Category Archives: WTF?!

NADA, WTF?!

“Within the G.O.P., willful ignorance has become a litmus test for candidates.”

Republicans Against Science – NYTimes.com

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 28, 2011

According to Public Policy Polling, only 21 percent of Republican voters in Iowa believe in global warming (and only 35 percent believe in evolution). Within the G.O.P., willful ignorance has become a litmus test for candidates, one that Mr. Romney is determined to pass at all costs.

So it’s now highly likely that the presidential candidate of one of our two major political parties will either be a man who believes what he wants to believe, even in the teeth of scientific evidence, or a man who pretends to believe whatever he thinks the party’s base wants him to believe.

And the deepening anti-intellectualism of the political right, both within and beyond the G.O.P., extends far beyond the issue of climate change. …

Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect.

Republicans Against Science – NYTimes.com

NADA, QOTD, WTF?!

“You wonder if Perry is determined to make George W. Bush seem like Hubert Humphrey”–EJ Dionne

That’s the best line of the day.

Rick Perry and the ‘treason’ card – PostPartisan – The Washington Post

By E.J. Dionne

Right-wingers have always loved accusing those they disagree with of “treason,” and it didn’t take Gov. Rick Perry more than a few days to get there.

Rick Perry and the ‘treason’ card – PostPartisan – The Washington Post

Dump Duhbya, WTF?!

Obama’s and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph: Cost of New Policies, Bush = $5T, Obama = $1.44T

Obama’s and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph – Ezra Klein – The Washington Post


What’s also important, but not evident, on this chart is that Obama’s major expenses were temporary — the stimulus is over now — while Bush’s were, effectively, recurring. The Bush tax cuts didn’t just lower revenue for 10 years. It’s clear now that they lowered it indefinitely, which means this chart is understating their true cost. Similarly, the Medicare drug benefit is costing money on perpetuity, not just for two or three years. And Boehner, Ryan and others voted for these laws and, in some cases, helped to craft and pass them.

To relate this specifically to the debt-ceiling debate, we’re not raising the debt ceiling because of the new policies passed in the past two years. We’re raising the debt ceiling because of the accumulated effect of policies passed in recent decades, many of them under Republicans. It’s convenient for whichever side isn’t in power, or wasn’t recently in power, to blame the debt ceiling on the other party. But it isn’t true.

By Ezra Klein  |  01:00 PM ET, 07/25/2011

Obama’s and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph – Ezra Klein – The Washington Post

[hat to John Fleck]

loco, NADA, WTF?!

It takes all kinds to make mixed nuts

During the Bush Error, Darren White showed his fascist side, particularly when he snarled “let me at ‘em” about lawful protestors marching in Albuquerque’s streets to protest a war any thinking person knows was a colossal mistake. He kissed Duhbya’s ass while corralling protestors in barb-wired “Free Speech Zones” miles from His Excremancy. Don’t forget those hostile times, because the angry, ugly, small-minded tight-fists rule the Republican Party now and, amazingly, have national clout far beyond their small members (sic). Consider the following:

ABQJournal Online » Blame White’s Departure on Socialist Unions

By Jean-C. Guenette / Albuquerque resident on Mon, Jul 25, 2011

If he is anything, [Darren] White is a bold, unabashed, proud anti-socialist. Now that will get you enemies because our country is filthy with socialist, communist-inspired unions. …

Let’s not pussyfoot around this; unions are employee gangs formed to extort money, favors and special conditions from their employer. They threaten harm to the employer and the business if the employer does not comply. This is pure socialist class extortion.

White is a declared opponent of socialism and that, of course, means anti-union. …To White, I say that I’m not satisfied with his expressed reason for stepping down. To my socialist union employees, I say “you’re fired.”

ABQJournal Online » Blame White’s Departure on Socialist Unions

Seriously, “socialist, communist-inspired”? What century does this person live in? Surely, Jean-C. means unions are “elitist politically-correct Islamo-fascists.” Time to buy the latest “Sound Conservative without Thinking” (Forward by John Boehner).

Side note: Although abqjournal.com’s redesign is a huge improvement, I’m puzzled that items from today’s edition don’t appear under the various top menu categories. To find this Letter to the Editor, I had to go to the home page to the letter’s link there. When I went straight to the Letters to the Editor page, I found letters from days ago.  This letter will appear on the  appropriate page in a few days, but its URL won’t have changed. Huh? Is there intent in the delay, other than to make more work for the reader?

WTF?!

Many Atheists Are Too Serious

I find religion self-mocking, so I don’t need to be a pastafarian. [hat tip to John Young]

BBC News – Austrian driver allowed ‘pastafarian’ headgear photo

Driving licence of Niko Alm An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as "religious headgear".

Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons.

Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.

BBC News – Austrian driver allowed ‘pastafarian’ headgear photo