Sarah Palin spoke at Tea Party Nation on Saturday night. I thought is was a pretty good speech. You can watch it  here The left side of the opinion media reacted in its usual multi-mood manner. Bob Shrum represented the “Evil Sarah” crowd, with his comment that she’s a “merchant of hate.” Too many pundits represented the “Dumb Palin” crowd. Here’s an example from The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen: “I realize right-wing activists adore the former governor, but her conspicuous unintelligence should be obvious to anyone above the age of 4. There hasn’t been a more ridiculous figure to hold American political prominence in a very long time.”

My favorite is the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan, who represents the “Sarah to be feared crowd.” He writes on his blog: “… she is capable of generating a personality cult – much, much more so than Obama, because she can harness Christianism to her divine destiny. The power of this kind of appeal – of a charismatic, beautiful woman, an icon of the pro-life cause, persecuted by the evil elites, demonized by libruls, and commanding the biggest military on earth – should not in my view be under-estimated. Know fear.”

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Since the Utah Legislature is now passing bills based on world conspiracies (see my blog friday) I thought it would be fun to ponder what other directions our Legislature could take in its musings as it seeks to protect us all from “THEM!”

Which were, as it turned out, giant ants.

THEM! is a great movie that allegedly starts out in New Mexico, although I like to think it reallystarts out in Utah, since we have a long history of disaster movies being film here. There’s “The Conqueror,” which has the double attraction of staring John Wayne as Ginghas Kahn (huh?) but also was filmed downwind from some of that harmless radiation southern Utah is so famous for. Radiation also plays a role in “Them!” so I think the movie producers saying the movie takes place in New Mexico is a fine piece of disinformation, the very key to a good conspiracy.

To begin with, the Legislature could take on space travel, which we all now know is faked. This could have unfortunate effects on one or two Utah firms, but what the heck, we’re talking fighting international conspiracies here, not protecting jobs. I’m thinking a law protecting all Utah-made and launched rockets from all federal oversight because, heck, they’re good enough for Utahns.

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Dear presidents of Big Sky Conference universities,

Well, I guess this is only meant for the seven of you who felt it would be a good idea to go against your coaches’ wishes and vote in favor of having men’s and women’s league basketball games this season on as many consecutive nights as possible.

What were you thinking?

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Can the Wildcats make it three wins in a row in Missoula?

That’s the question Weber State hopes to answer with a “yes” tonight as they take on the Grizzlies at Dahlberg Arena.

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Someone needs to tell The Legislature that The Onion is not for real.

But no, they gotta take it as fact, a model to be followed.

A little bit ago The Onion, nominally a satire newspaper, ran an article saying that abortion foes wanted a new law that required a mother seeking an abortion to first paint the baby’s room and name the kid. Ha ha.

The Utah House, Friday, approved a bill to allow women seeking abortions to first see an ultrasound as soon as 3 weeks into the pregnancy and, even though doctors said its medically impossible, look at the fetus heartbeat. Told that three weeks is too soon to see a heartbeat, Rep. Carl Wimmer said “there are arguements on both sides of the issue.”

Huh? Oh, right, this is the Legislature that regularly tells climate scientists that they’re wrong based on belief. Now gestational development is a matter of faith?

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Oh God, where to start?

Our esteemed Legislature, on Thursday, approved in committee, by 10-1, a bill dissing on climate change, basing the reason for the need for this resolution the certainty among members of the committee, led by Rep. Mike Noel, (R-nuclear industry) that climate change is really part of a global conspiracy to control and limit the population of the world.

Yes, you read that right. Bills in the Legislature are now based on world control paranoia. Condemnations of the Illuminati and discourses on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion will, no doubt, be next.

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I recall reading in one of the Mark Hofmann murder/forgery books, where Steve Christensen, one of Hofmann’s victims, while bishop of his ward, would admit to members that he didn’t always receive revelation for their positions and solicited their advice on where to be placed. I think of that because I was recently assured by an area LDS  leader that the Lord had personally called me to a new position. I’m not saying I’m doubting that, but it wouldn’t have mattered a bit to me if I’d been told that the area leader had decided on his own it was time to move me.

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Gail Collins at the NYTimes has one of her usually excellent and rather pithy columns (click here!) today on budget cuts, centering around the NASA elimination in Obama’s budget, but also looking at the broader problem of how hard it is to cut the budget at all.

Hard truth is, every program has advocates and no congressman is willing to have a program in his state cut because that program probably pays the wages of some of his constituents. A lost job is a lost vote.

But even she dodges the big one: The US defense budget is edging up to $1 trillion, more than all other nations in the world spend on their collective defense, combined. Even when you factor in differing wage structures — I assume Chinese military gets its stuff at Chinese wages, for example — that’s a heck of a lot of money.

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