}

Friday, January 24, 2014

Stupidity rising

The Speaker of the NZ Parliament, David Carter (centre in the photo; click to embiggen), posted this Tweet today. I laughed. Out loud. Literally. Then, I needed to make a snarky comment, so a simple re-tweet wouldn't do. Instead, I Tweeted:

“I THOUGHT NZ's level of Stupid skyrocketed today!! MT: This afternoon David Carter meeting with Michele Bachmann … “

The other guy in the photo is Jim Langevin, a Democrat representing Rhode Island’s 2nd District. He seems like an okay guy (he has a 100% rating from HRC, for example, while Bachmann’s a huge ZERO, of course).


I have no idea why they’re here, but they’re both on the US House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (in Bachmann’s case, an extremely ironic position), so it may have something to do with that.

However, it’s also possible they’re hear on behalf of the Speaker of the US House as observers to the 22nd Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth (CSPOC), which was held at the Parliament Buildings in Wellington this week. Which actually brings me to my second bit of stupid: You REALLY owe it to yourself to follow the link to the Parliamentary press release on the CSPOC and just look at the photo of all the ridiculous getups various speakers wear. What century are we in?

I know that it’s customary and whatnot for many Commonwealth speakers to wear outfits and wigs that hearken back to 18th Century England, but holy crap some of them are over the top. The role of Speaker in any legislature is very important for the good order and functioning of that body, but those outfits kind of undermine that, in my opinion.

Or maybe it’s just that with Michele Bachmann in the country, some things look more stupid than they otherwise would. You’d think the huge level or her stupidity would make everything and everyone else seem more intelligent, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Stupidity has an amplifying effect, it seems.

No comments: