Humans vaulted, or quietly tiptoed, to the top of the food chain when our brains evolved enough to overcome our 1,246 physical shortcomings, including subpar vaulting, which the other critters made fun of, before having a quick snack. Generally, we’re slow, with poor climbing skills and buoyancy issues. We couldn’t catch much — or escape much.

And being tender and flavorful is zero help on the African savanna. It’s a deadly handicap to nonsuicidal bipeds. The wildebeests just chuckle — and then dive into a stream full of crocodiles. Who is laughing now, you stupid gnus?

But I’m having some second thoughts on the universal nature of the brain thing. Perhaps human evolution skipped around like an old record player, and a few blood lines, or single generations, didn’t get the full dose of synapses and complement of lobes needed to play a competitive game of checkers.

Or in the case of some spokespeople and their employers, the difference between reality and imagination.

This isn’t about Donald Trump. Who could keep up? Besides, National Geographic and Psychology Today have already teamed up and determined that the Prince of Palm Beach has an intellectual range that hovers between that of a ring-tailed lemur and a plaid-tailed lemur and the disposition of a short-nosed northern school attacking grizzly bear with a bigly tack stuck in its inferior gemellus muscle.

No, this is the latest edition of stupid stuff from the mouths or keyboards of a supermajority encapsulated in a closed ecosystem, grown resistant to the savvy virus.

We’ve already been through the “run over Natives” bill, and Al Carlson’s mask phobia. Rep. Chris Olson lost in his desire to develop a system of overtly selective data mining on a very specific group of people. He went so far as to publish a debunked article on his Facebook page that dusted tuberculosis dust on the fine people from Bhutan. The post has been removed. Cheap shot. Sad.

“Boom.” — Rep. Jake Blum, upon seeing the false Breitbart story, which tied refugees to tuberculosis. People are usually less enthusiastic about TB.

Speed on our highways is still important to Rep. Lonnie Laffen, guns to Rep.Ben Koppelman and some special freedom based liquor is on Rep. Rick Becker’s mind.

Freedom this, and freedom that. Evidently, a farmer can’t sell sweet corn — or spuds — to the public, which was news to me. So, we need a food freedom bill to give us the right to buy fresh carrots and homemade brownies. Are we living in a chocolate chip cookie free North Korea?

And let’s get rid of those “safe spaces” that don’t exist, except in alt-right memes, with the “snowflake” dribble. They’re upsetting Rep. Becker. Of course, the Capitol is the safest space of them all.

And some of the guys still don’t know when they can open fire — on the mailman when he’s already next door — or anyone who gets close to their solid gold stuff in the garage.

On to recently

This is what Big Al says to almost everything, so no need to panic. He didn’t get kicked in the head by a Clydesdale, as far as we know. Too early to tell.

“It’s another solution in search of a problem. There isn’t a problem.” — Al Carlson, House Majority Leader

And Mr. Money Bags claims to be seeing big bags of money being passed around down by Cannon Ball. The bags had dollar signs painted on them, so you know it’s true. Time to lay down.

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The initiated measure to allow medical marijuana has been gutted, in spite of 65 percent of North Dakotans voting FOR IT!

“I will just say that if you look at the birth rate in the greater Denver area, they are in excess of 30 percent babies born with marijuana in their system.” — Rep. Pat Heinert.

Heinert, unable to differentiate between the legalization of recreational pot in Colorado and its use for medical purposes — like chronic pain — and the recitation of random statics, has a comprehension problem. He may be smoking too much weed. A kid with multiple seizures per hour, or any cancer victim with relentless nausea, is unlikely to be doing any long term family planning, between spasms, or bouts with vomit. Just saying.

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These Ward Cleaver clowns, arguing to keep the Sunday shopping blue laws in force, tie for the Archie “get me a beer, will ya, Edith” Bunker Award. And no, Michael J, Fox did not drive them back to 1955. Some just refuse to leave the decade. They really like Ike.

“My wife has no problem spending everything I earn in six and a half days.” — Rep. Vernon Laning.

“Maybe you don’t go to church. I’ve got some suggestions … Make him (husband) breakfast and bring it to him in bed.” — Rep. Bernie Satrom.

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Rep. Chris Olson also argues in favor of keeping the blue laws, and other than the “thousands of years” part, which is false, I can’t figure out what he’s trying to say. That’s on me for purposely forgetting to attend the Bastiat Caucus meetings.

“The logical arguments for eliminating the blue laws as they’re called are massive. There’s lots of good logical arguments for getting rid of them. But I think this is one of those areas where we have to be cautious because traditions which have been with us for thousands of years are usually solutions which were found for problems that we can no longer remember.

“And so when you eliminate the tradition, the problem returns. Maybe we don’t remember why we came up with common days of time to rest and relax. And some people may think that this is a distinctly religious issue. I don’t think it’s necessarily that, I think it’s part of just the pattern of human life.” — Rep. Chris Olson.

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Ed wants a pack of gum, some chips and a Diet Coke. God was with him every step of the way and approves of his purchases, Seabass (that’s what he likes to be called). No pushing or coveting was involved, and government doesn’t care how Ed spends the day, unless he also holds up the store.

“Governments generally have taken enough steps, and individuals on their own accord have done enough to push God out of their lives.” — Rep. Sebastian Ertelt

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Somebody has had too much Mountain Dew and LSD.

“With the media fully culpable, I think it’s time for liberals/progressives to apologize, admit they have a problem with a strain of violence and fascist-style intimidation/thuggery in their movement and begin to root it out.” — Rep. Jake Blum

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Rob Port “the unwieldy,” as he is known on World of Warcraft, is first and foremost an oil carrier for the NDGOP — a mascot, not a lawmaker — and blog boy for the Fargo Forum, for some reason. It must be his fourth-grade writing level that clinched it.

There’s a whole post connected to the quote below, and it dovetails nicely with Jake Blum’s idiotic Alex Jones-style comment above. The Republicans can’t justify their leader, so they found a way to attack anyone to the left of Kublai Khan, to divert attention from the tragedy in Bowling Green.

“Violence and intimidation have become hallmarks of left wing politics in America.” — Rob Port.

Then, the supersleuth typed this nugget. “Rep. Matt Ruby, a Republican from Minot, said he’d heard from a college student who said they could be reported and reprimanded for merely discussing the wrong sort of politics in the lunch line.”

So, Matt Ruby might know a college student. What a scoop!

# # #

Jeff Magrum needs to doing something else, other than being allowed to vote, well, anywhere.

“Isn’t abortion illegal in North Dakota?” — Rep. Jeff Magrum

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She reads all that crap, but Janne Myrdal would never post a gay swastika. That would be tacky. Let this be a lesson to other bigots. Don’t post hateful graphics, unless you have a plausible excuse — or you’re Craig Cobb. It’s best to plan ahead.

“Recently I reposted a story on my personal Facebook wall that had an image attached to the link that I was unaware of; I have since deleted the post. As a daughter of a family that suffered under the said image, I deplore this image and I would never post this image on purpose.” — Sen. Janne Myrdal

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I had this conversation with Oley Larsen several years ago, when he plagiarized a Fargo Forum editorial, and he thought if you DON’T credit the author, people would know that you didn’t write it. If that made no sense, you should have seen the rest of our exchange before he blocked me. It’s true. We are friends no longer.

That paragraph was relevant because he’s done it a again, at least once. Sen. Oley Larsen is a serial plagiarizer. He wrote the first part, which you can tell by the spelling, and claims the second part is the speech he would have given, if need be,  but he didn’t write it and didn’t give credit to the person who did. Visitors to his Facebook page have complimented him on the fine writing, and he hasn’t corrected anyone.

Just an FYI; the “Countermand Amendment” is a middle finger to the federal government and violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Those court proceeding shouldn’t cost much.

I left all of the plagiarized part intact (he removed a few passages) because Googling small sections of any paragraph leads to the original. It’s fun for the whole family!

“This would have been the floor speach i was going to give if there was opposition to the countermand amendment. it passed with no floor debate but i felt it a good idea to give some history of what it will do for North Dakota. This was a great bill!!!” — Sen. Oley Larsen

Often, I reflect on the times we are living in and the enormous evil that pervades all of our lives. We are in a great battle for the minds, souls and lives of men.

The genius of our founders was in leaving the American people sovereign authority in Article V to protect these rights declared in the Declaration of Independence and protected in the Constitution itself.

Only in America are the people sovereign. Remember the first three words in our Constitution “We the People …” It was not a monarch, dictator or judicial fiat that gave us these rights.

Article V grants “We the People” the authority to stop Federal overreach and encroachment on states rights and personal liberties.

Article V is an Amendment Convention (… for proposing amendments …) which is clearly stated twice in the Article. Its purpose is to protect our Constitution safely and quickly when the government refuses to address egregious wrongs or when there are federal encroachments on the States and their citizens.

The people cannot preserve their sovereignty without first having an amendment text pre-approved by their state legislatures.

Article V was inserted by the founders in the Constitution to provide a way to safely protect the Constitution, not to damage it. In fact, Article V does not allow state legislatures to direct Congress to call for a constitutional convention. We already have our Constitution. Article V is intended to protect it.

When a federal law or regulation is countermanded by the States and 60 percent of the states agree, then the law is rescinded. However, the federal government retains its authority to rewrite the law in such a way that it is amenable to the states. The states are now looked upon as partners in government — not just subjects to federal mandates. Most importantly, “We the People” can initiate countermands through their elected state officials, thus preserving their sovereign authority. In addition, with each rescission, the states are declaring an un-enumerated right they retain in the 10th Amendment.

It is truly nonpartisan. Each state has equal standing as guaranteed in Article IV, 4. Because Article V is for “Amendment Conventions” our state can pass it without interfering with other Article V groups our Legislature is supporting.

The document templates what other states are using to provide continuity among the states.