Weekend Update - Weird Science Edition

(It's been an incredibly loooong summer without Duck Football, but as I speak we are just a mere week away from the opening game against Arkansas State.  We have a new quarterback this year, a strapping young man named Marcus Mariota, and the league's all excited about his prospects.  I gathered the neighborhood children in the car this morning and we went to Autzen Stadium for the annual meet the Ducks festivities, but when we got there the line to get in was about a mile long, no exaggeration.  We decided a trip to the local frozen yogurt shop was a better choice.  This town is SO ready for the Ducks this year.  Our media room is all "ducked out" and ready to go.  We've washed and ironed all our uniforms.  The flag is flying in the front.  The bar is stocked.  Go Ducks!  But I digress ...)

• Where were you on July 20th, 1969?  I was sitting in the family room of a house in Lubbock, Texas in front of a black and white TV watching the drama unfold as Walter Cronkite described the descent of the lunar lander, named "The Eagle," as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made the first manned landing on the surface of the moon.  Heady and exciting stuff, it was.  Then, a few moments later, Neil Armstrong became the first human being in history to set foot on that moon, and became one of my all-time heroes.  Neil died today at the age of 82.  May he rest in peace.
• By now most of you have heard about Congressman Todd Akin's (R-Dipshit) remark concerning women and rape, right?  Mr. Akin is one of those magical-thinking Republicans who can change the facts of reality simply by wishing them away.  He's Anti-Choice, you see, even in the case of rape.  And besides, he reasons, it's a medical fact that a woman's body has a defense mechanism that prevents her from becoming pregnant during a rape.  This magical thinking is the cornerstone of the Republican platform.  Bill Maher has some comments and a whole "New Rule" concerning Akin and the Republicans.
• Republicans have their own rules, as weird as they might be, and Congressman Akin's is just one of them.  But they also believe that dinosaurs walked with man and still do, that abortion causes cancer, that heterosexuals can't get AIDS, and that religion can cure homosexuality.  And there's more weird science. 
• And while we're on the subject, consider Texas' Governor Rick "Good Hair" Perry's (R-Asshole) decision to  rather forfeit $35 million in annual federal funding for the Women’s Health Program - a Medicaid waiver program that provides low-income women with contraceptives and cancer screenings - than see any more state tax dollars go to a supposedly pro-abortion organization.  This means that hundred of thousands of Texas women will receive no critical health care they need.  "Texas in particular can’t afford to scale back on the services Planned Parenthood provides. The state has one of the highest rates of cervical cancer in the nation and the highest percentage of uninsured women. Texas lawmakers have let politics distract them from their obligation to some of their poorest citizens."  Perry calls his decision "a win for women."  Did I mention he was an asshole?
• When Charlie Gibson famously asked Sarah Palin if she supported "the Bush Doctrine," I remember her sitting there with a blank look on her face.  It was an unfair question.  The rest of us had that same blank look.  What has happened to that rascally frat boy who amused and confused the world for eight years?  Why isn't he the "elder statesman" of the Republican Party?  Why isn't he making a big speech at the convention?  George?  George?  What's happened to you?  (The link I had here was apparently infected.  I'm sure that most rudimentary virus checkers picked it up.  It has been deleted.  My apologies.)