Disgruntled GOP base

Now that The Romney has pretty much wrapped up the GOP nomination through the power of superior algorithms for gathering money, the GOP base is really fired up about his candidacy. For example, I got this email blast from World Nut Daily this morning:

Even if Mitt Romney is fortunate enough to win the presidency, he's not going to govern like Ronald Reagan or George Washington. He's going to govern much like Republican presidents we've seen in recent times – George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

What enthusiasm for their man! Why, you get the impression they're going to run out in November and vote early and often for him!

Well, when the people running against him for the nomination were a circus sideshow, what did World Nut Daily expect, anyhow? Oh wait, World Nut Daily and their editor, Crazy Joe Farah, is *part* of that circus sideshow. Alrighty, then!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

The Romneybot vs. the Obamanator

Talking about Sick Rick, that's the November contest, since Mr. Man on Dog quit, after polls said he'd lose his home state of Pennsylvania big-time to the Romneybot. So in the fall, we have the Romneybot vs. the Obamanator. What a contest. I'm gonna have such a hard time deciding who to vote for... will I vote for the soulless robot from planet Sociopath? Hmm.

It will be so appropriate getting robo-calls from the Romneybot campaign this fall...

- Badtux the "So long, Ricky!" Penguin

Surging Santorum in Alabama and Mississippi

Sorry, just had to type in that title, because we know all about Santorum, heh ;).

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Congratulations to the Romneybot

Romneybot 2.0 managed to get over 50% of the vote for the first time in any Republican primary. Of course, one of those states is the state he was formerly governor of, and one of them he was the only major candidate on the ballot, meaning that he really managed over 50% only in two states -- Idaho and Wyoming -- where the sheep outnumber the human beings, but hey. It's still better than he's ever done, there's actually two states where the majority of Republicans like him!

This is a great day for robot-Americans. Just sayin' ;).

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

No reason

Just your ordinary everyday photograph of Ron Paul hanging out with neo-Nazis. No reason for posting it. Just felt like it.

-- Badtux the Random Penguin

What's the matter with a Moon base?

Right now we have a lot of unused resources here in the United States. We have bright scientists unable to find work, brilliant engineers idled because there are no massive engineering projects requiring their skills, thousands of skilled machinists idled, and so on and so forth. This is in addition to the millions of Americans whose skills are more rudimentary. If we did a WPA-type project, the Americans without skills could be put to work picking up trash by the roads, doing trail maintenance in the national parks, and otherwise doing things that haven't been done for decades as funding dried up for anything other than corporate welfare. But what about the smart people? It would seem to me to be an utter waste of talent to put someone with a degree in biochemistry in charge of digging outhouses at a WPA camp.

So Newt Gingrich, in my opinion, actually hit upon a viable economic stimulus project with his "to the moon!" rhetoric the other day. Remember, even the ugliest dirtiest pig can sometimes turn up a truffle. This wouldn't be astoundingly expensive like back in the Apollo days because we aren't developing the technology from scratch. Rockets are increasingly a mature technology -- we know how to build'em, they're not all that expensive to build anymore, though of course still not cheap. And the same applies to space capsules and the various environmental systems needed to keep them operational. There would still be a large amount of original science to do regarding how to utilize the Moon's resources to build an actual base (as vs crash a bunch of modules into one location like we did with the International Space Station), not to mention that we'd have to go ahead and man-rate some large rocket in the first place to get our guys into space (we have rockets bigger than Soyuz that could boost people into space but none of them are man-rated, they all have too much vibration and too much acceleration for squishy biologicals to tolerate, but that could be fixed at some expense to payload), but we have hundreds of thousands of unemployed scientists in this country right now. We don't lack for the talent to solve these kinds of problems.

Which is why I am baffled at why so many so-called "leftists" are laughing at Newt proposing a stimulus program that would dwarf Obama's. Granted, he did it in the context of *also* saying he was going to balance the budget -- i.e., it's simply mathematically impossible for him to do both, and we *should* point and laugh at *that* -- but the idea of a huge moon program? Dude. It's just an infrastructure project, just like the ones Obama touts and that leftists say should have been bigger. Well, Gingrich's program *would* be bigger. The only way to dismiss Gingrich's program as "silliness" is if you dismiss Obama's program as "silliness"... which is just plain silliness.

-- Badtux the Space Penguin

Wal-Mart slaves pay more taxes than Romney

Left unmentioned during all the fuss and furor about Mitt Romney's 13.9% tax rate in 2010 is the fact that Wal-Mart slaves laboring for minimum wage pay a higher percentage of their income as taxes than Romney does. Yes, they don't pay *income* taxes, but they most definitely pay *payroll* taxes, which currently stand at 15.3% if you combine the employer portion and paycheck portion together, which you want to do if you're talking about taxes, as well as pay an average 9.7% sales tax on the percentage of their income that goes to non-shelter items, for an effective tax rate of around 20%.

So is it fair that Mitt gets to pay lower taxes for sitting around and letting his investment advisers move his money around than is paid by someone who works for a living? Uhm... do you need *me* to answer that question for you?!

-- Badtux the Snarky Numbers Penguin

The new George Wallace

In 1976, George Wallace won the South Carolina primary on a platform of race-baiting and bigotry. It was pretty much George's last hurrah, he didn't win any other primaries that year, and soon retired from politics.

Today, Newt "the Grinch" Gingrich appears to have won South Carolina based on a similar plan of attack. Apparently folks in South Carolina liked his race-baiting and his constant attacks on the negro err President, sorta like back when they voted for George Wallace in the '76 primary 'cause George hated him some black people too.

All of which says more about South Carolina than anything that's going to be relevant to the rest of the race...northern Florida is also full of racists, but southern Florida isn't, so I doubt racism is going to stir as many people to vote for the Grinch there. Still, the Grinch is back, bitches! And the Republican dwarf race is still up in the air, with each of Frothy Dwarf, Sleazy Dwarf, and Grumpy Dwarf having won a state. None of them are going to beat the camel in the dwarf vs. camel race, but they're definitely all chugging away as fast as their tiny little legs can propel them!

-- Badtux the Dwarf-watchin' Penguin

Baffling Carolina

So we had Dopey Dwarf drop out of the dwarf-race, and now it's Grumpy Dwarf leading over Sleazy Dwarf in South Carolina? WTF?

Poor Sleazy just can't get a break. First we learn that Frothy, not Sleazy, won Iowa. Now Grumpy is poised to win South Carolina. Of course, the core problem is that while Sleazy is skeezy, he's also Mormon. Mormons tend to *not* be fat stupid ignorant devout welfare whores, thus can't be *real* conservatives, right? Right?!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Zombie Jerry Falwell endorses Newt Gingrich

Yes, for true! From beyond the grave, Jerry Falwell endorses Newt "The Lizard" Gingrinch! Because Mitt Romney has a likability problem (as Mike Huckabee put it in 2008, "Mitt doesn’t remind you of the guys you used to work with, he reminds you of the guy who laid you off"). So clearly the GOP needs a candidate far more likable than Mitt Romney.

Of course, pretty much any flattened armadillo they found on a Texas highway would be more likable than Mitt Romney... oh wait. No, that was Rick Perry. Nevermind!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Thought for the day

If the GOP could get away with digging up embalmed Ronald Reagan and running him for President again, they would. Embalmed Ronald Reagan would probably appear more life-like than Mitt Romney anyhow (dude is almost as robotic as his wife, the killbot from Andromeda Galaxy).

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Gingrinch PAC releases anti-Romney movie

The fascinating thing is that, unlike most of what Romney says, the facts I tried checking out in this video actually checked out. Romney's group of corporate raiders was all about stripping assets out of profitable companies that they took over in hostile takeovers and turning them into bankrupt shells, as Romney's group walked away with millions of dollars from stripping the assets and the workers of the former profitable company were thrown out on the streets.

Yesterday while driving home I caught Gingrinch being interviewed on CNN Radio. You got the sense it's not about votes with the Grinch now. This is personal. His distaste and disdain for Romney was so visceral that you almost expected spittle to come out of the radio speakers.

-- Badtux the Dwarf-race-watchin' Penguin

New Hamster

I suppose I should post something about the dwarf race. Creepy Dwarf won, as expected, but 60% of GOP voters still don't like him and voted for someone else. Goldy Dwarf came out with a surprising second place finish -- apparently New Hamster *likes* cranky old septuagenarians who yell "you darn kids, smoke my grass!", probably something to do with too many fumes from the grass. Oily Dwarf's oil millions apparently worked good enough for a third place finish, followed by Grumpy Dwarf, Frothy Dwarf, and basically out of the race, Dopey Dwarf with basically 0%, who is going to give it one last Texas try in South Carolina then go home to tend his chattel.

I was going to extend the allegory to dwarf vs. camel but at this point we're already too politically incorrect towards the little people so I'll let you watch that race and create your own allegory. Heh.

- Badtux the Dwarf-watching Penguin