I live in a community that is politically conservative - very conservative. Think: Attila The Hun conservative.

Like all people everywhere there are intelligent conservatives (yes, really), dimwit conservatives, thoughtful conservatives, knee-jerk conservatives.

There is one for whom I have the misfortune of having to endure almost daily. He is a hybrid of dimwit and knee-jerk. He has never had a thought which is either original or even derivative. Every "thought" in his head is comparable to the "thought" of a parrot or mynah. His idea of talking is to repeat what he hears from such intellectual giants as Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Beck, Medved, and some sports guy on ESPN..

Actually, I'm exaggerating. His speech goes beyond those, um, reprobates.

• He spices up their words with an unimaginable number of F-bombs. Think:
  
  F%^&*k noun F$%^k verb f$%^& f#$%k f#$%^k.
  
  
• Also, those radio-based talking anatomical orifices are far less racist than he. He could make a neo-Nazi vomit in disgust.

Needless to say (but I'll say these anyway):

• He is a climate-change denier.
• He has no sense of irony.
• On the rare occasions when he says something that he thinks is funny, he breaks out in a huge grin. It's obvious to anyone nearby that he believes that his last utterance was funny - maybe even hilarious.

All of that said, on Groundhog Day he stated, completely deadpan, "if global warming were real, why didn't it affect the Groundhog?"

I know him well enough to say unequivocally He Was NOT Joking. His fellow conservatives in the room reacted with stunned silence. Finally, one started to explain it, and gave up.