Sunday Funnies: Declaration of Incoherence edition

Apparently now we not only hold SOME truths to be self-evident, but also just about ANY POSITION we happen to prefer. It's pretty self-evident that Obama is not a U.S. citizen because we don't like him. It's clear that he wants to take everybody's guns away because that's what a president who isn't a real citizen would do.

He's somehow against white people because he just MUST be. The economic rescue package didn't do any good because it was Democrats spending money. It's Democrats who are the worse deficit offenders because Republicans keep saying so. Tax cuts pay for themselves because we don't like taxes. Climate change is a hoax because we don't like the implications.

Even the most cursory examination of evidence is now too much to ask. Climate change deniers continue to send me their strange little clutch of misleading factoids and sly questions as if I had never seen that stuff before. But it's pretty clear that they have not themselves read the overwhelming case for climate change, or simply are unable to evaluate or even grasp the concept of PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE.

It's not that the political spectrum drifts left or right, it's that's it is cascading into absolute fantasy. It is impossible to engage in debate with these strange fevers, because they emanate from HOT HEADS. Excuse the cold water, but all opinions are NOT created equal. -Tom Toles

Friday Postpourri

-- "This Week in Rick Perry's Lies" may have to become a DAILY feature. Did you know the governor called Texas' 46th-ranked health care system "the best in the United States"?

-- Look for weekend postings on Barbara Radnofsky's efforts to wake up Greg Abbott with SueWallStreet.com, as well as the incompetence and willful negligence associated with the attorney general's signature issue, child support collection.

-- I also attended a luncheon sponsored by Houston Votes, which has ambitious plans again this election cycle to register 100,000 disaffected Houstonians in time for them to vote in November. Long post due on their efforts.

-- No sooner did I call Rick Perry a cartoon character than we learned that the Bill White campaign was putting out a casting call for a "clueless" Perry look-alike for some comical campaign ads. I think Josh Brolin -- he also played W in Oliver Stone's movie -- would have been perfect for the role.

--  BP will take a $10 billion tax credit for costs associated with the Gulf oil disaster. Even Goldman Sachs gasped when they heard the news. (Ten billion dollars was the amount of the taxpayer bailout they received.)

-- Time once again to remind our Washington representation to preserve net neutrality. As Al Franken put it:

If no one stops them, how long do you think it will take before four or five mega-corporations effectively control the flow of information in America, not only on television but online. If we don't protect net neutrality now, how long do you think it will take before Comcast/NBC Universal -- or Verizon/CBS Viacom, or AT&T/ABC/DirectTV, or BP/Halliburton/WalMart/Fox/Domino's Pizza -- start favoring its content over everyone else's? How long do you think it will take before the Fox News Web site loads five times faster than Daily Kos?