Out of Time

Really, he's not the only idiot in Congress.  There is, for instance, John Fleming (R. Louisiana) who, as I've noted before, is

deeply concerned about the "Abortionplex" Planned Parenthood just opened in central Kansas.

The 900,000-square-foot facility has more than 2,000 rooms dedicated to the abortion procedure. The abundance of surgical space, Richards said, will ensure that women visiting the facility can be quickly fitted into stirrups without pausing to second-guess their decision or consider alternatives such as adoption. Hundreds of on-site counselors are also available to meet with clients free of charge and go over the many ways that carrying a child to term will burden them and very likely ruin their lives.

Of course, they had to make the facility appealing so everyone would want to go.  So there are also

coffee shops, bars, dozens of restaurants and retail outlets, a three-story nightclub, and a 10-screen multiplex theater—features intended not only to help clients relax, but to foster a sense of community and make abortion more of a social event.

Did I mention that the abortionplex that so concerns Fleming is an invention of the Onion, a satirical publication that covers fake news? As I said, John Fleming is an idiot.  It seems like the sort of thing he has nightmares about, so it must be true.

That's a different sort of credulity than we find in the folks who don't believe in evolution because it's icky and anyway the Bible says that man wasn't made from genetic material and natural selection but from dirt (Genesis 1:7), which is a whole lot more appealing - or maybe not.  And science be damned 'cause there's a book they believe.

And that's a different sort of credulity than we find in the folks who don't believe in global warming because they don't wanna and because it's a favorite thing of scientists (who are liberals, after all, not believing in the American dream and thinking that maybe that evolution thingy is right).

As an aside, a criminalist (that's a CSI guy) for the Toledo Police Department was once asked if they did DNA testing on a baggie of drugs that, it was alleged, a woman smuggled into the local lockup in her vagina and would have given to her boyfriend/inmate if only the deputies at the jail hadn't noticed it first.  The criminalist told her that there was no reason because DNA could only have been found in her secretions, and women only secrete during "that time of the month."  (Honest.  He said that.  You can't make this shit up.)

Anyway, this is about Todd Akin, Republican (which is not quite irrelevant as you'll see in a bit) Congressman representing Missouri's 2nd Congressional District.

 

Looking at the pictures, it appears those "timeless principles" were actually developed in the late 18th Century.  By a bunch of white guys who hung out together near the Mississippi and deduced that, well, whatever white guys in the late 18th Century who hung out together near the Mississippi deduced.

Apparently that included stuff like how there's two kinds of rape.

• "Legitimate" rape.
• Other rape.

Now, you may be wondering how these guys knew that. Todd doesn't tell us.  But he did explain an absolutely essential difference.  Women don't get pregnant from the legitimate kind.  He explained to KTVI-TV

If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

Sigh.

Akin went on to explain that he's all for punishing rapists (I assume that's only the legitimate ones) but that on the off chance the legitimate-rapist-spermicidal-hormone all women have should fail, well, tough nuggies.

(He did later say that he "misspoke" and is really sympathetic to rape victims.  He said nothing about being an idiot who gets his medical knowledge from pictures of white guys traveling down the Mississippi on a raft.)

OK, there's a couple of things here.  First, as I said, Akin's a Republican, which wouldn't be of any particular interest (idiocy is not partisan) except that he won the Republican primary in Missouri and is running for Senate now.  And even his fellow Republicans are telling him to bail.

John Paul Jones

Scott Brown of Massachusetts says he should step aside. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said so. John Cornyn of Texas, one of the most conservative members of the Senate said so.

Akin, though, says he's not going anywhere.  He told Mike Huckabee:

I’m not a quitter. My belief is we’re going to move this thing forward. To quote my friend John Paul Jones, I’ve not yet begun to fight.

One might note, if one were so inclined, that his "friend" John Paul Jones died in 1792. You know, when Akin was developing his "timeless principles."
I've noted before that there's no inherent relationship between certainty and truth.  I probably haven't mentioned, though, that Socrates was always explaining how little he knew and trying to learn more. 
Here's the other thing. In the House, Akin sits on the Science and Technology Committee.


h/t the Dictators (you know who you are)