Just wondering...

If the plural of octopus is octopi, and more than one cactus is cacti, then why is there apparently no such word as ignorami ? As in more than one ignoramus. As in the conservative population of Texas, particularly those who post online comments at newspaper opinion pages.

Good news, bad news

The good news is that the Obama administration is not a fascist dictatorship that plans to silence AM talk radio and Fox News, confiscate the property of conservatives, then enslave them in work camps until they have vanished from the face of the earth. That's also the bad news.

More disgusting possibilities

Paul Burka of Texas Monthly makes a case for the possibility that Rick Perry will run for president in 2012. Let me put it this way: if Obama's presidency fails so miserably that Perry is able to even get near the White House, I'll be as discouraged about America and the Democrats as I've ever been. I can easily see Perry winning the GOP nomination, considering the level to which the party has fallen. Whether he could win the EC is another matter --- but I've learned the hard way that about 60 percent of the time, American voters will do the dumbest things.

I keep thinking that all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, the lunatics are still a minority in this country, somewhere around thirty percent, and definitely no more than forty. I hope that's not just wishful thinking.

Still legislating morality ?

Conservative columnist Star Parker seems to be off to a good start with her assessment of what needs to occur when the Republican renaissance begins, then she runs off the road when she claims the economic conservatives and the evangelical conservatives need to merge into one mighty river (presumably washing away everything in its path). Obviously, the GOP needs the Christian conservatives --- without them, the party vanishes like a wisp of smoke in a stiff breeze. Unfortunately, they're too often allowed to dictate the conservative political agenda. Since much of my own political philosophy is shaped around separation of church and state, the evangelical influence on the GOP agenda is a deal killer for me.

Maybe someday the GOP will come up with a plan to win elections without pandering to the evangelical community by allowing them to write most of the rules. If that day ever comes, I'll be glad to give 'em a look.

Added 11:04 pm: Changing the subject a little, this from Huffington Post on the health care bill passed in the House. Because the current Congress is totally dysfunctional, I'm afraid my worst fears are coming true --- a really ugly mess of a bill has been passed, and anything that ultimately makes it into law will probably be even worse. In the long run, Democrats would have been better off simply cutting their losses and tossing the whole thing in the trash when it became clear there was no party unity on the issue. No bill is much better than a bad bill, which seems like what we're destined to end up with --- and when the smoke clears and the screaming dies down, we'll have something nobody will be happy with, and both parties will share the blame. I say the Republicans should kill this thing dead in its tracks, and let the political chips fall where they may.

Added 7:48 am, Tuesday, 10 November: An interesting column by Paul Krugman on the teabaggers and why they need to be taken seriously.

What's it all mean anyway ?

Nine fairly short paragraphs that make more sense of Tuesday's election results than anything else I've read on the subject.