:
But after this, for several minutes that we as a nation will never get back, you rambled about a bakery called the "Spudnut Shop," that doesn't want the government telling it how to operate, or something:
Well, the spudnut shop in Richland, Washington -- it's a bakery, it's a little coffee shop that's so successful, 60-some years, generation to generation, a family-owned business not looking for government to bail them out and to make their decisions for…
mikethemadbiologist | February 1, 2011Not so much. Because, according to a letter signed by over 400 hundred U.S. rabbis, Fox seems to have a Glenn Beck problem:
We are rabbis of diverse political views. As part of our work, we are devoted to preserving the memory of the Shoah, and to passing its lessons on to our future generations and to all humankind. All of us have vigorously defended the Holocaust's legacy. We have worked to encourage the responsible invocation of its symbols as a powerful lesson for the future.
We were therefore deeply offended by Roger Ailes' recent statement attributing the outrage over Glenn Beck's use…
mikethemadbiologist | January 31, 2011The most awful thing about the proposed bill, "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" (H.R. 3), is, well, the bill itself:
With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion....
Given that the bill also would…