Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.
Grace Haddad, 16, who doesn’t believe the world will end May 21, discussing her mother, who does.
She’ll say, ‘You need to clean up your room.’ And I’ll say, ‘Mom, it doesn’t matter, if the world’s going to end!
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Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, throwing his support behind a Rick Perry for president campaign.
It’s axiomatic, you are not going to be elected president unless you’ve got at least a ten inch part in your hair, preferably 14-inch.
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Texas state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, on a proposed measure to strip state funding to all hospitals and clinics that perform abortions or even “abortion-related services.”
I’m getting a little tired of men speaking for women’s health.
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Texas state Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, speaking in favor of “noodling,” the practice of hand-fishing for catfish.
I personally don’t noodle, but I would defend to the death your right to do so.
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Texas state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, arguing for “compassionate moralism” as the Texas Legislature debates immigration legislation.
In addition, I wonder how Joseph and Mary would have felt struggling in Egypt as undocumented workers if Pharaoh had decreed a law similar to some of those found in the Texas Legislature this session.
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Craig McClain on his hopes for the team of stalwart scientists who fanned out across the country to participate in the Darwin Day Road Show, offering them an opportunity to share their excitement about science to students and faculty around the country.
We wanted to convey the excitement and relevance of science, that scientists are part of the general public (you may even see us shopping at the grocery store) and to begin building a community of support for science.
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Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, telling an audience that he believes evolutionary science and creationism can coexist.
I believe that creation as an act of faith is true and I believe that science as a mechanical process is true. Both can be true. I don’t think there is necessarily a conflict between the two.
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Fergus Cullen, former New Hampshire Republican Party chair, claiming the Iowa Republican Party has become so dominated by evangelicals that some potential candidates will be tempted to largely skip the state.
[I]t’s hard to talk about real issues when three quarters of the audience wears tinfoil hats.
If I may be so bold as to add to this fine body of work…. this from presidential aspirant Michele Bachmann:
“I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States . . .We have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis, we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel. It is a strong and beautiful principle.”
US foreign policy based on the Book of Genesis? She sounds a whole lot like the Tubby Texan John Hagee.
Michele and company always conveniently forget this little gem from the New Testament:
0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often I would have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. Matthew 23:37,38.
The Temple was destroyed 42 years after Jesus made this statement and the Jewish people were diasporated from the Middle East and distributed to the ends of the Earth.
I suspect that John Haggai and Michele are not with the current program.
The mention of Baxhman and Hagee reminds me that we were capable of shaming John McCain into ‘refudiating’ his support from John Hagee, yet no one is condemning Bachman (and another Minnesotan Presidential candidate) for accepting the support of Bradlee Dean — whose ‘Muslim countries are more moral than America because they actually go through with executing gays’ is, sadly typical of his thinking.
Can we at least begin to make Republicans suffer for appearing on the program of the one-man all-purpose hate group that is Bryan Fisher of the AFA, who sees a ‘gay-Muslim’ conspiracy to bring down America to pick just one of his insanities. Or for appearing on the same stage with Joyce Folger Porter (who has filled in almost evey square on the ‘bingo card of the crazy’ except — I think — for UFOlogy).
And while we are at it, can we at least begin to question supposedly authentic news networks (not Faux) who treat Pam Geller, Erick Erickson, that Tea Party Express guy, or Tony Perkins as legitimate political commentators and representatives of ‘respectable’ opinions. No network would have a Farrakhan as a commenter, and rightly not, or would make the head of Code Pink a paid member of the staff, but these people are welcomed with all the respect that a Krugman, a Brooks, or any mainstream thinker would get.