Things that make me want to

jab knitting needles in my eyes, over and over and over:


The Stupid! Make it stop!

(h/t southern beale)

Compare & Contrast

Listen to the accent.

Palin then (2006 Alaska Governor's Debate about same-sex marriage benefits -- Palin speaks around 1:45):




Palin now (last night):




Interestingly, in the older video there's no evidence of that folksy, G-droppin', "doggone it" style she's been affecting in the last month. Most people, when they leave Hicksville for the Big Time, become progressively better-spoken, not worse. Either Palin is regressing, or she's fakin' it, gol-darn it!

And why not? Georgie wore a cowboy hat around at his ranch and pretended to be a "plain-spoken guy, just like y'all" (in spite of an insanely wealthy, silver-spoon background). Worked for him!

(via andrew sullivan and TPM)

From the "Tell Us How You Really Feel" file

What Matt Taibbi said:

"...And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin' Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else's, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power. Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV — and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation."

Why does Matt Taibbi hate Joe Sixpack? Life is so unfair.

(h/t TGB)

About 19 kinds of dumb

Eeeek:



But it's interesting, as ellroon points out, that McCain's name isn't mentioned once.

(via rants from the rookery)

SHRIEEEEK!

While some places in the world are slowly pulled into the evil vortex of the downward spiral of stupid, elsewhere there's hope. SHRIEK! It's a secular inquisition!!!!11!!one:

"Totalitarian atheism has taken another scalp. Michael Reiss, the Royal Society’s embattled director of education, has been forced out – for daring to suggest that children should be taught to discuss alternative views and subject them to the scrutiny of empirical reasoning. As the Times reports, Professor Reiss told the British Association for the Advancement of Science last week that teachers should accept that they were unlikely to change the minds of pupils with creationist beliefs – ie, that the world was created literally in six days. Instead of dismissing creationism as a misconception, teachers should try to explain why it had no scientific basis."

So this Michael Reiss clown thinks science teachers should waste class time defending science against fairy tales? RIGHT! Fortunately, the vortex isn't that strong in the UK, Reason prevailed and Reiss got the boot. Naturally, religious wingnuts are whining that Reiss wasn't suggesting creationism be given equal status with science, *just* that it could be debated to point out why it doesn't stand up scientifically. Oh, sure, and why not squander some time in biology class debating the differences between felis catus and the Cat In The Hat?