The most open of goals

"I'm a serious candidate for president of the United States and my facts are accurate"

said Michele Bachmann.

Oh yeah?

Well what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit that I have'.

Er… John Wayne Gacy was from Waterloo, Iowa. Gacy the serial killer, that is.

I will tell you that I had a mother… come up to me. She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter.

Top quality research methodology.

There isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.

Um… there are plenty. If she put a plastic bag over her head and breathed in and out, she'd soon realise.

…the very founders that wrote those documents [the US Constitution] worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States… I think it is high time that we recognise the contribution of our forebearers… men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country.

OK then.

1. Forebearers isn't a word.

2. The Founding Fathers were mostly slave-owners. 

3. Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery in 1865 with the 13th Amendment. The Founding Fathers were long dead.

4. John Quincy Adams 1767-1848 wasn't a Founder. If he didn't rest until Abolition, he must have been spinning in his grave for 17 years. He did detest slavery though, so Bachmann clearly is a serious candidate for the Presidency. Well done, Michele.

Cancer… or votes?

Presumably those of my readers who aren't American aren't quite as transfixed by the Republican race for the Presidential nomination as I am. Feel free to skip this post. Ditto those who don't like to confront The Stupid.

You may have noticed that this year's contenders range from the unpleasant to the unbelievable. The dumber the candidate, the more chance they have to win. In the old patrician days, the Republican Party could talk down to the rednecks and take their votes for granted, meaning that an intellectual or a moderate stood a chance: Eisenhower stands out as a particularly respectable candidate.

But this lot are so dumb - or worse, cynical - that they've made a point of disavowing the basic things that most electorates want in a political leader: reason, discrimination, decent pragmatism, negotiating skills and above all, faith in government as a social structure which serves the people well.

There are two American models of government, and they both have their roots in the 18th century. One holds that government is the highest expression of collective human desires: altruism, pooled authority for the good of all, and so on. The other holds that community, and especially formal expressions of community such as laws, healthcare and so on, are automatically oppressive and injurious to individual human enterprise. From the first conception springs the Democratic Party and the old moderate wing of the Republicans. From the second springs the whack jobs currently running for office.

The most disgusting example of this total hatred for government was the candidates' exchange of fire over the Human Papilloma Virus vaccination, now given to adolescent girls in the UK, and available to them in the US. Texan governor Rick Perry bowed to the federal courts and allowed the vaccinations to go ahead in his state, against his political judgement - and he even allowed parents to opt out. In the most recent debate, we had the sickening sight of watching the other candidates, especially the know-nothing rabble-rouser Michele Bachmann, sententiously express their view that they'd rather the girls get cervical cancer than allow a democratically-elected government insist that they be vaccinated. Bachmann now claims that the vaccine causes mental retardation… which makes me wonder how many shots of it she took.

Of course the American political funding situation is a revolting other matter and they're all guilty: it's no coincidence that over 80% of American legislators are millionaires. Similarly, there's a debate about which particular vaccine should be used.

Unfortunately, I can't find an embeddable clip, but you really need to watch it.

So now you know. The Republicans would rather your daughter got cancer than accept government help. And they might win.

Swine flu cause discovered

It's the Democrats. Well, according to Michelle Bachmann, the elected representative for Minnesota. She's the lady who called Obama unAmerican, amongst other crazed ravings. (Via Pharyngula):

I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter, and I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence.

Turns out she's wrong too: Republican Gerald Ford was in the White House!