Procrastiblog

Ann Althouse wonders about the polar bears:

How many people look at that picture and think the polar bears were living on some ice and it melted around them and now they are stuck?

And, yes, I realize a polar bear can drown… if, say, it’s exhausted and swimming over 50 miles. But basically, these things can swim 15 miles easily, at a speed of 6 miles an hour, and they use the edge of an ice floe as a platform from which to hunt. Where’s the photograph of the bear chomping down on a cute baby seal?

And, no, I’m not denying that there’s global warming, even as I sit here a double pane of glass away from -12° air. I’m just amused at human behavior, such as the way it is possible to feel arguments at us. In particular, we are susceptible to argument by animal. We love the animal, if it’s pictured right, in a way that pulls our heartstrings.

I was kind of wondering this myself… I suspect the contextual implication of the picture below is completely false, but at the same time it somehow primes us to the deeper truth it signifies…

Note to George Bush: It’s called the Democratic party, and you sound like an asshole. (What’s new?) (Via les commentaires de Sausagely)

The presidents from JFK to Bush I (1960-1992) were all born between 1908 and 1924. That is to say, over 32 years the presidency was held by an age cohort (the World War II generation) of just 16 years. Both Clinton and George W. Bush were born in 1946, a gap of 22 years from the next-youngest presidents (Carter and George H.W. Bush). The only failed major-party nominees who fall into this gap are: Walter Mondale (b. 1928), Michael Dukakis (b. 1933), and John Kerry (b. 1943). Nobody born between 1924 and 1943 has even come close to being the president. I don’t have the time to look up all the 12 million people who are running in 2008, but I’m sure John McCain is the oldest and he was born in 1936. If he is elected (and he won’t be, knock wood), he would be the first (and almost certainly the only) president born in the 1930s. What’s the deal? Were all the children born of the depression jerks or what?

Now that I look at it, there’s a similar gap from Eisenhower (born 1890) to Johnson (born 1908). Since there’s only one or two presidents a decade, on average, it sort of makes sense that the birth distribution would be uneven. But still, isn’t it strange that an entire generation didn’t bring forth one worthy man? Who’s the all time best Washington politician born 1924-1946? Bernie Sanders? Daniel Patrick Moynihan? Dick Cheney?

LizardBreath makes the case for carrying puppets:

My knee-jerk reaction to “hippies”, any sort of silly, embarrassing leftists, is that while I don’t want to be seen with them, I probably agree with them about most things. Even if their politics are reflexive and not well thought out, they’re using basically the right rules of thumb, and on any issue that I haven’t thought out thoroughly myself, I’m more likely than not to come down on the same side as they do. Where I haven’t figured out an opinion that I can solidly back up yet, and usually where I have, I’m lining up with the people dressed as sea turtles…

You can’t successfully get anything right by trying to avoid agreeing with silly people. There are too many silly people, and they’re all over the map — no matter how sane, or well reasoned, or intelligent some position is, some absolute ninny out there agrees with it. The best thing to do is not to let prejudice affect your decision-making. But if you’re going to be swayed by prejudice, and we all are, trying to avoid idiots is going to lead you astray — better you should align yourself with the gang of idiots who you think have the best track record generally.

Follow those liberal idiots!

Michelle Cottle at The Plank speculates on the Democratic primary race:

The safe-money bet is that we’ll hear this minority v. chick storyline approximately 7,500 times if both senators [Clinton and Obama] indeed make a play for the White House, which has me wondering: What will this mean for the oh-so-white guy currently rounding out the Democratic triumvirate of top-tier candidates, Johnny Reid Edwards?

Will Edwards suffer from not being included in the media frenzy certain to rise up around Hillary v. Obama–all those inspirational stories about American social progress and the chance to remove the asterisk from the assertion that “anyone can grow up to be president”? Will some people come to resent Edwards as another entitled white guy trying to spoil the party?

Alternatively, will all the talk about race and gender and trailblazers and cultural barriers ultimately turn people off or make them question the qualifications (or, god forbid, the electability) of the two aspiring “firsts”? In the end, will Edwards benefit from being the candidate utterly without novelty appeal in this race?

John Edwards, here’s your winning campaign slogan… You can have it for free. “John Edwards: He’s a man. And white.”

P.S. This is the exception that proves the rule: I have no opinion about the 2008 presidential race. I don’t plan to have one until Q1 2008 (at least).

Twenty-four hours later my comment still hasn’t shown up. (And, no, it didn’t include any slander, profanity, or links to pornography.) Despite the fact this post is lighting up the left-of-center blogosphere like a Christmas tree, it has only 16 comments so far. Nice participating in your community, Time.com…

I formulated a response to this Joe Klein drivel which has been shit-canned to the Time.com moderator queue for the last four hours*. In the meantime, BooMan has published the definitive take-down:

Friends do not let friends drive drunk. In the case of George W. Bush and the neo-conservatives, they not only are insisting on driving intoxicated, they won’t let us out of the car and they respond to all requests to slow down by stomping on the accelerator. In this situation the only rational thing to do is to wait for them to come to a halt at a stop sign (if they are sober enough to avoid running it) and smack them in the head with a sock full of pennies. We need to take away the car keys, Mr. Klein.

You can call me an “illiberal leftist and reactionary progressive”, you can say my “naivete on national security–and the left wing tendency to assume every U.S. military action abroad is criminal–just aren’t very helpful electorally.” You can talk all the shit you want. But you are still letting your friends drive drunk and criticizing anyone that wants to do something about it.

* I will take this opportunity to say that moderating blog comments is clueless and completely beside the point. Wake up, people! I am the Time Magazine Person of the Year! Why won’t you publish my brilliant writing?

MY drops some, er, science:

It’s only a kind of rhetorical overreach on the part of atheists — pitting “religion” versus “not religion” as the key disagreement — that creates the appearance of a large majority in favor of “religion.” There’s clearly a significant human predilection for not-supported-by-science beliefs of various sorts — in the existence of a god or gods, astrology, fortune-telling, alien visits to earth, the healing power of crystals, etc. — but there’s no particular convergence of these beliefs on anything in particular. Meanwhile, on many of the particular question you might ask about religious subjects, atheists are going to be in the majority. Like most people on earth, atheists don’t believe that Jesus Christ died for man’s sins. Similarly, just like most people, atheists don’t believe that Muhammed was Allah’s greatest prophet or that the Hidden Imam will return. And, again, like most people atheists don’t believe that you’ll be reborn on earth after death in a new body.

This is exactly what I was talking about. (Via Unfogged)

PA-6 has been called for Jim Gerlach. That gives me an 0-3 record doing GOTV at the federal level. Boo.

How is it that the Democrats can pick up almost 30 seats in the House and lose in moderate districts in PA and CT? I mean, arithmetically, is that possible?