As we approach the next election, the examples are worse. Chuck Norris? Seriously? Seriously seriously?

But somehow the worst is Victoria Jackson. She’s just so … baffling. She’s playing a ditzy blonde character while ranting about Tea Party talking points. Is she joking? Is she serious?

Julia Sweeny, who has apparently been a target of Jackson’s, believes that she’s serious. Or to put it another way, “She’s not Andy Kaufman,” so she’s not yanking the audiences’ chain. She wants the laughs she gets from her “dumb blond” character, but also believes the opinions that character is spouting.

Sweeny considers how counterproductive Jackson’s style is:

To me it would be like, like if there was a “comedian” who’s character was a Marxist-Leninist. He wears a beard and small round glasses and all black and he says things like: The Government should own all the land! People should not be allowed to own any money! Free Enterprise should be stopped!

And then he has a soap box that he carries around with him, and he puts it out there – and it even says “Soap Box” on it, and he gets on top of it and yells and gesticulates like a cartoon of communism.

And he’s on talk shows and everyone laughs at how nutty he is.

Only he really believes what he’s saying. He may be somewhat confused about why people are laughing. But he doesn’t care enough to analyze it, he really just wants the laughs. He hears the laughs, and he’ll happily take the laughs.

Now, wouldn’t you have a certain contempt for this person?

That makes Jackson sound like she’s desperate for the attention, not matter what kind of attention. But in playing both self-mocking comedian and pundit at once, she’s doing more damage to her side than anything else. Which, of course, means that I hope she keeps it up.

A small group of ultra-Orthodox Jews has prevented some women from voting in local elections in Jerusalem. It’s the latest step by the extremely pious Jews to try to force their practices on others.

Israel’s Channel 2 TV video showed the men screaming at a few dozen women, demanding that they leave a voting station Wednesday. Then the men pushed them away.

The incident happened soon after Jerusalem’s secular mayor, Nir Barkat, left the station after speaking out against gender discrimination.

Recently Israel’s ultra-Orthodox minority have become more active in trying to impose gender segregation beyond their communities. Women have been forced to the back of some buses that serve their neighborhoods.

The vast majority of Israel’s Jews object to such measures.

[source]

Should criminals be held liable for harm they cause to unborn children?

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Click here to take the survey.

[via the forum]

What a different world it is for Ron Paul. Recently, Talking Point Memo mentioned that the Paul campaign had been endorsed by a Dominionist pastor:

Paul’s Iowa chair, Drew Ivers, recently touted the endorsement of Rev. Phillip G. Kayser, a pastor at the Dominion Covenant Church in Nebraska who also draws members from Iowa, putting out a press release praising “the enlightening statements he makes on how Ron Paul’s approach to government is consistent with Christian beliefs.” But Kayser’s views on homosexuality go way beyond the bounds of typical anti-gay evangelical politics and into the violent fringe: he recently authored a paper arguing for criminalizing homosexuality and even advocated imposing the death penalty against offenders based on his reading of Biblical law.

Of course, Paul’s connection to Kayser is a lot more tenuous than Obama’s connection to Wright. So Paul’s campaign has not had to deliver an impassioned speech or throw Kayser under the bus. Instead, the endorsement has disappeared:

The Ron Paul campaign appears to have removed a press release touting the endorsement of Rev. Phillip G. Kayser, a Nebraska pastor who has called for instituting the death penalty against homosexuals. [...]

As of this evening, however, the press release has been removed from the Ron Paul for President website, apparently in response to the earlier article.

Via Joe.My.God.. Originally from Media Matters twitter feed.

Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that humans developed from earlier species of animals, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

38 percent said human beings developed over millions of years with God guiding the process and another 12 percent said that development happened without God having any part of the process. Another 38 percent agreed with the statement “God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago.”

Did humans live at the same time as the dinosaurs? Three in ten Texas voters agree with that statement; 41 percent disagree, and 30 percent don’t know.

Also here’s some evidence that Texas Democrats are smarter than Republicans:

Democrats (28 percent) are less likely than Republicans (47 percent) to think that humans have always existed in their present form and more likely (21 percent to 7 percent) to think humans have developed over millions of years without God’s guidance. Republicans are less likely to believe that humans developed from earlier species of animals; 26 percent agree, while 60 percent disagree. Among Democrats in the survey, 46 percent agree that humans evolved from earlier species; 42 percent disagree. Perry’s voters were most hostile to this premise — 67 percent disagree.

Looks like there’s a good part of Texas that needs to be told about the last couple centuries of scientific enlightenment.

(source)