Take The Plunge

I've got a tip for you, Rand:
Don't say such dumb things offhand.
Leave thoughts to those who's
ideas aren't so skewed
and just keep your head in the sand.

Rand Paul, dentist/senator/constitutional lawyer/historian extraordinaire has taken a plunge off the derp end after the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act. In a statement so lacking in forethought, he said something so inane that it is scarcely believable a person could have made it and still have brainpower to breath.

“Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare

something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so.

The whole thing remains unconstitutional."

Yeah, Rand. That's precisely what it means. If the Supreme Court rules it constitutional, according to the what is written in the CONSTITUTION, it is constitutional.

A New Low

If you've bid intelligence adieu,
and think that our progress is through
let your mind decay
just kneel down and pray:
"Today I will learn nothing new!"

This was going to be just a one-off limerick, something that has been buzzing around in my skull for a couple of days that I had to get out. The idea that "I will learn nothing new today" seems to be a motto of right-wing kooks, something that they adhere to but never actually say out loud.

Until now.

Yesterday, the platform of the Texas GOP was released (PDF), and it has some horribly regressive gems in it. The kicker has got to be this sparkling turd:

"We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)

(values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs 

that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE)

(mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and 

have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and 

undermining parental authority."

Yup. The official platform of the Republican Party of Texas decries critical thinking. because it might challenge what the student believes. And we can't have that, can we?

Loch and Load

It's great to say that you're teachin'.
Make sure you aren't overreachin'.
'Cause if your lesson's
the 'truth' of Nessie
then those aren't facts: You're just preachin'.

The next step in fundamentalist idiocy is more stupid than I expected. A company called Accelerated Christian Education has reached the bottom of an already disturbingly deep barrel. Their argument, basically, is that the Loch Ness monster actually exists, so it must have swum there after Noah's flood, therefore evolution didn't happen.

They also teach that "apartheid was beneficial to South Africa; reasons include the claim that segregated schools “made it possible for each group to maintain and pass on their culture and heritage to their children”.

A charter school in Louisiana will receive government funding, in the form of vouchers, to teach these things to children.

J Geils Band Was So Very Right

If dating is not going well
and you've gone through a dry spell,
then just take the bait
and sniff out a date
and find true love based on a smell.

So, this is an actual really real thing that people do.

Words Mean Things

The best thing I've learned is ask why,
and all of life's answers you'll find.
Through all my queries
the big mystery's
how any "real" Christian could lie.

Words really and truly mean things. Very specific words mean very specific things. David Barton, historical revisionist extraordinaire, said:

"Now, that's why the Constitution's a problem. Look at Article III, Section 1, the treason clause--direct quote out of the Bible. You look at Article II, the quote on the President [having] to be native-born--that is Deuteronomy 17:15, verbatim. I mean, look at how many clauses come out [of the Bible]. That drives the secularists nuts, because the Bible is all over [the Constitution]. Now, we as Christians don't tend to recognize that. We think it's a secular document--we've bought into their lies. It's not."

Verbatim, as it so happens, is one of those pesky words that mean a very specific thing. Merriam-Webster's defines verbatim:

": in the exact words : word for word "

Lying for Jesus is still lying, and the Bible has very specific rules about lying.

Everything You Know Is Wrong

The war on knowledge has begun.
What we thought we knew now's undone.
I believed a bit,
then realized it's shit
because real science has been shunned.

Attention Time Cube guy: A new challenger has arrived!

The Quest for Right is a series of seven textbooks that purports to

"represent the ultimate marriage between 

in-depth knowledge of biblical phenomena and 

natural and physical sciences"

A glimpse at parts of Volume 1 shows the level of sheer idiocy to which the author has sunk. It truly is an escape from reality, and a triumphant refutation of everything science has learned over the years.

Evidence Is Lies

Idiocy seems to be winning.
The creationists are grinning.
Science is losing.
Let's all keep boozing:
There's new polls about beginnings.


According to a Gallup poll released June 1st, 46% of Americans believe that we were created exactly as we are.

It makes Leakey's prognostication seem a little sillier.

Good Kitty.

I know people care 'bout their cat,
their friend who will purr when they pat.
It's okay to mourn
when your friends pass on.
It's never okay to do that.

A Dutch artist lost his cat after it got hit by a car. I've lost a pet in the same way, so I can understand the pain of the loss. What I cannot understand, however is his response to it.

In what I can only describe as the creepiest thing ever, he turned his cat, Orville Wright, into a remote controlled helicopter.

You will see this whenever you close your eyes.

Kids These Days.

Some battles need to be fought,

although they leave me distraught.

It is not innate:

Kids aren't born to hate,

they grow up just how they were taught.

A small child sings about how "ain't no homos gonna get into heaven" during a service at the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle in Greensburg, IN. These words aren't the child's words. These words were given to him by an adult he trusts. An adult who is supposed to help mold him into a functioning member of society. All this child is going to learn is that anyone who loves differently than himself is evil.

There truly is no hate like religious hate.