Ahh, nullification. Don’t like a Supreme Court decision or executive order from the President? Just pass a law saying you don’t have to listen to them. The old classics never really go out of style. Meet Texas state Republican Molly White, who is going for Tea Party All-Star status in the space of just a few months.
White’s bill, HB 2555, would amend Texas law to state that its ban against same-sex marriage would “apply regardless of whether a federal court ruling or other federal law provides that a prohibition against the creation or recognition of a same-sex marriage or a civil union is not permitted under the United States Constitution.”
Of course, as Alabama will soon learn, federal courts trump state courts and federal law trumps state law. Should this pass and be sent to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott – the state’s former Attorney General – it’s hard to believe even he would sign it.
Towleroad notes that “White has also filed a bill that would allow business owners to refuse service on religious grounds. Read the full text of HB 2553 here.”
White also subscribes to Tea Party conspiracy theories. Last week she filed a bill to Stop Taxpayer Funding of Agenda 21.
Yes, Agenda 21.
Supremacy Clause? Son, this is Texas. (Insert Yosemite Sam shootin’ noises here.) We will legislate the galldurn tarnation outta your Supremacy Clause. (Spittoon ding.)
And I have to disagree a bit here, I think Gov. Greg Abbott would love to sign something like this to stick it to those Beltway Liberals, because FREEDOM and EAGLE and MURCA.
Belafon
You said “Son, this is Texas. (Insert Yosemite Sam shootin’ noises here.)”
What you should have said was “Son, this is Texas. We fly our flag as high as the US flag for a reason.”
I’ve heard that most of my life here.
Villago Delenda Est
These stupid people, like their stupid predecessors 150 years ago, are hellbent on a course that will bring them to ruin.
Amir Khalid
Doesn’t Texas have a state counsel or attorney-general or someone like that who can say that there’s no such thing as nullifying federal law or federal court rulings? Or do they simply not listen to such people?
boatboy_srq
I still want to know whether evicting a state from the Union is possible. And now we have willful noncompliance with the US Constitution as justification.
Amir Khalid
@Belafon:
Oh yes. Its formal name is the Republic of Texas, n’est-ce pas?
Paul in KY
I think Abbot would sign it too. He’s gonna want to get re-elected.
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: Occasionally, the Attorney General will recommend ignoring the federal government. And then they get elected governor.
Amir Khalid
@boatboy_srq:
I’ve only ever heard of one country doing that: mine. We did it in 1965 with Singapore.
cmorenc
So when is the federal government going to crack down on Clive Bundy? I know the immediate subject of this thread is Texas and State Rep. Molly White’s nullification bill, but the fact that the feds have yet to effectively put the clamps on the defiant outlaw thievery of the Clive Bundy gang has emboldened latter-day Confederates throughout the land, including those in state legislatures and state courts.
Parfigliano
@Villago Delenda Est: Unfortunately it will not bring them to ruin. Just like last time, these treasonous fucks will be welcomed back into polite society. Naturally they will immediately begin down their same well worn path.
ThresherK
@Amir Khalid: Your second question answered your first.
(Then again, the nitpicker in me says your first question is actually two separate questions, with what in reality is two separate answers.)
Bobby Thomson
@cmorenc: yeah, I think the “wait them out in the hot sun” strategy is an epic fail at this point. Hopefully Clinton goes Waco and Ruby Ridge on his ass.
boatboy_srq
@Amir Khalid: Well, at least there IS a precedent.
ThresherK
@Parfigliano: The first thing which will keep this from happening is getting out a Sharpie and trying to draw new roads to get shipping from the Gulf ports in NewGaltia, and through-truck-traffic among Okla/Mizz, La/Fla/Ga, and NMex/Ariz .
Won’t hold my breath waiting for these states to weigh in.
Patrick
Isn’t Texas the state where Louis Gohmert somehow managed to be a judge?
Bobby Thomson
@Amir Khalid: they listen to the parts they like and ignore the rest. And upholding the US Constitution is a CLM for Texas AGs and counsels to the Governor.
Lurking Canadian
He has made his ruling. Now let him try to enforce it.
But seriously, is this legal? By which I mean obviously it’s not legal, but does it lead to the President sending the Army to force Texan judges to marry gay people at gunpoint? How does a mess like this get resolved?
boatboy_srq
@ThresherK: An independent Texas just means that the ports of New Orleans, Mobile and Pensacola will get busier. Why build roads when you can upgrade alternate points of entry? The only major hardship would come if Montana or both Dakotas decide to join the New Confederacy and split East from West all the way from Canada to the Gulf: short of that there are plenty of alternate ports, and multiple major highways and rail lines to use.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
Eviction? Not sure I agree that’s what it was. Certainly Lee Kuan Yew was upset about the so-called expulsion but several of his ministers were in favor of Singaporean independence and convinced him it was the better path forward. By the time it occurred I think it was a mutually acceptable outcome.
Luthe
See, I would say the correct answer to the nullification yahoos* would be to cut off all federal funds to offending state(s) until they decided to obey the Constitution, but doing so would inevitably hurt more children, elderly, and poor people than it would the idiots in charge.
Perhaps some targeted actions would be in order? No highway funds, furloughs of all federal airport employees, refusal to allow Senators and Reps from the state(s) onto the Capitol grounds, much less into the buildings to vote…
*I know, that’s an insult to yahoos
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: Why did Malaysia expel Singapore?
Cervantes
@Bobby Thomson:
What happened in Waco empowered no one so much as Newt Gingrich.
boatboy_srq
@Luthe:
By that, you mean “more than said idiots-in-charge are committed to doing already,” yes?
Liberty60
I would love to see a small liberal enclave in Texas pass a municipal law banning the possession of firearms, “any state or federal law or court ruling notwithstanding…”
Cervantes
@Patrick:
Yes, in Tyler.
If you don’t see how it could have happened, you’ve probably never been to Tyler.
Pogonip
@Lurking Canadian: Historically, if the feuding sides can’t or won’t reach a deal, such messes are resolved by their going their separate ways, with or without war involved. I’ve been saying for years that a divorce between The People’s Republic of Blue and Redistan is inevitable. Probably the only reason it hasn’t happened already is no one is sure what to do about places like Columbus, Ohio, and Austin, Texas, blue islands in a red sea.
KG
@boatboy_srq: I pondered the question a lot in law school, mainly because I was fascinated by weird questions of constitutional law. from my research, I am pretty sure the answer is “no”. Rehenquist said “the constitution is not a death pact” but there really isn’t an obvious out. The only possible escape hatch that I’ve been able come up with would be a constitutional convention drafting a new constitution and while a significant number of states ratified, other states choosing not to ratify and then potentially being able to claim independence.
scav
Well, apparently in Tex-ass the Law is jist what you damn well feel like doing whatever anyway, you he-ah? Jist like that holy binding Word of God so ausidiously and privately instilled by the Dallas Jesuit High School don’t mean you can’t stand up in a bus and belt-out tunefully whatever unkindness lies deep in your heart of hearts to your sworn bothers and life-time networking contacts. Don’t fence ’em in: laws and precedents, and binding agreements and codes of conduct don’t apply no more, that the Conservative “mercan way, ain’t it?
Face
I believe this is the exact same tactic that Alabama will use. And probably several other southern states. Am I’m sure such wanton violation of the Constitution will somehow be permissable to strict constructionalists Scalia and Thomas due to reasons. Hopefully sanity takes over, but who knows.
Cluttered Mind
I’d say this is an appropriate time for Sherman
PurpleGirl
@Amir Khalid: Yes, they have an Attorney General. No, he is just as likely to subscribe to nullification and to write the justification for it. Nullification is a sort-pf Holy Grail for attorneys in the US.
mai naem mobile
Arizonas done the same thing. I know it passed the state house, not sure if its passed the state senate. The krazy klowns of kookistan thats what they need to call these teabagger state legislatures.
KG
@Lurking Canadian: well, Eisenhower sent the National Guard to desegregate the Crimson Tide…
I think with few exceptions, really, enough Americans still think of themselves as Americans (or ‘Merkins!) that dissolution won’t actually happen. New York, Texas, and California are about the only places that I know of that people will readily identify based on state (Hawaii and Alaska probably has some too, but location, location, location probably has something to do with that) – and NY, TX, and CA are big, so there’s that.
boatboy_srq
@KG: There seems to be enough support – one way or the other – for an “exit amendment”: between the Teahad which wants their own Ahmurrca, and the rest of us who won’t miss them, support for such a construct probably has a lot more potential than even we suspect.
gene108
@Lurking Canadian:
Nullification attempts have happened in the past. They usually end with Federal troops going into states to enforce Federal law.
The most recent example was over integration in the 1950’s, where the Federal government called up the state’s National Guard units to enforce Federal law.
There are other examples earlier in the country’s history.
Amir Khalid
@Pogonip:
There were fundamental disagreements with KL on a lot of things. Wikipedia has a decent enough summary. Singapore and Malaysia have a common culture and history and many close ties (my own mother was Singaporean), which was why Singapore joined Malaysia in 1963; but being family doesn’t necessarily mean you can live in the same house.
Frankensteinbeck
Funny how it only comes to this when black people are prominently involved. But hey, surely it’s only a coincidence that there’s a black president.
@KG:
They’ll declare themselves America, and us usurpers they’ve kicked out.
@boatboy_srq:
The major hardship will come because these states desperately need federal funds.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Amir Khalid:
California is also a republic, but we don’t let it go to our heads like the Texans do.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_flag
Luthe
@boatboy_srq: Well, there’s a sharp difference between “no money” and “the small pittance the idiots-in-charge are compelled to pass along.” One results in actual starvation instead of near starvation. Similarly, the “lucky” few who get Medicaid despite the best efforts of their elected idiots would be seriously SOL if the funds for that went away.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Amir Khalid:
I realize this will display my geographical ignorance, but is it relatively easy for you to get to Singapore from where you are? I ask because my department at the Giant Evil Corporation may be bringing a museum exhibit to Singapore in a few years (probably 2017 or 2018 — these things take a long time to get scheduled). Though I probably will not be with my current department anymore by the time that happens, so it’s mostly idle curiosity.
southend
I’ll make a deal with these Supremacy Clause-ignoring assholes: You can introduce, advocate for, etc. any legislation you want; but in return you are required to shut the ever-lovin’ fuck up about the Constitution and how much you and Jeebus revere it, and how the evil Kenyan Muslim is shitting all over it.
Snarki, child of Loki
@boatboy_srq: “I still want to know whether evicting a state from the Union is possible.”
Evict? No.
The word you are looking for is EJECT, usually combined with FORCEFULLY.
To which I would add: “at escape velocity”.
Germy Shoemangler
Parker Rice is sorry:
Headline: “Frat boy from racist video says he’s sorry” http://www.salon.com/2015/03/11/frat_boy_from_racist_video_says_hes_sorry/
burnspbesq
This seems apropos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7HrnTMdT2Q
OzarkHillbilly
Texas would be a really nice place to visit if it wasn’t so Dogdamned full of Texans.
Redshift
OT: Hah! In Prince William County (DC exurbs), Republicans on the county board may have to run in caucuses instead of primaries because the county GOP failed to notify the state they wanted a primary by the deadline. This would leave the incumbents vulnerable to nutjob challengers who can pack a caucus with supporters but would never go anywhere in a primary. (In addition to turfing out incumbents, said nutjobs would presumably be less likely to win in the general.)
There are consequences to turning against competence and ability in favor of ideological purity.
Villago Delenda Est
@Germy Shoemangler: He’s sorry he got caught.
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: I once asked a globe trotting relative which of the many places he lived he’d liked the best. Singapore won, but then he got on an Obama rant and wouldn’t elaborate. In footage I’ve seen of Singapore it looks way too congested for me.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Trivially easy.
Amir Khalid
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Very easy. There’s loads of travel options between Malaysia and Singapore. You can drive from S’pore into Johor Baru, and once you reach Peninsular Malaysia’s as-good-as-the-autobahn highway system you can go all the way to the Thai border. Or you can fly, or take a train or bus. Dress for summer in Florida. I’ve been told the weather here is rather like that in Miami.
MattF
It’s clear that Texas has its own very special way of doing ‘self-government.’ But who am I to argue– let ’em go.
gene108
@Bobby Thomson:
Waco and Ruby Ridge begat the OKC bombing, by McVeigh and company. There are some very angry white guys in this country, who are willing to blow up 100+ of their fellow countryman because they are racist fascist shit heels over a perceived attack on “their way of life”.
There’s a real potential downside trade off to going after Bundy hammer and tongs unfortunately.
gene108
@Pogonip:
Singapore is an amazing place. Very well organized and managed. It is not really that congested, as the government strictly regulates the number of cars on the road and mass transit is very convenient.
Calouste
When I read this kind of thing I always wonder how much we would have to pay Mexico to take Texas back.
Germy Shoemangler
@Villago Delenda Est: Larry Wilmore: “You won’t be seeing any more racist frat boys — until they’re your congressman”
Wilmore then offered a “quick note to people capturing racism on [their] phones,” asking them to “please stop shooting vertical videos? Have you never heard of aspect ratio or wide-screen? I want to experience my hate in 16:9, not 2:5.”
Cervantes
@gene108:
Some Israeli legislators have come up with a new tactic. Their Supreme Court, practically an occupying power in their eyes, keeps throwing out their execrable statutes. In response, they have now proposed a new statute: one that would allow them to simply re-instate things the Court has declared unconstitutional.
Tractarian
It occurred to me recently that all this right-wing misbehavior is really giving Obama (and Democrats in general) an opportunity. That is, an opportunity for epic smack-downs, to wit:
– Order the DOJ to charge the 47 signatories to the Iran letter with Logan Act violations
– Declare the Israeli ambassador persona non grata
– Bring the full force of federal law enforcement to bear on Bundy (i.e., Waco his a$$)
– Send federal troops into the old Confederacy to enforce marriage equality
All of these actions would be, to put it mildly, unprecedented. The media would go insane. But they are all reactions to clear misbehavior, and they are all (arguably) within the law.
I think these actions, despite their extreme nature, would be broadly popular with voters. And they might (just maybe) give right-wingers pause the next time they feel like doing something stupid.
This is all based on the theory that, since time immemorial, what many people dislike about Democrats is their unwillingness to stand up for their beliefs, their wishy-washiness, their inability to impose their will (or even decide what their will is). And the theory that, by and large, the Democrats’ policy agenda – marriage equality, higher taxes on the insanely wealthy, a modest foreign policy – is popular.
Mike J
@Liberty60:
To be fair we have yahoos in Washington who claim they can open a pot shop anywhere they want, county and zoning laws be damned. They ignore federal law, they ignore county law, and hide behind the state law (which doesn’t allow them to ignore local ordinances.)
Belafon
@Villago Delenda Est: Maybe, but now would be the time for a teaching moment: Give him some opportuntities to learn about why what he was doing was wrong. He’s still young eough to be making stupid mistakes. Just kicking him out won’t give him any chance to learn. Give him the opportunity to earn the ability to get back into school by taking sensitivity training and, as some have suggested, community work in areas where he comes in contact with minorities. Otherwise, his step will either be going to a school where he can continue to be racist, or suing to get back in, and learning that he can continue to be that way.
Tractarian
@gene108:
Are you suggesting that the federal government refrain from enforcing the law because of the threat of domestic terrorism by backward, racist neanderthals?
ThresherK
@gene108: The actual government forces? Yeah, maybe that’s not a good idea. However, I’d like just one Beltway Inbred to roll their fucking eyes about how we, the Grownups, the Democrats, have to mollycoddle these RWNJs.
Have you ever been at a holiday dinner (SecularEaster, for the chocolate-bunny-worshipping likes of me) when you and your sister have exchanged glances over whatever Crazy Uncle Liberty* was spouting off about The Meskins?
(ETA:) Some of that from someone on the Network Nooze would be a start to signal that in polite society nutjobs are not automatically bequeathed the support of 47% without having to argue for it. Not to talk about the Civil Rights Movement, cos I’m freckled, and too young to have been there, but it didn’t start at Selma. There was a lot of preparing the ground.
Cervantes
@gene108:
And a terrible one. The government used to practically arrange marriages in order to pursue socially (if not personally) optimal outcomes. Maybe it still does. At one point in the ’80s, a law was passed banning the sale of chewing-gum. I don’t know if it — the law, not the gum — is still on the books.
Not a place you’d enjoy if civil rights, political openness, and personal freedoms are important to you.
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
In Singapore, before you buy a car you have to buy the permit to own a car, the Certificate of Entitlement they call it, and that usually costs way more than the car itself even after the shit-ton you pay in import duty. You can’t drive into JB with your tank less than 3/4 full; they don’t want you buying cheap Malaysian petrol. You want to get into the city centre? That’s the Restricted Zone, and you have to pay extra for the right to drive there. Singapore is not a city for car-lovers unless they’re filthy rich.
Mike J
@Cluttered Mind:
Its always time for Sherman.
WereBear
Texas is faaaaaaamily; a whiny teenager who yells and won’t clean up their room, but will dutifully turn up to get their allowance and the keys to the car.
The Federal Government has the classic Sane Person Problem; there are limits to what we will do. The dysfunctional body has none.
Pogonip
@gene108: I was thinking of the sidewalks. Reminded me of that Star Trek episode where Kirk is on an overcrowded planet and whenever he looks out the window he sees wall-to-wall people bumping into each other. Or the Blueberry Festival in LaPorte, Indiana, where you will see the same thing.
The Blueberry Festival was the only event I’ve ever been to where it was so crowded I felt endangered. Had a panic occurred trampling casualties would have been well into the four figures. We’d only been there about 20 minutes when my internal alarm went off and we left.
(No, it’s not a “biological clock!”. Hee.)
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108:
There’s a bigger downside to not going after them. Way bigger.
ThresherK
@Pogonip: By “panic”, you mean “someone served muffins with those fake blueberries in them”?
Cause I’d riot over that at a blueberry festival.
Tractarian
Far be it from me to enforce political correctness, but isn’t it a bit… illiberal to cast aspersions on an entire State’s worth of people just because a majority of them happen to be idiots?
Texas may be a deep-red state, but remember that about 4 out of every 10 of its residents are FSM-fearing, environmentally-friendly, socially progressive Obama voters – i.e., the kind of person Balloon-Juicers would (presumably) not be eager to deport.
For comparison, 4 out of every 10 Vermonters is a backward, right-wing lunatic. We’re not really all that different, you know.
And Molly White is clearly a dipsh!t, but all State Legislatures have their fair share of dipsh!ts, amirite?
dexwood
@Calouste:
Please, no. Mexico would probably insist New Mexico be tossed in to sweeten the deal. The old saying – Poor New Mexico, so far from heaven, so close to Texas.
Pogonip
P.S. if you’re thinking ” Where have I heard of LaPorte…” you have probably heard of the LaPorte Weather Anomaly. LaPorte has notoriously bad weather, because of its position vis-a-vis Lake Michigan, wind patterns, jet stream and such.
Mike J
US 1 0 France at 8 minutes
Mike E
@Germy Shoemangler: A real apology from the young man…impressive. [my paraphrasing] “I did it, I drank, that’s no excuse, tho; I was taught the chant, but I was also taught to know better; I want to be a better person than that.”
Racists suck, but I will watch this dude’s career choices with interest to see if he will redeem himself and do better…the Salon writer sez no chance, but that’s an easy bet for her to make.
Pogonip
@ThresherK: Yes, the Blueberry Uprising of 1842, when the stalwart people of LaPorte arose as one against the scourge of fake blueberries.
MattF
@Tractarian: I suppose there’s even a few Texans who just don’t care.
gene108
@Pogonip:
Compared to India, Singapore is not at all crowded or congested.
@Amir Khalid:
Had a one day lay over there, when I was traveling to India 12 years ago. You can get an exit visa and leave the airport and wander around the city.
I was told by locals that there’s a pretty strict permit process for getting a car, i.e. the government restricts the number of cars on the road. I think they also restrict the types of cars you can get and push you or mandate you to get smaller cars.
A Toyota Corolla would be one of the bigger cars on the road.
Betty Cracker
@Liberty60: The state government in Florida preempted such a move by banning local gun restrictions back in the 80s. The current wingnut state legislature gave that law teeth a few years back by passing a new law to fine and threaten with removal from office any county or municipal official who tries to enforce local gun ordinances. I wouldn’t be surprised if Texas has similar laws on the books. The laws are written by NRA lobbyists, after all.
jimmiraybob
…it’s hard to believe even he would sign it.
I wouldn’t find it hard to believe. This is just a minor skirmish in a war of attrition fought to confound and eventually eliminate the national government. It’s not about winning and losing the skirmishes. It is to keep the fog of battle in the air while chip, chip, chipping away at the objective. Say this about the neo-confederacy, they’re smart enough in the modern incarnation so as not to actually attack a federal fort. Well, not yet anyway.
OzarkHillbilly
@Tractarian: I was born in Texas of a daughter of Texas. I know Texans, too damned many of them. I slander Texans left and right. You know why? ‘Cause it pisses them off. Why? ‘Cause Texas is the “Greatest (shithole) State in the (Confederacy) Union”. Just ask them, any of them, they’ll all say the same thing. My mother always did.
Also, ain’t a single damn one of them can take a joke about Texas. The soil down there just sucks the humor right out of them. Including my dear old Mother.
WereBear
Zandar, I love you.
Patricia Kayden
I’m dying for the Supreme Court to approve gay marriages throughout these United States. The South will learn that they are not above the law — not on Blacks and not on gays. Cannot wait to see the showdown between these recalcitrant bigots and the Supreme Court. We already know which side will lose (again).
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Calouste: Whatever it is, it would be worth it, and with any luck they’d take Arizona also too.
Belafon
@jimmiraybob: Hail Hydra!
raven
@Mike J: And the ACC tourney is on!
Pogonip
@gene108: “Compared to India…not crowded…”
And compared to a brown recluse bite, a black widow bite isn’t bad at all.
If I remember right, visa-not-feather Indians are only crowded in cities. Out in the sticks, people are few and far between.
Cacti
@boatboy_srq:
The joint Congressional resolution to admit Texas to the union allowed it to divide into 5 smaller states if it wished to. Maybe the saner parts of the lone star state can see about exercising that prerogative.
Pogonip
@Mike J: Didn’t Cole once have a front pager who covered nothing but football? What happened to that guy?
Betty Cracker
@Patricia Kayden: I am also looking forward to that. Who will be the new George Wallace, blocking the courthouse door this time instead of the schoolhouse door? The federal marshals will once again have to be dispatched to enforce the law.
Cacti
@Betty Cracker:
I think Roy Moore has already decided it will be him.
shortstop
They just running they mouths as usual. When the Supreme Court smacks down state SSM bans, there’ll be much bitchin’ and cryin’ and threatenin’ in Texas and similar backwaters. Then they’ll settle down, life will go on and energetic legislative resistance to “gayism” (as a Texan I know charmingly puts it) will be limited to fringe-right fundraising efforts led by twice-divorced heteros.
gene108
@Tractarian:
Yes.
The political will to have law enforcement go after these white-supremacist terrorist groups is not there and/or these groups are better at keeping their illegal intents on the down-low and not raising a red-flag to law enforcement.
I just do not read much about them anymore, unlike in the 1980’s or 1990’s, with the militia movement.
Turning Bundy into a martyr will just energize a very violent group of people and I don’t think it is worth having other people die, as collateral damage, because of
these evil creaturesa tax cheat.@ThresherK:
It ain’t gonna happen.
There’s a big overlap between mainstream right-wing nut jobs and white supremacists, either explicitly – like that GOP Congressman going to their rallies or Ron Paul’s news letter – or implicitly, like the gun-nuts, including mainstream groups such as the NRA and GAO, turning the Rand Weaver and his family into martyrs for the cause, even though Randy was busted for selling sawed off shot-guns to militant white supremacists.
I don’t think the media is comfortable acknowledging the rot that exists amongst movement conservatives, because they see the right-wing fundies as just another group that supports “saving” Social Security by having more taxcuts and privatizing the program, so Wall Street can take care of the money for us.
They don’t want to accept, in order to do the “fiscally responsible” thing, they have to lie down with the descendants of the KKK and the White Citizens Councils.
raven
@Pogonip: Randinho. He’s only around for games that matter.
Pogonip
@cmorenc: I imagine the Feds fear they’d trigger widespread civil unrest, which they could not handle–remember, the national government here can no longer fulfill its most basic functions such as funding its operations. I myself think widespread civil unrest over Bundy and his fellow freeloaders would be unlikely, but Federal law enforcement may hold a different view. They may also fear retaliation from tea bagging congressmen: “Sure, you can go after Clive and his friends, but if you do ATF will never have another dime appropriated to it as long as I’m on the appropriations committee.”
scav
@Mike E: Closer than many in admitting wrong, but they still seem to playing many of the standard ploys: reminding everyone that he went to a (gratuitously named) Jesuit (Christian! Good!) private high school, because all that strikes me as is a signalling ploy that he’s “one of the right back-ground and sort” so ”don’t let’s ruin his future”. Still smells of the ink.
Roger Moore
@Pogonip:
Singapore is actually pretty nice. The city core is extremely dense, but there are some lower density areas outside the core. There are even natural areas that are kept as parks and undeveloped watershed, including one small area of primary tropical rain forest.
The biggest problem with Singapore is that it’s effectively a corporate state. The government uses their equivalent of Social Security and some sovereign wealth funds to invest in companies that want to locate in Singapore, but the corporate profits don’t circulate back down to the population at large. The citizens are effectively forced to become corporate investors without seeing the benefits of that investment. And it’s effectively a single-party state. It’s nominally a democracy, but the ruling party has always managed, by means fair and foul, to prevent the opposition from getting even close to winning. The corporate masters there are a bit nicer than the ones here, but they’re actually in complete control there rather than constantly fighting for it here.
Tractarian
@OzarkHillbilly:
OK, you insult Texas just to piss off Texans. Fair enough. Most of them are deserving of it. But keep it mind that being insulted by an Arkansas liberal is not exactly devastating to a Texas right-winger’s worldview.
Seems to me you’re doing more to piss off non-right-wing Texans than anything else. Which, granted, appears to be your intent.
Sounds like your mother is not one of the 4-in-10 Texans I was talking about. So, feel free to slander her all you want.
But if you think all Texans display this militant superiority complex – if you think it’s fair to lump them all in with Molly White and Louie Gohmert – well, you simply haven’t spent much time here.
gene108
@Pogonip:
You have 1.2 billion people in 1/3rd* less space than the USA. You aren’t going to have places like New Mexico, where you can go 50 miles down the highway and see no towns or villages.
There are always people around.
* India is the 7th largest country by geographic size. It is not a small country, it’s just that the top 4 (Russia, Canada, the USA and China) countries are just so much bigger than everyone else.
Belafon
@Tractarian: As an also Texan, those of us joining OzarkHillbilly in insulting the state know who he/she’s talking about.
Gin & Tonic
@gene108: Singapore is an amazing place.
William Gibson called it “Disneyland With The Death Penalty” in one of the first issues of Wired. A good article. Singapore being Singapore, they of course banned the magazine.
Belafon
@gene108: One of my favorite stats about the US: We’re the third largest country in population and the third largest country in land area. One of the reasons we’ve done so well.
boatboy_srq
@Tractarian: What, then, would you suggest? We have a state whose leadership has for four election cycles in a row (and many more before that) talked almost nothing but nullification and secession in response to nearly everything coming from Washington. VT may have its share of wingnuts, but it doesn’t have a sufficient plurality to elect the kind of b#tsh!t-crazy that Texas does on a recurring basis. Shrub, Perry, Gohmert, Cruz, Abbott and others may not represent (or have represented) the majority of Texans, but they represent a sufficient portion to enable them to attain and retain public office, and use those public positions to advocate for very dis-Unionist positions. Vermont hasn’t had a meaningful secession discussion since it joined the Union: Texas seemingly has a new one every month or so. Barring federal intervention to impose sense and decency (something few of us would actually approve of even if could be made legal) and encouraging the Texan Left to become more engaged (which we’ve been doing for some time now with very little to show for it) there’s not much left.
Tommy
@Patricia Kayden: Same here. Almost all week Democracy Now has been in Selma. My knowledge of what really happened there was not as good as it should have been. Hearing numerous people saying they didn’t want to die on that bridge, but they would have, was so moving. Sad but moving.
It is just a matter of time before same sex marriage is the law of the land. I hope it happens sooner rather than later, but it will happen. My pretty blue state’s legislature passed it last year and the sky didn’t fall. Pigs were not flying.
A lot of people were not so happy as we debated it. How nobody talks about it anymore. That is why I know it will be the law of the land in the future.
boatboy_srq
@Cacti: Interesting proposition – except that it has the potential to seat eight more wingnut Senators (assuming that the progressive parts are gerrymandered into the same state by the TX GOTea, which given GOP state practices going back to DeLay is highly likely). I’m not sure that will represent an improvement.
burnspbesq
OT:
Well, maybe West Virginia isn’t a complete shithole, after all.
http://www.samefacts.com/2015/03/drug-policy/another-step-forward-for-expanding-access-to-an-overdose-rescue-drug/
Calouste
@gene108: You forgot Brazil and Australia, which are about 90 and 80% of the US respectively. Only then is there a big gap to the next country, India, which is less than 40% of the size of Australia.
gene108
@raven:
It’s not the ACC tourney, it’s the Big East Tourney South.
Marmot
@boatboy_srq: One wingnut submits a silly bill — it hasn’t passed! — and you geniuses are all “kick Texas out!” But you’re all too happy to let West Virginia stay, no matter what idiot law passes.
Cut it out. Plenty of good liberals live here, and we could use your help, you jerks.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I just hope they’re as illiberal as most cops are when dealing with people resisting arrest.
Roger Moore
@Belafon:
Maybe so, but the big difference is the step down from #2 to #3 in population. It’s one of the dangers of using rank rather than absolute numbers.
gene108
@Belafon:
I’ve met people from India, who are shocked to find out the U.S. is number 3 in population.
Compared to India, the population density here is much less, but compared to other countries the U.S. has a lot of people; more than double the population of Russia, and something like 10x the population of Canada or Australia.
It’s a weird sort of balance in the U.S. between not being overcrowded and sparsely populated.
Interesting graphic, There are more people living inside this circle, than outside it.
Cervantes
@Marmot:
Plus West Virginia never gave us Molly Ivins.
Betty Cracker
@gene108:
There is a huge downside to letting that fucker continue to thumb his nose at the government too. What’s going to happen when every other yahoo with a gun collection, a gated driveway and Fox News on speed dial decides he doesn’t have to pay his taxes anymore?
The concept of “government” — and the implicit threat of force that compels compliance with its requirements in exchange for a share of the common good — rests on broad confidence in its stability and enforcement powers. Bundy is a moocher who isn’t worth so much as a stubbed toe, but there’s a lot more at stake here than serving up justice to Bundy.
Marmot
@boatboy_srq:
Bull. I heard the same logic deployed when Yugoslavs occupied bridges to dissuade NATO bombing. “They voted for their leaders, so they deserve to get killed in a bombing raid!”
So dumb.
As for GW Bush, I recall the whole country voting for that fool, but you’d rather pin it on Texas. So dumb.
How ’bout you help us get out the vote? There are a shitload of sympathetic ears, but voting isn’t a staple in the culture yet.
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
Wow. I’m one of the people in the circle.
Marmot
@Cervantes: Or Barbara Jordan!
Tommy
@Amir Khalid: I saw that graphic awhile back and it was hard to wrap my mind around. Once I did about my first thought was how do they feed everybody?
Amir Khalid
@Tommy:
With food.
Marmot
OT: Speaking of Barbara Jordan, there’s a movement afoot to have her replace genocide Jackson on the $20. Cool.
Tommy
@Amir Khalid: Well clearly, but just doesn’t seem like enough land. I live in Southern Illinois and my gosh it takes a fair amount of land to grow everything we grow.
shortstop
@Tractarian:
Except in the people you send to the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, your respective gubernatorial mansions…and the policies and laws those folks enact. Yeah, hardly different at all, except for exponentially.
Sherparick
@Parfigliano: Sadly, yes. This is also what comes from watching Faux News, listening to Rush Blowhard and Mark Liar on talk radio for 25 years, and hearing your preacher on Sunday talking about how all this Gay and Black Presidents and Sharia are signs of the “End Times.” And given Abbott’s base and how the majority of people who vote in Texas vote, what is Abbott’s downside for passing such a law and signing it? In the 1950s,60s, and & 70s, the Texas elite was divided between LBJ’s New Deal cronyism and the hard right politics of the oil barons. In 1972 the progressive Democrats basically took over the state convention and the delegation was pro-McGovern. But the Tory Democrats were not amuse and they started drifting to the Republican Party. The whole “New Right” movement, which politicized the Evangelical and Baptist churches, brought most of those white voters into the Republican camp by 1994, the swing year in Texas political history. By the way, Texas is the model for a possible future of Republican supremacy. Less than 25% of the voting age population (VAP) votes in Texas, http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/70-92.shtml Voting Age. The current Texas oligarchy do not want those people voting so they do two things. First, they make as hard to vote as possible if are a worker or poor. Second, they try to make Government as awful possible delivering a combination of poor services and authoritarianism so people become as apathetic and disengaged as possible “Why should I take the time and trouble to vote when nothing is going to change?” But of course, things do change, for the worse, but they lack a social network to support and inform them that it is the lack of voting and civic participation that is making things worse in Texas where fees and taxes are shifted to the poor and workers.
jl
Yosemite Sam is Texan? What? Get the F out, man. That’s just wrong. No way.
Amir Khalid
@Tommy:
Well, some of the food is imported. Also note that 1) two of the countries in that circle are China and India, among the largest by land area as noted upthread; and 2) that projection exaggerates the area of countries farther away from the equator, which makes China and India look smaller than they are.
scav
@Tommy: Maybe we should explain to Amir that Illinoisians live on nothing except soy beans, corn, and the occasional hog or cow. Tomatoes, but only in season. Those floaty or wheely things with containers on em, well, we’ve done heard of such stuff, but mostly allied to that area 51 nonsense.
Roger Moore
@Tommy:
Rice and soy. They’re eating a whole hell of a lot less animal protein than people outside that circle.
Steve in the ATL
@gene108:
Whoa (in a Keanu-like way)
Cervantes
@Tommy:
Japan, China, and India are net food importers.
Indonesia, also in the circle, is a net exporter, but not nearly by enough to make up for the abovementioned three.
Hungry Joe
Although I’m comfortable with my “Hungry Joe” persona, I’m wondering if readers wouldn’t take more notice — i.e., tend to nod sagely at my wisdom-steeped comments — if I were “Spittoon Ding.”
Red Snapper
Hi, I’m a Canadian who’s been lurking since 2006. Yes, seriously. This is my first ever comment. What happened to Spinwheel?
Tommy
@Roger Moore: That is what I assumed. Can’t you grow several crops of rice in the same calendar year? I always ate pretty healthy but years ago went away from a lot of foods to rice with almost every meal and a lot more fish. I always felt if a few billion people in that part of the world could live off of it I could as well. I now love when people have dinner at my place and they find out rice isn’t always white and they don’t naturally come in plastic bags :).
shortstop
@Hungry Joe: I don’t know that it adds a patina of knowledge, but it sure is fun to say.
Tommy
@Cervantes: I did not know that. Very interesting. I guess that is why where I live most farmers used to do a crop rotation of feed corn, winter wheat, and soy beans. Now it is all feed corn. It is rare I ever see anything else growing.
boatboy_srq
@Marmot: Bull yourself. Shrub was TX governor for five years before his pResidential run, which means he was elected to that office twice. I don’t recall the other 49 states having a say in that contest. And he beat Ann Richards, who was popular, effective and a brilliant campaigner and organizer, so don’t give us the “we can beat’em if we only get better people to motivate more voters” crap, because that’s already been done once in the last 25 years and it didn’t last. If in three decades you can’t get more than a single term for a statewide office, maybe it’s time to admit that you’re in the wrong place.
Roger Moore
@Tommy:
Yes, you can, especially if you’re in a tropical area and you follow the Asian practice of starting the rice outside of the main paddy and transplanting it.
And you should try more of the interesting soy dishes they have in Asia. I was astounded at just how good the fresh tempeh was when I visited Singapore. It’s probably hard to find fresh outside of a few specialty markets here in the US, but even frozen tempeh is really good.
Cervantes
@Spittoon Ding:
You try that, and I’ll become “Chamber-Pot Charlie,” and we can see how it goes.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Hungry Joe: I’m with shortstop in that it’s a terrifically amusing nym to say.
Tommy
@Roger Moore: Tofo is what I have been playing with for the last year or so. Thai food has always been one of my favorite foods, but just assumed it was hard to cook. Years ago picked up a Thai cookbook and felt kind of dumb, because it was much easier to do well than I would have thought. Just some basic knife skills and fresh ingredients and you are good to go.
I often would just use veggies only, but picked up some Tofo for my Miso soup and tried it in some Thai food. I was kind of stunned how it just took on the taste of the overall dish.
I am nothing close to a vegan, but I do understand eating animals does tax the planet. That I can get the protein in Tofo without eating an animal for every meal is a welcome change.
fuckwit
@Tractarian: That’s really it. The stereotypes are fun for humor and snark, but the reality is, everyone is all intermeshed with everyone everywhere. People do sort themselves geographically by ideology/religion/ethnicity, but it’s a very imperfect process and can’t be rushed; just ask anyone who’s suffered through the horror of war.
Texas ain’t going anywhere. What’s more helpful is trying to find ways to empower that 40% Democratic constitutency in Texas. Or, better yet, growing it to 60%, which perhaps generational demographics and immigration might do.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Tommy: Big Ag, along with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Assn, is why the farmers in your area farm a monoculture. Never mind that it’s unhealthy for the land and the water (run off from required excessive soil supplementation/fertilization that isn’t required for naturally enhanced – with crop rotation and cover crops – soil). Gotta grow corn from patented seed to feed the beeves that feed the people. And never mind that corn feed feed lot beef is much less healthy than grass fed, because cows naturally eat grass not grain. But they grow more slowly on that diet, and Monsanto sells less patented seed corn, so there.
Betty Cracker
@boatboy_srq: Are you a fellow Floridian?
Marmot
@boatboy_srq: That’s just ignorant. And you’re sidestepping the fact that our whole nation voted GW Bush into office, even after it was clear what a fuckup Iraq was. Should the whole country secede? Or is that election somehow Texas’s fault?
As mentioned upthread, we have a 25% voter participation rate. After zero GOTV and abandonment by national Dems, we’re trying to right the ship. No help from you.
Should the huge Latino population along the border also pull up stakes, or is it just an acceptable loss to you, if Texas would only secede?
Tommy
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Oh I know that so well. The huge field in front of my house is a Monsanto test plot. There is no other way to put it then the corn that grows there isn’t “natural.” I am willing to bet if I could show many Americans this corn they’d start to question WTF is going on.
I am nothing close to a conspiracy theory guy, but when I look at this corn and know it is feed to the animals we eat I wonder if we have any idea how that is going to workout long term. I wonder about it so much I’d say in the last few years I’ve moved to eating a lot less meat and now get about 75% from local, free-range farmers.
Keith G
Yawn, I am a queer Texan, and let me just repeat, yawn.
The extreme amount of gerrymandering done for Texas resentative districts have created conditions where the far right can sit in completely safe seats and spout off with the craziest crap they dare to dream.
White is on the losing end of this argument and she knows it. Nothing can change the way our society is turning towards an acknowledgement, if not embrace, of basic rights for gay people. White and her buddies are left with not much else to do but to run off at the mouth with extremist BS
I am not sure that her/their actions merit any coverage.
cmorenc
@Pogonip:
The tactics of Bundy and potentially his tea party congressional supporters amount to hostage-taking for ransom, capitulation to which only leads to increasing and escalating use of further hostage-taking. The only valid reason for seeming short-term forbearance is to gain enough time to maneuver into position to quickly and decisively overrun the terrorists before they can harm the hostages.
How do all the law-abiding livestock owners with federal grazing leases feel about Bundy’s defiant freeloading? Last I heard, there was far more resentment against Bundy than support.
Roger Moore
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I think you’re missing the #1 reason for grain-fed cattle: density. The yield from an acre of grain is a lot higher than from an acre of grass, even without the latest in high-tech seeds, so you can raise more animals per area by growing grain. Not to mention that confining the animals and bringing the food to them saves labor relative to rounding them up and moving them from pasture to pasture. To put it another way, feed lots were a cause, not a result, of big agriculture.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@scav:
Actually, mentioning the high school sounds to me more like the headmaster of the school has already called him to have a little chat about Jesuit Values and the many ways that Rice has failed to demonstrate them. I don’t know if you went to a Jesuit school, but they do not fuck around, particularly when a student has publicly embarrassed them.
Since I remember being a stupid and sheltered 19-year-old myself, I’m willing to let him do some community service and reflect on what he’s done before I declare him a hopeless case. It’s still a young enough age that he can step back from the brink and change course.
Davis X. Machina
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Augustine teaches us that a sinner, if thrown from his horse, can nevertheless repent fully even between the stirrup and the ground.
It’s never too late to mend.
Tommy
@cmorenc:
I can not believe they are happy. We don’t have Federal land where I live for grazing. But many small farmers/ranchers. I talk to a lot more farmers than people with livestock, cause I find the topic interesting. I like food. But I can’t believe it is remotely “cheap” for them to maintain the land they need to graze their animals.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Roger Moore: I was inarticulate. I understand that feedlots started it, but now it’s kind of a symbiotic partnership. I’ll skip the rant about how the US love affair with beef begat the density issue because the luxury of eating beef was once a marker of wealth…
Keith G
@boatboy_srq:
Ann was a great human being, a marvelous public speaker, and a pretty good retail local politician. She gave a tremendously important speech and that paved way to the governorship against opposition that blew themselves up a la John McCain in 2008.
I had only met her once, but knew some of her staff fairly well. I was among many liberal Texans who were worried that she was spending way too much time on the national speaking circuit and not attending to marketing her achievements at home. That perception caused her to have a very bad reelection campaign. She had moved away from the image that one had won her the election in the first place.
PurpleGirl
@Amir Khalid: A friend of mine who had mid-back length hair and full beard (think ZZ Top) was going to be spending a few days in Singapore on his way to China. Based on what he’d read about S’pore, he trimmed his hair by a few inches and shaped and trimmed the beard. He looked weird.
Germy Shoemangler
From RawStory:
An explosion has killed three people and injured one at an oil and gas field in West Texas, a spokesman for well owner Parsley Energy Inc. said on Wednesday.
“Our thoughts are with the families,” Lisa Elliott of Parsley said of the accident on Tuesday in Upton County, Texas.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it was investigating the rig explosion about 50 miles south of Midland that involved contractors at Mason Well Service firm.
Upton County’s Office of Emergency Management, via social media, called the news sad and said few details were available.
Parsley is one of many small companies working in the Permian Basin of Texas, one of the top U.S. shale oil fields.
Tommy
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I will never understand Americans love affair with beef. Sure I like a nice steak but I’d rather pork, fish, or chicken. Oh and hamburger. I was raised on the stuff you get at the big box grocery store. So much freaking grease because of all the filler. I know buy from a local butcher and there is almost none of that.
PurpleGirl
@Pogonip: You mean Randinho, who wrote about Soccer.
Violet
@Tommy: Are you saying you don’t understand America’s love of beef but you love hamburger? You do realize that hamburger is ground beef, right? In fact ground beef plays a bit part in the beef consumption rate in the United States. By some estimates 60% of beef consumption in the US is ground beef.
Tommy
@Violet: I didn’t say I love hamburger. I said I eat it from time to time and dislike all the filler and grease you get in the big box grocery stores.
scav
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I’m not writing him off, I’m just pointing out issues I see with his letter. Personally, I’m not entirely convinced he’s got it all down and purged from his soul and behaviors yet. He’s certainly had time to figure out what’s probably not acceptible behavior in public, especially when that public gets outside your bubble. For the rest, we’ll see: he may just learn the traditional circumspection. And, while I’d like to think well of Jesuit education (they seem to have some grand historians and my Jesuit-raised boss was ok), the bringing up the Jesuits only because he was called out personally in a phone call seems a bit of a hopeful leap. Had the school actually been named as being involved in his moral upbringing before his mea culpa? Why didn’t he name-check any other people or groups who possibly also called to give him a talking to? Why name the Jesuits.
Violet
@Tommy: My apologies for misreading what you wrote. Thank you for clarifying. Agreed, the filler in meats at the big box stores is appalling.
I think I heard that McDonald’s is going to stop selling chicken that were grown antibiotics, so there’s some progress.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@PurpleGirl: Randinho, who wrote about football. : )
WaterGirl
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I would much rather watch this fight than the Hillary one. :-)
Ticktock
@Marmot: Sorry, but Texas is not worth the investment for Democrats. For decades, TX has been incredibly hostile toward Democrats on the Presidential, Senatorial and Gubernatorial levels.
TX hasn’t voted for a Democratic president since Carter in ’76. TX hasn’t voted for a Democratic senator since Bentsen’s last re-elect in ’88. TX hasn’t voted for a Democratic governor since ’90. Hell, TX hasn’t voted for a Democratic Lt. Gov or AG since ’94, literally a generation ago.
Every dollar Dems spend in Texas is a dollar they can’t spend on a more promising state. People talk about how Texas is going to turn purple any day now but there is basically no evidence that’s the case–certainly not judging by election results. If folks in TX can’t figure out how to get your own people out to the polls, large influxes of cash aren’t going to singlehandedly fix that.
louc
@Pogonip: I went to Singapore after the SARS scare because airfares were so cheap. To me, the city itself felt bland, with generic high rises, some British colonial architecture, and extremely clean streets and sidewalks. I like a little grit and graffiti in a big city.
It was interesting to go to the various “towns” – Indian Town, Arab Town, China Town. Singapore, although predominantly Han, has ethnic diversity diversity. Malays, iirc, were the smallest ethnic group, much like American Indians are here.
The best things were: the food, especially the hawker courts; the night zoo, one of only three in the world; mass transit, including the subway system, which was even more immaculate than the roads; the underground air-conditioned passages in the downtown tourist area so you don’t have to sweat outside in the tropical heat and humidity; and the airport.
Its infrastructure was also, when I visited 11 years ago, a lot more technologically advanced than the US. (smart cards for the subway and buses, gps trackers and tv in cabs, etc) I realized what a pit the US has become because we’re not investing in infrastructure when I went to Singapore.
Larv
@Pogonip:
Actually, that should be the other way around. A black widow bite is considerably more dangerous than a brown recluse bite.
ruemara
I’m happy to help Texas turn blue. But throw me a fucking bone, Texans. Not liberal Texans, just normal, average ones. Fucking dissent. Stand up against this crap. When you get a shot at a Wendy Davis, might be nice if you vote for her. I’d be thrilled to unload red state dead weight, even as I send money to candidates who I keep hearing have a shot, but I just don’t see the regular citizens saying they want a change, they seem happy with more of the same.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Ticktock
So you’re comfortable spotting the Republicans 38 electoral votes, the second-highest of any state, right off the bat? I’m not. Every census the Northeast loses electoral votes and the South picks them up. What if TX winds up with 40 electoral votes after 2020? If California ever gets squishy we’re fucked.
There are Democrats and even honest-to-God liberals in TX, but when the city of Austin is split between 5 Congressional districts, it’s not like we can do a lot. The place has been gerrymandered to hell. This is why we need outside help. As an Obot and a yellow-dog Democrat, I’m begging for help.
@boatboy_srq
Bush had a not-unhappy record as Guv, in no small part because Lite Guv Bob Bullock was riding herd on him the whole time. Don’t forget that in TX the Governor doesn’t have all that much power.
@Marmot
@Cervantes
Molly Ivins, Barabara Jordan, hell, what about Lyndon Fucking Johnson? You know, that guy, signed the Civil Rights Act, created that Medicare thingy that all the RWNJs want the
Commie Fascist Islamic Negrogovernment to keep its hands off of? Okay, yeah, he fucked up Viet Nam, screwing Democrats nationally and paving the way for Nixon and ultimately Reagan, but you have to admit he’s the reason Obamacare can actually exist in the first place.Yes, Texans tend to be assholes about Texas and being Texan. Get the fuck over it.
Pogonip
@louc: You make me want to go, crowds or no!
Near as I can tell from people who, unlike me, go places, the U.S. is now a 2nd World country, like Mexico, only on its way down, whereas Mexico is moving up.
Pogonip
@Larv: The mortality rates seem to run about the same, as near as I could find, although I suppose it varies with the species and with the victim’s general health; you may recall actor Harry Carey, for example, who died of a heart attack brought on by a widow bite.
Mexicans tell me their widows are more dangerous than the species up here; I don’t know if that’s true, if it’s national pride, or if they just like pulling the gringa’s leg!
Pogonip
@Larv: P.S. I did find a goodly number of articles in Soanish about loxoscelism and visceral loxoscelism, so maybe the Mexicans aren’t kidding. I’m not able to read dense scientific prose in Spanish yet, though, so can’t say for sure.
Tractarian
@Pogonip:
The people who “go places” are lying to you.
Tractarian
@boatboy_srq: What are you, Marco Rubio? You got me all a$s-backwards. Perry/Bush/Gohmert do, in fact, represent the majority of Texans, and I’ll be the first to admit that. The point is, their majority is, at most, 60%.
So when you sh!t on an entire state because of their majority-elected officials, you are in fact sh!tting on the 40-or-so% of the populace that agrees with you on policy.
Keep in mind, Texas is the second-most populous state. So 40% – while, under our system, woefully short of the number needed to exert influence on state government – is not insignificant. In fact, only three states gave more raw votes to Obama in 2012 – NY, CA, and FL.
Let me repeat that. Texas has more Obama voters than all but three states.
@ruemara:
Once again, in case you slept through civics class, the fact that a majority of voters elected a certain candidate does not mean the people who voted against that candidate failed to “dissent” or “stand up” against the candidate. I’ll admit that Democrats have habitually horrendous turnout in TX (especially in the midterms). But however way you slice it, we are outnumbered, and we will be for the foreseeable future. Might be nice to remember that.
@boatboy_srq:
Personally, I understand why national Dems don’t put resources into TX – it’s just too much of a longshot to make sense when there are other close races.
All I ask is that you quit insulting the entire state merely because a majority of our neighbors vote for idiots.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: Former. FL ate my life: family, property, career and all. I fled for more profitable and less-crazy parts. So far, on balance, it’s been a good thing. But no, I don’t have too many kind things to say about the state after dealing with DCF, ALFs, real estate, a dozen major tropical weather events and what passes for gainful employment in the tech sector there.