I am Shocked. Shocked, I Tell You!

I am amazed.  Shocked.  Aghast.  Mentally obliviated.  Blown away.   Surprised. Why am I amazed, shocked, aghast, mentally obliviated and blown away?

The Right is not Right Enough for the Right!

Off the top of my pointy little head, I can think of many, many truly uncomfortable things that I could be doing.  Getting a root canal while listening to rap music is up there near the top.  As is listening to the 1812 Overture played entirely by cats on blackboards.  Nothing that I can think of, however, could be as bad as running for office as a member of the Grand Old Party, forced to please both the religious and political radical right. 

The party has moved so far to the right that a right-winger like McCain or Snow are considered too liberal.  The teabaggers and thumpers are controlling who can, and cannot, be elected as a Republican, and it is based on faith, not fact.  Today, Saint Ronald Himself would not be an acceptable conservative.

 Two cases in point:

Breaking the Back of America

Conservatives are the backbone of America.  Their respect for the Constitution of the United States, their respect for the laws of America, their respect for the President of the United States of America (whether they agree with his political views or not), their battles for equal rights for all humans, and their Christian ethics, including a sense of love and respect for all life are the epitome of exemplars of good old fashioned Americanism to which we should all aspire.

The Shark Jumping GOP

There was a time, long ago, last century, to be exact, that the Republican Party, the GOP, was a party of ideas.  The ideas were bullshit, but they had ideas.  Cut taxes for the rich, raise taxes on everyone else, and the economy will improve.  Cut taxes and the tax revenue will increase.  Punish people for being poor and the poor will bootstrap themselves right up.  Deregulate industry and industry will  regulate itself.  These policies have given us huge deficits, a wider gap between rich and the rest of us, businesses bankrupting themselves for lack of regulation, and a government which does not have the money to provide the basic services Americans expect.  This is all the direct result of the GOP’s ideas.

Now, the GOP has become the party of no.  No ideas.  Just say no to everything.  Loudly. 

Ohio Law Would Take A Woman’s Decision Out of her Hands (and Put it in the Hands of a Rapist)

There seems to be a great deal of ammunition showing up on the internet this week regarding the FoFers*.  A law introduced in Ohio would take a women’s reproductive decision completely and totally out of her hands.

SEX!

By this time, most of you (at the very least, the six regular readers I have) should know that I am a naturalist.  Which means, of course, that I do not by into the Genesis version of the creation of the world, the universe, life, or the myriad species inhabiting our earth.  And I view evolution as an established fact (it is only called a theory because we do not yet (and probably will never) know all of the exact details regarding every event). 

One of the reasons that I found evolution rather boring in the science classes I took was a neglect of sex. 

Skewering Palin with Truth!

This Modern World, by Tom Tomorrow, has a fantastic Sarah Palin comic out right now:

Hunger is Not a Positive Motivator for Children

Yesterday, I posted an older story about a religious cult in Baltimore in which a 21-month-old boy was starved to death because he would not say ‘amen.’  Starving a child is a notably ineffective way to change a child’s behaviour (and starving him to death even is even less effective).  Sadly, one state representative from Missouri would disagree.

Sarah Palin and America’s Over-Worked Mental Health Professionals

I remember some odd dinner time conversations when my Mom was going to college.  She took lots of psych courses (undergrad and graduate school) and the subject of sanity came up at least once a week or so (not sure why that subject would come up;  after all, I was at the table).  She said, repeatedly, that mental health, specifically abnormal mental health, is really hard to diagnose.  The various mental illnesses are referred to as spectrums because almost no one ever exhibits all, or even a majority, of the various symptoms.

Now, thanks to right wing whackaloon politics, we have a reasonably accurate gauge of sanity. 

(((Sarah Palin))) is ((Poaching))

Sarah Palin is now poaching.  Since I started blogging, I have been (((Billy))) The Atheist.  My trademark parenthetical writing style differentiates me from the average run-of-the-mill (and boring) blogger (one’s who don’t understand the effect of parenthetical overuse).  Now Sarah Palin (soon to be ex-governor of Alaska (for the good of the state)) is poaching my style (you betcha!) (from Dispatches from the Culture Wars):