Seriously, freakin' honeybee insurance?

[Wetzelbill]

Some guy threw that one out to me on the youtubes a bit ago.

Ohhhh, the stimulus has honeybee insurance. And a magic magnet that flies to a Las Vegas brothel where they monitor those silly volcanoes.

Is that all they have? Really?

I'd like to get past, you know, totally making shit up and have some serious discussion about serious problems. The way adults might ideally do.

Are we going to have to banish the party of Beavis and Butthead to the kiddie table for the whole four years are or they going to want to grow up and do some real work for the sake of the country?

It's like the lesson they learned from the Bush era was to dig in their heels and act stupider and more childish than ever. I guess that's fine if they never want to win another election again and die off completely.

Honeybee insurance. Good lord.

[hedgehog]

1. Makes sense to me

More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost — tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/science/24bees.html

[Wetzelbill]

5. oh I'm not doubting bees are important

It's just that in the stim bill the "honeybee insurance" is from a disaster relief portion for livestock, in case one of those farmers/ranchers have their whole operation hit by some kind of disaster etc. Anything that would go to bee farmers is minimal. These guys they like to poke fun at something they just think sounds funny and they don't even know what it is, it's just stupid.

[stevedeshazer]

2. The stupider the better, that's their motto

They actually mock intelligence.

This moran doesn't realize that without honeybees, we'd all die.

It's a fascinating and scary thing to watch, this celebration of ignorance.

To answer your question, yeah, it is all they have.

[Wetzelbill]

6. you know what makes me nervous

The Joe The Plumber phenomenon makes me nervous. That's where the GOP is at right now. Back when Joe was just McCain's last gasp at winning tool, I could see it, it was a joke, but I could get it. But this guy is speaking at all of their events, giving policy advice, lol. I am troubled at the insanity of it all. They just ain't right.

[Thickasabrick]

9. Puhleeze, he sold 11 books at his book signing. Joe the Plumber is

the least of our worries. Besides, the new GOP rage is the 13 year old kid who's a conservative. They are going to wait on him to be old enough to vote.

[Wetzelbill]

10. It's not him that worries me

It's that the people running the party are actually crazy enough to continually seek him out. They book him to lecture at their events, they set him up to give policy advice to their staffers. I'm don't care about the people who bought a few books, I care that while that guy is saying crazy shit like Obama is the death of Israel somebody that might be on Mitch McConnell's staff is taking notes thinking it's a good idea to perpetuate those myths. Joe The Plumber started saying over a month ago that Republicans need to dig their heels in even more and go farther to the right, next thing you know people like Cantor and Boehner in the House and others in the Senate were saying similar things.

One thing you could count on in the past is that the leadership was a little different than the fringe, like you just know John McCain wasn't like the lady who stood on stage with him and said Obama was an Arab. But do you see much of a difference between Joe The Plumber and Palin, for example? Is JTP's opinions much different than all those people in the House who voted against the stimulus? Or much different than Jim Bunning and Richard Shelby? Or Bobby Jindal? Or Michael Steele? Today Patrick McHenry made a speech talking about how Nancy Pelosi don't like all those regular folks hanging out at the conference. I wonder if Joe The Plumber has a different view on that. I doubt it.

[Thickasabrick]

11. Jeebus I hate Patrick Henry - but seriously have you looked at the

polls lately and where the Democrats and President are rating with the independents? As long as we are good with that group, I'm not worried. That group is pretty solid and all I have seen from the thugs lately is more movement to the wacky. Read this article, it will make you feel better:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-jenkins/worst-week-ever-republica_b_170378.html.

It's called "Worst Week Ever, Republicans Unhinged". It really made me feel better after reading it.

[Wetzelbill]

13. I'm cool with the electoral prospects

But from a policy standpoint it's tough to work with kooks, and the Dems always insist on working with them a little.

I read that earlier on today, that's an instant classic! The links are good too. :)

[Mojorabbit]

14. I feel exactly the same way.

It is like the crazies have taken over the party.

[csziggy]

15. Actually he sold 5 books - 11 people showed up n/t

[Thickasabrick]

16. LOL....thank you for that correction!! I wonder when this bestseller

will go to paperback....or was that it's original form??

[Posteritatis]

3. That's a Palinesque kneejerk right there (nt)

[Wetzelbill]

8. I will take alot of things

but I will not sit and listen to you use the GOP Joan of Arc's name and turn it into a highfalutin' big word.

[baldguy]

4. Do you like fruit?

No bees, no fruit.

[Wetzelbill]

7. yeah but then you also would never ever get stung

Think about that for a minute. :crazy:

[zbdent]

12. ask for proof ...

page, paragraph ... and not some worldnutdaily.com or Rushistooliberal.com ...

[Vinca]

17. Apparently the honeybee provisions are included in a section

about livestock insurance, but as the GOP usually does, it picks something to mock. What isn't so funny is colony collapse disorder - especially if fruits and vegetables are in your diet. What also isn't so funny is that Mitch McConnell, who was the initial jokester in this instance, voted for it last year.

[Bigmack]

18. Hell NO... no bee insurance!

I'd much rather have the borrowed/taxed funds spent on new and faster and more expensive military hardware that we don't need. :sarcasm:

At least the fucking honey bees actually give us something back.

All the science projects in that bill or any bill can't even approach the pissed-away dollars in the bloated "Defense" budget.

Sen. Proxmire used to do a "Golden Fleece" award for (allegedly) misspent tax dollars. Half of them were pure science related. He never did understand that actually studying something as esoteric as bees might be vital to our prosperity.. even our survival.

Science yes... bullshit military-industrial complex, no.

[jmowreader]

19. Try being a honey producer with nothing but dead hives

Next time a fucking Repuke starts talking shit about honeybee insurance, ask him if he thinks there should be insurance on the container ships that bring merchandise from China. Of course there should be.

To a honey farmer, or any kind of farmer, honeybees are as much "business equipment" as a container ship is to an offshored manufacturer.