That’s right. According to DNA research currently being conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Neanderthals had a max planck for the new and really cute humans who moved to town and before they died out spent a few steamy nights with them amid candlelight and Lady Gaga records.

This has resulted, say the researchers, in a strain of Neanderthal DNA swimming for thousands of years in the gene pool of non-African humans. As a matter of fact, the researchers suggest 1 to 4 percent of the DNA in non-Africans (Europeans) is, in fact, Neanderthal.

A poll taken by ABC news the other day suggested the teabaggers account for approximately 2 percent of the population; a curious statistical comparison.

Seriously, the Neanderthal DNA strain could actually explain quite a bit.

NASCAR, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, failure to regulate financial markets or protect consumers, GOP southern strategy, Arizona immigration law, hair on the upper lip of Italian women, ultimate cage fighting, California and Florida senate races; and why the British Parliament may be hung but not well-hung.

On the other hand – the one with knuckles dragging along the hot sidewalk – this research may lead to a whole new bag of excuses for stupidity among public figures and policy makers.

Good news, senators and world’s top golfers, you no longer have to claim alcoholism or go into rehab when you get caught leafing through pages or burying your balls in the deep rough. You can simply blame it on the Neanderthal DNA!!

Johnny Cochran would have loved this defense!!

Say, for example, you hit the “b” key when you meant to hit the “m” key and suddenly stock prices plummet around the globe and people are leaping from tall buildings. You simply say, “oops…my bad…Neanderthal DNA moment!!”

Or when you find yourself repeatedly talking about how safe it is today to drill for oil immediately off beaches and salt marshes.

Or, perhaps, when you find yourself so stridently homophobic that you found an entire non-profit organization based on, he-he, rooting out people who prefer to knock boots with others of the same sex only to get caught yourself taking a little vacation with an Internet rent-a-boy. Rather than admitting to being an intensely gross hypocrite you can simply say, “Hey, I’ve admitted my inner Neanderthal.”

There is a problem with this defense, however. As far as we know, Neanderthals were not found across this great continent, the mid-breadth of which would one day become known as the U-nited States of ‘Murka.

So, to admit to Neanderthal heritage might put one at risk of being deported from the State of Arizona due to lack of native status.

I understand the Apache people will soon start demanding papers of Arizona Legislators.

Okay all you Anglos with a tan, we’re headed to Arizona, donning our guayaberas and huaraches and telling the cops we brought our Coronas directly from Mexico!

Whoo-hoo!! We’re all Mexican today! Well, maybe not in Arizona; could get you arrested and charged with being brown.

Oh sure, Cinco de Maya is well-known as a kind of Mexican Independence Day, meant to commemorate Zapata’s victory over Napoleon at Veracruz but, hey, what’s that compared to drinking contests when you can drink so much tequila you think you’re speaking Spanish to that groovy looking chick who is actually from India.

Besides everyone knows Cinco de Mayo was started as a conspiracy to sell more Coronas to the gringos! Ha-Ha-Ha!! Zapata knew someday another Mexican would invent Corona beer and that gringos north of what would become the border would do anything to get it.

Just like Mother’s Day is a conspiracy, according to Gin Beck’sBeer on his radio show.

It’s been conspiracy week on all along the radio dial where you’ll find the right-wing-noise-machine. Everyone loves a good conspiracy of course, especially when you don’t have any substantive ideas to promote or solutions to propose.

Rant, baby, rant!!

In addition to Beck’s rant against Mother’s Day (rant against Mother’s Day…really, Glenn, really?), we have conspiracies to blow up the Gulf of Mexico oil well and that dastardly plot to read Miranda Rights to a U.S. Citizen arrested for a connection to the Times Square failed bomb attempt.

What will these morons think of next?

Oh, I know! How ‘bout U.S. Senator John McCain, Vietnam war hero (for being taken captive), defeated presidential candidate and all-around Maverick – though he now denies it – suggesting the Pakistani-born U.S. Citizen arrested in connection with the Times Square bombing attempt doesn’t need Miranda Rights?

Then, of course, pops up Heckuva-job-Brownie to say how the Obama Administration loves the Gulf oil spill because the President gets to pander to the environmentalists.

Takes a lot of tar balls washing up on the beach for Brownie to even show his face in public, let alone say something as goofy as that.

No, but seriously, Douche Limpbranch may be on to something by suggesting it was the environmental whackos who dove 5,000 feet into the Gulf of Mexico to intentionally blow up the Deep Horizon oil well and flood the Gulf of Mexico with crude…black gold…Texas tea…the New Gulf of Mexico.

That’s it!! That’s the conspiracy! We’ll just drain the Gulf of Mexico, fill it with oil and we can all head down to the beach with straws and snort it right up! Cut out the middle-man, cars and all those noisy machines.

Finally, when it comes to teabaggers affecting the outcomes of elections? Not so much apparently. Teabag candidates earned a massive-fail at the polls in Republican primaries in Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina.

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” – Macbeth.

Whew, it is tough trying to live up to the mantle of the screwiest state in the nation and the Sunshine State is certainly grateful to Arizona for answering the call, “hey, li’l help?”

Just in case you’ve been under a rock, the Arizona Legislature passed a new law requiring anyone with brown skin be stopped by police under suspicion of not being ‘Murkin.

That’s right. Arizona law now requires police to stop anyone they think might be an undocumented resident or visitor to the USofA. And that means all people of darker-than-pink skin. Sales of self-tanners and visits to tanning salons dropped off immediately.

The same Arizona legislature rejected a bill that would have moved the Statue of Liberty to the high desert: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Emma Lazarus would not have been welcomed in the Arizona Legislature.

You gotta admit, though, protesting the new law by painting swastikas on the capitol in black beans…well, that’s pretty clever.

But not to worry, Florida. You still have a chance. Charlie Crist is gonna run for the U.S. Senate as an independent and it’s gonna be a great campaign season! We’ll have the tea baggers, Marco “Polo” Rubio, Charlie and the steady and solid Kendrick Meek seeking to become the first African-American elected to the Senate from Florida.

One black, one Latin, one white-n-tanned-n-exceedingly-neat. It’s the Mod Squad campaign season in Florida!

Maybe Marco Rubio should avoid Arizona for a while; maybe Charlie, too.

Note for the rest of the nation: Charlie Crist first rose to political prominence in the early 90s as a tough “law and order” candidate and state senator advocating for the return of roadside chain gangs. He was immediately dubbed “Chain Gang Charlie.”

Now, it appears, what he has here is a failure to communicate.

At least in Alabama, they speak English. That’s the summation of another wing nut running for office on the backs of those who aren’t white and rich.

Alabama Republican goobernatorial candidate Tim James proclaims in a TeeVee Box ad, for all the world to hear, “In Alabama, we speak English,” while railing against laws which require driver’s license tests to be offered in a variety of languages.

One could argue, however, about the ability of Alabamians to speak English. But that’s another story.

Finally, thank God the U.S. Senate is finally doing something to help real Americans on Main Street. Stalled in financial reform, mired in immigration and greenhouse gases, a few brave Senators are coming out strong against…Facebook!

Sens. Shummer, Franken, Bennet and Begich will stand firm against any attempts by the giant social network to further invade our privacy!

Facebook responded by immediately un-friending Sens. Shummer, Franken, Bennet & Begich…but kept their profiles online for advertisers.

Or…

“I’ll take a venti triple mocha latte with two extra shots…one in the cup and one at your head.”

That’s right. If you haven’t heard by now, you need to know the pin-head knuckle draggers who insist on carrying guns in their pants because they fear they have little else to carry in their pants are pulling the trigger on sanity around the country by staging gun-toting gatherings at Starbucks.

Their aim, you see, is to prove to the world what extreme bullies they can be by carrying guns into Starbucks – and other restaurants – in states where it’s legal to openly carry guns – 24 states, to be exact.

Yes, you read that correctly: it is now legal to openly carry guns in 24 states and two more – Virginia and Arizona – are expected soon to follow suit and become a backdrop for cowboy movies. Guns are allowed now in playgrounds and sports fields in Tennessee.

It’s insanity, really.

Seriously, give me a good reason for carrying a gun into a Starbucks or a California Pizza Kitchen or a Buckhorn Grill or any other restaurant…except, of course, to rob it at gun point.

You’re right. There isn’t one. But that matters little to the mouth breathers who continue to insist they need guns to make up for their lack of self esteem.

Hey morons! Try a little therapy…or contemplative prayer…or yoga, for Heaven’s sake.

The good news is The Brady Center is trying to counter this craziness.

All this comes as the U.S. Supreme Court may be on the brink of relaxing gun laws even more and…oh, yea, did we mention that last night a gun-toter shot up the Pentagon and wounded two police officers?

And from the Tell-Us-Something-We-Don’t-Already-Know Department, comes a leaked memo and PowerPoint show in which Republican operatives suggest using “fear” as a tactic to raise money and win votes in the 2010 elections.

Hmmm, really? Gee, we’ve never seen Republicans do that before. (See: Senator Joseph McCarthy; See: Donald Segretti; See: Karl Rove) But, apparently, this time they mean it.

The strategy, unveiled by the Republican National Committee’s finance group at a gathering of party officials February 18^th in Boca Grande, Florida, suggests the best way to raise money from the very rich is to scare them with cartoons and tell them socialism and President Obama will take away all their money!

Cartoons mocking President Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warn of “the evil empire” run by “Curella DeVille and Scooby Doo.”

Issues, anyone? Debate, anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Guns, fear and cartoons! That’s what made ‘Murka great!