We should at least consider the possibility that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is a secret liberal activist, pretending to be a lunatic in order to make conservative Republicans appear ridiculous.

Rep. Michele Bachmann came up with another doozy during her interview Monday with Pajamas TV. [...]

Here's the quote: "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

An "interesting coincidence." What's interesting about it? I haven't the foggiest idea, but Bachmann apparently sees some significance in the fact that the last flu epidemic occurred under a Democratic president.

Except, of course, it didn't. Not only is Bachmann drawing some kind of bizarre connection that only she understands, she also doesn't realize who was president in 1976. (It was Gerald Ford, a Republican.)

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

I think her comment stands by itself. In fact, her statements are usually completely self-mocking. The perfect politician - a walking, talking punchline.

This study investigated biased message processing of political satire in The Colbert Report and the influence of political ideology on perceptions of Stephen Colbert. Results indicate that political ideology influences biased processing of ambiguous political messages and source in late-night comedy. Using data from an experiment (N = 332), we found that individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert's political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion.

I can't see the details of the study, so I can't tell where they might have screwed up the methodology (yes, I basically assume some sort of screwup in most studies and surveys - humans are weird and difficult to predict), but the conclusion is amazing. Can that really be true? Can ANYBODY not realize that Colbert is making one long and not particularly subtle joke? It's called satire and apparently the Europeans who insist Americans don't understand irony (because we don't, generally speaking) need to add satire to the list...

Does this mean that Texas doesn't plan to secede?

I'd like to encourage all the people who believe that "government" never does anything productive to resist the temptation to accept big-government handouts in the form of flu vaccine. After all, it's a crowded planet.

Why is it that the people who get the most from the federal government (the red states, without exception) are the people who claim to want to shrink it or secede from it? If all the red-staters would just stop taking the government handouts they claim to object to, those taxes they're all upset about would be lower. That's just basic math...

he NFL will look into teams revealing their draft picks on their Web sites and through Twitter even before commissioner Roger Goodell might have announced the selections.

Sad and pathetic, that's the NFL. Dumb enough that they have different rules for videotaping opposing signals than they do for hand-writing them down (Hi! Welcome to the 1970s! Morons...). Now they're going to discourage teams from taking advantage of Twitter? Get the fuck over yourselves, NFL...

Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."

Sen. McCain was right and the National Review Online is wrong. Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times' truth-testing project (which this week was awarded a Pulitzer Prize), scrutinized Sen. McCain's statement and found it to be true. Here's the money quote from Politifact:

"McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as 'water cure,' 'water torture' and 'waterboarding,' according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning." Politifact went on to report, "A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps."

Executed. Hung. For something these fuckers insist isn't really torture?!? Son of a BITCH!!! OK, wingnuts. I want to hear your excuses NOW.

Maybe we should hang the evil bastards who approved that technique (no, not the people who executed it, that's a different and more complicated debate)...

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

Yeah, it's absolutely astonishing that the mega-corps would *ever* lie or mislead the public. Just look at the Good Samaritans in the tobacco industry, or the car safety champions from Detroit, or the healthcare reformers in Big Pharma.

*sigh*

When will people realize that it MATTERS who sponsors the research? It MATTERS who is speaking. When the person claiming that overwhelming scientific evidence is wrong has a financial interest in the question, they're LYING. Period.

Don't think global climate change is real? You're fooling yourself. Don't believe it's caused by humans? You've got your head buried in the sand. I'm being polite - it won't last long, enjoy it while you can...

Think I'm full of it? Show me a published, peer-reviewed, scientific study that wasn't sponsored by big business. Don't waste a lot of time looking for one, by the way - there aren't any.

Over the last months, sexting - that spicy combo of sex and texting - has created something between a moral panic and a reprise of "Trouble in River City." Parents who have barely begun to absorb the too-much-information on Facebook are now confronted with research suggesting that one in five teens has sent or posted scantily clad or nude pictures of themselves.

If sexting sends parents into a spiral, it pushes prosecutors into high gear. We've had Pennsylvania high school girls threatened with child porn charges for posing. We have a middle school boy in Indiana facing obscenity charges for sending a naked photo to his classmates. We even have an 18-year-old who sent nude photos of his girlfriend now listed as a sex offender alongside child rapists.

The panic not only erases the line between stupid and criminal, it dilutes the real horror of child pornography. If a teen taking a picture of herself is the equal of a predator photographing children in sex acts, says Danah Boyd, at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, "we won't have the tools to go after the people we need to go after."

Girl sends boyfriend sexy pic. Is she a pr0n pro? No.

Boy keeps pic. Is he a pr0n pro? No.

Boy sends pic around to friends. Is he distributing child pr0n? Maybe.

This is the part of sexting that I care about. If something happens between two kids and it always stays between those two, I am no more worried than I usually am about hormonally-overcharged teenagers. But when it is spread, either for "fun" (note to any boys reading this: it's NOT cool or fun to show private pics of your girlfriend to anyone - period) or out of malice (bad breakup), then I'm not so disinterested.

Legally? How should we handle it? Intent is hard to prove, but to me it's critical. Accidental distribution is VERY different from malicious distribution. Should malicious distribution be a felony? I think it should. Accidental? Not so much. Misdemeanor, maybe?

In any event, I think the onus should be on the person who sends the pic to someone other than its intended recipient.

Note: I used the most common circumstance, where girl sends pic to boy, but the other is possible too. But girls aren't usually as impressed by visual stimuli as boys, and boys are probably being major jerks about the whole thing ("if you really loved me, you'd..." - note to any girls reading this: if he loved you, he'd NEVER say that).

Don’t be looking for any Peppers to spice up your draft day dining experience this weekend.

There are myriad reasons - including but not limited to common sense - why the still-talked-about potential acquisition of free agent Carolina Panthers defensive end Julius Peppers is unlikely to happen this weekend and only one why it might - wishful thinking. Beyond that, it was always a great idea.

Borges is a moron. If you want to be an NFL expert, just say the opposite of what Borges says and you'll be right constantly.

So it's official now - the Pats will trade for Julius Peppers this week and *somehow* come up with a way to fit him under the salary cap. No idea how. That's Belichick's problem. But Borges is never right.

Olbermann: You'll do it for charity? For the troops families? I'll take you up on that Sean. For every second you last, $1000. Live or on tape provided other networks cameras are there. $1000 a second Sean because this is no game. This is serious stuff. Put your money where your mouth is, and your nose. And I'll double it when you admit you feared for your life. When you admit the horrible truth. Waterboarding, a symbol of the last administration, is torture.

I don't want to see anybody waterboarded, but I DO think people who claim it isn't torture have an obligation. The burden of proof is VERY DEFINITELY on them. The US military, the FBI, and the CIA all agree that waterboarding is torture. It was a popular tactic of the f$ckin' Inquisition. This is not a difficult question to answer. It's torture.

As for Hannity, I have no doubts at all - he's not going to follow through and let himself be tortured. He's too much of a chickenhawk to go through even the (disciplined, controlled, careful) SERE program, much less a real waterboarding.