The Funny Papers

Michael de Adder, Ed Hall, Deb Milbrath, Mike Luckovich, Matt Wuerker, JD Crowe, Clay Bennett, Jack Ohman, Nick Anderson, Ann Telnaes, David Horsey, Ted Littleford, Darrin Bell, Guy Parsons

Who Do I Hafta F**k To Get A Decent Senator For South Carolina? Part Three: Senator Kevin Bryant

Down here in South Carolina, where it’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity, and where we are trying to take the ‘duh’ away from Flori-duh, comes the story of a South Carolina state Senator, who apparently doesn’t have a single active brain cell in his head.

But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

Earlier this year eight-year-old Olivia McConnell wrote her state representatives to suggest that since South Carolina doesn’t have a state fossil — and before you ask, no, Nikki Haley doesn’t count — and she thought we should have one.

And Olivia decided that she needed a legitimate reason to suggest this besides liking fossils, so she came up with three:

1. One of the first discoveries of a vertebrae fossil in North America was on an South Carolina plantation when slaves dug up wooly mammoth teeth from a swamp in 1725.
2. All but seven states have an official state fossil.
3. “Fossils tell us about our past.”

And she sent her reasons in a letter to South Carolina State Representative Robert Ridgeway and state Senator Kevin Johnson, both Democrats, asking them to sponsor a bill to officially make the Wooly mammoth — and again, not Nikki Haley — our state fossil:

“Please work on this for me. Your friend, Olivia.”

Ridgeway liked the idea, saying it showed the children of the state how government works, and how they can have a say-so in what happens here. So, Ridgeway and Johnson filed two bills to make the Wooly Mammoth the official state fossil.

The bill passed the House with overwhelming support, but then it hit the state Senate where Senator Kevin Bryant, a Republican, pharmacist and self-described born-again Christian who once likened President Obama with Osama bin Laden, who helped block funding for a rape crisis center, who calls climate change a “hoax,” and blocked evolution, EVO-freaking-LUTION, from the state’s science standards — saying “I don’t have a problem teaching theories. I don’t think they should be taught as fact.” — proposed amending the bill, a legislative government bill, to include three verses from the Book of Genesis detailing God’s creation of the Earth and its living inhabitants, including mammoths.

See, God made mammoths and that should be in the bill.

 “I think it’s a good idea to designate the mammoth as the state fossil, I don’t have a problem with that. I just felt like it’d be a good thing to acknowledge the creator of the fossils.”—Kevin Bryant

And when Bryant’s proposed amendment was ruled out of order by Lt. Governor Glenn McConnell, on a technicality — it introduced a new subject — Bryant then submitted a more on-topic amendment, describing the Columbian Mammoth “as created on the Sixth Day with the beasts of the field.”

So, for now, the bill is on hold, and Olivia McConnell is getting a lesson in South Carolina state politics:

It’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity of folks like Bryant and Fair, the two biggest fossils in the statehouse.

source

You Can't Say "Evolution" In Oklahoma ... At Least Not On A FOX Station

You know, when all these stories broke about this state and that state trying to pass legislation allowing business owners to deny services to The Gays in order to protect their alleged “religious freedom” the pundits said it was happening because The Gays and The Liberals and President Thanks Obama had declared war on religion.

Somehow I missed that memo.

But, is anyone talking about the Religious Folks and their war on intelligence? Their war on any idea that doesn’t magically fit into their little history book?

I thought so.

But, last Sunday night, in Oklahoma, go figure, and on a Fox station, when Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey premiered it became the first time in decades that a science show appeared on a big-time network in prime-time.

And it went well, I guess, until the last ten minutes or so when the show’s host, Neil deGrasse Tyson brought up the theory of evolution. Just before he began describing how humans “stood up and parted ways from” our ancestors, viewers in Oklahoma City were treated to a mid-scene cutaway to their local Fox station’s news promo.

And oddly enough, once Tyson had finished talking about the human transition to “standing on two feet,” the station returned to the show.

That channel, KOKH Fox 25, responded to the curious edit and cutaway via Twitter, saying they “regret” the “operating error:”

Sunday, during @COSMOSonTV, a local news promo was aired over a portion of COSMOS content. This was an operator error & we regret the error.
— KOKH FOX 25 (@OKCFOX) March 12, 2014

An accident that not once during the show was there a cutaway until the idea, the mere mention — and you know it was merely a mention because it was a fifteen second cutaway — of evolution.

A war on religion? Hardly. The war is from the religious against anyone who disagrees with their fantasy books.

Just sayin’. And hoping that when this blog post hits Oklahoma there isn’t another mysterious edit of I Should Be Laughing.

source

In South Carolina This Is A Science Test

Yesterday I poked a little fun at the people of Tennessee for their continuing reelection of anti-LGBT, pro-NRA, delusional wingnut Stacey Campfield, but today I’m gonna aim the spotlight on South Carolina.

This is a test, in a science class at a school In South Carolina; ALLEGEDLY. The “test” was reportedly given to a fourth grade class at a Christian school somewhere in this state. The man, whose daughter was given this test, says he will reveal the name of the school in June because next year his child will be going to a real school where science is fact not fiction.

Oy. South Carolina. Really?

PS: for what it's worth, Snopes rates this story as 'probably true.'

via Daily Kos

Random Musings

This will be my last post.............

.....on this ridiculously obnoxious and slow-moving,m Fred Flintstone craptop, er, laptop. Our computer will be home today, hopefully better than ever and this craptop will be relegated back to the closet where it stays in case of emergency.

I am thrilled. I spent a few minutes on the phone with Carlos yesterday ranting about this thing, and going all Mario Cantone/Bette Davis on him:

"It's. A piece. Of. Crap."

And it is, but, well, i guess that, without it, I might not have been blogging at all this week, so......

Yeah, it's still a piece of crap.

I've been watching HGTV Design Star: All Stars, aka We Don't Have Any New Programming. I've only been watching because of Dan Vickery and Tom Vecchione. Dan was asked to pack his swatches and go home this week, so that made me mad. But then there was Tom in a nice pair of jeans and a tight sweater, and there he was again all suited up, so, all is good.

I'm shallow like that.

Joe Biden said the R/R's would "unchain" Wall Street and pout us all--the Middle Class--back in chains, and the GOP went nuts. See post from earlier today. But then Meghan McCain weighed in, too, and while I usually like her, this time she worked my last nerve. She called Joe Biden a "crazy grampa" and, well, I think Meghan ought to take a look at her family and spot the Crazy Grampa there before she goes name-calling.

In  Missouri, voters have approved of something they are calling "Right To Pray" because, you know, prayer is not allowed in this country. Or at least that's what the people of Missouri think, which makes me wanna pray that they get a chance to see the Wizard about a brain.

But I digress.

Part of this new "law" will allow students to refuse to be taught evolution.

I see Missouri's future and it doesn't evolve at all.

I love this.

A music group called the Silversun Pickups have issued a cease-and-desist order to the Mittsy campaign, asking them, well, ordering them, to stop using their song "Panic Switch" at Mittsy events. 

Their statement read, in part, "We don't like people going behind our backs, using our music without asking, and we don't like the Romney campaign."

Suh-nap.

Mittsy's spokesbot, of course, immediately responded that using the song was just an accident.

Sheesh, is everyone involved ion that campaign an unrepentant liar?

Kelsey Grammer is moaning that he didn't get an Emmy nomination for his roll on the Starz channel's "Boss" TV show. And he says it's because Emmy voters don't like the fact that he's a Republican.

I think maybe they don't know that Grammer has a new show. Starz? Really? Or, maybe, they just don't think as highly of Kelsey Grammer as Kelsey Grammer does.

Last week, when I was flying from Seattle to Charlotte, I got my usual window seat. I rarely get up from my seat while flying so I don't bother folks by climbing over them, and I hate having people climb over me, so a window seat is the best option. Plus, I can lay my head against the wall and take a nice long nap.

When my row-mates arrived I was looking out the window and heard this very, very rural accent saying to me, "Hi! We're in here, too. I hope ya don't mind a couple of fat people sitting next to you."

And because I inevitably pick the wrong thing to say, I answered, "I'm just glad I got a seat."

I know! Socially inept much?

But this woman began telling me all about her life in the hills of West Virginia, and her church, and her husband's stroke, and how they both wear hearing aids and doesn't that young girl look just like their granddaughter and how they're staying the night in Charlotte because it's a four-hour drive back to Butcher Holler and they didn't want to bother asking anyone from church to drive them to and from the airport and the Days Inn has a lovely Continental breakfast every morning and.....

You get the picture.

So, when she finally turned the  conversation from her to me, I was ready to snap. And when she asked what my wife did for a living I was ready to tell her all about my "wife."

"Well," I began, "HE just started a job at a counseling center that works with alcoholics and drug addicts and he works with the Hispanic community in our country as an HIV educator and an HIV/AIDS counselor."

And she looked at me and said, "Well that sound fascinating. How does he like it?"

I really need to stop judging a book by it's cover.

And it's accent.

What's on YOUR MIND?

Indiana Wants To Teach Creationism

Up there around Nutwood Junction way, the Indiana legislature is moving ahead with a bill that would allow creationism to be taught alongside other theories in the state's public school system.
Creationism, a theory with origins in the Bible's Book of Genesis, suggests that divine power created man, animal, and all earthly matters. The idea is an opposing view to the science-based theory of evolution. If the bill passes, Indiana school districts will have the option to include creationism as part of science courses.
Oops, they almost had me.
See, I'm not a big believer in Creationism, but, hey, if that's your bag, then, well, good for you. And, i don't really mind the idea of teaching the theory of Creationism in school.
As a theory. But don't call it a science, and teach it alongside science. 
Creationism is not science. Evolution is science. There is fact to back up evolution. We can actually see evolution. Now, some folks say you can see Creationism, too, though it isn't based in fact, but rather, it's based in belief. In faith.
Belief is not science. Faith is not science.
Creationism is not science.
You wanna teach Creationism to those who wish to learn about it, then go ahead. Just don't called it science.
Unless you call it science fiction.


source