Politics and other nightmares

Issues such as gay marriage should be decided by legislatures, but it's obvious that we're not headed that way. Connecticut has become the third state to say that same-sex partners are entitled to all the benefits of traditional marriage, including the title, and all three were court decrees. Furthermore:

Yeah, just keep spending that money you don't have. What's a lousy $150 billion when you've already done over a trillion?

The United States needs a new economic stimulus plan that pumps billions of dollars into infrastructure projects and budget relief for cash-strapped state and local governments, Democratic lawmakers said on Sunday.

Plants have feelings, too!

ZURICH -- For years, Swiss scientists have blithely created genetically modified rice, corn and apples. But did they ever stop to consider just how humiliating such experiments may be to plants?

That's a question they must now ask. Last spring, this small Alpine nation began mandating that geneticists conduct their research without trampling on a plant's dignity.

It's getting brutal out there in presidential-campaign land, and some are saying that John McCain is being too tough in his attacks on Barack Obama. But McCain hasn't yet said why the world is too dangerous a place to trust our fate to Obama. I'm waiting to see an ad like this in the next few days:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKs-bTL-pRg]

No, sir, we didn't need that mean-spirited photo-ID provision for voters, which was just a nasty Republican plot to keep honest, hard-working, downtrodden Democratic voters from exercising their franchise:

Are you sitting down? This might shock you. Sen. Lugar likes John McCain!

“I've had a very good association with Senator McCain in the U.S. Senate for over two decades,” Sen. Lugar said. “I've found him to be an independent spirit, a courageous person, a person who is outspoken. He's described frequently in these terms, but I've had the privilege of seeing it firsthand.”

This is a little disheartening, but in a country in which a major preisdential candidate declares health care a "right," it's certainly not surprising:

Anbody who has followed politics even marginally will not find this at all surprising:

When a group is without a leader, you can often count on a narcissist to take charge, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that people who score high in narcissism tend to take control of leaderless groups.  Narcissism is a trait in which people are self-centered, exaggerate their talents and abilities, and lack empathy for others.

Barack Obama got off a funny line in Indianapolis . . .

Obama remembered the famous line that Ronald Reagan used  to attack Jimmy Carter, suggesting Americans ask, "are you better off than you were four years ago?"  Obama said, "At the pace we are going, you are going to have to ask if you are better off than you were 4 weeks ago."

Here's a novel idea:

JASPER, Ind. —  Two challengers for an Indiana congressional seat have agreed to be hooked up to lie detectors during a debate, but an official with the incumbent's party dismisses the idea as "bizarre."