Are You Ready To Be Emotionally Manipulated, Er, I Mean Watch Super Bowl Ads?

A scene from "The Most Manipulative Super Bowl Ad Ever"

I admit I get into this every year around this time:  The Super Bowl ads appear, and you have all these images that tug at your heart strings, like the soldiers coming home, the Budweiser Clydesdale horses saving the day, or whatever.

I get sucked into all this, and I end up liking some of these ads. And sharing them. Which of course is what the sponsors of these ads want us to do.

I'll probably get so taken in by these ads I will end up sharing them with you in this here blog thingy. But oh, well.

Stephen Colbert has gotten us ready for this onslaught by airing an ad he and his team invented, called the "The Most Emotionally Manipulative Super Bowl Ad Ever." It's got everything: America, homecomings, puppies, tragedy, pride, warmth, people on the job, dedicated people. And of course the corporate product at the end.

To prepare yourself for the Super Bowl ad season, here's the clip from The Late Show With Stephen Colbert:

Bad 1958 TV Program Has Oddly Familar Trump Bad Guy

A character in a 1958 show "Trackdown" was named Walter Trump,
who was a con man trying to steal all the wealth from an Old West
town. The script has eerie similarities to the life of Donald
Trump, who some think is a con man. 

Some TV script writer in the 1950s seemed to be able to channel to 2018 when he wrote  an episode of a forgotten television show called "Trackdown."

The western ran on CBS from 1957 to 1959. An episode of "Trackdown" called "The End Of The World" aired on May 9, 1958.  It features a villain named Walter Trump. Video of this show is at the bottom of this post.

I'll let Quartz give you a thumbnail of the episode's story:

"Trump is a con man - we're talking about the show - who comes to ranger Gilman's town to warn people that the end of the world is nigh, and offering his services to prevent it. And how will 1958 TV con man Trump stop the end of the world? By building a wall, of course!"

The Trump in "Trackdown" also has a familiar cadence in his speech: "I am the only one....Trust me I can build a wall around your homes that nothing -nothing! will penetrate."

Townspeople in the show fell for the con hook, line and sinker.  The town judge tells Ranger Gilman "Trump sure is having his way."

The TV Trump also threatens to sue Texas Ranger Sheriff Hoby Gilman for daring to call Trump out on his con.

Despite most of the town falling for Trump's scam, Ranger Gilman eventually manages to arrest the 1958 TV Trump for what Gilman says is "grand theft, fraud - I think a jury would find it stealing."

I won't give away the ending. I don't like being a spoiler. You can watch the show.

No word yet if there will continue to be eerie parallels between the 1958 Trump and the current presidential version.

Here's the episode:

You Will Love Or Be Perplexed By This Strange Russian Band Called Little Big

Just one of many bizarre scenes from the viral Little Big
video and dance craze "Skibidi"

Apparently, the latest dance craze is something called the Skibidi.

There's a viral video out there by a Russian rave band called Little Big. (They actually have several viral videos, but this one is the latest, and biggest hit yet.)

The bizarre video that I can't stop watching is at the bottom of this post. The Skibidi mostly involves walking with legs out, doing high steps, while punching your fists crossways in front of your chest.

There's a few intermittent hip thrusts, wobbles and hand motions as well, but you get the idea.

The lead protagonist in this video is a very stern, determined, rather creepy blonde man with a mustache. He's a bit like a scarier version of Borat. In the video, he hooks up with another member of the band, who vaguely resembles a highly maniacal version of Debra Messing.

There's also a potential street fight, which devolves into a Skibidi battle  The song itself is all electronic, with random dog barks and other sound effects. Other creatures get into the song, including a dog, city highrises and a Godzilla-like monster.

In other words, this video is so stupid, so tacky, so tasteless, so absurd, so weird that it's absolutely fantastic and mesmerizing.

Other Little Big videos are hits, too, like Faradenza, in which our blond mustached guy seems to attract the babushka type women. Another tune, called LollyBomb, appears to show North Korean leader Kim Jung-un having a torrid love affair with a nuclear bomb.

They're worth watching, for laughs and giggles.

But really, you have to watch Skibidi. And learn the dance, too. And always do the dance while walking down the street. Just because.  Everybody else has. People are being challenged worldwide to do the Skibidi. On Twitter #skibidichallenge is trending.

The Skibidi video had more than 42 million clicks as of Sunday. You can watch it too, if you haven't already:

Dog Shoves 11 Shampoo Bottles Into Tub Just Because

Who knows what goes on in the mind of a dog?  But it must be fun.

The latest example is this puppy, who seems to enjoy his job of moving  11 bottles of shampoo on the edge of a bathtub that he thinks don't belong there. He solves the problem quite efficiently. Watch the video, perhaps again and again, to brighten your day:

Old Video By The Association Has Dated Hillariously Poorly

Two members of The Association in this old video. Perhaps not
the most dapper look?

I stumbled on an old video of the 1960s group The Association performing their hit "Never My Love" and the video is kitschy comedic gold.  

I know I shouldn't pick on them. The Association were big 1960s hit makers with their usually mellow pop. Styles have changed since the 1960s, so we shouldn't abuse them too much.

But abuse The Association, I will.

First of all, those suits! All them are ill-fitting sacks, basically and are a lovely shade of green I associate with an algae bloom in a cow pond.

I'm particularly taken by the lead singer in the video. His double breasted suit fits about as well as a burlap sack. He's also got the world's most,  um,  amazing sideburns.

As he's singing, he has this blank, blissful  look on his face, as if he's entered some sweet, strange wonderland. At the same time, he looks vaguely ill and ill at ease, like he might simulaneously barf and get attacked by the audience.

Which actually to me seems like a real possibility. Actually, the whole group looks pretty spaced out. I wonder what they took before coming onstage?

And why are they set up like that. The keyboardist and drummer start off in the foreground, but you n see as the video they are really shunted way off to the side. Like we really shouldn't notice them.

Maybe we shouldn't. In the closeups of the keyboardist, he looks like he's yawning instead of coming in with those signature mellow harmonies.  The song isn't that boring, is it?

It's all a mystery. So here's you kitch for today. The Association performs "Never My Love."

Swedish Post Office Demands That Dog Sign For Mailed Package

A friend sent this dog named Chaya a new doggie toy
through the Swedish postal service, plunging her
into a funny bureaucratic mess.

If you want to send a doggie toy to a dog in Sweden, or anything to any animal there, don't address the package to the pet. Address the package to the animal's human companion.

Marie Palmgren and Chaya, her boxweiler dog, found this out the hard way.

A friend of Marie and Chaya's decided to mail a dog toy to Chaya. The friend playfully addressed the package to Chaya Palmgren.

According to The Dodo, this is how everything played out:

Marie got a note from her mail carrier that a large parcel had arrived and she needed to pick it up at the post office.  It was the doggie toy for Chaya.

In Sweden, the person (or animal) that receives a package at the post office has to show ID and sign for the package. Since the package was addressed to Chaya, postal workers insisted that Chaya had to show ID and sign for the package.

Marie tried to explain that Chaya was a dog and she'd sign it on her behalf.

But rules are rules!  "They still demanded an ID and a signature from Chaya, plus ID and signature from me as the 'helper' to fetch the package," Palmgren said.

The paw prints on this postal document after
Chaya "signed" it. 

Marie returned home, rummaged through some old records and found a registration document that proved Chaya was her pet. She grabbed the paper and headed back to the post office.

But Chaya still had to sign the document. Dogs are not allowed into the post office, which was another roadblock.

Finally, Palmgren  convinced a postal worker to bring an ink pad outdoors so Chaya could sign the paperwork.

Palmgren dipped a confused Chaya's paw into the ink pad and then pushed the paw onto the document, leaving a pawprint. Close enough to be a signature, the post office finally decided.

You can see the video at the bottom of this post a perplexed Chaya signing for his package.

Her bureaucratic nightmare over, Chaya
plays with the water fountain toy
her friend mailed her

You'd think the postal workers would have at least been amused by this situation.  Uh-uh.

"The staff was very serious all the time. It wasn't a funny thing for them.... Me? I was totally flabbergasted. When I reached the car, I laughed so much that I got a pain my stomach," Palmgren said.

To nobody's surprise, Swedish media had a field day with this, highlighting this as an extreme example of the super-strict adherence to policy by government agencies, The Dodo reported. 

The gift giver felt terrible her playfulness in addressing the package caused such a problem, but Palmgren brushed aside those concerns.

"She wanted to do a kind thing. She was so sorry that it turned into this circus of absurdity...But I told her, 'On the contrary. You managed to make so many people laugh.'"

As for Chaya, she reported loves her nifty water fountain toy.

BBC Reporter Mobbed By Lemurs

In our contining effort to distract you from the ills of the world, here's a BBC reporter struggling with lemurs.

You're welcome.

This Here Woman Is Quite The Bowler

I'm an inexperienced bowler, but I like doing it every now and again.

I'm not that great at accuracy, so I try to throw the ball really hard in the hopes that the wind from the ball rushing past will knock over the pins I miss. Cool theory, but I haven't seen it work much yet.

It could be worse. There's a viral video of a woman bowling in Brazil where things really go off the rails. Maybe a bit high and destructive with the throw? You be the judge:

Oregon Paper Turns The Tables On Garbage-Sifting Prosecutors, Delight Ensues

A fifteen year old article got new
 life on social media this week, with dumpster diving
reporters going through public officials' trash to
make a point about privacy and rights. 

I'm not sure why this  is making the rounds on social media today, but everybody seems to be reviving an Oregon alt weekly newspaper's turning of the tables on nosy police and prosecutors.

Given that police sometimes tend to be overly nosy, i.e. sans search warrants, this decade and a half old tale is one to remember in case this ever happens again.

At the time, police in prosecutors in Oregon decided it was A-OK to go looking through people's garbage cans at curbside looking for evidence of a crime. That is, without a search warrant.

The logic was the garbage and recycling is abandoned property, so it was fair game to go looking through the refuse.

Since there's a lot of personal and potentially private material in garbage - recepts, notes, documents, evidence of where you shopped and when you shopped and where you were, invading garbage seems pretty invasive.

I come down in favor of police sifting through your garbage - but only if they have a search warrant. Since the Willamette Week knew prosecutors and police and the local mayor thought it was OK to search through garbage without a warrant, the reporters there decided to brilliantly turn the tables.

They sifted through the trash left curbside by the prosecutor, police chief and the mayor. Abandoned property, right?

The police chief and especially the mayor were terribly displeased when the Willamette Week reporters fessed up to sifting through their trash. The local prosecutor had a better sense of humor about it.

The anger by the police chief and mayor seemed a little misplaced, because the reporters, judging from that week's trash, concluded that both officials seemed like fine, upstanding citizens. There was certainly more than a whiff of garbage, but no real whiff of scandal.

Here's how the paper wrote about the Police Chief's Mark Kroeker's reaction at the time:

"'This is very cheap,' he blurted out, frowning as we pointed out a receipt with his credit card number, a summary of his wife's investments, an email prepping the mayor about his job application to be police chief of Los Angeles, a well-chewed cigar stub, and a handwritten note scribbled in pencil on a napkin, so personal it made us cringe. We also drew his attention to a newsletter from the conservative political advocacy group Focus on the Family" addressed to Mr and Mrs. Mark Kroeker."

With that, the normally accessible and affable police chief abruptly ended the interview and complained to other media about the Willamette Week's invasion of privacy. The paper did not reveal what was in the personal note on the napkin, but it was nothing nefarious, such as an extra-marital affair or illicet activity.

The paper couldn't get to the mayor's garbage. The bin was up against her house, and the reporters would have trespassed if they'd gone on to her property to check it. But the recycling was curbside, so the reporters had a look.

The contents were mostly just newspapers, all mainstream and middle of the road and reputable.

Then-mayor Vera Katz was livid when she got wind of the recycling heist by the paper. She summoned the reporters, and the newspapers from the recycling bin to her office. She also ordered them to bring the name of the newspaper's lawyer.

The mayor's prepared statement read, in part, "I consider Willamette Week's actions in this matter to be potentially illegal and absolutely unscrupulous and reprehensible....I will consider all my legal options in response to these actions."

Funny, though. The mayor was fine with her police force digging through people's trash. What's the difference?

The local district attorney, possibly sensing a PR mess, didn't get too publicly excited about Willamette Week's dumpster diving. He only asked the reporters, "Do I have to pay for this week's garbage collection?"

However, the paper did detail the findings in the the DA's refuse bin. Again, nothing shady, but the reporters got a LOT of personal information about the guy.

Again, I know this story is 15 years old. But it's a master class for when government or police officials overreach.

I get it. Police have a job to do and we demand that they keep us safe while they conduct their often dangerous work. But it never hurts to keep them in check, though.

Guy Smashes Windows And Gets Instant Karma

Not entire sure if the video in this post is legit or fake or real, but it proves the adage that sometimes instant karma can strike sooner than you'd think.  

Judging from the comments in Polish, I think this happened in Poland. Not sure when. Some idiot decides to randomly start smashing out shop windows.

Another guy tries to stop him, but the window smasher almost beats up the the guy who tried to stop him. The guy who tries to stop the vandalism backs off and appears to be calling police on his cell phone.

The window smasher continues his handiwork, and then, decides to run away. And then.........

Watch the video:

This Is The Most Unflappable New Anchor You'll Ever See

Over in Britain, ITV anchor Alastair Stewart interviewed a mother about her childrens' milk allergies.

One of the toddlers took over the set. Stewart was incredibly calm in the storm. If he was able to do his job amid this chaos, he can do anything.

Watch this viral video. It's funny:

Cringe-Worthy 1950s Song Proves There Has Always Been Bad Music

April Stevens had a cringe-worthy
song in 1959

Just for variety, I sometime switch over to the 1950s music channel on Sirius when I'm out driving around in my truck.

Back in the '50s, people had a lot of fun with their voices and music and subject matter that you don't see today. Think do-wop. Think The Coasters. That type of thing.

For proof, however, that our current era doesn't have a lock on bad music, sometimes the 1950s station plays some clunkers.

There was one I'd never heard before and had me laughing out loud.

It's called "Teach Me, Tiger." by April Stevens. (No, I'd never heard of her, either.)

In the song, she's trying to be Marilyn Monroe with mixed success, to say the least. In "Teach Me Tiger," she breathlessly, passionately asks her beau to teach her the ways of love.

Stevens tries to suggestively sigh and moan, but it sounds like someone with emphysema trying to blow into a microphone, which isn't terribly sexy to me. But what to I know?

I'm sure April Stevens was a fine musician. But, I dunno, this one doesn't work.

So, for a laugh, or torture or both, here's "Teach Me, Tiger" by April Stevens:

Bulldog Really Is Into This Horror Movie

I really can't watch horror movies. My dreams afterwards are too vivid.

But in this viral video, watch this bulldog get really into a horror movie as the scene in the film gets more and more intense.

The people who uploaded the video said the dog, named Kaleesi, loves watching horror movies and tries to protect potential victims in the films. Kaleesi is especially vocal when children are endangered.

Pretty wild:

Angry Pedestrian Having A Bad Day

How's your day going?

Better than this guy? Let's hope so!

Sweet Internet-Age Revenge On Rude Coffee Shop People

Some guy named Kahlil Sehnaoui was annoyed at a coffee shop recently, because the group of people  at a table next to him were loud and rude.  

They were especially mean to wait staff, and got even louder when they were told to keep it down.

Then Sehnaoui overheard the group agreeing to a name for their new business. Yay!

Sehnaoui got sweet revenge. He quietly went on his laptop and bought the domain name for the business.

And that, my friend, is how you exact revenge in the Internet age.

Weirdest Video Of The Year: Dancing Pikachu Deflates: Special Agents Rush In

A Pikachu deflates in South Korea, and agents
move in for the kill. 

There they were, all these Pikachus at the World Pikachu Festival in Incheon, South Korea, dancing to "Uptown Funk"

If that isn't weird enough, it gets worse. One of the dancing Pikachus starts to deflate. Literally deflate.

Emergency!!

Luckily, dark suited special agents rush in and forcibly remove and detail our errant Pikachu away, leaving the rest of our gleeful Pikachus to keep dancing, very badly at this festival.

The fun part is at the 1:12 point in this video.  After the disturbance, the video is just more strange Pikachus dancing. If you're into that sort of thing.

Watch it if you dare:

Dog Pretends To Love New Bed Even Though It Clearly Doesn't Work

Just to be nice, Kenny the golden retreiver pretends that
a much too small dog bed purchsed for him works just fine. 

As is customary here in this blog thingy, I get a little overwhelmed by the news and awfulness of the world. I'm sure you've noticed.

When that happens, I retreat to fun little dog stories, or something like that.

This is one of those times.

I've decided I really like Kenny, a 10-year-old golden retriever from Elkhart, Indiana.

His human mom, Heather Stoddard, knew Kenny needed a new doggie bed, so she ordered one on line.

Stoddard forgot to note that the doggie beds she was looking at came in various sizes. The one that arrived was teeny tiny, made for pups much smaller than big Kenny.

Dogs tend to seem appreciative of gifts and want to please their human companions so he pretended the tiny dog bed was just perfect for him.

The result was a bunch of viral photos of Kenny earnestly pretending the tiny bed worked wonderfully for him.

"It was honestly funny seeing how small and thin it was. It almost looked like a pillow," said Paten Mathes, 15, Stoddard's son and Kenny's other human companion.

Kenny the golden retriever realizes the too small dog bed
is too small for him, but at least it makes a nice pillow

By the way, Stoddard realized her mistake as soon as the dog bed arrived and she went back on line to buy a dog bed that works much better for Kenny.

By the way, I get it dogs might latch onto objects that they like not entirely because they're trying to please someone, but because they like the object and it gives the comfort.

For instance, my dogs Jackson and Tonks are weird. When I sit down to watch TV, Tonks will sometime rest her head of my feet so she has the comforting if stinky scent of my shoes.

Both Jackson and Tonks want me to put down pants that need laundering on the floor so they can sleep on them, again because it's probably comforting.  

Still, I like to think part of the motivation of all this stuff that Kenny, Tonks and Jackson do are because they feel an attachment to their human companions and want to please them.

I'll go with that.

The photos of Kenny got so widespread that some pet companies sent the family some dog beds that might be a better fit for Kenny.

Kenny is testing them out and will decide which one he likes best. Any other dog beds that Kenny isn't as enthusiastic about will be donated to animal shelters, says the Huffington Post. 

See, Kenny is quite the kind dog. I have one thing to say to him. It's an approving "Woof!!!"

It's The Satirists Who Are Keeping The Strange, Scary News Straight For Us

Satirists like Samanatha Bee are becoming
some of the most trusted news sources. 

Like most people, I get lost in the endless chatter and shoutfests and lame "analysis" on the cable news networks.

Sure, I watch them a lot, but they get to yakking about all the outrages going in Washington to the point where none of it makes sense.

When I get confused like that, I turn to satirists like Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Samantha Bee, Seth Meyers and sometimes the cast of "Saturday Night Live" to set me straight.

Yes, they all have a point of view, but satirists cut through the bullshit, instead of adding to it.

When the news gets confusing, satirists like John
Oliver are there for the rescue. 

I just encountered a video that backs up my point of view exactly. The point of the video, from Vox, is that comedians have learned to cover the Trump administration much more effectively than any news network.

Here's why:

Big news networks will accurately report that something Trump said is a lie, or totally fabricated, or has no evidence to back it up.

So far, so good.

Then the TV channels spend hours and hours and hours parsing the latest lie or stupid remark. Plus, they bring on Trump sycophants to defend the lie, to spin the lie, to make it all seem better.

All this has the effect of confusing the viewer. Including people like me, who are pretty sophisticated news consumers.  

Frankly, I trust Stephen Colbert more than I trust
much of what passes for cable news. 

The news network reporters all know the latest Trump lie du jour is bullcrap, but they take it seriously, and make an effort to "report all sides of the issue."

But when something is bull, just call it that, for crissakes!

Which is what satirists do. You don't necessarily have to agree with the satirsts' point of view, but at least you know you're getting to the heart of the matter.

In a humorous way. Humor often makes things so much easier to understand.

A few journalists are starting to get the message. Jake Tapper on CNN, for instance, is starting to make sarcastic remarks when a Trump surrogate says something over the top. He's calling the bullcrap.  

On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow isn't really a satirist, but she's sure doing a good job of digging through the mountains of dirt in Washington to give us some insight into what's really going on. I like how she enthusiastically explains things in ways any bozo (like me!) can understand.

So all that is a start.

Yes, journalists ought to try to over all sides and be fair. But when someone is calling the Earth flat, time to go for the jugular.

It's no wonder satirists through history have had they heydeys when the leaders are failing particularly badly. If you're a good satirist, enjoy your current success. We need people like you.

In the video at the bottom of this post, you'll hear Sophia McClennen, a co-author of "Is Satire Saving Our Nation?" give this money quote that is spot on: "Political satire is about showing you the system is faking you out...It fires up the mind to say, 'Hmmm, this doesn't seem right.'"

Yes, I think satire can inspire needed political activism.

 The video below is about seven minutes long, but you should really watch it. It's a great guide to how to report on, and how the public ought to try and understand bullcrap. The video is NSFW, because of some language, but worth it.

Alex Jones, Who Is Trump's Wacko Muse, Is Entertaining In A Scary Way

Alex Jones is one of Donald Trumps most, um,
interesting news sources.

One of Donald Trump's favorite news sources seems to be Alex Jones.

Jones is the visible head of something called InfoWars, which is, to put it mildly, a wildly crazy, train wreck of an extreme wacko conspiracy theories.

There's an entertaining video of him at the bottom of this post.

Jones is the guy who informed us that terrorist attacks and mass shootings in Orlando, Sandy Hook, Boston and other places were "false flags" by the Obama administration to take away all our guns and all of our freedoms.

He's the guy who informed us that the government is creating gay people by putting estrogen in juice boxes,thereby being a method of population control.

When a terrible tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma in 2013, he said the U.S. Air Force has the ability to control and direct swarms of tornadoes and launched a strike on Moore. No word from Jones yet on why the government targeted the fine people of Moore.

Also, Diet Coke is a by-product of a Pentagon study that would engineer e-coli bacteria and the fact that Taylor Swift endorsed Diet Coke in ads means that she loves genetically modified bacteria poop. 

So, yes, Jones is, um, interesting, which makes it very easy for me to pick on him. I know I'm being mean. I shouldn't abuse the mentally ill.

But in Jones' case, I can't help it. He needs to be taken down a notch.

Thankfully, we got some help from Vice, who tweeted the compilation you'll see below of clips from Jones' radio show.

Jones tends to have a temper, or which he also apologizes for. The wax and wane of these episodes is something to behold.  The dude certainly is excitable.

Watch the clip if you dare:

 Alex Jones wants you to know he’s sorry for his outbursts pic.twitter.com/i83ubKiwNp

— VICE News (@vicenews) March 5, 2017

Iowa Lawmaker Files Dumb Legislation; Proof Emerges The Guy Is Dumb

This Iowa State Senator's "business
degree" is really just a management
certificate from a Sizzler Steakhouse.

Iowa State Senator Mark Chelgren recently filed legislation that would limit the number of Democrats the state university can hire.   

He figured too many liberals were indoctrinating our poor innocent college kids or something.

Figuring Chlegren was so into education standards, reporters started poking around the lawmaker's educational background.

After all, Chelgren said  he had a business degree from something called Forbco Management.

It turns out "Forbco Management" is a company that once operated a Sizzler steak house franchise in Torrance, California.

Yep, he got a certificate for being a fairly competent manager at a Sizzler. "Kind of like Hamburger University at McDonald's," NBC News reports.

Which means this certificate isn't quite as prestigious as say, an MBA from Harvard, but I guess we all do what we can.

For the record, the certificate Chelgren got from Sizzler is not a college degree, but you knew that.

Interestingly, soon after NBC and other news outlets started getting intensily curious about Chalgren's "degree" from Sizzler, it disappeared from the Iowa State Republicans web site.

The response from Chelgren to NBC News to this issue seems dicey to me:

"'This was not an attempt to inflate anything,' he said, adding he was not aware of the error on the web site until a reporter asked about it. 'I didn't concern myself about this, honesty.'

In a telephone interview last week, Chelgren was vague about Forbco. He said was located outside of Los Angeles and that he got his business degree 'around '88 or '89. It's going a ways back so I don't remember.'

"I don't know if they are still in business or not.....The school was created by Forbco Management, and I got a degree in hotel restaurant management."

Or not.

Especially since Chelgren did not respond to NBC News' request for a copy of his diploma or degree.

We did find out Chelgren was in college for a year in the early 1990s at the University of California Riverside majoring in physics, but he only lasted one year

Of course, we knew Chelgren is not an expert in education to begin with. As noted, he filed his Senate File 228 bill to impose a hiring freeze in the Iowa university system until registered Republicans are nearly on par with Democrats on faculties.

Chelgren's reasoning for the bill is rich. He says he had a lot of negative experiences with "liberal professors" while in college.

Yeah, I'm sure those physics professors for that one unsuccessful year in school really tried to indoctrinate Chelgren with radical left wing socialism. You know, the kind of leftist propaganda like E=MC squared.

In other words, Chelgren is like a lot of (but not all!)  extreme right wingers: They're not that bright, and want to ensure the rest of the world is as dumb as them.

At least Chelgren has additonal things in his resume, like these fun fact about him from Slate:

"Before entering politics, Chelgren was best known as 'Chickenman,' a fun-loving character who wore a chicken hat, wielded a supersoaker full of beer and biked naked in Iowa's famous RAGBRA! bike race."

Well, that's something to put on your resume!