I had to make a tough decision today, but it got easier real quick.  There are two Democratic events this upcoming weekend that I wanted to attend – one in Austin and one in Galveston.

It’s going to be 110 actual degrees in Austin this weekend.  That’s actual degrees.  Calculators don’t go high enough to figure the heat index.

It’s going to be 95 degrees in Galveston.

Yep.  Waxing up my surfboard and joining Chairman Lloyd Criss in Galveston.

Yep, that’s even 10 degrees cooler than home.  They say we’ll get some rain long about February.  It’s hot as high school love around here, Honey.

(Y’all do not tell State Rep Ron Reynolds that I made the decision by the numbers, okay?  He thinks I’m coming to Galveston because he’s being honored there at one of the evening events.)

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed but when the southern religious right is talking about gay people, homosexual suddenly has about ten syllables.

ho-mo-sex-you-aaaahl-ssss.  Or sod-dum-might-ssss.  There’s a very distinct hissing sound involved.

It’s like they love to linger on the word.

Which brings us to Rick Perry.

Rick Perry is not gay, of course.  Not gay.  And we now know that because he’s also not a drunk.  Which is kinda like being gay.  No, wait.  It’s exactly like being gay, at least according to Rick Perry.

From his book about the Boy Scouts, On My Honor.

Time magazine has discovered that in his first book, Perry compared being gay to being an alcoholic:

in a little-noticed passage in his first book, “On My Honor,” a encomium on the Boy Scouts published in 2008, Perry also drew a parallel between homosexuality and alcoholism. “Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink,” he wrote. “And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she still makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender.”In “On My Honor,” Perry also punted on the exact origins of homosexuality. He wrote that he is “no expert on the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate,” but that gays should simply choose abstinence. Perry’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether he maintains this view.

I’ve said it once and now I’ll say it again, there should be a law that if you write a book you ought to have to read it.

Juanita is reacting to the allegation that the Republican Governors Association offered the New Hampshire state Republican party money in exchange for their party chair to step down.  It seems he’s a Tea Party member and real fond of the Looneytarian Party.

“In legal parlance, this is commonly referred to as a bribe,” she grins.  “But, don’t look so shocked.  Money is the only thing that Republicans understand.  Hell, they’d bribe their mother if they thought she’d pay up.”

“Now all this stuff is making the Republicans look like their clutch is slippin’ over the fight between the Tea Party and the Greed Party.  Already it appears that they’ve been chewed up, spit out, and stepped on.”

“It doesn’t matter diddle squat anyway because they already understand that they are going down, down, down, doobie do, down in 2012.  The only deciding left to do is this –  are they going down with a Texas or a Massachusetts accent.”

Juanita is enjoying this way too much.

Thanks to David for the heads-up.

Awwww, shucks.  Even rich Republican congressvarmints are suffering.

Yachting Vern

U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan’s 110-foot luxury yacht is up for sale.

Earlier this month, a yacht sales company listed the Entrepreneur for sale at $4.49 million.

But, here’s the real troublesome thought.  The Florida congressman says the yacht is a “must sell.”  Last year he sold his remaining car dealerships and earlier this year his sold his $2.5 million Sarasota penthouse.

Now if one of the richest members of congress, and a member of the Ways and Means Committee,  is liquidating his assets, does he know something we don’t know?

On the upside, maybe  Yachting Randy Nuegebauer, of landlocked West Texas desert fame, can upgrade.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads-up.

UPDATE:  Alfredo knows all the good stuff before everybody else does. That’s why I always have lunch over at the Dairy Queen.  Just an hour ago, this went online.

Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked the FBI to investigate Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) for witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and bribery.  CREW’s complaint is based largely on the deposition testimony of Rep. Buchanan’s former car dealership business partner Sam Kazran.  CREW also asked the House Office of Congressional Ethics to conduct an inquiry.

It looks like Ole Vern’s got bigger problems than a yacht for sale.

REUPDATED:  Somebody’s got a sense of humor about this.   Click the little one to see the big one.

Richard Dawkins, every thinking woman’s hunka hunka burnin’ love, weighed in on Rick Perry’s thoughts – and by thoughts I mean something not even distantly related to thinking – on evolution.

Texans would say that on evolution Rick Perry has his hind part before his front part and neither part is dressed properly.  Dawkins, who has been to Texas several times but hasn’t learned the language, says this instead —

There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today’s Republican party (I disavow the ridiculous ‘GOP’ nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered ‘grand’) is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job.

Awwww … the language of Shakespeare.

In Texas we call that giving somebody a what for lesson.

If ya go read the whole thing, you’ll give it a standing ovation and grin the rest of the day.

Okay, everybody, all together now …. “Go, Rick, Go.”

Louder!

I can’t hear you.

Okay, now I can!

Obama tops Perry

Rick Perry is looking increasingly like the Republican favorite for President- he led in the Iowa poll we released this morning and he leads by double digits in the national poll we’ll release tomorrow. The biggest beneficiary of Perry’s rise? It might be Barack Obama.

In our first national poll pitting the two Obama leads Perry 49-43. That six point advantage is pretty comparable to Obama’s margin of victory over John McCain. Perry has certainly come on strong with Republicans but independents view him negatively already by an almost 2:1 margin, 29/55, and Democrats pretty universally give him bad ratings at a 10/71 spread. As a result Obama leads Perry thanks in large part to a 24 point advantage with independents at 56-32.

I say let’s register buzzards to vote.  That’ll insure that Rick gets the GOP nomination.

Boy howdy, I could love those numbers 365 days a month and 24 hours a morning.

I honestly don’t think that Rick Perry will be the GOP nominee  because surely somebody will notice that the boy’s got more luggage than a Greyhound bus station.  Hell, even a blind squirrel can find acorns and Republican are almost as smart as squirrels.  They’ll figure it out.

But, Darlin’, this gal is rootin’ for Perry right now.