On the one hand we have Todd Akins saying we shouldn’t let women have abortions due to rape because women rarely get pregnant from rape. On the other hand we have Mike Huckabee saying we shouldn’t let women have abortions due to rape because there have been any number of wonderful, valuable people who were conceived during a rape.

Didn’t the Republicans used to be better at the talking points thing than this?

(I am not holding my breath for Gov. Huckabee to tell us about all the wonderful, valuable people who were born to unwed teenaged mothers.)

From today’s Chron:

C.W. Nevius’ column about Most Holy Redeemer banning drag queen performers incorrectly stated that entertainer Peaches Christ appeared at an event at the church’s hall with a dildo shaped like a crucifix. He did not appear at the event, nor does he use the prop.

I admire MoveOn and think they do a lot of good things. But I received a fund-raising message yesterday that said the following, and I have to wonder if anybody troubled to read this over:

If we can’t increase our budget, we might have to dramatically scale back or pull the plug on some of MoveOn’s most important election efforts this year.

Any sane person responds to a budgetary crisis by cutting back his or her least important expenses, not most. As written, it sounds kind of childishly passive-aggressive — do this or I’ll eat worms! And stick myself with a pin!

I’m sure that’s not how they meant it to sound, but the thought that they’ve become so blasé about their own fund-raising appeals that they don’t pay attention to what they’re actually writing isn’t much more attractive.

Oh man, I cannot wait until we evolve into a species capable of focusing together on an important issue for five minutes without being distracted by squirrels and shiny things.

From today’s New York Times:

MADRID — The Rev. Eubilio Rodríguez’s church is a prefabricated building in an area of this city hard hit by Spain’s economic crisis. In front of the altar are a few scraggly potted plants. Behind it, some plastic chairs.

How, he asks, can the Roman Catholic Church be getting ready for a lavish $72 million celebration in this city — some of it paid for with tax dollars — when Spain is in the midst of an austerity drive, the unemployment rate for young people is 40 percent and his parishioners are losing their homes to foreclosure every day?

“It is scandalous, the price,” he said. “It is shameful. It discredits the church.”

A friend on the WELL passed along this paragraph from an essay in today’s Washington Times (“Hope and change in a magic tea pot” by Wesley Pruden, page A4; the piece isn’t in the online edition):

But this time, the Republicans and other conservatives did not flinch, their spines stiffened by courage taken from the tea pot. Washington hasn’t seen a panic like this since Beauregard sent the Federal army scrambling back to Washington from Manassas battlefield in the summer of ’61. This was the change we’ve been hoping for.

Good blog post by Tom Toles today.

The fun game of trying to determine which WAY Obama is a a bad president continues without respite. The fact of his badness goes without saying. If he compromises, he’s a sellout. If he doesn’t, he’s no better than Republicans! If there is gridlock, he’s to blame. If there is an imperfect compromise, he’s to blame. Feckless! Insincere! Passive! Ideological! Non-ideological! Partisan! Too non-partisan!

The possibility that he is roadblocked by an absolutely impossible Congress needing two houses and a filibuster-proof majority to tie its shoes in the morning, and they are two right shoes, is not one of the multiple-choice answers. If I were writing the headlines, that’s what I would write every day! INSANE CONGRESS DESTROYING NATION!

Great, great cartoon by him today, too. But I’m unclear on how to link to a specific cartoon, only to whatever that day’s cartoon is. Oh, well, if you see this on a different day it’ll probably still be a great cartoon.

Or does it seem like whenever John McCain feels moved to voice his highly principled opposition to something, odds are good that whatever it is that he’s suddenly always been against has just caused the Dow to fall 200 points?

I’m seeing the exact same word used over and over in the media (including of course multiple pundits from Fox) to describe something John McCain said yesterday, so I assume this is another of those organized Republican stay-on-message talking-point things.

But come on, seriously, since when is calling somebody a hobbit a “smear”?