Deep thought.

Does just receiving, and then perhaps reading, a book offering a different point of view make you a believer in that book’s opinions and point of view?

Cow flatulence causes global warming.

First Dana Rohrbacher blaimed it on dinousauer farts, now John Boehner (properly pronounce Boner) blames it on cows.

The crazy grows.

I’m all for freedom of speech, it’s one of the things that makes me proud of this country, BUT some of these signs are a bit over the top.  This one I find especially crazy. Check out what the crazies were saying.

Photos of the day.

Just for comparison sake, from the Daily Kos:

Photo of the day. (Teabagging Edition.)

Obama and the Pirates–imagine if it had turned out differently.

From Joe Klein:

As it stands, our socialist, pacifist, crypto-Muslim President has bagged three terrorist in the most dramatic fashion and saved a Captain.

For a background, read this Daily Kos diary on how the GOP lost by betting against the US and President Obama.

And so it begins.

Is it too early to start thinking about the 2012 Presidential campaign?  Never.  So, here’s the start of it and some new campaign gear for the GOP.

From The General’s Store.

Getting what he deserves.

Yesterday, idiot Utah state legislator Chris Butters was my featured “Quote of the Day.” Today even his fellow Republican colleagues are punishing him for his stupid statement.

Sources familiar with the Senate discussions, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Senate Republican caucus decided to remove Buttars from the Senate Judiciary Committee, a panel which he currently chairs.

And further reports claim he may even resign.

For once one man’s stupidity catches up with him.

Quote of the Day. (Asinine Idiot Edition.)

“Homosexuality will always be a sexual perversion. And you say that around here now and everybody goes nuts. But I don’t care. They’re mean. They want to talk about being nice. They’re the meanest buggers I have ever seen. It’s just like the Muslims. Muslims are good people and their religion is anti-war. But it’s been taken over by the radical side. What is the morals of a gay person? You can’t answer that because anything goes. They’re probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of.”

- Utah state Sen. Chris Buttars (R), speaking in the documentary, 8 – The Mormon Proposition.

The Old Fart’s Saturday Recommendations.

• Dick Cavett on the time (October 14, 1981) when, two of my favorite writers, John Updike and John Cheever paid him a visit on his talk show.
• A former religious right leader, Frank Schaeffer, writes an open letter to President Obama.
• Strange bedfellows, the religious right and the Christian left, join forces to provide advice to Obama on reducing poverty.  This is a good thing.
• What Hookers Do on Valentine’s Day.
• And, a bit of reading for the occasion, Money Can’t Buy You Love.

Double Talk.

So according to some (many, most) GOP senators and congressmen, spending $800 billion to get the economy going is too much but giving $1.3 trillion in tax cuts in 2001 wasn’t.

Sometimes I hate the political double talk on both sides.

Ronald Reagan had no respect for the White House.

Or you would think so based upon Andy Card’s analysis of the need for jackets in the White House and this picture. He’s not even wearing a white shirt or a tie.  No respect!

36/41 want more of the same failed policy.

I’ve not commented on the sausage being made which is the Obama stimulus package as it continues to be a work in progress and I don’t think I need to panic as the wurst is being ground.

However, a vote last night makes it clear the GOP Senators haven’t learned anything from the past 8 years of failure and the November election.

Out of the 41 senators, 36 voted for an alternative plan with no spending, just tax cuts.

“I’ll have some more, sir! More failure, more economic troubles.”

Quote of the Day.

“I don’t know if the American people deserve me.”

-Samuel Wurzelbacher

aka, Joe the Plumber, Joe the War Correspondant, Joe the GOP Consultant

Done in by “Barack the Magic Negro.”

Looks like the chickens have come home to roost for the GOP operative who gave away CDs which included the offensive song this past Christmas. He couldn’t muster enough support from fellow Republicans who, thankfully, are smarter than he was.

Another Great Goodbye.

And don’t miss today’s NY Times column by neo-con columnist and pundit, William Kristol.  Especially don’t miss the comment at the bottom which you might if you don’t read him to the end as I don’t most days.

This is William Kristol’s last column.

The “24″ Defense.

It seems that all they have left to defend the use of torture is fiction. I never watch Fox News but  thankfully others do it for me and report on the idiots using the TV show “24″ to justify the continued use of torture and keeping Gitmo open.

Beck and the Fox & Friends hosts also invoked 24 as a justification for the use of torture. Referring to the show’s recent season premiere, in which protagonist Jack Bauer, a former member of the fictional “Counter Terrorist Unit,” defends his use of torture during a hearing before Congress, Beck said: “[I]t’s going to take somebody who sits in front of Congress who is not afraid of them anymore and does what Jack Bauer did. And that is, ‘Yes, I did torture, and I’m proud of it.’ And it’s time for these things to come out of the closet.” Introducing an excerpt from 24, in which Bauer is seen answering questions from a congressional committee about torture, Kilmeade stated: “Let’s listen to what happened in the fictional series 24 and see if this helps build your argument.”

Good Riddance.

One less outlet for spewing his garbage.  Now if only people wouldn’t watch his Faux News show.

Oogedy-Boogedy.

If you haven’t yet done so, read conservative Kathleen Parker’s opinion piece in today’s Washington Post, again about the religious right and their role in the GOP.

It isn’t so much God causing the GOP problems; it’s his fan club.

[...]

As long as the religious right is seen as controlling the Republican Party, the GOP will continue to lose some percentage of voters, and that percentage likely will increase over time as younger voters shift away from traditional to more progressive values.

Clarence Thomas Jumps On Board the Crazy Train.

Some right wing crazies keep up the drum beat claiming the Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen and therefore inelligible to be president.  This has been completely debunked but it doesn’t stop Thomas from playing to the right wing nuts.