From Album 5

In comments below Lillian noted amateur Egyptologist Ben Carson has a unique theory about the pyramids:

Dr. Ben Carson on Wednesday night confirmed his belief that the pyramids in Egypt were built for grain storage by Joseph, the Biblical figure who helped the Egyptians survive famine, even though archaeologists have concluded that the pyramids were built as tombs for the pharaohs.

Wow. I don’t think even the literal truthers push that one.

As Billmon points out, this will probably shore up Carson’s support with the evangelicals, but…damn. Makes me wonder what’s worse: Carson himself, or the plurality (at least for now) of GOP voters who consider him to be presidential material.

The Christian base won’t win a general election. But how many of the rest will opt for bugfuck insanity? I’m reminded of when Andrew Sullivan came out in favor of Sharron Angle in Nevada.

Ignorance in itself doesn’t bother me too much: people should be free to be as dumb or as insane as they want. But they’re not just dumb — they’re aggressively ignorant, and they want to push it on the rest of us. Which is a big, big problem.