No commentary required 4/1/12

This is what happens when I run into so many good stories on the tubes that I want to talk about but don't have the time to address each one individually. I'll just point the way and hope you enjoy.

First of all, perhaps you've noticed that the Republicans are having a bit of trouble getting a message together when all of their ideas utterly failed during the Bush/Cheney years and now all they've got to run on is Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS). Watch one of their "preeminent thinkers," Bill Kristol, demonstrate.

A conventional, cautious, backward-looking GOP effort against President Obama is as likely to produce a close reelection for the president as a close defeat...

What’s the alternative? A forward-looking campaign, more like Reagan’s in 1980 and Clinton’s in 1992. Reagan and Clinton didn’t simply depend on unhappiness with the incumbent. They elaborated a different, and they claimed better, path ahead for the country.

Go that? A "forward-looking campaign elaborating a better path ahead for the country"...yeah, that's the ticket.

What would that look like Mr. Kristol?

Can the Republican nominee do this in 2012? Can he explain how an Obama second term would be even more dangerous and damaging than the Obama first term has been? Can he explain that we’re heading off a cliff of debt and deficit if Obama’s fiscal policies are allowed to continue? Can his campaign make vivid the harm Obama’s tax hikes and regulations will do to the economy, and Obama-care to our health care system and our country? Can he explain what a second term of Obama judicial appointments will do to our courts? Can he explain the damage an Obama second term will do to self-government, and limited government, and constitutional government in America? Can he conduct a campaign that describes how much more dangerous the world might look in 2016 if we continue Obama’s foreign and defense policies? Can the Republican campaign present a choice of paths for the future, à la Paul Ryan’s budget and his explanation of it, rather than simply complain about the recent past and the difficult present?

No commentary required ;-)

Next up is perhaps one of the best things I've read in a long time. You know someone has nailed it when they hit two birds with one stone...describing Mitt Romney to a tee AND making you laugh while they do so. That's just what David Javerbaum did today with A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney. Here are a couple of the basic concepts:

Complementarity. In much the same way that light is both a particle and a wave, Mitt Romney is both a moderate and a conservative, depending on the situation (Fig. 1). It is not that he is one or the other; it is not that he is one and then the other. He is both at the same time.

Probability. Mitt Romney’s political viewpoints can be expressed only in terms of likelihood, not certainty. While some views are obviously far less likely than others, no view can be thought of as absolutely impossible. Thus, for instance, there is at any given moment a nonzero chance that Mitt Romney supports child slavery.

And my favorite:

Entanglement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proton, neutron or Mormon: the act of observing cannot be separated from the outcome of the observation. By asking Mitt Romney how he feels about an issue, you unavoidably affect how he feels about it. More precisely, Mitt Romney will feel every possible way about an issue until the moment he is asked about it, at which point the many feelings decohere into the single answer most likely to please the asker.

Javerbaum even has figures to demonstrate.

Fig. 1: The famous "Schrödinger's candidate" scenario. For as long as Mitt Romney remains in this box, he is both a moderate and a conservative.

Fig. 2: A Feynman diagram of an encounter between a Romney and an anti-Romney. The resulting collision annihilates both, leaving behind a single electron and a $20 bill.

Honestly, go read the whole thing. I promise you that you'll be enlightened while you get a few belly laughs. Not a bad way to spend a couple of minutes, is it?

On a more serious note, Gary Younge writes about an interview he had recently with John Carlos.

John Carlos (on right), Tommie Smith (centre) and Peter Norman (left), 1968 Olympics.

I also suggest that you read this whole article. Mr. Carlos' words about what he did 44 years ago are as important for all of us today as they were to him back then.

"In life, there's the beginning and the end," he says. "The beginning don't matter. The end don't matter. All that matters is what you do in between – whether you're prepared to do what it takes to make change. There has to be physical and material sacrifice. When all the dust settles and we're getting ready to play down for the ninth inning, the greatest reward is to know that you did your job when you were here on the planet."

Thanks for doing your job, John.

And finally - on a lighter note - has anyone else noticed that our FLOTUS is HOT?



Of course, the guy she's married to isn't too hard on the eyes either.