Could this guy be our worst nightmare?

See if you can spot the spoof and serious caption from these two pictures

US unveils shiny new psychopath

This man is called Rick Perry and he believes Jesus will restore America's AAA credit rating if they leave him a fish finger under a magical, upturned bucket

OK that shouldn't be too difficult but

Where Perry stands

• For: Spending cuts, states' rights, climate change scepticism, death penalty, immigration that fills gaps in labour market
• Against: Tax increases, federal powers, Obama healthcare, gay marriage, abortion (except rape or incest

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data reported in the Wall Street Journal, 37% of new jobs created since the end of the recession in June 2009 have been in Texas.

But there are different ways you can look at his record. Technically, the state budget is balanced but there are billions of dollars of unpaid bills, says Mr Slater, while many of the new jobs are low-wage. More people are uninsured than any other state in the country and the de-regulation of business which is attractive for investment has increased pollution.

Note: Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the presidential race this weekend [and was replaced by an even more hard-core science denier, Rick Perry of Texas, who believes global warming is “all one contrived phony mess"].

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/08/15/295679/politifact-it-is-not-fair-to-say-the-science-behind-climate-change-is-in-dispute/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

i didn't know coyotes went jogging, learn something new everyday!

Click here to acces this article by Amy Goodman, posted (Aug 12) on Alternet.

Perry recently participated in a massive prayer rally.   He's walking a fine line on separation of church and state.  I'd say he doesn't stand a chance in the presidential election, but that's what we said about Bush too.

I think the Republicans are in a bind here.  If they go for Perry they are going to lose the middle.  Perry is too extreme to carry the middle.  If they go for Romney (the other leading candidate) then the extreme is going to lose all its enthusiasm and they'll be less likely to show up at the polls come election day.

An incumbent presidential win in a down economy would be the Republican's worst nightmare being that scenario would be most likely to sweep in the largest number of coat tails in Congress.

Republicans should be in a bind, but I worry that their candidate will be able to convince moderates that he's moderate, and extremists that he's extremist.  See Scott Brown in MA, for example.  Though that was a relatively short campaign - maybe it wouldn't work as effectively in a longer campaign.  I think Pawlenty was trying to walk that line too, but failed at it. 

Perry's got the extremist votes without question, and he can run on Texas' relatively decent economy to try and appeal to the moderates.  So he is something of a threat.

http://skepticalscience.com/admin_skeptic.php

Dana... I have a friend in MA and after Brown was elected I asked, "WTF is up with THAT?"

He said that in MA you can vote in the opposite party's primary election.  The right wing did a big campaign to get the worse candidate on the ballot against him and even then was just able to take the election.  Had the better democrat run Brown would not have won.  ...According to my friend.

It's certainly true that Brown's opponent (I forget her name) absolutely stunk.  Nevertheless, he did manage to appeal to both moderates and tea partiers.

He won't bite the hand that feeds it

New HuffPost article based on a video of Perry saying that climate scientists "manipulated data".

In his stump speech, Perry referenced "a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects."

"We're seeing weekly, or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what's causing the climate to change," Perry said. "Yes, our climates change. They've been changing ever since the earth was formed."

We've gotta add Perry to our skeptics page, especially since he's now the Republican presidential frontrunner and possibly the worst climate denier of them all.