For three years, Billy Bob Neck has been on YouTube spreading the love and wisdom of Jesus. Before I say any more about him, however, here he is with “The Burn a Koran Song”:

Okay. Billy Bob Neck is a character created by comedian Paul Day. This is the best satire since A Modest Proposal. He has 130 similar videos—always wearing the same clothes—on his “The USA Patriotic Freedom Channel.” They just get funnier. “George W. Bush is the best President since Winston Churhill!”

I discovered him via The Rachel Maddow Show which ran his The Shocking Truth About Rachel Maddow where he proves conclusively that Rachel Maddow is not just a lesbian, but a vampire.

Most people think that Billy Bob Neck is for real. Based upon the comments, I would say about 80%. When I first saw him, I didn’t know for sure and I had to do a bit of research—even watching several of his videos did not nail it for me. In the age of Terry Jones (not the guy from Monty Python) and the Westboro Baptist Church’s “God-Hates-Fags-Dot-Com (Not even Dot-Org!) it is hard to tell. But many people when first presented with A Modest Proposal don’t see the irony. But once you see what Paul Day is doing, it is hilarious. I hope you enjoyed the song!

Elizabeth Warren!

It amazes me that the Republicans won’t allow Obama to have anything he wants. It is clear that Elizabeth Warren should be nominated to head the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. But we know that the Republicans will filibuster her nomination, because she might actually be effective and Wall Street and big banks might actually have to start playing a little more fairly with all their customers. So for now: no nomination.

So instead, Obama just appointed her to set up the agency. You know: to structure it and to hire the people working in it. Damn! That President of ours is a smart guy. I’m totally serious. This was brilliant.

God Hates Fags!

You might think that Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) would have a URL like www.WestboroBaptistChurch.org or even www.WestboroBaptistChurch.com. But no. They are Christians, and if there is one thing that Christ was really clear about, it is that God Hates Fags! But that is not all that WBC knows Christ believed. They also know Jews Killed Jesus and a charming country-by-country explanation of why God Hates the World! But mostly, God hates fags—that’s their main site.

It amazes me looking at the comments on conservative blogs. There are a number of somewhat reasonable old-school Republicans, but at least half the comments are from delusional teabaggers. Here is one such comment:

So Democrats, who are angry at Obama for not being liberal enough, are going to flock to ultra-conservative O’Donnell (She is an outspoken opponent of–wait for it: masturbation!) rather than vote for the Democratic nominee Chris Coons. Unbelievable, especially when DailyKOS reported that Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling is releasing poll numbers today that say that Coons has a 44-28 lead over O’Donnell–again, wait for it: among Mike Castle voters! Admittedly, after they calm down and after the big-time Republican media machine comes in an gives O’Donnell a make-over, those numbers will shift. But Delaware is a blue state. Mike Castle was a sure winner because he is an old-style, moderate Republican who has been in Delaware politics for decades (I think he has won a total of 30 different times—really).

Like I said: delusional. You know, my politics are out there on the fringe—but at least I know it. It isn’t like I think my neighbors believe what I do. These people think everyone agrees with them. Of course, they only talk to people who agree with them. One person responded (sort of) to a comment I made on some other blog by relating a story of how nice everyone was at the Glenn Beck Rally. She was looking for a water fountain and asked someone who didn’t know where one was but who gave her a bottle of water. I responded that I’d had that exact same experience at a rock concert. I pointed out that with few exceptions, people are pretty nice. What I wanted to say, but didn’t was: isn’t it easy to be nice to one another when you are all white, rich, and ignorant. Truly, I don’t think that water giver would have be a tenth as likely to give water to a homeless black man. It is easy to be generous to people you consider part of your tribe. And the bad thing about the teabaggers (and I did say this) is that they consistently define liberals as not just people they disagree with, but as people who want to destroy the country. They don’t think for a second that they just might be a tad bit wrong about what America is.

Newt Gingrich is going around saying that Obama conned his way into the Whitehouse. He’s just an opportunistic liar. The woman who posted the comment above is just ignorant. People like her don’t seem to know that if voting were required by law (as it is in 32 countries including Australia, Brazil, and Singapore) that there would be a huge political shift to the left. American’s are far more liberal than their politicians. But no. They want to claim that people who say Obama is not a US citizen are equivalent to people who (rightly) said that George W. Bush was not a legitimate president (by popular vote or electoral college).

The teabaggers can go on about their conspiracy theories all they want. What makes me mad is that they think they somehow speak for America. Or that they even know what America is. They are yet another anti-intellectual group that has decided what they want to believe and the facts be damned. They are no different from the Intelligent Design crowd or the Global Warming Deniers or the Flat Earth Society. (I always thought the Flat Earth Society was just a joke. It is no joke. They have a very nice website.)

Anyone who thinks at all knows that the new plug-in hybrid and electric cars are not zero-emission vehicles. (Solar cars are, however.) The July 2010 issue of Scientific American has a nice short article on this called The Dirty Truth about Plug-In Hybrids. (Note: link does not include entire article.) What the article shows is that just how green a vehicle is depends upon where it is. For example, in California where 99% of our electricity comes from natural gas, plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles emit far less carbon and save huge amounts of gasoline compared to ordinary hybrids. On the other hand, in Illinois, where roughly three-quarters of the electricity comes from coal, these vehicles produce way more carbon, even though they still save about as much gasoline as they do in California. On the third hand, in New York, where two-thirds of their electricity comes from oil, these vehicles produce a bit more carbon, but save only a little gasoline: about 10%.

This is all very interesting, but it doesn’t provide the reader with a lot of context. (And to be honest, I think I just provided you with all you need to know from the article in a much more understandable way. But we must remember that only the best writers get to work at Frankly Curious!) The electricity that these cars require has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is a power plant near by. This power plant is necessarily going to (1) be more efficient at turning raw materials into energy and (2) less polluting—especially in areas where we care about pollution, like downtown Los Angeles. Even in those few places where plug-in hybrid and electric cars produce more carbon than regular hybrids, they only produce slightly more and they produce quite a lot less than old-fashioned gasoline engines. What’s more, if every car in the US was a plug-in hybrid or electric car, the net result would be a huge reduction in carbon emissions (not to mention emissions that affect local air quality).

We are not going to cure our global warming problem on the backs of cars, anyway. As a result, the bigger issue to me is gasoline. Regardless of where you live in the US, these vehicles greatly reduce oil consumption. Most of our electricity comes from natural gas and coal. We produce 84% of our own natural gas and 100% of our own coal (that link’s a PDF). What all these new car technologies mean is that we are less dependent on oil and that is a good thing, because we don’t have a lot of oil. So this makes us more self-sufficient. And that’s a good thing.

Getting off coal (which creates 52% of our electricity) is going to be harder. But we can do that too.

Who would have thought I would still be doing this? Certainly not me. Nor do I know why I continue, except for my addictive personality.

Prayer Rooms In World Trade Center

Samuel J. Freedman reported in the New York Times on Friday, that there was an official Muslim prayer room on the 17th floor of the south tower and an unofficial prayer room in the stairwell between the 106th and 107th floors of the north tower. This unofficial room was created by roughly three dozen Muslim staff members who worked at Windows on the World. At least two of these staff members died on 11 September 2001—very likely in their makeshift prayer room. Please, read the story; and pass it on.

Budget Deficit Lower Despite Stimulus

This fiscal year’s budget deficit is supposed to be almost 10% lower than last year’s. Despite the fact that the media keep claiming the everyone cares deeply about the deficit (they don’t), that very same media don’t seem that interested in reporting this surprisingly good news.

We All Wish We Were as Smart as Paul

For some time, Paul Krugman has been pushing the fact that the main long-term budget problem we face is Medicare and medical cost eating up a bigger and bigger part of our income. But there is a bigger picture here. In his blog yesterday, he said, “And let’s be clear: you could not have gotten the cost savings without the move to near-universal coverage, for both political and technical reasons. This thing really is a package—a package that, with all its flaws, both makes our society more decent and improves our long-run budget outlook.” Amen.

Extraordinary Rendition

The “liberal” Ninth Circuit Court found 6-5 that victims of extraordinary rendition cannot sue the government because national security concerns trump the rights of the tortured men. I don’t have time to go into this and reading the link will not give you nearly enough information. The take-home message is clear: this is about not embarrassing the government, not about protecting our security. This reminds me of the Doonesbury comic where someone is visiting Asia and says, “This is the site of the secret Cambodian bombing!” Then a local man says, “It wasn’t secret to us; I said to my wife, ‘Look at those bombs exploding!'”

Moderate Republicans

Meghan McCain was on the Rachel Maddow Show last night and it really bugged me. She’s a nice young woman and all, but she talked about remaining a Republican and fighting for moderation in the party. What was she talking about? The Democratic Party is the pragmatic party—they’re the ones who do things that work. The Republican Party is the idealistic party—they’re the ones who are supposed to do things because they are right. Setting aside the fact that the Republicans have an incoherent ideology (personal freedom for corporations, personal slavery for people), how do they moderate their platform. Is it: instead of Park51 being ten blocks from Ground Zero, it can be eight blocks? Is it: instead of the top income tax rate being 35.0% it will be 35.2%? I simply do not see how any reasonable person can be a Republican at this time. In 1970? Okay. In 1980? Okay. Even in 1990? Okay. But not now. And not for the last ten years—at least.

Richard Nixon would be a moderate Democrat today. Ronald Reagan would be a liberal Republican—maybe even a conservative Democrat. Glenn Beck would call Barry Goldwater a fucking socialist!

Ladies and Gentlemen: Your NEW Republican Party!

Trust me, you gotta watch this. Minerva, Ohio councilman Phil Davison gave an impassioned speech last night at the Stark County Republican Party’s executive committee meeting to be their nominee for county treasurer. Sadly, he will not be their nominee. See if you can tell why: