No, there is nothing interesting or special about Rick Santorum. The guy was the poster boy for Bush-era big guvmint conservatism. He ran the K street project out of his own office. He has a long history of statements that are not just crazy-conservative, but get up and move to another part of the bus crazy. His issue agenda is so far gone that it makes even Focus on the Family types uncomfortable. He has the charisma of a banana slug and he lost by record margins to Bob Casey, a guy so unmemorable that he could lose a primary to Generic Democrat. When the fundie base gets a good look at their last savior, most will turn out for the anointed mormon and the rest will stay home and watch Wheel of Fortune.
Also too. Rick Perry’s dynamo campaigning style will not take the race by storm. Herman Cain’s business acumen does not give him some unique edge, and people will not collectively forget that Newt Gingrich is an own goal in plus-size pants.
Steel yourself for a season of Romney/Paul #1/#2 primary results, epic low turnouts and a solid ten months of frantic flopsweat from trolls in the comment section of internetblogs.
kindness
Yes but how can we get even better quality trolls here at BJ? Ours are somewhat lacking to put it politely.
MattF
Apparently, in the WaPo-winger-alternate universe, Santorum is the ‘fun’ candidate (according to George Will) and the ‘gravitas and calm’ that Bachmann exudes in person somehow didn’t come across in debates and speeches (according to Jennifer Rubin). I kid you not, and no, I am not providing links.
Villago Delenda Est
Probably primary results that show fewer and fewer raw numbers totals as the Mittmentum electrocutes any enthusiasm for the process by the rabid base who just don’t like OvenMitt.
Then the issue is, can Obama take advantage of this phenomenon to enhance his own coattails.
Zifnab
Obama pulled 25,000 votes in Iowa when his name was the only one on the ballot. One reason I’m rooting for NotRomney in 2012 is that none of these other guys seem to have the ghost of a ground game. Romney has been waiting his whole life for the chance to be President. He’ll drag the rest of the GOP to the polls by the back of the collar if he has to. But these other guys? With the exception of Paul, they’re either totally delusional or shamelessly lazy. They’ll hide in their red state bubbles and hope the purple state Republican governors can bring them over the finish line. But they won’t bust ass to win like Romney will.
We’ve got a lot at stake in the Congressional and Gubernatoral elections. I’d say that is almost more important than the Presidency itself. Dems desperately need to pick up seats in the House and hold the Senate, and they need to unseat some of those dreadful Republican purple state governors if they don’t want to see unionization completely killed off.
There’s a lot more at stake here than four more years in the Oval Office.
Woodrowfan
I suspect “New Gingrich” is a typo, but I rather like it…
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Zifnab: It would be nice if we could turn this year into “We need to elect Democrats to every level of government.”
Monkey Business
I absolutely cannot wait for the GOP to finally coalesce around Romney and have half the party be so bored and disillusioned they stay home next November, handing the Ds sweeping electoral victories.
This, of course, assumes that the GOP doesn’t fracture outright. We’re overdue for a transformative Presidential election paving the way for a Sixth Party System. It’s possible this is the election that finally uncouples the religious extremists from the business class terrorists and breaks American conservatism.
Dork
All of the available recent data demonstrates that this is patently false, likely impossible.
Linda Featheringill
@Villago Delenda Est:
Good point. We really, really need some strong and vigorous coattails.
Crusty Dem
I’ve long been thinking you’re right, but my one doubt is that Romney might do very poorly against any of the other candidates 1-on-1.. Look at Romney’s 2008 results and compare with yesterday. He improved his performance by 64 votes (29,949 vs 30,015) and actually lowered his percentage. The fact that no other candidate could do as well as
Huckabee in 2008 demonstrates the lack of appeal of the candidate pool, as a whole, but Romney’s inability to gain more votes after four years and millions of dollars suggests he might still be screwed against any of the individual candidates, including the pathetic Santorum.
Also, the autocorrect of “Huckabee” to “Huckster” is one of my favorites.
rea
With the exception of Paul, they’re either totally delusional or shamelessly lazy.
Paul may not be lazy, but he’s certainly delusional.
Redshift
Not to mention from punditubbies desperate for more horse-on-horse action, er, I mean a horse race.
Seriously, how are they going to gin up any excitement if the only contenders are someone they ignore because he can’t win and someone everyone else would like to ignore and hopes he can’t win?
dmsilev
Well, over at RedState yesterday, one of the front page posters had an article that really should have been titled “Time to shut up and learn to live with Romney”. Needless to say, the comment section was amusing to read.
Steeplejack
@Tim F.:
Your link is broken. Is this what you want?
Samara Morgan
@kindness: im a dedicated troll and i dont do flopsweat.
i’d like to point out AGAIN that in 2010 Micheal Medved wrote an article called No Political Future for an All-White GOP.
His maths are sound.
Mitt Romney will need an impossible 65% of the white vote to beat Obama if minorities vote for Obama in the same percentages as 2008.
Romney’s chances are complicated by 8% of the white vote claiming they WILL NOT VOTE FOR HIM EVER.
I disagree emphatically with Pew’s finding that this will not impact Romney in the general.
Romney needs every single white vote he can get.
GregB
Well, CNN is running a poll indicating that 36% of voters wouldn’t cast a ballot for a Mormon.
Mitt is in deeper doo doo than the dog strapped to his roof.
FlipYrWhig
@Zifnab:
Things that bode ill for your party: when your candidate pool makes Ron Paul seem something less than totally delusional.
David Hunt
@Monkey Business:
That’s a nice thought but it’s been my experience that those groups hate Democrats with the heat of a million super-novae. This has been enough to keep them united against a common enemy. I don’t see that changing. They’ll hold their noses and unite around Romney because letting the Usurper stay in the White House for a minute longer would mean the death of the Republic. etc. etc. etc…
mellowjohn
this post is overall great, but that first paragraph deserves to be bronzed.
DragonFlyEye
Banana slug? Did you have to be so specific?
Raven
@DragonFlyEye: UCSB!
kvenlander
Some caller on the radio yesterday was trying to make hay with the fact that Obama got less votes in Iowa this year compared to 2008. I almost drove off the road.
Satanicpanic
Back in 08 I was in the lunchroom at work and overheard a fratboy type guy say McCain was a fighter pilot, that’s cool! I can guarantee no one will ever say Romney was a venture capitalist, that’s cool So there’s that.
Crusty Dem
@Zifnab:
I’m thinking exactly the opposite, I think the GOP machine, rather than the candidate, is in charge of GOTV. The candidate has to get the base excited, and that’s where Romney is the weakest candidate. All his money, so valuable in small state primaries, doesn’t make a dent in the general. While politically he may be the centrist (in this party), but he’s so impersonal and unlikable, I think he’s the perfect opponent for losing more than the presidency for the GOP in 2012 (imagine your average GOP congressman having to sit through multiple public events with Mitt, do you think he’s happy about it?).
Redshift
@David Hunt: What will be interesting to see is the collision of motivations between the fact that the religious right have nowhere else to go to get what they want, and that they seemed to have woken up to the fact that worked as shock troops during the Reagan-Bush era and got lip service in return. Plus we’re told that the younger generation are not so much for the “right” part, and are more open to stewardship of the land (environmentalism) and, you know, all that stuff Jesus talked about.
I don’t expect to see a big split, but evangelicals (other than the aging demographic) drifting back to their pre-Falwell distaste for politics does seem like a possibility.
Thomas
Wonder what the fundies will do when they learn that Little Ricky and his wife Karen consented to and went through with a “partial-birth” abortion. The Santorums, of course, refer to it (dishonestly) as a miscarriage, even though it was a second-trimester abortion. But Karen isn’t like those other slutty-slut-slut women that want an abortion to save their lives.
Calouste
A third party presidential candidate like Trump might actually be good for the GOP. Sure, it will lose them the presidency, but it will bring out an extra number of voters that would stay home for Romney and vote straight R down ticket.
nancydarling
But Tim, George Will says that Santorum is the “fun” candidate.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_19675454?source=rss
Also, I believe banana slugs are hermaphroditic so they can double their fun while doing it. Sort of like polygamy without the polygamy, or something.
Llelldorin
@Raven:
You slipped a character, there. UCSB has Gauchos. UCSC has Banana Slugs.
Samara Morgan
@GregB: @David Hunt:
the legs are falling off the three legged stool.
the new secret supersauce ingredient is religion.
election 2012 is going to turn on race and religion, as badly and pathetically as everyone in America wishes it wasnt so.
America is about to be revealed as the same tribalistic fucktards that populate the entire globe.
And the single thing that will will save us from the theocratic-fascist state of republican dreams is blacks and browns.
Kola Noscopy
Isn’t all the focus and rehash of the Republican nominating process here just preaching to the choir? I mean, who cares, right? Most here agree they’re all douches and no one here is going to vote republican anyway. What’s the point?
Wouldn’t it be better to focus BJ’s influence and discussion on ways in which the Obama team can be pressured to better represent liberal/progressive/core Democratic values?
Crazy thought, I know, but thought I’d throw it out there!
handsmile
@Zifnab: (#4)
dww44
@Zifnab: This:
This cannot be emphasized enough and it’s the reason that I’ve decided to join the local Democratic party. Our state is totally Red and the Repubs have redistricted away at least one of the 4 Democratic seats, leaving around 10 for them. After the 2010 elections, a few of the surviving Dems switched parties, which pissed me off no end.
This is a long term ground game and we must start now.
Samara Morgan
@Thomas: that is cancelled by Miracle Photo-op Isabella, another “genetically challenged” child.
paging Andrew Sullivan.
Peter Herb
Why are you hating on Banana Slugs? They are a marvelous example of genetic diversity and the sheer humor that resides in evolution. Couldn’t you pick something more appropriate to compare Frothy’s personality too? LIke a spirochete?
Samara Morgan
@dww44: all we have to do is GOTV. then we win.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Satanicpanic:
Ah, it’s time for this tradition:
Are you aware Romney is a business man and not a politician?*
* as he just so ability demonstrated in Iowa.
sneezy
@Zifnab:
Paul is no exception to that. In fact, with Bachmann out, he’s probably the most delusional candidate left in the race.
nancydarling
@MattF: Sorry I stepped on your comment—you got there first.
dww44
@Redshift: If Only this would occur:
I would think I had died and gone to heaven!
Culture of Truth
He also says everyone from Chicago is a criminal but Obama is trying to divide America.
Also too – isn’t Penn State in Pennsylvania?
Moonbatting Average
@Samara Morgan: You’re the only high-quality troll we’ve got, so thanks for that. Veritas and Kola Noscopy are so useless it beggars description.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m old enough to not remember the controversy over Kennedy’s religion, but old enough to remember the fallout, which is who gives a shit what religion a candidate is, where does he stand in the issues?
Jimmy Carter’s evangelical protestant faith informed his political actions, but didn’t dictate them.
Ronald Reagan didn’t talk religion much at all…and didn’t bother going to church.
George H.W. Bush was boring Episcopalian as you can get.
The amazing thing to me is how totally bent out of shape a group of Americans get over a quite family centered faith that, while it’s got some bizarre beliefs, is pretty white bread in day to day function, not dissimilar to many fundigelical sects.
Samara Morgan
@Kola Noscopy: all we need to do is GOTV.
Samara Morgan
@Villago Delenda Est: Mormons do not believe in Jeffersonian separation of church and state.
Mormons believe Jesus wrote the American constitution.
Mitt should at least have to take a question or two on that.
Roger Moore
@David Hunt:
Just wait until the internecine fighting starts in earnest. They may be motivated by hate, but that hate is aimed at the Democrats only by constant manipulation by the guys at the top. If TPTB within the Republican party lose control of that anger, it could wind up focused anywhere, and the other half of the party that’s obviously the one truly responsible for all its failures (since the fault can’t possibly be with this half) is as likely a target as anywhere.
Luthe
@Culture of Truth: Penn State has been corrupted by the evil FOOZBALL and all of those slutty college kids drinking, smoking, and having sex all the time.
A fine, upstanding Catholic school would never have something like that happen. /snark
gaz
@Kola Noscopy:
Shorter colonoscopy:
Nothing to see here! Hey guys, look – over there!
Kane
I’m looking forward to taking swings at the Romney piñata for the next ten months. But I almost feel sorry for those republicans who despise Romney but will feel that they must defend him. It will be like 2008, when the defenders of McCain/Palin were shouting no mas in the month of August.
The Moar You Know
Do not insult banana slugs. They are awesome.
nancydarling
@Kane: How many repub fundies will close their eyes and think of England when they pull the lever next November?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@gaz:
It’s called the Ratfucker Redirect, right out of Ratfucking 101.
Samara Morgan
@Kane: From the man who brought you Sarah Palin…
its my studied hypothesis that sara palin wrecked the GOP. she sawed the legs off the stool by refusing to play galatea to the GOP elites pygmalion.
gaz
@The Moar You Know: I keep thinking of that fucking song. That’s what I get for having an 8 year old child around (at one point in my life, I don’t actually have any children of my own – though my wife and I borrow them sometimes =) ).
For that alone, I suggest a moratorium on all mentions of B***** Sl***
Please.
Can’t. Get. It. Out. Of. My. Head. Must. Locate. Drill.
Villago Delenda Est
@Samara Morgan:
Two non sequiturs to what I wrote.
Those two points have nothing at all to do with what motivates the group that loathes Mormons the most. In fact, those two points should incline them to be favorable towards Mormons.
Samara Morgan
@nancydarling: that is the question.
i think somewhat less than 8% but more than zero.
Samara Morgan
@Villago Delenda Est:
but they dont.
coulda shoulda woulda.
WECs and mormons are hereditary enemies like cats and dogs or humans and snakes.
the point im trying to hammer through your thick cow skull is that both mormons and WECs are WHITE. WECS make up 50% of the GOP. 68% of WECS express antimormon sentiment in polling.
Willard needs 65% of the WHITE vote to beat Obama. The GOP base is all WHITE.
you do the math, k?
The Moar You Know
@gaz: I was not aware there was a song!
I’m an alumnus of UC Santa Cruz, and I was there many years ago when we voted on the mascot. It was a multi-year process (the admin REALLY didn’t want it) but ended up great.
gaz
@Villago Delenda Est: For some strange reason, a statistically improbable number of my close friends are mormon. I have no idea why it worked out that way. Sometimes I wonder if I woke up in Salt Lake City, and just didn’t realize it.
OTOH, I get *really* sick of the “missionaries”. By that I mean the door to door salesman they send to harass me.
The other day a couple of them accosted me on the street. I was polite and explained to them that I already belonged to a church, that it was ecumenical – but basically protestant, and that I had no intention of accepting Joseph Smith’s status as a prophet. To drive the point home, I didn’t stop walking the entire time. I made them follow me.
But when they offered a picture of White Jeebus to me, I couldn’t handle it anymore.
They were like, would you like a picture of Jesus Christ (offering some silly postcard)
I was like, I’m not sure who that is, but I can say with certainty that it’s not a picture of Jesus. That looks like some European douchebag.
They told me that Jesus was jewish and probably looked like that. They asked me what I thought Jesus looked like.
I told them that if they saw Jesus they’d probably mistake him for a descendant of Cain. (see Joseph Fielding)…
Anyway – they stopped following me when I went to cross a major intersection. Thank Jesus for that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Samara Morgan:
Your reading comprehension skills have not improved.
Nothing you wrote about has anything at all to do with what I wrote about.
Mormons are overwhelmingly white. So race isn’t a factor here.
gaz
@The Moar You Know: Banana Slug! Banana Slug!, Are you an animal or are you a bug?
Those are the only lines I know of that insipid little ditty.
Kids sing it.
Samara Morgan
@gaz: i just tell them ima muslim.
they run like scalded cats.
but my veterinarian friend tried to stab one through the screen door with a barbecue fork.
they never came back there either.
Samara Morgan
@Villago Delenda Est: sillie cow. the GOP base is all white.
Mitt needs 65% of the WHITE vote to beat Obama.
i think it can’t be done.
Mnemosyne
@gaz:
If you haven’t heard Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go of God, you probably should. She bookends the story with two Mormon missionaries coming to her door to try and convert her, which sends her off on a yearlong journey that has her tell them when they come back a year later, “I listened to what you had to say, and now I’m a happy atheist! Thanks so much!”
I’m not an atheist, but I still thought it was really good and entertaining.
The Moar You Know
@Samara Morgan: I agree with you, for slightly different reasons, but that doesn’t matter. The end result will be the same. I know Rove has been doing his damndest to figure out a way to sell Mormonism to the rubes (I sat next to him at the Book Of Mormon musical in NYC last year, so I know that he really is working this problem) but I know evangelicals and I just don’t see a way forward for them.
Samara Morgan
@Mnemosyne: the barbecue fork protocol is far more cost viable for atheists.
Samara Morgan
@The Moar You Know:
me too! some of them will be bitter, and some will be hardened in their faith.
i think….Rove knows Mitt will lose to Obama. He can do math. Its just that a Mitt candidacy will be less damaging to the republican brand than a WEC candidate.
Rove is looking to 2016.
moe99
I am thinking there might be a brokered convention this year.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Sweetheart, you are not a troll. There are times when you manage to contribute something to the conversation here. It’s just that most of the time, you’re dogmatic, vain, and rude. That’s all.
Not long ago, you were insisting that Mitt had no chance of winning the nomination, let alone the election, because of his Mormon problem with the Republicans’ white evangelical Christian base. Now you seem to have accepted that he is the likeliest nominee. What changed your mind?
Regardless of the demographic fate of white America, and what that means for the presidential candidate of a major political party that dislikes and is disliked by Americans of color, Mitt is the least bad of this cycle’s sorry Republican field; and so most staunch Republicans will vote for him, Mormon or not, albeit with reluctance.
His main problems are one, his rank insincerity and lack of convictions stand out to far too many people; and two, by no objective measure would he make a better president than Obama. If his Mormonism doesn’t put off enough Republicans to keep him from the nomination, it won’t matter much to the wider electorate at all.
I hear that now Noot wants to spend the rest of the primary season trashing Mitt. I don’t know how this will turn out. Do people listen to Noot much?
Kola Noscopy
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
It’s Odious, my favorite homoo-hating stalker.
The boys were delicious last night, fuck face.
gaz
@Mnemosyne: Thanks, there’s a good chance I’ll end up reading that.
With respect to venting over mormon “missionary” BS, I prefer to kick back and watch Orgazmo. No end of teh lulz.
Personally, I think that being “agnostic” (modern sense of the word) is really the only empirically sound position on whether god exists or not. It’s not falsifiable and so science can’t weigh in one way or another.
But then again, I don’t couch my faith in empirical knowledge, because that’d be like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.
OTOH, it annoys me greatly when I hear morons like Dawkins (yes, he’s a moron) and his mindless adherents act as though atheism is the only spiritual position that is backed up by science, when it has about as much supporting scientific evidence behind it as any other dogma – with plenty of fundies too. IOW, not a shred of supporting data – just statistical probabilities – and that’s not science. Statistically, life shouldn’t exist on this planet ;)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with atheism up to the point where they try to stake exclusive claim to having their positions backed by science, when they are clearly not – science says nothing about the existence of a god/gods/etc.. Not falsifiable, no metric, not empirical. End of story.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid:
again…. i have NEVAH said that.
I have CONSISTANTLY MAINTAINED that Willard cannot win the general, because he needs 65% of the WHITE vote to beat Obama.
that is the conventional wisdom, but i emphatically disagree.
i think the percent that will not vote for him because of anti-mormon sentiment is greater than zero and less than 8%.
do you know any WECs, personally?
Villago Delenda Est
@gaz:
I know a number of ex-Mormons who left the cult/church and have little good to say about it, other than they’re glad they’ve escaped its clutches.
And, coincidentally, I ran into a couple of missionaries riding around on bikes in my neighborhood the other day. I joked with them that they sure didn’t look like missionaries, they seemed to be out of uniform (they were wearing fairly sporty overcoats, it was a chilly day) but they obligingly pulled back the lapels to reveal the white shirt and tie and smiled and laughed as they did so.
Then the elder mentioned that obviously I was familiar with Mormon missionaries and launched into the pitch, and I very politely told them I had absolutely no interest in their faith or anything they had to say about it. Yet, in their patented unfailingly polite way the elder persisted, the apprentice just sat on his bike and observed, and, I guess, learned. Fortunately, the bus came along and I jumped on board and that ended it, but jeeze, I just loathe the proselytizing. From ANY faith, as I’m one of those godless secular humanists who don’t think faith is any way to run a railroad, or a planet.
The Moar You Know
@Samara Morgan: Very good point. He can be trashed as both a non-Christian and as a “moderate” (whatever the fuck that means when applied to a Republican these days). The GOP is running to lose this election, just like last time – of that I am pretty sure.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Can’t claim to be close to any WEC’s but most of the Americans I’ve met were indeed white and Christian.
Dr Paul
Long time commenter, first time lurker.
Excellent post, Tim. Very clever and funny. I’m going to steal the “move to another part of the bus crazy” line.
Yutsano
@gaz:
Such an underrated movie.
@Amir Khalid:
Yer about to ruin your house Muslim reputation there good sir. :)
gaz
@Villago Delenda Est:
This.
I can get behind that. Even as a Jesus fan (the word Christian is loaded in this country, I don’t like using the term).
Faith is no way to run the planet. For some folks, on an individual level, it can provide some direction, and maybe even a little peace. But it should be a personal thing. I’m not down with proselytizers either, unless it’s invited “eg: tell me more about Jesus!”
As far as the above, I’ll draw an analogy that may make some folks uncomfortable.
Faith is like a 12-step program. A great tool if you need it. Not for everyone, and was never designed to properly run the planet. That’s simply not it’s purpose =)
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
White and Christian, if only Christian in a nominal sense, not any deep, pious faith.
Plenty of Christians are like plenty of Muslims, and not an insignificant number of Jews. Cultural, not terribly serious, about their nominal religion. The noisy ones get all the attention, of course..that’s the nature of things, and get to create the stereotypes that they use against each other and all the nominal members of the other faiths.
BDeevDad
Rick is also saying that inequality is a good thing.
Talk about out of touch.
gaz
@Amir Khalid:
The majority of white americans I’ve met who claim they are Christian are worshiping Mammon, so I’m not sure which Americans you are meeting. Around here, I rarely meet white Christians. plenty of pharisees though.
If you want to meet a bunch of Christians, I suggest moving to China, and going to underground churches. You won’t find a whole lot of Christianity in America.
Samara Morgan
@The Moar You Know: i do not think they were running to lose in 2008. i think Palin was a New Event and she royally fucked them over.
But they know they cant beat an incumbent that commands 82% of the majority/minority vote.
That is why the A-team is sitting this one out.
Pillsy
All I know is that Mike Huckabee and Tim Pawlenty must be fucking kicking themselves about now.
handy
@BDeevDad:
Given the result could be things like successful triple-bypass or full cancer remission, I should think so.
And Bobo thinks this guy is the compassionate conservative?
Samara Morgan
@gaz: those are yellow christians, not WECs.
as sorry as this is, WECs make up 50% of the GOP base, up from 40% in 2008.
they are not going away.
magurakurin
@Samara Morgan: I wouldn’t label you a troll either. You definitely have issues, and you most definitely need to explore some healthier outlets to deal with them…but you are for damn sure not on anybody’s payroll. You are who you are, for good or ill…a genuine article.
Those other two on the other hand are nothing more than garden variety paid-by-the-post lackeys for someone. boring as hell they are. But hey, it’s a living I suppose…
Samara Morgan
@Pillsy: nope, because they know, like Rove, the GOP candidate will lose to Obama.
gaz
@Samara Morgan: Heh. I’m aware of that, and I’m at least encouraged by the younger evangelicals getting back to Jesus and getting the hell out of politics. Seems to be a surging backlash against the Falwellism that has infected so many over the past several decades. I’m not claiming it’s the answer to everything, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
Samara Morgan
@gaz: you should read some evo theory of culture.
Islam evolved to be a fusion of faith and state.
Evolutionarily speaking, it is elegant and efficient.
And also uninvadable, as the US found out to its sorrow.
:)
gaz
@Samara Morgan: Sorry. I’m fundamentally opposed to fusing faith and state.
Any way you slice it, as far as I am concerned – I’ve seen the results of that. See – pretty much ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY. Fusing faith and state always ends badly for everyone involved.
As VDE said, faith is no way to run a railroad.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Here’s an interesting report on the first post-Iowa NH Gnoot event:
Professor of Communication who is part of a four-person research team from the University of Cincinnati studying presidential campaigns, candidacies, rhetoric and voter behavior.
::chuckling ::.
BDeevDad
@handy: Compassionate Conservative is someone who says they’ll pray for you, but keep your hands off their wallet.
Amir Khalid
@gaz:
Maybe I should have said nominally Christian. Since a lot of them were high-flying IT business types (including one large, belligerent fellow, from Seattle or thereabouts, named Ballmer) there must have been some Mammon worshipers among them.
gaz
@Amir Khalid: heh, yeah. FTR, I agree.
I’ve met steve by the way. I put in some serious time working for his outfit. I wrote part of windows XP (that was my “15 minutes”, although I’d rather have something else to put in my portfolio in that regard, heh)
=)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Amir Khalid: Apparently white* and not Christian, though often believed to be so as it’s the default setting for much of the US. Widely assumed in my professional circles to be Jewish** so it seems I’m pretty confusing to people.
*, ** Explanatory backstories available upon request.
Yutsano
@Samara Morgan:
Jenghis Khan called. He mumbled something about the sack of Baghdad.
Amir Khalid
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Do tell.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Amir Khalid: Well, okay then. Apparently white: after successfully defending a pro se prisoner civil rights case in a 4 day federal trail, in which I was lead counsel and the only caucasian player – my second chair and both defendants as well as plaintiff, were black. Oddly, he was suing for racial discrimination, which confused the jury a bit. Then he sued us all, including the judge, for racial discrimination (suit was dismissed on immunity grounds). In the complaint, he asserted “Defendat Q, who appears to be of white descent, blah blah blah.” That created much hilarity as I’m a pretty fair skinned percent of Irish descent.
Religion: For reasons which still are not clear, when I began my career as an assistant prosecutor, people all around the courthouse assumed I’m Jewish. I knew that from comments and questions. One day I went to court on Yom Kippur and the judge asked “what are you doing here today, Bella?” My response was “your city criminal docket, your honor,” which was met with a perplexed expression. I asked to approach the bench and quietly explained that I’m not in fact Jewish but had no clue how to correct the assumption without seeming disparaging. I still don’t, and so the belief persists.
During I was invited to dinner by a handsome young Palestinian living here. He commented during the meal about how in his native country it would be controversial for him to dine with a Jewish woman! I explained that I wasn’t in fact Jewsih, and he advised that it was really all right – he didn’t share that bigotry. I don’t think I ever did convince him.
Clearly I confuse people. I’m also incorrectly widely assumed to be a vegetarian, heh.
Mike in NC
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
That’s because Newt is perpetually stuck in 1992. The guy hasn’t had a new thought in 20 years.
Judas Escargot
@Samara Morgan:
This of course explains why the Holy Roman Empire is still the dominant Western superpower.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Judas Escargot: It rather does, doesn’t it? Facts of course, are quite inconvenient to matoko’s hypotheses.
Nutella
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
That’s quintessentially Gingrich but also an example of a very very common feature of politics in this country: The candidate babbling pointlessly while the voters want answers about practical and very important political issues such as legalization of drugs, student loan debt, veteran health care, and birth control.
And speaking of the out of touch and delusional, have you seen this video about talking to a Paulista? It’s done using an app that takes a written script and makes it into a cartoon with robotic voices which is particularly appropriate to the topic.
liberty constitution liberty constitution I win the debate
Samara Morgan
@Judas Escargot:
no, it explains why it isnt.
@Yutsano: pardon, i thought had explained that enough here.
Obviously not.
Uninvadable is a term from Maynard-Smith’s Evolution and the Theory of Games. It describes a culturally stable strategy, ie immune to memetic penetration by mutant or out-group strategies…like missionary democracy in Iraq for example.
;)
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): all my hypoth are based on facts and KNOWN science, twilight.
Samara Morgan
@gaz: that is fine, your fundamental opposition.
Unfortunately Islam evolved over centuries to fuse state and church. it is an evolutionary strategy, not a design decision.
Samara Morgan
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): i just assumed you were a bloodsucker, twilight.
and you are about as hiphop as Miley Cyrus.
;)
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: O Undying Lord….i am only rude to peeps that are rude to me first.
and im not vain in the sense you mean it….im an elitist intellectual snob.
Samara Morgan
crush crush
shred shred
you’re welcome
;)
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Do you remember when you addressed a comment to mistermix with the opening salutation
(your all-caps) and earned yourself a time-out? That was a clear-cut, and far from unique, example of unprovoked rudeness by you.
So what is this, if not vanity?
AA+ Bonds
Santorum has no money and no time to raise any so all of this is moot
AA+ Bonds
Two choices for libs:
1) attack Romney
2) waste your time and everyone else’s
AA+ Bonds
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
When I went to Russia this happened a lot, including with my then-partner’s family – they assumed that I was lying to her when I said I wasn’t Jewish (or “a Jew” rather) and sort of chided her that all those lies weren’t really necessary in this day and age and what was she doing to make me think she hated Jews and etc.
Then I took clippers to my hair and suddenly no one thought I was Jewish and no one would sit on either side of me in the metro either, LOL
People abroad seem to have major problems separating narrowbacks from Jews when they go Jew-spotting, I think it’s the noses
Judas Escargot
@Samara Morgan:
My self-identity collapses before such irrefutable logic.
brewmn
@Kola Noscopy: I’ve got an idea: why don’t you start supporting real progressives down ticket instead of whining about how Obama has failed you today, and how his supporters are corporate whores fleecing the middle class (when they’re not busy killing innocent Muslim children, that is)?
Because the lesson some of us learned from the disappointment of Obama’s first term is that progressives need to do more than elect a president; they need to get a progressive legislature behind him in order to make real change happen.
You, of course took a different lesson from these last three years. Different strokes, I guess.
Kola Noscopy
@brewmn:
Wouldn’t you also want to elect a “progressive” PRESIDENT also too? The current WH occupant is about as liberal as Richard Nixon, which doesn’t really inspire me.
Also too: I re-registered here in Boston so I can vote for Elizabeth Warren. Sadly, I’m sure once she’s in office, the folks who REALLY run the show will let her know how things are going to go and to STFU asap. But as least I will have ooooh, aaaahhhh, VOTED!
DanielX
Actually, there is at least one thing both interesting and special about Rick Santorum. From what I’ve been able to tell, there have been more puns/jokes/etc featuring plays on his name than there have been for any other elected pol in living memory. Of course, the lines practically write themselves.
Santorum Surges
Santorum Comes From Behind
Santorum Smeared (ooh, truly horrible)
DanielX
@Kola Noscopy: By today’s standards for Republican candidates, Nixon would get laughed off the stage as too liberal by miles. So would Reagan, for that matter, or Eisenhower, or Bush I. Electing a truly “progressive” president is a laudable goal, but it’s about as likely as Bush II and Cheney going out partying in Fallujah.
And yup, voting is important or the Republicans wouldn’t be spending a lot of time. money and effort trying to prevent people from doing it. If you don’t think it makes much of a difference, I beg to differ. Folks who voted for that egomaniacal shithead Ralph Nader in 2000 made a huge difference in a whole lot of people’s lives, and not for the better…
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: wallah, mixie and i have history.
that wasn’t our first encounter.
in your opinion, lordly immortal, is snobbery the equivalent of vanity?
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: becuz…im not universally better across all aspects ….im just smarter.
:)
THE
@Samara Morgan:
It’s quite true Samara. But I would argue that there’s another third rail to this that you you don’t talk about; and it’s responsible for the Early super-rise of Islam and also its later stagnation.
It was a fusion of State and Church and Greek science, at least during the 4 centuries or so of the Mutazilite ascendency. (audio file)
After that era, when it seems the Legalists and Literalists largely succeeded in reclaiming Islam. It became a hard-to-penetrate inward-looking religion — More like Christianity in its own Dark Ages.
From that time onwards, other cultures, like the West and now China, and possibly India, started to leave it behind. And what you call its “uninvadability”, only helped to make it resistant to the radical progressive ideas sweeping the world.
IMHO In its present state of economic underdevelopment, “uninvadability” is a bug not a feature.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
So you hold a grudge against mistermix, which entitles you to verbally abuse him without provocation on unrelated occasions? I see.
And you say snobbery — considering oneself part of an elite, from which lesser beings are to be excluded — is different from vanity? Most of us lesser beings don’t see the difference. That must take some very fine hair-splitting, such as only one of your vastly superior intellect can manage.
daveX99
You win today’s golden ‘heh’ award.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: no, im just saying he was rude to me first.
so, by my honor code, i can be rude to him whenever.
Samara Morgan
@THE: in EGT its a winning strat. :)
Spock, you do not get it.
in the end universalism and connectedness is going to triumph over individualism and dominion.
America is committing seppuku with lifestyle and diet, and in ten years american students have dropped from 3rd and 4th in science and math to 25th and 30th.
Know why? the freed market is an ecophagy, and under resource starvation (Peak Oil) it has begun cannibalizing american students and the american middleclass.
Ghazali and Arabi were Many Worlds theorists….the Quran is outside spacetime, and contains all possible variants of proscribed actions……Arabi is isomorphic with Dr. Carrol on time travel.
You know nothing and you are unwilling to learn.
THE
@Samara Morgan:
Only if you have an advantage. Not if you are erecting intellectual barriers against foreign progress.
I would blame other things than lifestyle and diet for that, like excessive income-inequality and religious nuttery combined with a system of religious private schools. But perhaps I don’t know enough about USA.
I somewhat agree with that, except that I think it is a temporary phase, but then I watch this field much closer than you do. In a decade the crisis will be over and you will be firing on all cylinders again, IMHO. The renewables revolution will change the world. Even if it doesn’t originate in USA. Also you are ignoring the fact that Peak Oil is impacting the entire Global economy, not just USA. I would argue Eurozone crisis and what you call the “Arab Spring” are even more disruptive consequences of the current stall.
Why do I need medieval speculations when we have the real science now? Ghazali’s many worlds are not the same as modern MWT, which is an interpretation of Quantum Mechanics — Unless you want to argue that Ghazali knew QM.
THE
And besides I have told you before that Ghazali was not the first to speculate about Many worlds. The idea originates with classical philosophers like Democritus and Anaxagoras.
Also, when the classic scholars were speculating about many worlds they were talking about many planets in the cosmos. Not many worlds in the sense of MWT. Democritus was the first person to guess that the Milky Way was the diffuse light of countless distant stars.
Even in the West early astronomers like Christian Huygens speculated about many worlds (planets):
Samara Morgan
spock, spock, spock…
the freed market will eat the world if we cant get off planet.
its an ecophagy.
Ghazali and Arabi postulated MW in response to Aristotle’s endless universe.
THE
I don’t advocate unregulated markets, so why argue with me?
Irrelevant. This was an argument that was well underway already in the classical world. Like all speculative philosophy, it never got anywhere until modern physics and astronomy started to make sense of it with evidence-based science.
In other words it is only rigorous empiricism that rescues speculative philosophy from wankiness and endless arguing back and forth.
Ian
@Samara Morgan:
Manmohan Singh, the PM of India (maybe former PM, havn’t paid that much attention) comes from a population that is less than .5% of India’s population and engaged in a revolt not thirty years ago. Let us not assume our basic tribalism on the rest of the world.
(Another example, Nicholas Sarkozy, son of Hungarian immigrants, is president of France.)
Ian
@The Moar You Know:
I would be rotting in Guantanamo Bay if I had an opportunity to sit next to Karl Rove.
Even if I chickened out I would at least cropdust him.
Samara Morgan
@THE: you dont get the Sufi concept of Allah.
Allah is a force, an alignment…a signal. And yes, Ghazali and Arabi postulated q-physics.
maarifa, the invisible world.
Ghazali also invented the word “atom.”
Samara Morgan
@Ian: shukran jazeelyan Ian.
perhaps there is hope for homo sapiens sapiens after all.
;)
Samara Morgan
@THE: the Sufi concept of Allah is quantum.
Allah is unknown and unknowable.
Outside human experience.
thus, Allah is a force, a unified field, a signal, an alignment, He Who Pastures the Stars, the 99 names, the Creator of Worlds…..all those things and more.
THE
The word Atom is Greek ἄτομος . It means “indivisible”.
It was postulated as the smallest particle of matter in the 5th century BC by Luecippus and his pupil Democritus.
THE
Link?
THE
Democritus of Abdera:
In reality there is only atoms and the void.
THE
QM is not an invisible world, Samara.
QM is this world — Nature.
It’s not even true to say that QM describes the very small.
QM describes the large and the small.
It’s actually Newton’s theory that only describes the macroworld (approximately).
QM does not even postulate an “invisible world”.
There are no “hidden variables” in QM.
QM is utterly materialistic — It only postulates this world.
THE
Even MWI is a theory about this world — Nature.
It interprets QM to say that this world is constantly branching.
It is Nature that is branching.
There is no “invisible world”.
The many worlds of MWI emerge constantly from this world as paths not taken by us.
MWI merely asserts that all these alternative branches equally exist;
Even if we only come to inhabit one of them.
Once our path has emerged, we can no longer access the other paths.
At any point of time in MWI, “our” universe has only one present, and many possible futures — All of which exist — but only one of which will be “our” present in the future.
THE
In other words, Samara, there is nothing “spiritual” or woo-like about the “other worlds” of MWI. They are other branches of Nature’s cosmos.
Even if this is highly counter-intuitive, it is still 100% naturalistic.