Monday, August 30, 2010

Perry on Job Growth: Do'h!

There's an old episode of the Simpsons where, after one bear wonders into town, Homer overreacts and starts a bear patrol to protect his fellow Springfieldians. He's convinced of the success of the success of the patrol because of the lack of bears in town.

Lisa, spotting the fallacy of his logic, tries to convince him that the presence of the bear patrol is unrelated to the absence of bears:

Homer: “Hmm; how does it work?”
Homer: “Uh-huh.”

Homer considers her argument for a moment and replies: “Lisa, I want to buy your rock…”

Why am I talking about Homer Simpson? Because Texas Governor Rick Perry did a pretty good impression of him in an interview with the Texas Tribune, published today:

So in Perry's mind, Marriage Equality --> Horrific Economic Collapse? (This is almost as insane as the Prop 8 proponents' Marriage Equality --> Bad Table Manners' argument (Line 18, page 88 of the ruling, no really, check it out)).

The fancy Latin term for this Lunacy is cum hoc ergo propter hoc ("with this, therefore because of this"), basically "if two things occur together, then one must be caused by the other".

When the Governor of our state can't see the insanity of an argument that your average 12 year old (or inordinately bright (and bright yellow) 8 year old) can, we're in trouble.

Update: Be sure to check out the Rick Perry Dilemma Generator! All the logic and intellect of the Governor of Texas, with just the click of a button!

Friday, August 20, 2010

Dave Welch Trounced in On-Air Debate

Dave Welch, the notorious executive Director of the Houston Area Pastor Council (the organization that said Annise Parker shouldn't be mayor of Houston because she is a lesbian (and the organization Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Bill White fundraises for) debated Cristan Williams the Executive Director of the Transgender Foundation of America about the Nikki Araguz case.

Despite the clear bias of the FOX news anchor Cristan did a wonderful job, which you can see in the video below. Perhaps the most telling question asked was the poll on the channel's website "Should Transgender or Transexual people be allowed to legally marry?" Not "People of the same-sex?" or "people of the opposite sex" but anyone, should they be allowed to marry anyone at all. Encouragingly FOX new's viewers seem to be more compassionate that it's anchors, the current results of the poll: 94.1% Yes, 5.7% No, 0.2% Not Sure.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Stuck Between a Rock and A Bigoted Place, Abbott Stays Silent

