You will rememember that the Texas GOP published a pile of cack called their Party Platform a little while ago. The Platform was subjected to well-deserved ridicule because, well, it is full of idiotic crap.
The reaction of the party? Well, if you or I opened our mouths and said something irredeemably stupid, and we were ridiculed for it, we might think about admitting at some point that we said something idiotic. I say might, because we all know the person who, having said that the Earth is flat, will contort themselves for ever attempting to justify or rationalize the remark (this is sometimes known as not obeying The First Law Of Holes). The Texas GOP has tried the political version of rationalization - amnesia. Susan DuQuesnay Bankston has discovered that they simply scrubbed the platform from their website. Fortunately I saved a copy in PDF format. Contact me if you want a good laugh or a new bird-cage liner.

1. The Colorado Cinema Massacre and the attempts to condemn the ideology of the shooter
Every time an uninged person walks into a public or semi-public area in the USA and shoots a bunch of innocent people, the first thing that happens these days is an outbreak of media investigation into everything known about the shooter. The second thing that happens is the pinning of an ideological label on the shooter. This is usually done by people with base motives like ensuring that the shooter is identified as a member of their opponents, thus allowing them to (a) feel superior and vindicated in their worldview and (b) to cause problems for their opponents.
This is also the same shtick being utilized by individuals. Lo and behold, I open my Facebook and I find this heap of fallacious nonsense on a friend's wall (name redacted to protect the identity of the poster) posted in response to her justified exclamation of amazement at the tragedy:

YYYY This is what happens without the Fear of God in your life
4 hours ago · Like
Graham Shevlin Do you have any evidence to support that statement? You know for a fact that the shooter was not a monotheistic Christian?
about an hour ago · Like
YYYY Could a true Christian shoot innocent people? Time to study your theology Graham.
about an hour ago via mobile · Like
Graham Shevlin You are missing my question. Go back and read what I wrote.
46 minutes ago · Like
Graham Shevlin You are also trying the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

At time of writing, this exchange is probably not complete, but I can bet a sum of money that the poster considers themselves to be a True Christian and is assuming (or hoping) that the shooter is not a True Christian. They will, according to the No True Scotsman fallacy, move the goal posts as necessary to ensure that their initial conclusion is always valid.
This is the sort of poorly-argued claptrap that I just love to take to pieces. It is probably about on the same level as the chain emails that I used to get from authoritarian acquaintances, which I stopped by the simple expedient of demolishing and sending back to them. I realized some time ago that chain letters function as a form of "in group" mutual affirmation device, so if you dissent, they stop sending them, which is exactly the outcome that I wanted.

2. The McCarthy era, and the failure of the USA to learn from it
Just when I thought that Jim Wright had gone quiet, he returns with this brilliant evisceration of McCarthyism then and now. The article correctly points out the parallels between the McCarthy era, led by a serial liar and bullshitter, and the (almost) identical piles of bullcrap being spouted by the likes of Rep. Michele Bachmann and Rep. Allen West.
UPDATE - And, just to prove that she is either a pathological liar, or an attention whore, or both, Michele Bachmann doubles down on the stupid.

3. Critical Thinking Deficit demonstration - Whooping cough article
If you wanted a microcosm of the disturbing correlation between lack of scientific understanding and ability to construct an argument when compared to the willingness to write about a subject, take a look at this article and then the comments, about a disturbing upward trend in cases of whooping cough. I tried counting the idiotic comments, but it is truly pointless. The Stupid, It Hurts.

4. Political Staffer tweets racist crap, found out, scrubs tweets, issues non-apology
See the story here. The staffer's response appears to not include the words "I am sorry" which I was always taught were essential components of an apology. What a weasel.

1. Founder of Chick Fil-A working to abridge civil rights for Some People
The president of Chick Fil-A has admitted that he is opposed to homosexuality. That's fine, he is entitled to think and believe what he likes, and to live his life according to his own principles. However, the charitable foundation connected with Chick Fil-A has been donating to campaigns that seek to adbridge the civil rights of homosexual people, specifically with respect to their marriage rights.
He and his organization have crossed the line. They have the right to think and believe what they like. They do not have the right to adbridge the civil rights of other people. That is none (I repeat, None) of their business. I therefore do not intend to ever spend a cent at Chick Fil-A.

2. The Cold Case Posse Show ends with nothing new worth a damn
Shriff Joe Arpaio and several members of the Cold Case Posse held a press conference yesterday, publicising allegations that the Birth Certificate shown in public for President Obama is a forgery. An analysis of this event, and the validity of the evidence is presented here at The Fogbow. (WARNING - Occasional snark and ridicule may be present, also some sections of this document are still under construction, but if you read it you will get the drift).
As is normal after an event like this one, a number of drive-by smartasses showed up in the comment threads to chortle about how compelling the evidence is that the birth certificate is forged. Most of them appear to lack any semblance of critical thinking skills, politesse, or the ability to construct anything approaching an argument. I provided my own response to one of the more tiresome of the drive-by wankers.

3. Defense Spending cuts and Macroeconomics 101
One of the hip new mantras that a lot of people have discovered since 2008 is "balance the federal budget". I have consistently wondered where all of those people were prior to 2008, while the previous administrations were busy ringing the deficit till like an out of control cash register. But I digress. Here is a short, but scything post that links planned cuts in defense spending, special pleading and whining by military contractors, and Macroeconomics 101. The key comment is in the second last paragraph:

If the economy were close to full employment then government spending could be seen as crowding out private spending, primarily by raising interest rates. However, we are not close to full employment, so cuts in government spending will cost jobs. It is that simple.

There, in one short paragraph, is the blunt macroeconomic truth about recessions. Cutting government spending in a recession is always likely to deepen and prolong the recession. If you want to see the impact of that approach, just hop on a plane and go visit some European countries, starting with Greece. If voters want jobs (and surveys seem to show that they do) then "balancing the books" while the US is in a recession isn't going to support creating jobs one iota.
4. The bizarre logic leaps and rantings of Michele Bachmann - a Parody
Juan Cole utilizes the same fallacious reasoning and lack of logic as Rep. Bachmann to point out that she is really a supporter of islamic extremists. I doubt that many of her supporters will even understand this. One thing I have found all along about authoritarian nitwits is that they are usually irony-impaired.
5. Idaho bar owned by Christians boycotts MillerCoors and PepsiCo products
The owners of this bar in Lewiston Idaho do not approve of the concept of equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation, so they are declining to serve PepsiCo and MillerCoors products. Interestingly, they want other corporations supporting the NGLCC to spend that money on what they define as "non political" causes.
I guess in that part of the world they may not be missing out on a gay or transgender clientele, but they will now draw attention to themselves in and out of state, and not in a good way. It seems that this boycott has been in place for while, the news went viral when a local television station found out about it.
It's a free country, their decision, but I wonder if they will still think that way in a few years' time. In the meantime I'll offer them a deal - I'll agree to go spend money at their bar, if I am in the area, if they can convince me that they only donate to "non political causes". Deal?

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/15/us/triponey-paterno-penn-state/index.html

This article shows what happens to a person who tries to Do The Right Thing as opposed to the Expedient Thing. As you will read, Vicky Triponey was essentially marginalized and then expelled from her role at PSU because she dared to confront Joe Paterno about lax attitudes towards athlete malfeasance. All of the time that Triponey was fighting (and losing) battles to enforce student discipline, Jerry Sandusky's aberrant behavior was also being enabled by the same group of leaders working within the same unspoken and deeply dysfunctional set of norms.
The most interesting thing about the article is that Triponey is more sad than bitter about the events. The most appalling part of the story is not that Triponey was forced out of Penn State, but that after that happened, other schools would not employ her until after PSU's program imploded and they were forced to realize that maybe, just maybe, she might have been right all along. That sort of informal lockstep is the most appalling part of the story.

The NTTA has published a list of the top people who owe tolls and other costs. The list has the leading violator assessed as owing more than $179,000.
Whilst I think that the concept of "name and shame" could be a useful one, I doubt that the impact of publishing this list will be positive, for several reasons:
1. The NTTA approach of tacking on administrative charges is responsible for a large percentage of the outstanding fees that they are claiming. Quick math shows that it would be impossible for somebody to accumulate $179,000 in fees in any reasonable time period simply by traveling the whole length of the toll road network. The top entrants on the list are therefore tending to show up how unrealistic the method is of assessing outstanding fees.
2. By publishing the amounts owed, NTTA is painting itself into a corner over settling with the debtors. If there was no publicity, they could have negotiated settlements with the leading scofflaws to collect money and discharge their debts. Those settlements would have been pennies on the dollar, but they would have been private. Now, NTTA is going to have to work very hard to justify settling for reduced amounts with leading debtors. If they end up settling for pennies on the dollar, this will lead some people to conclude either that they are not serious about collecting the money, and/or that NTTA, by settling for partial payment, is admitting that the amounts being published are unrealistic.
The public pressure to be seen to be taking a hard line on debtors will tend to push NTTA towards litigation, which takes us to...
3. If NTTA ends up taking debtors to court (and, if I were a lawyer consulted by a person who owed $179,000 to NTTA, "see you in court" would be #1 on my list of recommended tactics), things may not go well in the court or outside in the court of public opinion. The defense strategy will probably include ridiculing the amounts as ludicrously inflated, and any sensible defense is also going to point to the clauses in the NTTA license, that gives them the right to increase tolls at regular intervals into the future.
In summary, I am not convinced that publishing this list is going to be a net positive for NTTA. If NTTA confined the amounts claimed to the value of the tolls, plus interest and some administrative charge, then it would be a more powerful weapon. However, the amounts being claimed are so unrealistic that many people are going to regard it as a joke, and it will play into the hostility that many people already have for toll roads and the process of awarding them to operating companies.

1. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should - #1
Local council pulls plug on Springsteen - McCartney encores at London concert.
2. Free speech? Not if you upset minor local dignitaries in the UK...
In which local Bexley blogger Ollie C is arrested, and charged with dangerous sounding offenses...for some swearing and fulmination about the local Bexley council. This does not set a good example for free speech. Ollie looks to be a bit of a hothead, judging by some of his pronouncements, however, it seems that it is more important that he is silenced, rather than having his concerns addressed. I find the emphasis on censorious nitwittery to be telling.
3. The Indian definition of "whisky"...
This article explains how most domestic whisky sold in India is nothing like even a grain whisky...it is kind of a whisky-flavored rum.
4. Oldie but goodie - life working as a car salesman
From Edmunds.com, a good article from 2001 about the weird and often dysfunctional business of selling cars.

1. Can You Say "Conflict Of Interest"? #1
Local reporter in Alexandria LA works as consultant for school district while simultaneously reporting on that school district, appears shocked that people consider this to be a conflict of interest.
2. A Brief Theory Of The Republican Party
Article from January by Jay Rosen (NOTE to partisans - probably a socialist/marxist/mooslem-loving academic) where he surfaces the "alternate reality" hypothesis of modern American politics.
3. It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool... Part 1
Chris Collins, a Republican running for the House of Representatives from the state of New York, says that people no longer die from prostate or breast cancer. Forced into a public recantation by the realization that he had said something uneffingbelievably dumb, he had to further dig himself into a hole. Jeez, what an idiot.
4. Boasting Senate candidates Part 2
What is it with Scott Brown that he keeps needing to inflate his own sense of self-importance by pathetically boasting of how many important people he talks with?

1. Intemperate GOP Governor of the Week #1 - Paul LePage
Any time I hear a US politician describing any government department they don't like as "the Gestapo", I know I am dealing with a person who has no understanding of recent European history, at the very least. In the case of Paul LePage, having read his latest ratchet-jawing about the ACA ruling, it is clear that not only does he have no understanding of recent European history, he appears to have a an apocalyptic vision of the ACA ruling as the End Of Freedom As We Know It. (Remind me to go back and find out where Gov. LePage was when the PATRIOT Act was being waved through every legislative chamber...). In addition, he lets the mask slip when he makes a sneering "slippery slope" argument about citizens being mandated to buy Toyota Priuses next. The choice of the remark is revealing. Not only is it loaded to the gills with fallacy, he is clearly peddling the resentment meme so beloved of the GOP, where they sneer and whine about "elitists".
The more succinct summary of all this is that Paul LePage is talking like a fucking idiot. Since I refuse to believe that he is a fucking idiot, I have to assume that he is pandering, which in a way is even worse. Pandering is the mark of a craven follower, not a leader.
UPDATE - After suffering a few days of being informed of the idiocy of his remarks, LePage has emerged from somewhere and attempted to apologize for some of the remarks. However, he clearly has not heard of The First Law Of Holes, because he has dug even deeper into a mess. Some people are so lacking in elementary knowledge and self-awareness that they should not even be considered for elective office. Paul LePage is one such person. Quite simply, his latest communication shows that he is indeed a bloviating idiot.

2. Intemperate GOP Governor of the Week #2 - Chris Christie
Anybody following Chris Christie as he carves his unique way through American political life will know that he has an anger management problem. He has a track record of yelling at anybody who dares to disagree with him in public, and appears to take great pride in (as he sees it) putting them in their place. After last week's encounter with a reporter at a press conference, Christie couldn't resist the temptation to get into a verbal tussle once again, this time in the street.
Even allowing for the legendary bluntness of people from New Jersey (which may be true, but my challenge to folks from that part of the world is simple: most people, when they think of stereotypes, tend to see people living down to them, not up to them), Christie's behaviour this week cements my conclusion from 2 years ago. The man is a bully, a person of physical substance but little gravitas and limited self-control, living proof that empty vessels do indeed make the most noise. The best thing that mankind could do with him right now is to put him in a cage with Rob Ford and let them duke it out for the award of Political Bully Of The Americas. In the meantime I look forward to the day when somebody actually tells Christie in blunt language, preferably in public, where to shove his bullying persona.

3. The strange parallel universe that is Conservapedia
In case you had not noticed, a group of authoritarian nitwits decided many moons ago that Wikipedia was not trustworthy, so they decided to create their own version. Hence the existence of Conservapedia. Ed Brayton, who writes the blog Dispatches From The Culture Wars under the Freethought Blogs aggregation, found that he now has an entry on Conservapedia. Clearly, the authors of the entry take him seriously enough as a potential enemy to want to immortalize him.
What is odd about the entry is that over 50% of the content consists of a lecture about the fact that he is overweight, and what he should do about it. I guess this fits into the pattern that authoritarian nitwits tend to follow, namely that the world would be a much better place if everybody looked, lived, thought and acted like THEM.
I will let you enjoy the many excellent responses in the comments section on Ed's blog. Some of Ed's commenters have noticed, strangely, that the Conservapedia article on Rush Limbaugh totally fails to mention his corpulence, neither does it mention his past issues with prescription painkiller abuse. Conservapedia may be many things, but it is clearly not even-handed when critiquing waistlines or dietary and medical habits.

4. The evisceration of wankerdom by politicians
Elizabeth Moon (thanks to Jim from Stonekettle station for the link) provides the much-needed evisceration of the second-rate excuse for a human being that is Rep. Joe Walsh. I was also amused to see how many times Walsh tried to bully Ashleigh Banfield into silence on CNN by yelling "Ashleigh!" at her during his interview with her on the subject. Clearly, in addition to being a thoroughly second-rate chickenshit, Walsh also has no idea about how damn patronising he sounds when being interviewed by women.
For a another equally acerbic take on Walsh's idiotically warped comments, see Susan DeQuesnay Bankston's response.

5. The US Navy embraces environmental responsibility and cost cutting
Instead of expensing the cost of vehicle mileage for essential crew while an aircraft carrier is being overhauled 1200 miles away from its home base, why not move the crew vehicles on the carrier itself?

I have been of the opinion for some time (and this may read like heresy to some) that one of the challenges with the US Constitution is that people try to pay it too much respect.
My reasoning is simple. The Constitution is treated by many people, including most of the legal system, as the Supreme Law of the Land. Many Supreme Court rulings turn on whether a law or the interpretation of the law by lower courts is consitutional. If SCOTUS says that all or part of a law is unconstitutional, then the law is immediately presumed to be invalid.
Further evidence (if we needed any) is that when proposed new laws are being discussed, the discussion often immediately jumps past "is this law any good?" to become focussed on "is it constitutional?", the idea being that any law that is unconstitutional is by definition, immediately and irredeemably bad. Witness the discussion about any law that has anything to say about the individual right to own guns. Pressure groups long ago learned to sing the song that all and any perceived restriction on gun ownership is by definition unconstitutional. Whilst I think that some of the song is bloviating bullcrap, and there is an enormous amount of fallacy and some conspiracy theory mixed in, it sure keeps the donations rolling in to pressure groups (cynical? moi?).
All of this would be fine if the Constitution was a watertight legal document covering all modern eventualities. That's where things start to get messy. The Constitution was not written as a law. If it had been, you can be sure that a lot of the language that leads to spirited debate today would have been stripped of ambiguity. The Constitution, as I see it, was really a set of guiding principles, written by a wise collection of individuals, many of whom had lived under what they perceived as tyranny and exploitation, and wanted to make sure that their new country did not fall foul of those same failings.
As a result, the Constitution is, well, kind of slippery. It defined a structure of government designed to ensure that a "tyranny of the majority" could not easily be implemented, it tried to specify and limit the powers of the various branches and levels of government, and it included some great language regarding basic human rights.
The founders were smart enough to define how the Constitution could be changed. However, the core of the Constitution is barely changed from its original version, and the changes that have occurred have consisted of tacking on various Amendments at various times, some of which ended up contradicting each other, often deliberately. There has been no "root and branch" review of the entire Constitution EVER. Unlike (say) the Census, which occurs every 10 years, there is no prescribed interval process for the review of the Constitution. The whole amendment process is ad hoc, and usually lumbers into action when enough people get upset about a specific issue (voting rights, prohibition, term limits etc. etc.). The process as executed in the past has been mostly reactive, not proactive and visionary.
We are (as those of us who are conscious know) in the middle of an election season. I thought I would therefore point readers to this interesting paper written by Bruce Ackerman in which he discusses some of the constitutional issues raised (and mostly ducked) by the 2000 Presidential Election. Ackerman, along with several other scholars, including Sanford Levinson, has long argued that the Constitution cannot be allowed to remain inviolate in the face of changes in the USA and the modern world. I find the last paragraph of Ackerman's paper (which I remember reading back in 2002) to be especially telling:

Suppose I had been reporting on the recent election of Vicente Fox as President of Mexico. I would have described how a mob of Fox’s partisans stopped the vote count in Mexico City, how Fox’s campaign chairman used her authority as chief elections officer to prevent the count from continuing, how Fox’s brother exercised his position as governor to take the Presidential election out of the hands of the voters, how the Supreme Court intervened to crush, without any legal ground, the last hope for a complete count. Would we be celebrating the election of President Fox as the dawn of a new democratic day in Mexico?

UPDATE - This is sort of a shortened version of a longer set of postings that I have been formulating for some time. It is part of the reasoning that follows from a saying that I have (that my friends will soon be tired of hearing), that America has to decide what it wants to be when it grows up. Part of growing up is adjusting your ground rules of life and living. The Constitution is a key part of those ground rules.

1. The right lessons from Solyndra
Those of us not recently arrived from Mars have failed to avoid the bloviation, bullcrap posturing and other signs of political preening that have been visited on us as a result of the failure of Solyndra. For a more sober reflection on the real lessons of the failure, see here. (WARNING - Political point scorers, don't waste your time reading this. It doesn't pander to your needs).
2. What to do if you can't defund Planned Parenthood the first time around?
Simple. If you are the majority party in the North Carolina legislature, you weasel-word the language in the vetoed bill and pass it in a special late-night session, in order to end-run a governor's veto and court smackdown. It would be stating the obvious to point out that the folks responsible for this process are a bunch of duplicitous shits, worthy only of my contempt. However, in keeping with my policy when censorious nitwits try to eliminate highly useful organizations like Planned Parenthood, I went over to their website and donated $25 to them again, just like I did when The Susan G. Komen Foundation destroyed their brand equity by trying a similar stunt. If everybody who is pissed off with this kind of political chicanery donates to Planned Parenthood in addition to simply getting annoyed or angry, then PP will not need to ask for funding from any state legislatures in future, which will immeasurably help them when the censorious nitwits double down on their attempts to destroy Planned Parenthood. This is a game plan which is line of descent from the successful attempt to destroy ACORN.

3. Another Obama eligibility lawsuit is dismissed
The case in Florida brought by Michael Voeltz (Voeltz v. Obama) has been dismissed with prejudice by the State Court. This means that it cannot be re-filed. (NOTE - Dismissed With Prejudice is basically a judge saying "GTFOOMC"). This moves the current State Ballot scorecard to 0-135.
4. Greenpeace advertising billboard rejected in Alberta
See this story of how a quite inoffensively creative ad billboard from Greenpeace was rejected.