Bill Maher is kind of a douche, but he’s a funny douche. He’s also dead on with his commentary about the lunatic fringe that refuses to accept the mountains of evidence that President Obama was actually born in the US.
And there’s nothing anyone can do to convince these folks. You could hand them, in person, the original birth certificate and have a video of Obama emerging from the womb with Don Ho singing in the background … and they still wouldn’t believe it.
Which raises the question: Why, in this country, is it always the religious right that won’t take anything on faith?
So far, the reaction from Democrats is to laugh this off, and I understand why. If you seriously believe that President Obama is an African sleeper spy, get out of your chat room and have your house tested for lead.
He’s also right that these people are dangerously crazy. Why is it that anti-war protesters and freedom of speech advocates are investigated as terrorists while certifiably insane birthers are allowed to run around unchecked? (via Boingboing)
EDIT: Here’s a fun graph of birthers by region. Some stereotypes exist for a reason.
Why must patriotism and stupidity always go hand in hand? I know correlation does not necessarily equal causation, but the evidence really is mounting. (via Digg)
Not exactly timely, but funny is still funny.
I have nothing but respect for the LGBT community, and I don’t have anything against immigrants either (if I was born in Mexico, I’d want to move here too). But when you’ve made a political career out of being solidly against things like Mexicans and man-love, there’s something a bit hypocritical about absconding to Mexico with your boyfriend to try to fix his immigration status. At least (former) San Angelo mayor J.W. Lown had the sense to resign before he was lynched.
Lown has stated that he would like to return to San Angelo, if the community will accept him. It doesn’t seem likely, since he won the most recent election with an 89% majority running on an ultra-conservative platform. They’ll forgive a lot of things in west Texas, but porking Pablo isn’t one of them.
Pope Benedict: Ignorant Jackass
In a staggeringly display of cluelessness, Pope Benedict actually said this week during his visit to Africa “It (AIDS) cannot be overcome by the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem.”
Tell that to Uganda, the only African country to have significantly reduced the prevalence of HIV in its population in the last 20 years - almost exclusively due to proper education and distribution of condoms.
Nobody expects the Pope to have much of a grasp on science or anything that really matters, but insisting that condoms increase the spread of HIV is tantamount to claiming the sky is green. The rest of the Vatican is already backpeddling and trying to cover for this latest bit of idiocy.
I understand some people have a hard time spelling “banana”, but come on.
The New York Times details a recent survey of 1200 17 year old Americans, and it doesn’t look good. At least no children are being left behind. (via Digg)
The ignorance of the general population makes my head hurt. (via Engadget)
Edit: The Wall Street Journal picked up on this study (via my tumblog, no doubt) and speculates on how so many people can be so totally fucking clueless. Read the article.
The creator of this lovely infographic took the 10 most popular books (as provided by Facebook) at every US college that provided such information. He then factored in each college’s average SAT scores to visualize which books are read by which people. Nothing on this chart is terribly shocking or revolutionary, but it’s still fun. I am especially amused by the books which fall below the 950 mark, and are therefore lose out to “I Don’t Read”.
(via BoingBoing, where I steal all my good posts)
PS - Go Freakonomics!
