Nah, they’re both still just apes.
Food for thought: look at Perry’s record and plans. Then consider this: 54% disapprove of Obama’s job performance so far.
We should be very, very scared.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
With the amount of cuts he’s made, and the population increase that Texas has been seeing for the 10 years he has been governor, all the statistics about his helping the economy are not only incorrect- they are blatant lies! Furthermore, I have never seen so many constituents mad at their own governor. I hear about how bad is leadership is for this state all the time. In fact, as much as I hate to say it… if the democrats want to guarantee Obama another term, they would do well to endorse Perry as his opponent. Perry is a fool, and many people in Texas have that on first hand experience.
Eh, I disapprove of Obama’s job performance, but I’m still going to be voting for him in 2012. So maybe that number isn’t THAT scary. One hopes.
Best think that could happen to Obama is if Rick Perry or Bachmann somehow get the republican candidacy.
Yeah. I disapprove of Obama’s performance as well. He’s just too fucking conservative for my taste. (My wife claims he’s merely pragmatic, which might be true, but it amounts to the same thing.)
I’m thinking we need to nominate Barney Frank and Al Franken for 2016.
IIRC, people who backed George Bush said Rick Perry was dumber than a box of rocks.
So, if people who like George Bush think Rick Perry is dumb …
And if it backfires and this eldritch abomination in human skin actually becomes the president. Then what ?
crossposts from Dispatches
Texas is paying their bills? I guess if you don’t count the $27 billion budget shortfall for 2011.
That is almost as high as California’s. Which has been a mess for years now.
Texas also ranks high in any category of social problems.
High in teen pregnancy, highly correlated with lifelong poverty.
High in children living in poverty.
The child poverty rate in Texas is 25%. It is going up, not down.
This is an important metric for a lot of reasons. Children living in poverty tend to have poorer health care, poorer education, and a high chance of turning child poverty into lifelong poverty.
HNS_Lasagna
While I agree with your comments regarding Perry’s support at home… I don’t want to be blind to the institutionalized idiocy that is Wingnut America: If enough Right Wingers (Limbaugh, etc) and Evangelicals get behind him, the rest of the sheeple will follow – especially to unseat the Kenyan Islamist!
Perry is a lot more agreeable to mainstream republicans than Bachmann, and a lot more agreeable to evangelicals than Romney.
That’s something that is keeping me awake at night. Republicans are capable of compromise… but only within their gated compound.
Yeah, the flat-number opinion polls are almost completely worthless. If asked if I approve or disapprove of the president, I’d say disapprove. But if asked why, I’d say he’s too far to the right for my tastes.
The whole triangulation strategy, in fact, is precedented on the idea that you piss off almost as many people on your side of the spectrum as on the far side–you just want to make certain your opponent remains on the far side of the same line.
Similarly, don’t buy those polls about how much Congress is hated. Note they never seem to ask, “How pleased are you with your Congressional Representative?” Odds are, if applied to the whole building, the Congressional rating would soar. I’m fine with my guy’s performance, for the most part–it’s the other 434 idiots I’m pissed at.
Sobering stuff. As Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs pointed out, this is a guy who was openly discussing secession less than a year ago. Now he wants to run the country. I don’t have the reference at hand, but IIRC Perry has engaged in actually bashing W recently.
A TX governor who makes Bush Jr. look moderate. Un-fricking-real.
Here’s an article from CNN Money that takes a critical look at the job growth Perry like to brag about. Not that the average American voter will take the time to research this stuff. What’s really scary is this guy has a decent shot to take the GOP nomination. If the economy is still tanking next year, Obama could lose to someone like this.
They don’t call Perry the Teflon Governor for nothing – that guy’s a threat, no doubt about it. The idea of either Perry or Bachmann in the Oval Office is too scary to contemplate.
From the I Hate What You Just Said website, which was referring to a story on HuffPo:
I’m not sure what the etiquette is for starting to comment on Pharyngula but I do suppose an introduction is in order so here goes.
I am a 2nd year graduate student studying cancer biology in Texas. I have been reading Pharyngula for a month now and when my blood boiled over this weekend reading about the whole Glenn Beck incident on one of PZ’s post, I decided I wanted to voice my opinion. My hobbies include brewing/drinking excellent beers, telling creationists how wrong they are about…well everything, and 20 hour days in lab trying to gain some understanding of what my data actually means.
But they love him at UD. Doesn’t that count for something?
Glen Davidson
Well if ANY of the republican candidates are elected I’m leaving the country and opening a microbrewery in Europe.
Lynna – so in other words, Perry was a subpar student who absolutely failed science courses of any kind and excelled in “military systems class”? Great. So he’ll be able to appeal even more to the “I don’t know much book learnin’ like the rest of y’all but at least I don’t put on no fancy airs like that dark skinned Harvard Yankee and I love our military” crowd. Just great.
Where’s my flask? I need a drink.
Then the veil over the world lifts and Cthonic Nameless Beings from beyond the Formless Chaos take over.
Also known as Tea Partiers and Theothuglicans.
Welcome, HNS_Lasagna!
The Pint:
Ooo! Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
♪ Dream ticket! ♫
The unemployment rate in Texas is 8.2%, making it 26th among the states.
Perry’s track record while governor of Texas isn’t all that good by most metrics.
Case Nightmare Green.
–
Could well happen.
The US economy is a mess. Historically, when that happens, the party in power gets blamed and tossed. This is how Obama won in 2008 and the Tea Party got elected in 2010.
Right now, the presidency is the GOP’s to lose.
The only way Obama can win is if they select candidates so scary and clueless that people won’t vote for them.
FWIW, AFAICT, the USA is in for a Japanese style lost decade or a lost generation. Obama hasn’t gotten us out of the Great Recession caused by Bushco. But there is no evidence that anyone could do it. Certainly not the party that caused it in the first place.
George W. was a tard but Rick Perry would be even more of a disaster if Idiot America elected him.
I wrote four posts about Rick Perry.
Didn’t we read a lot of things like this about W and how he would never get elected with a record like that?
And I’m kinda sad to see Pawlenty drop out; I’d have loved to see him lose his home state.
Nigel, only if by “dream” you mean “horrific buckets of sweat-inducing nightmare” with a soundtrack from Psycho, Jaws and The Shining.
nigelTheBold, Porcupine Trainer, yes dream ticket indeed. Perry locks up the south and the south west, Bachmann the mid west together enough electoral votes for the White House!
Then the U.S. implodes and the Middle Kingdom again becomes the dominate power in the world.
The Pint:
Well, that is a dream.
I’m trying to laugh, because I’m finding it hard to throw up and cry at the same time.
Yeah, I’m not too worried about Obama’s approval ratings; they’re a lot like pointless Internet polls. The 2012 election hinges on Obama’s approval rating compared to his opponent’s, not to his own earlier polling numbers.
As nigel and others illustrate above, this kind of polling does not differentiate between those who disapprove of Obama because he’s a Kenyan Muslim Socialist and those like me who disapprove because he’s way too conservative. I remember some liberal friends gloating when Dubya’s approval ratings were tanking – until I pointed out that many citizens disapproved because he wasn’t conservative enough. That’s some scary shit, right there.
Obama seems to be relying on (a) the Democrats not running anyone against him, (b) his base and a significant number of independents considering him better than the Republican nominee, and (c) all the people (especially the young first-time voters) whom he fired up with all his talk about hope and change not staying home this time out of disgust that he turned out to be just another politician who’ll promise anything to get elected.
I think (a) is a safe bet, especially given the Democrats’ current invertebrate nature, and the sheer insanity of Republicans like Bachmann and Perry make (b) likely if they happen to win the nomination… but he’s an idiot if he’s counting on (c).
Stewart/Colbert 2012 – The whole thing is a joke, so might as well hire comedians.
Back in 1966 the governor of California was Pat Brown (the father of the current governor, Jerry Brown). Pat and his minions were chortling at the notion that a washed-up Hollywood actor, Ronald Reagan, thought he could be governor, especially since the respected Republican mayor of San Francisco, George Christopher, stood between Reagan and the GOP nomination. Mayor Christopher, however, had a small influence-peddling scandal in his background, which Brown’s people helped to hype in the press. It contributed to Reagan’s victory in the Republican primary. Pat Brown was pleased because Christopher had been a much more credible opponent and Reagan could not possibly be elected….
Oops.
Nigel,
I think that Lux Eterna by Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream) would be more appropriate-I liken one of the republican candidates winning the election as something analogous to lux eterna playing in the background while Jack Nicholson beats through a wooden door with a hatchet…
HEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE’S PALIN!! (or Perry/Bachman)
Bachmann/Palin 2012 – 2 girls, 1 GOP
HNS_Lasagna:
Heh. That made me snort coffee out my nose.
Lux Aeterna works for me. In fact, I’m listening to it right now, thanks to the recommend. Ain’t the internet great?
The most appropriate soundtrack to Perry or Bachmann becoming president is not (as suggested above) the Jaws theme, or the Psycho theme. It’s the Chinese national anthem.
@nige
if you like that, check out this version on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyvN0LzXxrI&list=PLFCABA6553576B3D9&index=1
it’s a pretty interesting take on the original
In the illustration that PZ posted, Bush looks clueless, but Perry looks just plain mean.
The rest of the world points and laughs at America and someone starts a petition to have y’all institutionalized.
I said it once, and I’ll say it again. It’s not a good thing for a batshit crazy theocratic loon to become the Republican nominee. You might think that such a person wouldn’t stand a chance. You would be wrong.
Perry could win. Bachmann could win. Palin could win. Never overestimate the rationality of the average American voter.
The downside of Perry as president is just too gruesome to contemplate. Ditto Bachman and Palin.
Well, at least we would be able to stop worrying about the USA’s future.
There wouldn’t be one. Or at least one worth living in.
I’d be tempted to stock up on cats and white wine. And frequently raise a glass to New North American Somalia, once known as the …USA.
I’m starting to think that the only choices for Republican candidates come down to Nehemiah Scudder, and The Smiler.
I hope I am wrong in part because I am not sure which would be worse, and all of the republican hopefuls seem to match one or the other, or a blend of both.
And if too many people stay home, I am not sure the fuckers can lose.
I’m reposting a comment from the previous chapter of The Endless Thread.
The discussion is mostly about Michele Bachmann, but it applies to Rick Perry as well, especially to Perry’s connections to religious nutters.
There’s an article called Leap of Faith in the August 15th issue of The New Yorker in which journalist Ryan Lizza follows Michele Bachmann on the campaign trail. Among lots of other mind-boggling details, Lizza points out that people who vote for the Bachmanns of the world think, like she does, that if it ain’t bible-based there’s something wrong with it. Doesn’t matter if they can’t figure out what that something is, nor that the facts are against them.
Furthermore, if we moar educated elites would get out in the real world we’d see how people really think, and how real people really believe … and we’d stop insulting the real people … or something.
Some of the people who vote for Bachmann types are well-read in an extremely odd and restricted way. I ran into this recently when my son’s uncle (on the ex-husband’s side) tried to pressure my son into attending a talk by Les Feldick. The Uncle happens to live in Bachmann territory, and he believes that God guides him when it comes to buying radio stations.
Feldick, Eidsmoe, Schaeffer, Noebel, Wilkins, Pearcey and holy babbles of all kinds — with the exception of the babble, most of us have never heard of the rest of the authors in the holy canon. But Bachmann People™ can quote chapter and verse.
She didn’t think that stuff up on her own. She learned it. She was taught it. She studied it. She got degrees in it. It doesn’t matter if you confuse John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy. That’s just facts. The important thing is that you understand that “liberty” equals worshipping the right kind of God.
Bachmann and her husband experienced a life-changing epiphany when they watched Shaeffer’s films. Which reminds me once again of my son’s uncle recounting how it changed his life when he started reading, watching, and discussing evangelical Christian media with his wife. I guess it doesn’t take much to light these people up. Lighting them up powers a lot of TV shows, books and DVD sales.
Dominionism, based on genesis 1:26, receives some scrutiny from Ryan Lizza. It’s pretty much what you think it is. The Bachmann People™ don’t just have a duty to rule the world, they have a god-given right to rule. As historian Sara Diamond writes, “Christians, and Christians alone, are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns.” Schaeffer even advocated the violent overthrow of the government if Roe v. Wade was not overturned. I think Tea Partiers are trying to overthrow the government, they’re just doing it by taking the debt ceiling issue as a hostage — it’s a slightly toned down revolution compared to what our domestic terrorists on the right would prefer.
See. I told you it doesn’t matter if you’re wrong or right. It matters if your “total truth” system is aligned with the holy babble.
Michele Bachmann told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that Pearcey’s book Total Truth was “wonderful.” She says Schaeffer “was a tremendous philosopher.” She says God is the Lord of all, including “sociology, theology, biology, politics.” She attended the School of Law at Oral Roberts University where the Bible, “not the Constitution or conventional jurisprudence, guides the curriculum,” as Lizza notes. Bachmann worked with John Eidsmoe as research assistant when he wrote Christianity and the Constitution.
Bachmann told an Iowa audience:
From Oral Roberts, Bachmann moved on to Pat Robertson’s C.B.N. University (now Regent University). She worked briefly as a tax attorney, but her colleagues say she was on pregnancy leave at least half the time, and worked low-level cases.
When Backmann quit work to take care of her children, she also began a long stint as a foster parent, “So that young people could come to know Jesus at an early age, the earlier the better…” Charter schools and homeschooling that are God-centered became one of her passions. A charter school she helped to found claimed to be “non-sectarian in all progams…” but really taught all god all the time. Until they were caught. And the Bachmann People were booted.
She talks about this school as if she were still part of the administration, as if the fact that the school is still going strong (minus God, which she doesn’t mention) is proof of her effectiveness as a community leader.
Bachmann wrote that federal education law “embraces a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America.” (That sums up the opinion of most of the voters in my neck of the woods.)
The odd mix of patriotism with hatred for the government shows up again when Bachmann claims that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery. Even after being corrected via a presentation of real historical facts, she stood her ground. She gets this from Eidsmoe.
Bachmann adds to Eidsmoe some twisted history from J. Steven Wilkins:
God first, my friends. Otherwise, civil rights without god is a form or cruelty. Wilkin’s book used to be posted on “Michele’s Must Read List” — but her campaign managers now have her substituting “liberty” for every instance in which she would prefer to say “God” – and her list of recommended books has been edited.
What this boils down to is a melding of godaddledness with financial/political aims that have an underpinning of “scholarship.” The “scholarship” has a polished surface, but is rotten underneath. The surface is good enough to fool way too many people. It’s good enough to get her elected. It’s good enough to convince a bunch of people to vote against their own best interest.
I’m a little worried about posting this. What if Barb from the Glenn Beck thread sees it? She’ll dive into Michele Bachmann’s reading list.
Bush Jr. made Reagan look moderate.
Reagan made Nixon look moderate.
Nixon made Eisenhower look moderate.
Are you sensing a trend?
I’ll vote for Obama, but I want the goppers to nominate someone who, if elected, won’t try to establish a theocracy or provoke Armaggedon. It’d also be nice if the candidate would at least acknowledge certain scientific truths, like evolution and global warming.
hyperdeath:
Q for fucking T.
And I want a talking purple winged unicorn that farts rainbows as I ride it to work. Which do you think is more likely to happen? ;)
Ever since the Reagan presidency, I keep being reminded of something H.L. Mencken wrote,
Why should we be scared? We should be prepared. It is going to happen, and it will be the fault of Obama and the national Democrats. How else do you go from 2008, when the Democrats won the WH, had control of all three: the Senate (a supermajority at that), the HoR and the WH to all but being extinct in 2012?
Sure, there will be some Democrats left, possibly even 41 in the Senate. That is NOT going to matter because Republicans never needed a majority to get the Democrats to do what they wanted.
We should prepare by saving our money, letting these spineless Democrats go extinct and starting with a new breed. I realize evolution does not work that way, but giving these Democrats any money is a waste.
Some 66% of people polled have steadily supported raising taxes on the rich. Yet these Democrats cannot do it. Remember, it took some 78% of those polled being in favor of repealing DADT that finally got Obama to get the Senate to vote on it. It is not as if he is waiting for a popular opinion, he wants it to be lopsidedly popular opinion.
If only you could pharyngulate some national polls, PZ.
At least Josh Brolin will be salivating:
http://www.themindisaterriblething.com/2011/08/twice-fun.html
One of us is clearly delusional….
I should be more careful about the fungus I eat.
Lynna #42. FTW.
You shouldn’t ever be concerned about what the Barbs of the world may read as a result of your (always insightful) comments. It really doesn’t matter: they already “know” everything they ever need to know.
Wait a minute … it’s not that Barb from a few years ago… is it?
Word of advice: never take tea from a hippie before asking what’s in it. Although if this election goes the way of my nightmares, I’ll probably be drinking loads of the stuff as a method of coping.
Hi,
very infrequent poster here. I’m an engineer working with PEM fuel cells and energy projects in North Carolina.
When I look at the country today, I can only feel helpless. That the public face of the nation has become that of dunces, liars, charlatans, and fools is a source of great pain to me. I can only think of a random quote, maybe Russell, possibly Einstein, to the effect that only the stupid and ignorant are without doubt. Among the tea baggers, doubt is equivalent to the whispers of demons. Absolute certainty, despite the the jarring cognitive contradictions that must be held to maintain that certainty, is the only option. Like biblical faith, no injection of rational thought can deter the tea baggers from their intended purpose, even if they aren’t sure what that is.
A few weeks ago I was in a small town, where I saw a pickup truck with a bumper sticker that read “Spay and Neuter Liberals”. I think bumper sticker is an expression of how far baggers will go to avoid having to examine their own beliefs and assumptions. Easier to kill those who disagree with you than admit of uncertainty.
Shripathi Kamath @ 47.
Hmm. Kinda ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater there.
What progressives need to do is get off their assess and start making a change in their local Democratic Party. Because this, whether you like it or not, is a two party country, and as reality-based citizens we try to paint inside the lines.
Voting ONCE for Hopey-Changey isn’t enough.
Taking part to vote for DINOs who are more republican that many republicans of decades past (some of whom WERE republicans in decades past) and then being surprised when those same folks don’t vote a progressive ticket is not just dumb, it is ignoring reality.
Let’s try to respect and recognize reality, and actually work to improve the situation.
That the wingnuts can control their party through 20% of the party population should not be seen as a negative – it’s a fucking roadmap!
We. Need. To. Organize!
Yes!
But we need to do so WITHIN the existing democratic party – unless you want to cede the next 50+ years to your theocratic overlords.
Two options.
1. Make sure you vote in a Democratic minority into the senate that is big enough to filibuster everything he wants to do.
2. Vote in a democratic supermajority in both houses capable of impeaching his ass if he gets out of line.
I think Obama is as much of an ape as Bush. Any intelligent person not in denial can see that in terms of policies, there’s not much difference between them. While Bush was butchering Iraqis, Obama is happy to kill Afghani women and children. A vote for either republicans or democrats is a vote for racist ethnic cleansing of poor people around the world.
One can only assume that Obama supporters are no different from Bush supporters when it comes to non-American lives i.e. they consider them expendable.
I’m not worried about a Bachmann presidency. Nah. Gah. Happen.
As *cough* recent threads *cough* have vividly illustrated in Technicolor, misogyny is rampant enough on the left, fer chrissakes. On the right It’s off the charts.
Bachmann could easily make VP, though. As they say, that’s only “a heartbeat away” from the presidency. And leave it to some wingnut loon to shoot President Rick Perry for being “too liberal.”
Shit. Never mind. I am now officially very worried about a Bachmann presidency.
(“Bartender! I’ll have another.”)
wtfbits is a troll.
If you let the republicans take power again, you won’t have any money to save.
Triage first.
Use what options are available right now to limit the extent of damage. That means using the Democrats as they are right now to counter the worst of the Republicans.
Only when the immediate danger is passed, and the tea party wing of the Republican party is eliminated from the picture and no longer a threat or influence can you work towards pulling the democrats back towards the progressive left. You can do that either by working within their ranks (if 20% of Tea Partiers can do it to the Repubs, then 20% of Progressives can do it to the Democrats), or by setting up another party to their left to pull them over. But ONLY when doing so DOES NOT threaten to split the vote and let a looney-publican right win power.
*it’s
(WTF? I capitalized “it’s” as an object referant for misogyny? Like it’s some kind of god? I BLAME THE PATRIARCHY.)
I hope this doesn’t come across as the ramblings of a naive young person (and maybe it will because… well maybe I am a bit young) but I have to still have some hope in humanity. I think that rather than just give up on these people (like the ultra conservatives and the tea-baggers) we have a responsibility to attempt to educate them. I know that at times it’s like banging your head against the wall trying to have a conversation with these people; but someone took the care and time to educate me and inspire me to use my brain- I feel indebted to at least attempt to do the same thing. I think more often than not the real problem is that these people feel attacked when we try to explain how wrong they are about science (or whatever else they commonly misinterpret (I’m reminded of Palin’s talk about the real meaning behind Paul Revere’s ride:))
http://www.politicususa.com/en/sarah-palin-paul-revere
I think that good discourse about these things is the only way to change things for the future. And I think the only way that discourse is going to take place is if people can have a peaceful discussion without calling others names. Maybe I am naive and young to think that people will be open to this discussion, but I feel like these people can’t de that delusional to hold out against rationale and logic for forever.
Along those lines we need to be willing to take an active role in the education of our young people so they can learn to question things and think critically about what they are being told. Then it won’t really matter when someone tries to tell them that the omnipotent bearded guy in the sky loves them and wants to live their life in a certain way- they will be questioning the existence of that omnipotent being from the outset. I know this doesn’t really take care of the bleak outlook of our immediate future (political or otherwise), but in the long run investing in the education of children will (hopefully) fix many of the problems in our world.
Maybe some day science can actually define our moral landscape (that idea is taken from Sam Harris by the way) rather than centuries old religious texts and people claiming to have had communion with some invisible deity.
sorry if the whole “these people” thing seems like I’m stereotyping, thats not my intention
Yes, but you have divided government right now. BOTH parties are in power. If this results in a symmetric flip – if the house flips democrat, while the senate and white house flips republican, that wouldn’t necessarily be the end of the world.
First of all, the Tea Party’s strength is in the house. If they lose the house, they are discredited.
Secondly, a symmetric flip means that the progressive caucus for the democrats in the senate gets filibuster power.
A president Bachmann or Perry would be so hated by the center and the left that I doubt they’d be able to do any more than Obama has been able to. It’ll be “one-term president” strategy for the dems, and the Repubs will get a taste of their own strategic medicine.
And a president Romney would very likely be pulled considerably back to the center in a situation like that.
It would, though, mean continued total paralysis of the American government and no meaningful action on anything for another two to four years. Indeed, no meaningful action ever, until one party wins house, senate and white house with unfilibusterable super-majorities.
Welcome to America, tomorrow’s failed state, today!
(Time for the blue states and red states to negotiate secession, and go their separate ways? Someone in the lead-up to the civil war commented that when democracies fail, they tend to fail because of factionalism. It’s still true.)
‘smee:
Naw. Couldn’t be. Its comment was just so…so… brilliant!
HNS_Lasagna
You are not hopelessly naive, but I do think we need to borrow or copy Scalzi’s Mallet of Loving Correction™ to ensure the wingnuts don’t derail our attempts to educate them or their offspring.
From the comments:
“Aron Ra
This article should mention that Rick Perry also repeatedly positioned unqualified young-earth creationists on the state’s board of education specifically to undermine education in science, health, and social studies.”
The problem with Dems isn’t the candidates they put up. It’s that the political might isn’t there, (a) in terms of getting talking points out there, (b) in terms of having loyal media voices who will toe the line, and (c) in terms of using the right language.
(a) – I constantly hear family repeating the “Drill baby drill” meme, and it makes me fucking sick to my stomach. Any refutation is met with blank stares and idiotic repeating of the talking points.
(b) – Name a nationwide outlet that actually fairly represents issues or even, dare I say, lean left? MSNBC is as close as you get. Most others stupidly have “both sides” and act as if it’s a fair representation of the truth. The rest blatantly and unapologetically lean to the right.
(c) – I’ve seen state level elections won using such moronic talking points as “A family has to balance the budget, and so does the state” “You can’t spend more than you have” and “We need to address the debt problem.”
Until the Dems can solve those problems, we won’t be able to challenge the GOP unless the GOP fucks up enough to piss off a sufficient portion of the electorate or puts up the undead in the Presidential election (both of which happened in 2008.)
Sadly we will either face one of the batshit crazy contenders in power next term, or Obama will win… And then the gloves will come off and the next presidential election after that will elect a howling lunatic baying for the blood of gays, socialists, minorities, Democrats, women, atheists, the left handed, cats, Mexican food, dextrose, and the weak nuclear force.
HNS Lasagna:
Oh? And how has that “good discourse” worked out for the last four decades?
I’ll give you a hint: FAILED HYPOTHESIS.
And I think that they fear this could happen. Why else do their best to scuttle the public education system by starving it of funding (and substance in the curriculum), reducing incentives for quality minds to even go into teaching in the first place, encouraging home schooling of Tomorrow’s Peasants (i.e., those not in the upper income brackets) by the uneducated (to any reasonable standard), while encouraging private schools for the education of Tomorrow’s Elite (i.e., the children of the wealthy and well-connected)?
–
HNS_Lasagna says:
2nd that, I make a mean maple porter.
I’d suggest Bruge, lots of tourists even in winter, and everyone there expects each bar to make their own beer.
t
Fortunately, approval ratings 15 months before the election don’t mean much; G.H.W. Bush hit 90% approval in 1991 before losing to Clinton, and Clinton was around 43% for a lot of his first term before trouncing Dole in 1996.
We can also take heart from the fact that the Republicans haven’t yet begun eating each other in the primary/caucus process, while it still appears Obama will have a clear path to re-nomination.
Anyway, that’s what I’m telling myself at the moment.
@ #39
Yeah the problem with that is: who does that leave in the republican field? By my count….no one. Well maybe Newt, he’s still holding on for dear life I guess.
Tim,
sounds tasty- I prefer barleywines and bourbon barrel stouts (my most recent collaboration brew is slated to be about 23% abv when we bottle in October.
Cicely,
I don’t suppose I’ve ever thought of it that way, I could certainly see that scenario.
Iris,
Yes you’re right, but if we (that being scientists and other educated folk) worked together to push back against religion in politics and creation in schools we can start to have those discussions. Evolution is certainly spreading, and while I wish it would take hold faster, I’m happier with the current time frame when you compare it to… say, how long it took to get to homo sapiens from Australopithecus afarensis.
“Nah, they’re both still just apes.” True, but PZ so are you and I.
Well if ANY of the republican candidates are elected I’m leaving the country and opening a microbrewery in Europe.
Didn’t you mention you were studying cancer biology? Nothing against microbreweries, but you might consider establishing a collaboration or three in Europe as a backup plan. Just to distinguish yourself from the flood of American refugees fleeing to Europe when it hits. Or consider Brazil. They’re really pushing science right now. Neither Europe nor Brazil is perfect, of course, but it’s always good to have alternatives. And funding, of course.
Also, Brazil is warm and has tropical beaches and caipirinhas.
In that case, we can expect the press to repeat them as facts.
Just curious, how did you get the percentage so high. I know that people have been using champagne yeasts which can get you to 17-18% but beyond that you have to start to reduce the water content via ice distillation or something similar. Does the bourbon barrel add substantial percentage to the final brew? BTW I’m a barrel guy as well, love any beer that has been aged in barrels, especially oak which brings nice vanilla overtones to stouts and strong ales. The most unusual cask conditioned brew that I have tried was a nut brown ale aged in a Cabernet cask for 6 months (Glacier BrewHouse, Anchorage, AK) they also do one of the best bourbon barrel aged stouts I have tried (Jim Beam Barrels).
Well the OG was 0.135 so that obviously was a big part of it, and throwing wood chips in during primary is pretty helpful too (gives the yeast a substrate to attach too and has more surface area than a barrel). Anyhow, it spent 8 months on the primary fermentation in a keg at probably 70ish degrees (with home toasted american white oak chips, which soaked in bourbon for 2 months) and is now in secondary.
It takes a long time, but this high of an abv isn’t unheard of (the yeast obviously work much slower in that high of an EtOH but they don’t really die), we just figured the higher the F.G the better it will bottle age. Dogfish head consistently does this with their 120 ipa and worldwide stout (neither of which, to my knowledge, use a high alcohol yeast). However, Sam Adams does it with their utopias (27% abv-expensive, but worth a try once) but they use a proprietary yeast strain. If I had the time I would like to make a EtOH tolerant yeast-either do a growth selection (raise the yeast in increasing EtOH concentrations until you get one tolerant enough) or just use a cloning technique to mutate a gene known to contribute to EtOH toxicity in yeast.
sorry to be off topic all.
Doug, if I may jump in, there are some high gravity yeasts and trappist yeast blends that will get you into the high teens if not into the 20s. You also need high oxygenation rates and high pitching rates. I’ve also heard of using yeast nutrients to give the little beasties a good start.
‘smee #52
Look, if you have to refer to them as “progressives” instead of “liberals”, you have already conceded that they do not stand for, nor care for their positions.
My opinion is a considered one that getting rid of people who do nothing *is* the correct thing to do here. Vote them back in, and they’ll be a minority. Probably being led to believe that they need to do as the country (ie the GOP) tells them or else.
Obama has caved in every single time. The one signature legislation of his, the ACA, has left many libe… er, progressives disgruntled, and he is no longer extolling his virtues. Not that he ever did.
So why exactly should these people be given a second term? OK, it is a fair point that otherwise you’d let a loon like Perry run wild.
Guess what, the loons are already running wild. And blaming the Dems. And succeeding.
So why not let these DINOs go extinct, save the money, and then when the GOP completely fucks up, bring back some new DEMS, some liberals with spine in 2014 or 2016?
Unions are about to go extinct. In four short years after they scored a resounding win. That’s how ineffective these democrats are.
The baby has long been dead. It is time to get rid of the ones who were describing how dirty the water was, when it drowned.
HNS_Lasagna – You aren’t talking about designing a yeast strain intelligently are you?
Whatever happened to letting evolution work naturally?
Oh the humanity.
(see? not off-topic at all)
Shripathi, I look no further than the last gubernatorial election in MN. The best candidate was a Big City Liberal who got taken out at the knees by the more politically connected candidate at the convention (and who herself was unseated in the primary).
For Rybak to have won would have been good for the state and great for liberals. I can see your point about throwing the bums out, but I also think that if Rybak had a better machine behind him, he wouldn’t have lost to the politically connected candidate, or taken out in the primary.
And not only that, but he just managed a C in animal breeding. Doesn’t that earn him some sort of dunce cap in Texas?
Shripathi, et al, regarding Throwing the bums out
Which part of divide and conquer are you unfamiliar with?
You suggest dismantling (or completely bypassing) an existing structure, just so you can say Nyah Nyah Nyah to the folks you are upset with… instead of taking the fight to the real bastards.
Niccolò would be so proud (not)
It might, but seeing as how all that “book and classroom learnin'” is held in contempt these days, Perry could easily claim that he’d have learned more just “going out to the ranch” and that grades don’t mean nothin’ – and besides, a Real Man ™ learns by doing, not reading. >.<
Maybe I’m burnt out and haven’t bothered with that thread but, isn’t there a difference between just background sexist bullshit and actual misogyny? Or am I mistaken and just too damn tired here?
Shripathi Kamath says:
Good idea. Let the world burn in havoc so that, after the baddies are destroyed, the goodies can get together and create a better society. But I think somebody had this idea before.
The Tea Party?
While people make some light of it. The thought of a Bachmann or Perry presidency scares the hell out of me. The thought they could limit / destroy my rights because Gawd said so is frightening. I honestly would move to another country – but I don’t have any support structure outside of the country.
I know ENDA will not be passed in this current Congress, and it will never be passed by Bachmann / Perry even if somehow it magically is passed, so as a TG person, I can still be fired!
Ing @85,
Also, I heard the same thing in regard to a black man being unable to be elected to something fairly recently.
I wouldn’t count Michelle out of the running due to EG and his champions.
The Tea Baggers and Rethuglicans terrify me. I’m American, but I also possess an EU passport–how the possession of that little document comforts me…! If the results of the 2012 election are an unspeakable horror (Perry & Bachmann, or something equally as bad), I can offer someone escape to Europe through a marriage of convenience–you just have to agree to help clean the litter boxes once in a while.
Ing says:
And other millenarianist groups. What’s Revelation all about?
@IndyM:
I’ll clean litter boxes.
Don’t worry about Perry.
The only thing that makes sense to me about President Obama’s policies is that he plans on switching parties and running as a Republican in 2012.
He will get the evangelicals’ vote in a flash. They love apostates’ conversions.
Pin a Texas state flag on one lapel and the Stars and Bars on the other and he’ll get all of the southern vote.
If there are any Republicans, that are not barking mad, left, they will vote for him over any of the current candidates.
He’s got Wall Street, the MIC, the banks, the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical corporations, the chemical corporations, the filthy rich and the polluters in his hip pocket.
This explains everything that he has ticked me off over.
OK, Katherine, you’ve got first dibs.
(Paris is my first choice, but I’m open to discussion.) :)
@The Pint
“Learning by doing” in the subject of “Animal Breeding” leads to a picture in my brain that I really, really want to scrub away.
@95
Thank you, thank you for not making me the only one. Of course, I’m in Washington, home of the infamous “Mr. Hands” case…
Lynna:
The only name I had been familiar with was Schaeffer’s. However, these sound like the same sorts of writers recommended by the likes of Beck and Limbaugh, and who — back in the day when their ilk was known as “the lunatic fringe” — wrote books with titles like None Dare Call it Treason.
Ing 85:
Yes: actual misogyny is when “background” sexist bullshit misogyny reveals itself the foreground. Which is pretty much all the fucking time if you’re a woman.
I could be mistaken, or too damn tired myself. But I don’t think so.
Shripathi Kamath 79:
You assume that he did not get pretty much exactly what he wanted. I think that view is incorrect. He was free to appoint whomever he wanted to the Catfood Commission, and he appointed economic conservatives. He had strong public support for a public option in the health care law, but he negotiated it away and entrenched a business model rather than a health model, probably for at least a generation.
Obama ran as a moderate liberal, but he governs as a moderate conservative. I knew we were in deep shit with him when he made Rahm his chief of staff. (Actually I knew it when he voted for the FISA amendments including telecom immunity while he was still a Senator.)
tkreacher 89:
Not from me you didn’t. I will merely point out that black men had the right to vote in the U.S. fifty years before women. And there is still no Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve (unless the Supreme Court butts in and decides to vote along party lines, or electronic balloting in the key state is routed “oddly” while being counted by a company whose owner has promised the state to a certain Shrub).
If the people – and I consider even Creationists, Klansmen, and Teabaggers to be people (referring to Twain’s Proof) – choose a lying, stupid and evil murderer and traitor like Perry or a completely insane and incompetent Dominionist vampire like Bachmann, it will show that a majority of voting adult have had enough with the whole thing (freedom, democracy, equality, reason of ANY kind, prosperity, regular meals…) and desire war and poverty.
All “Republicans” are stupid, proudly ignorant, insane, dishonest, and/or evil. Their candidates are all of these things, all the time.
Margaret #95
You just had to go there, didn’t you? Atheists are such degenerates. ;p
Obama doesn’t make the Senate do anything. That’s not how our government works.
@Lynna
Although I do not blame Perry on getting an F in org chem. :) Sure, I got an A at the end, but I remember that at one point in the semester for org chem II, I was barely scrapping by a pass. The worst part was that the community college I attended made 74 or lower a fail. Man, that was a difficult class.
Note: for my comment above, clearly, the not blaming part was firmly tongue in cheek. If one is a mediocre student, of course he or she is going to fail.
Slightly OT, but this article appeared locally this morning, a (goes out on limb) typical view about our (Australian) view of Michele Bachmann: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/michele-bachmanns-elevation-in-republican-party-signals-dangerous-new-extremism-in-us-politics/story-e6frerdf-1226115420761 (apologies – didn’t know how to turn it into a link). Many of us here are still mystified about how George Bush got in …
There you go, the internet fairy turned it into a link after all.
Iris Vander Pluym #100
I don’t want to get into a debate over which group might win The Title if we overheard a private conservative conversation: “nigra’s or womenz, which is worser?”, anymore than you do. Heh.
If we ran a tally on instances of “bitches, sluts, and sandwiches” vs “monkies, negro’s, and watermelons” on a random selection of youtube or yahoo article comment sections, we’d both die in a Bachmann/Perry nuke strike launched in protection of Israel, the landing zone of Jesus, before we could finish count.
My main point is that if a guy like Bryan Fischer* – one of the most virulent, misogynistic, bigoted, disgusting, far religious right ghouls – is begrudgingly willing to admit God might send a woman *gasp* to lead us from the horrors of secular humanism and our Kenyan Socialist Overlord:
– source
– Then I just don’t think her gender is enough to keep even the women-hating right from voting for her.
* Fischer, btw, for those who are unaware, is the public voice and face for the American Family Association – a hate group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Also, funnily enough, the AFA is also the main organizer of Rick Perry’s pre-announcement prayer rally. Ahhh… good ol’ USA.
Anyone else outside of my country need someone on litter detail? I’m allergic to cats, but sneezing and itching trump lynching.
I’d been wondering what Obama’s approval rating was.
I was thinking it would be lower than Bush’s because nobody likes what he’s doing. I don’t know if Republicans hate him more, or people like me who voted for him thinking he was actually going to do what he said.
I lived in Texas during most of Perry’s years as governor.
As an educator, I grew more and more furious with what he has done to the education system there. It was half decent when we first arrived there, but it has gotten steadily worse since Perry and his creationist cronies have been in charge.
I know that many of the teachers in Texas hate him. I hope that they talk openly about what he has done.
It’s been interesting reading how many here have plans for leaving the US if the nightmare happens.
My son-in-law is a professor and my daughter a research scientist at a large university. He often is a guest lecturer at Oxford and at a university in Berlin. He has been networking in both places in order to provide a bolt-hole for the two of them, if need be.
My son has been cultivating a business deal with a group in Canada, which could provide him with a place to go.
It is a very sad day when Americans have to plan for ways to escape their country.
Thing of it is, what he’s done to education standards in Texas IS part of his appeal to the electorate that wants him and there’s a portion of the population that would vote for him because teachers hate him. I’d like to think that portion of the population isn’t large enough to give him the Presidency, but the fact that it MIGHT be is frightening enough all on it’s own.
It’s simple.
The bible predicts alot of chaotic shit, and then the glorious return of Jaysus and/or The Rapture.
I see all these christians now who nod their heads and go ‘Yup, all this crazy stuff in the world! Jesus is coming soon!’ Subconsciously or not, they don’t do anything to alleviate the suffering and chaos, or they go out of their way to make it worse, because hey, if everyone becomes peaceful and happy, Gawd might decide to wait another thousand years!
and also don’t be too quick to look to canada just yet….. Harper is a scumbag. And he’s gonna be around for a while.
Well then clearly Perry can seal the win by choosing Rick Scott as VP.
I knew things were about to
startaccelerate sliding downhill when they were using “intellectual” as a slur against Gore.The thing is, what do they stand to gain from a nation that can only read at a grade school level? When you add in their hatred of the minimum wage, all I can see is a future of 300,000,000 million people living on mac and cheese and buying clothes from Goodwill. The only thing I can imagine is they want us all in sweatshops 20 years from now, making sneakers and gizmos for a billion upwardly mobile Chinese and Indians.
300,000,000 million people, Ragutis? Were you educated in Texas?
If anyone wants to escape to Scotland you are more than welcome. We have a moderate-left wing government, are relatively godless and even have our own ID institute in Glasgow to laugh at.
In all seriousness, I think America is screwed if any Republican gets in. Their signature tax cuts would nail the economy while the super rich floated on by.
Iris Vander Pluym @99:
And he had even strong public support for raising taxes as part of the debt deal (>70%, including a majority of Republicans). Good luck on getting that through a Congress where every single Republican has taken a vow never to raise taxes.
Yes, I know what you’re going to say – all Obama had to do was use his Magic Bully Pulpit©, all of a sudden Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson wouldn’t be assholes, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins would vote the way they talk to the people in Maine, and with a sprinkle of pixie dust Scott Brown would turn back into Ted Kennedy.
A Swedish-language summary of the primaries -it is illustrated so you can get the gist without knowing the language.
Mitt Romney is described as stiff and boring, illustrated by Boris Karloff’s rendering of Frankenstein’s monster.
Perry is illustrated by the Predator
(Schwarzenegger cannot run for the presidency, otherwise he would have had the coolest illustration).
http://www.dn.se/blogg/viktor/2011/08/16/det-amerikanska-primarvalet-i-bilder/
— — — — — — — —
“FEATURED: How Should Obama Answer the Stock Market’s Wake-Up Call? We-Need-Different-Cossacks Department “
By Brad deLong
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/08/how-should-obama-answer-the-stock-markets-wake-up-call-we-need-different-cossacks-department.html
FWIW, there isn’t much of a correlation between tax rates and prosperity. Of the 15 highest taxed nations in the world, 8 are also listed among the 15 most prosperous.
The Tea Party is just ignorant and crazy.
1. We could afford to judiciously raise taxes. Reagan raised taxes 11 times during his administration because it made sense at the time.
2. You don’t cut government spending during a recession or slowdown. According to Keynesians, this just makes it worse. Even the GOP knows that. That is why the cuts that were made were backloaded out a decade.
74% of the federal budget is military (20%), social security, medicare, medicaid, social safety net programs. Who gets thrown under the bus with “spending cuts” here? Grandma, the kids, or the soldiers?
I suppose all those federal transfer payments recipients could just go out and get jobs. With unemployment at 9.2%, that will work well.
It is a very sad day when Americans have to plan for ways to escape their country.
It’s nothing new. I’ve been doing that since Reagan was saying that we could survive a nuclear war with enough shovels and planning to put his opponents in concentration camps. Sometimes I think only Alzheimer’s saved us in the 1980s.
And in case you’re wondering, no, I haven’t actually gone out and gotten citizenship in another country. But I have learned a foreign language, acquired some collaborators in various countries across the world, and started spending my spare time outside the US. Just in case that fantasy has to turn into a plan quick.
I love how Obama’s failure to be an actual president, and the dems overall failure to have spines is the voter’s fault.
We’re constantly being told to keep kicking Lucy’s football, because the other guys are so much worse, despite the clear and obvious fact that, regardless of how often we attempt to kick that football, shit gets exponentially worse. REGARDLESS of who is in office.
Tell me again how voting dem is going to change anything that’s happening in this country? At *best* it was slightly slow down the march to oblivion.
I’m still baffled by this phenomenon. Why wouldn’t you want someone clearly smarter and more experienced that you in the White House, much less any other government position? It makes no sense.
One of the generals, McChrystal, put it well.
“We tried electing a moron and that didn’t work.” The moron being GW Bush.
Bush spent 8 years carefully and diligently causing our present mess. Another GOP moron isn’t going to fix it.
Exactly. And yet there is still a rampant strain of anti-intellectualism that candidates like Bachmann and Perry are grabbing onto, and it’s working. I don’t get it at all and it scares the hell out of me.
The Pint:
I give you Paula Kirby on that very subject. Just don’t read the comments if you have even a teensy bit of faith in, or respect for, humanity.
Pint: Because them pointy-headed interlectuals don’t know how to GIT R DUN! Sure, George Dumbya might have been as sharp as a sack o wet leather, but he GOT ‘R DUN!
At least that’s how I always see the anti-intellectual attitude expressed. Damn those bookworm types, always thinking before they make important decisions!
That remains to be seen.
Bachmann and Perry, the two leading GOP candidates right now are so fruitbat crazy that IMO, they are unelectable.
The presidency is the GOP’s to lose right now, and they just might turn a probable victory into defeat by nominating candidates that scare the normal people voter group.
If they do elect someone like Bachmann or Perry, we won’t have to worry about the USA’s future anymore. There won’t be one. We can all spend time with our families, pets, and work on our hobbies and survival plans.
The Republicans are going to win this one. Obama’s PR team isn’t doing shit, doesn’t have shit, and can’t do shit. And Perry is going to win the nomination. Fuck, get me out of here.
Bachmann and Perry, the two leading GOP candidates right now are so fruitbat crazy that IMO, they are unelectable.
Bachmann is too crazy and, perhaps more to the point, too female to get elected. Perry, I’m less sure of. He can look sane if he has to and he’s very much the standard white male candidate with good hair. He’s the more dangerous one, in my opinion, because the more likely to succeed.
Well…if you’re at home to a bit of mild conspiricism….
The senior Repubs/Big Businessmen who prefer to operate behind the scenes needed an amiable doofus with whom the average blue-collar American would like to have a beer,
to wear read and draw enemy firefor use as a figurehead/fall-guy.Plus, there’s them rumors that her husband is Gay, and whar there’s smoke there’s fire.
That shit is catchin’, you know. </deadpan>
–
Is this the latest post on Pharyngula? (as of 8/16, noonish)
If I go to freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula, the latest post is from 8/13, but if I go to freethoughtblogs main site, on the little Pharyngula section this is the latest post.
Am I the only one seeing that? (doesnt matter which browser I use, or from different wifi places)
But just wait until the latest statistics regarding jobs in Texas come out. There is supposed to be an estimated 100,000 jobs lost due to cuts. Not only that, but a majority of the jobs that he created in the decade he’s been in office are minimum wage jobs that require no college degree. Come on! He says that by “de-regulating” and “getting the government out of the way” the free market is free to work. Well, see… when a large part of America’s GDP is intangible, and we don’t invest in education (which is what supports our GDP) it’s hard to have job growth in fields that require education (which is only a SMALL portion of America’s jobs (sarcasm?)). Thats my problem with all the GOPers (other than the fact that they are all bible-thumping politicians). Wake up and realize that short of inducing the re-industrialization of America (yes so people can spend their lives working in factories and ruining our environment- but hey thats great because all that requires is an 8th grade education) the best way forward is an investment in the American education system, a cessation of spending on wars that only hurt other countries and our national budget, and a movement away from corporate and upper-class entitlements in favor of working towards a fair and balanced system (in concert with welfare and healthcare reform) that supports the middle class and puts the needs of Americans and hummanity in general in front of the needs of corporate America and other governments.
But…I could be wrong, I mean according to Mitt Romney, “corporations are people too”.
I’m with Dianne on this one. Perry’s the bigger problem because he knows how to play “normal” enough to get elected.
@nigelTheBold #126 – thanks for that link. It’s a great piece. I will have to make more of an effort to read Paula Kirby.
@cicely #131:
Sounds fairly plausible to me.
The anti-intellectualism of America is WHY they are nominating candidates like Bachman, Perry and Bush. They hate us more than they love America.
This. And as we saw in the recent senate elections, voters in our country are easily duped.
Sure, it’s free to work. It’s free to allow Texas to now be the #1 state in the union when it comes to the level of airborne carcinogens in the air, thanks to de-regulations friendly to the chemical plant industry.
The state has laid off over 100,000 teachers and is 36th in the nation in education.
And Perry’s version of tort reform makes it possible for the State supreme court to overturn jury awarded damages made in favor of plaintiffs against corporations.
http://blog.chron.com/partisangridlock/2011/06/how-rick-perry-created-all-those-jobs/
You’d think that facts like these would be significant hits against Perry’s chances, but as Lionel Hutz once told Marge Simpson, “There’s the TRUTH (no-no face), and the truth (smiley face)!”
Nope. There’s also “A flat-earth challenge!” and “Canadians!” which come after this one.
This looks like another caching problem for PZ to report to the webmaster.
And I was afraid that post wouldn’t go through… so let’s try some links this time
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/08/15/a-flat-earth-challenge/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/08/15/canadians/
Joven, until things are fixed, you might try the RSS feeds.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/feed/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/comments/feed/
Yes, so the whole point is that dumb republicans don’t actually know how dumb they are (i.e no more education, rampant carcinogenesis, and de regulation of corporations)? HA! Most of the people who are conservative just don’t want government in their life, so they settle for helping wealthy people systematically rape the American people.
..
..
Um, has anyone told them they are part of the American people… like… the ones who are going to continue to get abused by said corporations…?
Probably. The ticket I see right now is Perry/Bachmann. Perry looks sort of normal if you have a lot to drink and lose your glasses. Bachmann nails down the crazy christofascist vote.
The track record of Texas under Perry isn’t so good. Child poverty rates are high, 25%, and going up. There is a 27 billion dollar budget deficit and unemployment is high, 8.2% making it 26th in the USA.
And that is just the headlines. If you dig down, all the social problem stats are high, teen pregnancy and so on.
so people can spend their lives working in factories and ruining our environment- but hey thats great because all that requires is an 8th grade education
That’s the problem: modern factories require you to be able to use a computer and understand math. I’m not sure that all the companies going to China are going for the cheap labor. They may be going for the cheap, relatively well educated labor. OTOH, the US’s migrant farm worker supply is drying up as Mexico discovers birth control, so there’s always picking strawberries for a living.
Um… err… I… um… was exaggerating for dramatic effect, yeah. Yup, that’s what I was doing. Artistic license.
Anyone buying that?
According to Jim Hightower: “Rick Perry is George W Bush without the intelligence or the ethics.”
Rather says it all, doesn’t it?
18.64% of statistics are made up.
I don’t know, that 54% figure doesn’t really bother me. If I were polled, I’d probably say that I’m unsatisfied with the job Obama’s done so far, and I’d still vote for him over Perry. Unless another liberal steps into the ring, Obama will get my vote no matter what.
I think it was Jefferson who said that an effective democracy depended on a well educated and informed public(or words to that effect).
This couldn’t appear to be more true than today.
When your leaders are chosen based solely on their ability to win a popularity contest, ignorance can be deadly.
We are so completely screwed.
Actually, being racist theocrats doesn’t seem to be doing the Tea Baggers much good.
Updating: I had nothing after 8/15 in spite of doing a “force refresh” but now after commenting I can see several later blog posts. Odd, isn’t it?
Testing whether a link will appear following this. . .
Well, it would help to get the HTML right:
Is Rick Perry a sucker or is he just lying?