Compare and contrast time, my darlings.

First, batshit insane:

There’s been a little mini-tempest in Michigan lately over WOOD-TV 8 in Grand Rapids refusing to show an anti-gay film put out by the American Family Association. Naturally the Worldnutdaily has picked up on it. And their most recent story is rather amusing because they’ve now discovered that – gasp! – WOOD-TV once had a gay employee.

The American Family Association of Michigan, however, has now learned that Trevor Thomas, the deputy communications director for the HRC in Washington, D.C., once worked in WOOD-TV’s newsroom.

Gary Glenn, president of AFA-Michigan, said in a statement to WOOD-TV General Manager Diane Kniowski that he originally suspected the cancellation was merely a matter of political correctness, but now wonders how deeply the connection runs between Thomas and the station.

“Now,” Glenn wrote to Kniowski, “we learn that a public spokesman for the so-called Human Rights Campaign – the national homosexual activist group that claimed credit for pressuring your station to censor and breach its agreement to air AFA’s paid documentary – is a former long-time WOOD-TV newsroom executive who while holding that position was allowed by the station to actively and publicly campaign against the Marriage Protection Amendment approved by Michigan voters in 2004.

[snip]

Congratulations, Gary Glenn. You’ve discovered that a TV station once had a gay employee and solved the mystery. Scooby Doo would be so proud of you.

I love it when Ed gets sarcastic. I love it even more when he invokes one of my all-time favorite cartoons to bash the Worldnut Daily.

You remember them. They’ve entertained us with such nuggets o’ wisdom as “We know for certain Obama’s not a Christian because he admitted worshiping at Trinity United Church of Christ.” They’ve awed us with their astronomical prowess. And they’ve blinded us with their insight into the “radiant energy” that presidents shine directly on the people (explaining, o’ course, why electing a Democrat is unthinkable). Those are just some of the highlights, and they shine like a supernova in the firmament of frothing fundie fucknuggetry.

But if you know anything about astronomy, you know that a supernova, while super, is not the brightest object in the universe. Oh, it gets attention, and it can even be seen by the naked eye if it happens in the right spot, but as far as brilliance goes, quasars are it.

And Ed believes he has found the fundie equivalent of a quasar:

Every once in a while I take a peek at Covenant News, which is a news site so far out on the lunatic fringe that they make the Worldnutdaily look sane and rational by comparison. These people are the religious right’s religious right, the people who think that James Dobson is a liberal pussy. Seriously. Here they look at Utah Sen. Chris Buttars getting stripped of his committee chairmanships and provide their response, an article declaring that gays should be put to death.

Where does it say in the Bible, “If a man lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, you shall pass a Marriage Protection Amendment”?

Such legislative efforts make the commandments of God of no effect, and Christian men involved in these efforts should be ashamed of themselves for engaging in pharisaical deceit against the ordinance of God in front of His people (Matt.5:17-20, 15:7-9; Rom.13:2).

Back in 2003, when the Supreme Court issued an opinion against Texas sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas, Republicans started pushing the idea of a “Marriage Protection Amendment” as a solution to the “gay problem.” As we now know the amendment idea is not a solution but a red herring used by crafty politicians to distract Christians away from obedience to the commandments of God concerning homosexuality. It is a political trick used to lure the Church into a humiliating situation of begging the State to “defend marriage” while allowing civil officials to circumvent their God ordained duty to administer Justice upon sodomites!

They can spell, string together a grammatically correct sentence, resist the use of ALL CAPS, dramatic font and color changes, and understand that multiple exclamation points make you look crazy!!!!!!!!! But, deep down, they’re right in the same league as the cretinists who email PZ. I mean, damn.

The Worldnut Daily puts up some stiff competition, but if the above quoted post is any indication, Covenant News wipes the floor with them. What say you all?

In reference to a neocon doofus whose idea of “civil disobedience” is to refuse to engage in what she calls “the crypto-fascist hand jive” (known to sane people as a simple dap or fist jab) and carefully turning magazine covers so they don’t show Obama’s face, Ed Brayton writes this:

Some day I hope to find a bottom to human stupidity. It appears that will require more digging.

No kidding. One needs a backhoe for this work, especially when the leader of the Virginia GOP disses Darwin:

Steve Benen partially transcribes if you prefer your pain at one remove:

First, paying tribute to Lincoln, Frederick explained, “Abraham Lincoln is best know [sic], as you all well know, for freeing the slaves by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation affirming in his Gettyburg [sic] Address in 19, I’m sorry, 1863….”

From there, the state party chairman and state delegate, told the legislature, “Darwin, however, is best known for the theory of evolution, arguing that men are not only, quote, are only, not, not created, but they are not equal, as some are more evolved.”

That, I admit, is some pretty high-grade dumbshittery. But personally, my favorite bit of this sea of idiocy was when he said, “Whereas Darwin’s theory was used by atheists to explain away the belief in god, the last Act of Congress signed by Abraham Lincoln, before he was shot, was to place the phrase ‘In God We Trust’ on our national coin.”

You know what a driving force Lincoln was behind that effort? He signed the Act. He had about as much to do with our inane national motto as Darwin did with what uses other people chose to put his theory to. From this, as well as his sneering at evolution, we can conclude that Del. Frederick is an ignorant nutbag.

No bottom to human stupidity yet. Let us keep digging:

Now that the Democratic press conference is over, it’s Amateur Hour!

Boehner derides the bill as costing a billion dollars a page.
Compared to Paulson’s billion dollars a word ransom note that is pretty damn good.
But somehow more is less with these guys.

He claims the bill won’t work.
He claims their solution would have been better.
He is adamantly opposed to it.

He also claims that no one has read the bill.

Anyone notice the non sequitor?

They just prove that Mark Twain was right when he said:

People who don’t read have no advantage over people who can’t.

Lawmakers deriding a bill they haven’t read. They haven’t read it, but they absolutely know it won’t work. How the fuck do they know? They’re so ignorant about it that they’ve been busy bleating about mouse money that doesn’t exist, which they’d know didn’t exist – if they’d read the damned bill.

Certainly no bottom to human stupidity there, although I’m not surprised – our Cons have always seemed bottomless fonts of dumbassery to me. I do believe Rep. Louise Slaughter sees them the same way, considering how exasperated she sounds debunking their little but-nobody-was-bipartisan-with-us! tantrums:

They are being disingenuous, or worse. These are the facts:

The bill, as it came to the Rules Committee, the last stop before the floor vote, already incorporated 12 Republican amendments. The Rules Committee then added the 11 amendments: 6 Democratic and 5 Republican, in addition to a complete Republican substitute, and a motion to recommit. They were unable to muster the votes necessary and lost on bipartisan votes. House Republicans may have come together to vote against the final bill, but they split on their own amendments with 40 to 60 Republicans voting with Democrats. Some Republicans even voted against their party’s alternative bill, and it failed on the floor.

The Republican alternative didn’t have a final price tag, consisted entirely of tax cuts, and would actually raise taxes for 26 million American families. In two years, the Democratic bill would create 3.6 million jobs. The Republican substitute: 1.2 million – a third as many as the Democratic bill that passed the House.

President Obama even met with House Republicans more times in two weeks to discuss this legislation than President Bush did with House Democrats in two terms.

The Republicans were certainly allowed in the process, but they wanted to obstruct.

Yup. Bottomless. Let’s dig elsewhere, then:

Prominent fundamentalist Christian leaders with deep ties to the Republican Party have, over the years, generally rejected the notion of being “politically correct.” It’s ironic, then, that they’ve decided “religious right” doesn’t sound good, and they’d prefer we stop using it.

Gary Bauer said this week, “There is an ongoing battle for the vocabulary of our debate. It amazes me how often in public discourse really pejorative phrases are used, like the ‘American Taliban,’ ‘fundamentalists,’ ‘Christian fascists,’ and ‘extreme Religious Right.'”

A Focus on the Family official added that the “religious right” label might generate negative impressions: “Terms like ‘Religious Right’ have been traditionally used in a pejorative way to suggest extremism. The phrase ‘socially conservative evangelicals’ is not very exciting, but that’s certainly the way to do it.”

This is pretty silly. The religious right is an established political m
ovement, and the phrase has been common for decades. I can appreciate the fact that people like James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and their followers would blanch at labels like “American Taliban,” but “religious right” is clearly (and deliberately) bland.

If the movement’s leaders believe “religious right” has become synonymous with extremism and hatred, perhaps the movement should be less extreme and hateful.

[snip]

We’re not talking about a branding problem here. These clowns have become publicly reviled because they embrace a radical worldview, starkly at odd with American traditions, laws, and culture.

What the fuck is it with people thinking a name change will solve everything this week? First it’s Blackwater, now the raving right. This is right up there with our own local buffoon Dino Rossi thinking he was oh-so-clever by saying he “prefers GOP party” rather than calling himself the Con he is. They think they’re oh-so-sneaky, but while it’s impossible to dig to the bottom of human stupidity, just enough Americans are wise to name-games.

Sod this for a game of larks. Digging for the bottom of human stupidity is a fool’s errand. Myself, I shall do the smart thing: sit back, pour me a drink, point and laugh.