Okay, so this doesn’t have anything to do with Twin Peaks, but it is about a coop.

Via SurlyBlog, check out these photos from Eastside Egg Co-op at Zenger Farm of Portland, Oregon. This beautiful portable chicken coop is outfitted with a heavy heavy bad-ass Surly wheelset (Surly hubs, Large Marge rims and Endomorph tires), mounted to ISO-558-74 Chicken Coop Forks (fabricated by Sacha White of Vanilla Cycles).

Sustainable farming, pastured chickens, human powered farm equipment, bike geek participation… that right there’s a vision of a future that doesn’t suck, folks. Big salute to everyone involved, nice work, and great pics!

Mmmm eggs. And flour, lard, and sugar. And cherries. And coffee.

Want a better name for it? How about, Holiday from Reason and Good Sense, That Promises To Have Absolutely No Beneficial Effects For Anyone? Or, better still, The American Voter Is a Fucking Chump? Because that’s what this idiotic proposal really says: you think that we’re chumps.

So, candidates, if you want to prove to me that you’re:

• incapable of distinguishing good policy from bad
• incapable of supporting good policy by taking a stand and explaining to America why a bad policy is bad
• capable of pushing really, really stupid policy in pursuit of a demagogue-alicious tactical advantage over your opponents
• think that I and my fellow Americans are idiots that will respond positively to this sort of bullshit

Then just keep this stupid shit up.

We’ve had almost 8 years of putting food on our families and making the pie higher. A top priority for me in selecting the next president is whether or not he or she can make some serious traction reducing the myriad mountains of residual stupid we’re going to inherit from the Bush administration. The thought that he or she is going to put whipped cream and cherries on top of them is fucking infuriating.

Cut it out.

Update: Well stated, by hilzoy:

Clinton is presently making a big deal about the fact that she is “a fighter”. After this primary season, I don’t think there can be any doubt about her willingness to fight. What Clinton’s gas tax proposal tells me is what she’s willing to fight for. She is not willing to fight for what she thinks is right in the face of public pressure. She’s not even willing to restrict her compromises to cases in which public pressure to do something stupid already exists. She will sacrifice principle and the public good when it’s expedient for her to do so.

Update 2: I’d thought that the Gas Tax Hollandaise was about as stupid as pandering, half-assed populist proposals were going to get this season. How wrong I was (h/t John Cole).

“We’re going to go after OPEC which remember is a monopoly cartel,” Clinton said. “There’s nothing free-market about it. They sit in some conference room a couple of times a year and decide how much oil they are going to produce and how much they are going to charge for it. So lets change our laws so we can sue them on anti-trust reasons.”

We’re going to break up OPEC’s cartel, comprised of sovereign nations. We’re going to use U.S. federal antitrust laws to do it. By suing them. Somewhere.

Looks like someone’s trying to lock up the “Idiot Voter” block. The next pander should be aimed squarely at the block of folks who vote for candidates based on weather-related phenomena.

China has taken over our position (h/t The Editors) as the biggest carbon dioxide producer in the world, although we still produce 5 to 6 times as much per capita. What’s scarier is the fact that the China’s average yearly income is less than $2000, so I don’t think they’re looking to slow down on the “progress”. I did particularly enjoyed this quote:

“But there is no sense pointing a finger at the Chinese. They are trying to pull people out of poverty and they clearly need help.

“The only solution is for a massive transfer of technology and wealth from the West.”

He acknowledged that this eventuality was unlikely.

I don’t know about the technology, we’re still talking about peeling mountains like apples to get at the dirty, dirty coal. But a massive transfer of wealth from the West to China? Unlikely?

Evidently, the man’s never been to WalMart.