Today’s random bit of wisdom from Conservapedia:

Recently there has been a push by liberals for “same-sex marriage” however this supposed form of “marriage” has no basis in scripture, common law, the constitution, biology, or American social tradition. Then again, interracial marriage was considered to be taboo 40 years ago. 

I didn’t realize there was a basis for heterosexual marriage in biology. I suppose that would explain the abundance of “just married” signs on dog houses. It’s “Rex” and “Daisy,” not “Rex” and “Spot.”I also didn’t realize there was a “basis” for heterosexual marriage in particular in the U.S. Constitution. I really need to learn to read that document between the lines, since that’s where so many Americans seem to find support for their theories.

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“Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb [Iran]…”-John McCain

All I have to say about that is:

Thank God this guy has little chance of winning the primary, let alone the election.

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Thank God for the Larry King show on CNN. Tonight he had four guests assess the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Michael Reagan, partisan right wing radio talk show host, Ben Stein, partisan right wing radio talk show host, and Lars Larson, partisan right wing radio talk show host. For balance, he gave us Republican congresswoman Marsha Blackburn.

I’d just finished watching Michelle Obama’s speech on my DVR, and I apparently got the wrong idea. When she spoke at length about how her father’s hard work and her mother’s hard work helped her and her brother succeed in life, I thought she was saying America rewards hard work. See what made me think that was when she said, among other similar aphorisms, “The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them.” Apparently I was reading too much into that stuff, because when I flipped to Larry King afterward, I saw Lars Larson explaining what she really meant. According to Lars, what Michelle Obama really meant to convey with that story about hard work leading to success was the notion that “America’s not a place where you can get ahead if you try hard, and of course all of that is President Bush’s fault.”

Now, for a second that confused me. More than that, it angered me, the thought that I knew what I saw and here comes a guy who tells me it was actually the opposite of what I saw. But such anger is irrational. After all, this guy was wearing an expensive-looking jacket and his tie was neatly fastened around his doughy neck. More importantly, he was on television whereas I was sitting in anonymity on my couch in a comfortable (i.e. torn) t-shirt and boxers, wearing only one sock. Who would you trust?

Besides, there’s something intoxicating about the mind-numbing confusion that comes from Lars Larson telling me what I saw was the opposite of what I knew I’d seen. It was as though I could feel my brain cells throwing up their synapses in exasperation and just giving up. It felt just like popping bubble wrap with my feet. Only in my head, and with Lars’s feet.

Luckily, Larry King didn’t kill the buzz by asking Lars to, y’know, substantiate his analysis by citing a passage from her speech or anything. Rather, King said he would play a clip from Obama’s speech and then “accidentally” played a McCain attack ad instead. They all got a nice chuckle out of that mishap, a gleeful chuckle loud enough for me to hear over the sound of my own head banging against the wall.

I would’ve stuck around to see what Larry’s other 3 right wing guests had to say about that, but I sort of zoned out during the commercial and turned the channel to Matlock.

I subscribe to about a dozen left-wing RSS feeds, but I also subscribe to at least as many right wing newsletters. I want to know what everyone’s saying. And every week, I browse the right wing newsletters to get a snapshot of their state of mind. Or at least, a snapshot of the tactics someone’s trying to use to manipulate them. I want to see if the Republican chatter has turned away from nonsense and begun talking about issues that average Americans care about. I want to see whether they’ve come up with some way to appeal to voters who grew disgusted with Rove’s petty and destructive divide and conquer politics. I want to see if they’ve noticed the demographic shift in America and realized racist code-speak and xenophobia are bad long term strategies in a nation where whites will be a minority in just a few decades. I fired up my Mailplane app this morning and clicked on one of the right wing “Human Events” e-mails at random because I wanted to see if they’ve woken up.

“Dear Friend of the Constitution,

The biggest political cover up in American history
is taking place right before our eyes.

Worse than Watergate, Whitewatergate, or any of the other cover ups of previous administrations, is the question of whether Barack Hussein Obama is eligible to serve as President of the United States of America… OR, is he a FRAUD, a USURPER, a man with no legal authority to sit in the position that he now claims to hold?

Barack Obama could simply put the issue to rest right now by releasing his ACTUAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE! But he WON’T! Instead, he has had teams of attorneys all over the country, fighting “tooth and nail” to thwart the efforts of the United States Justice Foundation (USJF), and our allies in a number of states to compel him to produce an ACTUAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE and to prove that he is Constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States!”

…Guess not.