Andy Borowitz: Newt Gingrich meeting with Donald Trump is what science calls a full douchebag eclipse.
###
###
Good. Maybe we can finally leave Afghanistan AND cut off any aid to Pakistan ($22 billion since 2002)
###
###
###
This Is Why The GOP Has Installed Mandatory Photo ID Voter Laws
Since coming to power last fall, many Tea Party-GOP dominated state legislatures have installed new laws requiring a photo ID to vote. The above graphic tells us exactly why. ###
###
NASA's Kepler planet-finding project has hit pay dirt, and planet Kepler-22b looks like it would probably a great place to vacation.
NASA has found a new planet outside Earth's solar system that is eerily similar to Earth in important aspects. Scientists say the temperature on the surface of the planet is about a comfy 72 degrees (22 Celsius). Its star could almost be a twin of Earth's sun. It probably has water and land.
It was found in the middle of the habitable zone, making it the best potential target for life.
The discovery announced Monday was made by NASA's Kepler planet-hunting telescope. This is the first time Kepler confirmed a planet outside Earth's solar system in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold habitable zone. This is the region around a star where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist. The planet is estimated to be 2.4 times the size of Earth, which would make it the smallest found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star like our sun.
Twice before astronomers have announced planets found in that zone, but neither was as promising. One was disputed; the other is on the hot edge of the zone.
### 
Here's an interesting headline from Parade magazine yesterday:
A Mitt Romney You Haven't Seen Yet
The reason for this is that nobody had thought of matching up a subject like Mitt Romney with an interviewer like David Gergen, who would suck up to a Gaboon viper if it got elected to something somewhere. Match up hard-hitting inquiries like...
Did he get you up early in the morning to go do the chores?
...with replies in what appears to be an unusual dialect of Robot English...
The lawn mowing was not early in the morning.
...and you certainly do get a Mitt Romney that you haven't seen yet: An even more boring one.
###
And now it can be told: World Net Daily asked at a White House Press conference if Obama "approved or disapproved of beastiality in our armed forces." Oddly, Jay Carney moved onto the next question. (The White House)
###
BP says Halliburton destroyed Gulf spill evidence
(Reuters) - BP Plc accused Halliburton Co of destroying evidence that the oilfield services company did inadequate cement work on the Gulf of Mexico oil well that blew out last year, and asked a federal judge to punish Halliburton.
The accusation, in a BP court filing, raises the stakes ahead of a trial, expected in late February, to assign blame and damages for the April 2010 blowout of the Macondo well, which triggered the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Citing recent depositions and Halliburton's own documents, BP said Halliburton "intentionally" destroyed the results of slurry testing for the well, in part to "eliminate any risk that this evidence would be used against it at trial."
The oil company also said Halliburton appeared to have lost computer evidence showing how the cement performed, with Halliburton maintaining that the information is simply "gone."
###
Mitt Romney spent nearly $100,000 in state funds to replace computers in his office at the end of his term as governor of Massachusetts in 2007 as part of an unprecedented effort to keep his records secret. Read More
###
What matters to wingnuts
It is helpful, when confronting repug viciousness and insanity, to remember that their thought processes do not follow Enlightenment principles. They never follow a chain of evidence through logical analysis and reach a rational conclusion. They choose an outcome and twist the facts to make it come out their way.
This is why accusations of hypocrisy don't resonate with repugs, especially of the freakazoid variety: because everyone sins, the real issue is not how you behave but what you say about it. The homophobe caught fucking a prostitute of the same sex is to liberals a massive hypocrite; to freakazoids, he's proof that homophobia is correct. As long as he confesses his sin, begs for forgiveness, and doubles down on the hatred, he's not just forgiven but celebrated.
The most clear-eyed insight on this phenomenon comes from Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog:
I say this all the time, but I'll say it again: Fox/talk radio/tea party right-wingers don't hate lobbying. They don't hate lobbyists. They don't hate the way money has corrupted politics. As I noted at the time of the decision, teabaggers absolutely loved the Citizens United decision -- it had them dancing in the aisles. When wingnuts see government consorting with business, they don't see two corrupt parties, they see one: government. Government is the House of the Rising Sun. It's been the ruin of many a poor, innocent corporation. The evil goes one way. Lobbyists aren't bad -- government is bad because it gets lobbied. And yet wingnuts are sensitive to a widespread disgust with lobbying in the broader public.
So Gingrich is treating lobbying the way the Bush administration treated torture -- he's not making any real effort to conceal the fact that he's done it, he's just denying that the word applies.
And that should be enough for right-wing voters, because, Randians that they are, they love big business and support the right to lobby, just as they supported torture under Bush. Just don't call either of these things by its proper name.
In another post he adds:
The core narrative that unites the modern right is this: true right-wingers are always right about everything, and are agents of God as a result, while everyone else is evil and satanic, and everything in politics is a battle between pure good and the Apocalypse. Gingrich embodies that worldview. That worldview isn't based on actual principles -- Ronald Reagan could be a non-churchgoing, divorced, tax-raising, Iran-coddling Russki-befriender, but he proclaimed fealty to conservatism at the top of his lungs, so he was the conservative's conservative.
Appearance over substance, every time. It explains Palin, anyway.
###
Blue Girl: Of Iran, Israel, covert ops and that pesky drone that went missing last week
###
Republican bigots and know-nothings want validation with nomination
No comments:
Post a Comment