Oh, look, sausage!

They say there are two things you never want to watch: people making sausage and people making laws. For the past two years, I've been involved in trying to prevent a law from being made, and I'd say that is like putting sausage in the grinder and expecting a live, squealing pig to come out the other end.

However, this is not about my legislative adventures. It's about the idiots in my home state of Tennessee, the ones that re-elected Scott DesJarlais. (His district does not quite but almost reaches my hometown of Chattanooga. Growing up there, I learned that all Christians -- all the ones I knew, anyway -- were hypocrites. DesJarlais's disgusting life and successful electoral career proves it.)

DesJarlais is only the most disgusting politician in Tennessee (and probably the whole country) but there is a lot of competition. You can see some of that here.

It's from the Nashville Post, and as an aside I'd like to say I wish I'd had the resources to do that kind of reporting and posting when I was editing a small business paper. But that was preInternet. We wrote our stories on floppies. Sigh.

The issue is whether an armed society is 1) a polite society, 2) a frightened society or 3) a stupid society. Based on the Post's interviews with the leaders (not the followers) of the Tennessee Legislature, I'm going with 3. (Also, hypocrites, but I already knew that.)

The reality-base community has been having a field day with Tennessee stoopid lately, not since the Scopes monkey trial have the people of Tennessee taken such a role on the national stage.

There was the guy who accidentally (or "accidently," as they say in Tennessee) shot himself in the head while playing with a cat. In a public park, with other people around who can be thankful the bullet did not have their names on it.

But, as we see from Andrea Zelinski's terrific interview, Tennessee lawmakers blame God:

Casada: If someone gets run over by an automobile accidently, there's nothing I can do about that. These are things beyond, they're called acts of God, they're beyond our control.

It's true, as a native I can attest that Tennesseans have a low opinion of God.

But you should read the whole thing, because Glen Casada, who is head of his party's caucus (Republican, of course) was lying. The lawmakers do think it is possible to control firearms. They ban them from the Legislature and nearby government buildings.

No good guys in those buildings, I think we can safely conclude that.