Derp Roundup: Biblical Computer Programming, Obama's Race Czar, And Other Horrors

It's time for another Derp Roundup, the occasional feature where we pressure-wash all the crud off our open browser tabs and bring you some stories that didn't quite merit their own posts, but were too stupid to ignore altogether. Please administer brain bleach with caution.

• Our Top Derp this week comes from Christianist pseudohistorian David Barton, who believes that the Constitution is literally based on the Bible, which is why the Interstate Commerce Clause has so many "begats" in it. RightWingWatch recently found a video of Barton explaining, at a September conference in South Carolina, all the things that U.S. America needs to do to get right with the Bible, like eliminating no-fault divorce and bringing back church-based film censorship, which is almost certainly somewhere in the Bible and the Constitution it's based on. And then he got a little weird, claiming that America can never be great again until every aspect of life is based on the Bible, including computer programming, somehow:

  "Until we get back into saying, you know, I've got to have a biblical view on computer programming, I've got to have a biblical view as a business, as a Chamber of Commerce, whatever it is," Barton said, "if we don't get that back to where everyone has a common worldview and, based on our documents, that is there is a God, he gives you a certain set of rights, government protects those rights, he gives a fixed moral law that I'm not allowed to alter and then, below that, I can make decisions, until we get back to the common understanding of the nation, we won't have a stable nation"

  Barton did not explain exactly what a biblical view on computer programming would involve, although it might involve a renewed dedication to the 0b1010 Commandments.

• Pants-filling superpatriot Ted Nugent had himself a world-class freakout at the news -- which existed completely in his own head -- that Barack Obama had appointed Rev. Al Sharpton as his official "Race Czar." While Sharpton does not actually have any official position with the Obama administration -- not even asa secret volunteer undercover agent -- he was among a group of community and civil rights leaders Obama met with, which apparently meant to Nugent that Sharpton is now officially in charge of Stirring Up The Coloreds Policy. Nugent "wrote" a WND column about the supposed atrocity, lamenting that

  nothing could have prepared us for the president’s recent appointment of what may very well be the worst racist in the world today – his Reverend Al “not so” Sharpton.

  Are you kidding me? This guy as some kind of race relations czar? Seriously? [...]

  You can’t make this stuff up.

  And yet, of course, Nugent just did, which is a pretty neat trick. He went on to explain that Barack Obama has personally made America a more racist place, noting that "I know for a fact that race relations in America in 2008 were the best they had been in 50 years," and then Barack Obama ruined everything by being a huge racist, and now "Blacks kill and maim more blacks in any given month that the Klan has in the last 25 years. God help us all." Also, Benghazi and Fast and Furious, because why not?

• Nugent was only the runner-up for this week's strangest attempt to connect unrelated events to Benghazi, because on his Friday radio show, Sean Hannity managed some umbrage over John Boehner's call for congressional hearings into the death of Eric Garner, which would be ridiculous since everyone knows he was killed by high taxes and his own bad decision to be obese, asthmatic, and heart-diseasey. Instead, insisted Hannity, Boehner should be calling for a ninth investigation into Benghazi:

  Anyway, so John Boehner is now second-guessing the grand jury verdict in the Eric Garner case. He says he might want to hold Congressional hearings over the issue. Is this the same John Boehner that showed zero enthusiasm about the Benghazi hearings?

  But for heavens sake, the Justice Department and FBI are already investigating; why not keep Congress focused on its main job? "Your job is simple and that's to stop the President." You know, as specified in the Constitution and Saint Paul's Letter to the Libyans.

• In news of Political Correctness Run Amok, Houston third-grade teacher Angela Box has been persuaded to resign from her teaching position appearances on a local rightwing public-access cable show in which she explained that Muslims do sex to goats and made a funny, timely joke about Barack Obama dying from Ebola:

  "Every normal human being in the world knows that goat-fucking Muslims and, oh, boy fucking Muslims, are the evil of the world," Box appears to have said in one of the broadcasts. She also referred to Muslims as "bacon-haters."

  The teacher also joked she was hopeful President Obama would catch Ebola. "Can't Ebola just take one for the team and take out Obama?" Box said, according to [ The Houston Chronicle ].

  Not surprisingly, Box insists that she is just a victim of a personal vendetta against her, and says that she's planning to sue a local activist named Quanell X for defaming her by suggesting that she might be a bit racist. After all, she said, she is Exactly Like Martin Luther King because she agrees with precisely one thing he said that one time:

  "I don't believe in judging people by the color of their skin. I, actually, like Martin Luther King did, shockingly, judge people by the content of their character," Box said.

  Asked for comment, the ghost of Martin Luther King merely muttered something about "context" and resumed its daily routine of weeping and banging its ectoplasmic head against a table.

• Finally, in a story with grave implications for Yr Wonkette, media regulators in China have imposed a ban on "puns and irregular wordplay," in an effort to crack down on anti-government messages of all kinds. The LA Times explains why this is bigger than Americans, with their simple John "Boner" jokes, might at first appreciate:

  Puns are ubiquitous in Chinese, which has countless homophones. Substituting one character for another can easily change the meaning of a phrase while barely altering the sound.

  The Internet age has ushered in a new golden era for wordplay, with many online writers and commentators finding clever ways to mimic or alter traditional four-character idioms.

  But the regulator warns that this can result in “cultural and linguistic chaos.” The agency says it now requires compliance with the standard use, phrasing and meanings of characters and idioms.

  One example, given in the statement, noted that an advertisement had changed a single character in a standard four-character idiom that means “brook no delay,” altering its meaning to “coughing must not remain.”

  The order is particularly strong regarding these idioms, which the regulator declared to be “one of the great features of the Chinese language.”

  We suppose that punning about coughing could be pretty radical stuff, given China's terrible air quality and related attempts to censor weather reports. 

  As Business Insider notes, Chinese democracy advocates have gotten pretty creative; since the government automatically deletes all unauthorized online references to "June 4" -- the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre -- people briefly were able to get away with talking about "May 35" until the censors caught on.

  Also, too, Jon Stewart had a pretty good bit on this story:

  As for Yr Wonkette we are simply proud to be a Merkin, where at least we know we're free.