News Roundup for 4/20/09

Cows, shown giving cancer to unsuspecting child

-Headline of the day-
"The Man Who Would be Speaker."

Or "Getting almost every single point wrong."

Republican house minority leader John Boehner who, if the elections had turned out differently would probably be the Speaker of the House, was asked a question about global warming on ABC's This Week. This was his cue to display his amazing ignorance on the subject. Asked what the Republican plan would be to deal with greenhouse gases, "which every major scientific organization said is contributing to climate change," Boehner decided the best thing to do would be to poo-poo the whole idea of having a plan at all.

"The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical," he said. "Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know when they do what they do you've got more carbon dioxide."

How much of this is right? The part about exhaling carbon dioxide -- the rest is a mixture of craziness, ignorance, and pure bullshit. Cows fart methane, not CO₂. And no one's saying that carbon dioxide's a carcinogen. Boehner seems to think "carcinogen" means "pollutant," not something that causes cancer. In three short sentences, the leader of the Republican party in the House of Representatives proved he knows fuck-all about; 1) climate science, 2) cancer, 3) chemistry, 4) cows, and, 5) farts.

"[T]he problem isn't just that Boehner has the wrong answer, it's that he doesn't even understand the question," writes Washington Monthly's Steve Benen.

Hell, I'm wondering if he even understands English. I thought everyone knew what "carcinogen" means. The best part of all this? The GOP thinks this was just a great performance by Boehner and put the video up on their YouTube channel. This is the Republican party saying, "Vote for us -- lookit how dumb we all are! We think cows cause cancer!"

Hey John, you're doing just great. I think I speak for the entire Democratic party when I say don't you ever change. (Washington Monthly)


-Ron Paul hates America, flunks history-
America-hatin' Texas Gov. Rick Perry has a defender in Texas representative Ron Paul. Seems Ron heard all this palaverin' and frettin' about Texas seceding from the union and felt the need to set the record straight. See, there's nothing un-American about hating on America. Paul put his comments in form of a video to supporters, just like fellow America-hater Ayman al-Zawahiri. I guess this is because America-haters have trouble with literacy.

"[Perry] really stirred some of the liberal media, where they started screaming about: 'What is going on here, this is un-American.' I heard one individual say 'this is treasonous to even talk about it," Ron says. "Well, they don't know their history very well, because if they think about it... it is very American to talk about secession. That's how we came in being. Thirteen colonies seceded from the British and established a new country. So secession is a very much American principle."

Yeah, it's so American that it's what started that whole Civil War thing -- America seceded from... I guess it was America, wasn't it? As Abraham Lincoln put it, "Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy." Kind of sounds like he was against it, doesn't it?

Like Boehner, Paul is having difficulty with the English language. If you secede, you aren't part of America anymore -- so saying that a desire to become not-America is "very American" is pretty far over on the wrong side of things.

Not only that, but Rep. Paul would be out of a job. I wonder if he thought about that? (Think Progress)


-My favorite sentence-
An AP story about the 2010 Nevada governor's race begins simply enough -- things don't look good for Jim Gibbons. "Things were already bad for Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons," the article reads. "His approval ratings were down, he was tagged as one of the nation's most vulnerable governors and fellow Republicans were lining up to challenge him in a primary more than a year away." What follows is beauty.

"Then his divorce filing compared the popular first lady to an 'enraged ferret.'"

There's also some stuff about "sexual assault, sending love notes on a state phone, improperly firing a state employee," "corruption charges," and an "ethics commission" investigation. But that's all typical governor stuff, for chrissake -- who cares about that? (Associated Press)