And we’re posting this photo because …? It reminds you … buy Stinque gear here!

As if any further proof were needed that electing GOP condidates to office is akin to putting the lunatics in charge of the asylum, word comes from Florida that Teabag Governor Rick Scott is set to sign a bill that is… well, I guess, sorta the GOP version of Health Care Reform. And what does this bill entail? The bill would prevent pediatricians from asking the parents of their patients whether they have guns at home, and whether said guns are properly secured from their children. I.shit.you.not: Read more »

It boggles the mind to think that people like Alan Simpson are taken seriously as experts on the Federal budget and the measures that will have to be taken if we want future Federal revenues more closely match expenditures. The Huffington Post reports on a recent speech that Simpson gave to a Financial Industry group, in which he lambasted Social Security as a “ponzi scheme” and repeated a misleading statistic on life expectancy to justify the claim that the program was never meant to cover as many people as it does now, for as long as it does now:

Simpson argued that Social Security was originally intended more as a welfare program.

“It was never intended as a retirement program. It was set up in ‘37 and ‘38 to take care of people who were in distress — ditch diggers, wage earners — it was to give them 43 percent of the replacement rate of their wages. The [life expectancy] was 63. That’s why they set retirement age at 65” for Social Security, he said.

But Simpson’s assessment of the program’s genesis relies on a fundamental misunderstanding of the significance of average life expectancy in an era that was characterized by relatively high rates of infant mortality. Read more »

So would a president John McCain have captured Osama Bin Ladin? It’s a question that’s being raised on numerous Left-leaning blogs and discussion forums. And what’s causing people to pose the question is the following exchange that transpired in a July 2008, Larry King interview with then GOP presidential nominee, John McCain:

KING: If you were president and knew that bin Laden was in Pakistan, you know where, would you have U.S. forces go in after him?

MCCAIN: Larry, I’m not going to go there and here’s why, because Pakistan is a sovereign nation. I think the Pakistanis would want bin Laden out of their hair and out of their country and it’s causing great difficulties in Pakistan itself.

But I want to assure you I will get Osama bin Laden as president of the United States and I will bring him to justice no matter what it takes.

Read more »

Mr. Obama sought more tax-hike cover under his deficit commission, seeming to embrace its proposal to limit tax deductions and other loopholes. But the commission wanted to do so in order to lower rates for a more efficient and competitive code with a broader base. Mr. Obama wants to pocket the tax increase and devote the revenues to deficit reduction and therefore more spending.

The Presidential Divider
Unsigned Wall Street Journal
Editorial” Aptil 14, 2011

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines “sophistry” as “subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation.” Under that definition, the passage that we have excerpted from a recent Wall Street Journal editorial on President Barack Obama’s recent speech on deficit reduction hardly qualifies as sophistry. The problem is the word “subtly.” Because really, there’s nothing “subtly deceptive” about a paragraph that argues that directing government revenues to paying down the national debt is just another example of reckless and uncontrolled Democratic spending. Read more »

…I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong.

-Anthony Watts, prominent global warming denier, 3/6/2011 expressing confidence that a scientific study by a leading global warming skeptic, would rebut the global warming trend  observed by mainstream climate scientists.

With his testimony, Dr. Muller has totally destroyed any credibility he might have had with me.

-Anthony Watts, prominent global warming denier, 3/31/2011 expressing outrage upon learning that the results of the aforementioned scientific study tended to confirm, rather than rebut the global warming trend  observed by mainstream climate scientists.

(Hat Tip: Salon, and Paul Krugman)

“I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9,” Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”

-Newt Gingrich, Speaking to Churchgoers in San Antonio, Texas

In that same speech, Gingrich listed numerous other oxymorons he fears, including: six-sided pentagons, four-footed bipeds, two-wheeled tricycles and dehydrated water.

Rhetorical Question: is it possible to make statements that are dumber even than Sarah Palin’s ususal blather and still be regarded as one of the “leading intellectuals” of your party?

(Politico, Via The New Republic ,Via Andrew Sullivan)