144 or Less, Vol. IV / 10-23-10

An interesting thing has happened as the 2010 campaign winds down.

With Republicans offering several immoderate candidates (Miller, O'Donnell, Angle, Paladino, Toomey) for Senate, two familiar figures have emerged as leaders of their respective parties.

President Obama for the D's; Sarah Palin for the R's. The former has been crisscrossing the country to help liberals retain the Senate; the latter has encouraged voters to elect Tea Party-approved candidates and give conservatives control of the House.

Both will probably succeed at their tasks -- which is a result I love.

Not because it divides government. But because an emboldened Palin, flush with kingmaking success, then becomes THE face of the right. And 39 percent of Republicans think she'd make a good president. Not 39 percent of Americans -- only counting R's here.

Just 25 percent of Americans view her favorably.

So keep visiting Iowa, Sarah.

(Word count: 143)

Stupidiocy / 10-21-10

Today, 2010 Elections Class, we learned:

That Rand Paul and Jesus Christ are the same dude.

That fearing random Muslims is profitable.

That answering questions is an optional exercise for Senate candidates.

Let's do these in reverse order, because oh my, the Paul one is so juicy, I have to make it this post's dessert.

So the appetizer first: Joe Miller is running for Senate in Alaska. After beating the incumbent in the Republican primary over the summer, why should he have to deal with the press at all? Better to handcuff reporters when they get too frisky. Better to not honor interviews.

Yeah. When 40 fellow Alaska Republicans are asking you, in an open letter, to get your act together, and calling your campaign out for "unacceptable" behavior and "not a winning strategy," you should probably not say things like "We've drawn a line in the sand. You can ask me about background, you can ask me about personal issues -- I'm not going to answer." But what do I know? I'm not trying to lose a practically unlosable election.

Entree time. Juan Williams. Ahem.

Visiting with Bill O'Reilly recently, Williams, an NPR reporter, generously offered this up: "I mean look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

I totally believe Williams. He isn't a bigot. He's just a guy who gets irrationally afraid that because there are Muslims with different-looking outfits on his flight from Atlanta to Chicago, the plane might end up crashing into the Pentagon instead.

That sounds sarcastic. And it is, a little, but it also isn't. It's very, very difficult to begrudge someone for admitting that the Different makes them nervous. Lots of people struggle with that. When I'm walking down a dark alley at night (one of my favorite activities!), I don't want the three guys I cross to all be 6'6", 320 pounds, with prison tattoos across their knuckles. I just don't.

(Hey, did I mention Williams is black? Not that I have a great deal more to say on that count.)

At the same time, it's worth remembering a couple things.

1. The 9/11 hijackers were wearing jeans and T-shirts.

2. Women in burqas have successfully piloted zero planes into tall New York buildings.

So I can safely pencil Williams in for irrational behavior and poor timing when it comes to honesty... but probably not much more. NPR fired him, by the way, after hearing of the remarks. I'm supposing they felt he had seriously harmed his objectivity and/or his credibility.

In any event, all's well that ends well for Williams. His friends came to his rescue.

Mike Huckabee: "It is time for the taxpayers to start making cuts to federal spending, and I encourage the new Congress to start with NPR."

Sarah Palin: "NPR defends 1st Amendment Right, but will fire u if u exercise it. Juan Williams: u got taste of Left's hypocrisy, they screwed up firing u." That might be one of her tweets, or that could also be how we're doing transcripts for her nowadays.

And then, just found out that Fox News has offered him something marginally better than an unemployment check: a 3-year, $2 million contract to join them. Good for him. Now we all know what the reward/punishment is for misunderstanding other religions (and I'm being charitable). Glad to have that out in the open.

Hope you left room for the grand finale.

KY Senate candidate Rand Paul, earlier today: "In my entire life, I've written and said a lot of things. I've never said or written anything un-Christian in my life."

Now after months and months and months talking constantly in the public spotlight, under the constant stress a campaign like Paul's surely brings, people are apt to say things, that upon further reflection, they wish they could take back. Either they misspeak, they take an analogy too far, they forget which group they're speaking to, they make up facts, they stretch the truth, they say too much, or they outright lie. (Politicians do this? Whoa.)

But I pay pretty close attention to politics, and most of those instances are explainable. The candidate thought he could get away with a falsehood. The candidate embellished a story. The candidate was on the spot, and made up some numbers. The candidate said she can't tell Latinos and Asians apart. (Go ahead, click the link. I couldn't make stuff this good up if I tried.)

Oh yeah, what Paul said. Let's get back to that. It's hard to even give him credit for what he could have and should have said, which, naturally, is "I am a Christian and always have been. I've made lots of statements, oral and written, and I've always wanted to be Christlike in everything I say and write. For my opponent to imply otherwise is tasteless and vile." He missed that perfect response by a light-year or two.

Instead of crafting a sensible retort, he claimed perfection. Not recent perfection. No no. A lifetime achievement award. Not a single word against Christian principles. In his life. In other words, godlike flawlessness.

(I guess the lie he told by making that statement, that lie must have been his first. Bummer to ruin a good streak like that, on a technicality no less.)

To be fair, Paul was baited. His opponent, Democrat Jack Conway, just put out an ad exposing a college escapade Paul took part in during his days as a member of an anti-Christian club. (The story came out in a recent issue of GQ. Take that for what it's worth.) In the ad, Paul and a buddy stand accused of tying up a woman and forcing her to worship something called the Aquabuddha.

The ad's in terribly poor taste. It's inconsquential to the issues at hand, and irrelevant at best. It's nasty and full of innuendo. It misleads. But Paul's response tells so much more than Conway's sleazy move. It tells us that when the full-court pressure is on, in the heat of the closing weeks of a contentious campaign, the Republitarian political newbie folds.

Man, election season makes people do stupidiotic things.

144 Or Less, Vol. III / 10-18-10

This conversation took place last week. See if you can spot which speaker is aged 36, and which one is 7.

"Those are graves. But they don't look like graves."

"Yeah, there weren't any headstones."Pause.

"It's hard to know what happens after you die."

"Probably because nobody ever comes back to tell us what it's like."

"Hm."

Death: the great conversational equalizer. Turns out pretty much everyone can talk about it with pretty much the same level of expertise.

(Words used: 83)

144 Or Less, Vol. II / 10-14-10

A federal judge just declared DADT unconstitutional. Naturally, the Democrats running the Justice Department will appeal.

Huh?

Saying they want to proceed with already-laid plans to phase out DADT, administration officials will fight the ruling.

Yeah. See. There exists no bad time to end discrimination, no bad way to restore dignity to soldiers who volunteered their very life to their country. Take the gift, Barack. Run with it.

Appealing makes zero sense, politically. Obama's choice to deliver the death-blow to DADT himself dampens left-wing enthusiasm and costs the D's precious midterm votes. Not a single rabid anti-gummint whiner will read today's headlines and find his mind changed or his passion to defeat the Black Socialist Secret Muslim abated.

So -- pardon my French -- BHO had better make damn well sure DADT is toast very, very soon, or he can start perusing want ads.

(Word count: 144)

144 Or Less / 10-8-10

(This category of post has a 144-word limit. Political snark exclusively here. And prefacorial parenthetical statements don't count against the count. So don't count them. Also, don't ask about the 144 thing.)

In my Congressional district, Washington's 1st, Democrat Jay Inslee is the incumbent.

Alongside his ubiquitous green-on-blue campaign placards, other signs have surfaced among the weeds -- ones not planted by his people. (The weeds OR the new signs, hopefully. Although he IS the incumbent, therefore by nature evil, and thus inclined to have a soft spot for weeds.)

The signs read:

"Jay Inslee

Bankrupting America Since 1992"

He's been in office 18 years. True story.

But funny thing, he's only been bankrupting America since 2000. Before that, he was helping Bill Clinton craft roughly balanced budgets, as the country's public debt FELL in nominal dollars (wikistats here) during Inslee's first eight years in D.C.

I wonder what in 2000 prompted Inslee to begin writing federal budgets that sent us closer to bankruptcy? What a turd. Throw him out indeed!

(Words used: 142.)

Yet More Proof the Brits are the Funniest Species of Human / 10-6-10

Amidst my relentless visits to the International House of Internets, I dug up this little gem.

Rather than simply link to it and make you travel microseconds away, I'm going to reprint it below, with full credit and attribution and everything.

Plus, it's effing hilarious. And if you perchance follow the link, the comments section is superb.

Plus, I'm eventually going to copy this parody, only as a political "story" late in a campaign, because why should this dude have all the fun?

Plus, that's all.

From the guardian.co.uk and author Martin Robbins:

This is a news website article about a scientific paper

In the standfirst I will make a fairly obvious pun about the subject matter before posing an inane question I have no intention of really answering: is this an important scientific finding?

In this paragraph I will state the main claim that the research makes, making appropriate use of "scare quotes" to ensure that it's clear that I have no opinion about this research whatsoever.

In this paragraph I will briefly (because no paragraph should be more than one line) state which existing scientific ideas this new research "challenges".

If the research is about a potential cure, or a solution to a problem, this paragraph will describe how it will raise hopes for a group of sufferers or victims.

This paragraph elaborates on the claim, adding weasel-words like "the scientists say" to shift responsibility for establishing the likely truth or accuracy of the research findings on to absolutely anybody else but me, the journalist.

In this paragraph I will state in which journal the research will be published. I won't provide a link because either a) the concept of adding links to web pages is alien to the editors, b) I can't be bothered, or c) the journal inexplicably set the embargo on the press release to expire before the paper was actually published.

"Basically, this is a brief soundbite," the scientist will say, from a department and university that I will give brief credit to. "The existing science is a bit dodgy, whereas my conclusion seems bang on," she or he will continue.

I will then briefly state how many years the scientist spent leading the study, to reinforce the fact that this is a serious study and worthy of being published by the BBC the website.

This is a sub-heading that gives the impression I am about to add useful context.

Here I will state that whatever was being researched was first discovered in some year, presenting a vague timeline in a token gesture toward establishing context for the reader.

To pad out this section I will include a variety of inane facts about the subject of the research that I gathered by Googling the topic and reading the Wikipedia article that appeared as the first link.

I will preface them with "it is believed" or "scientists think" to avoid giving the impression of passing any sort of personal judgement on even the most inane facts.

This fragment will be put on its own line for no obvious reason.

In this paragraph I will reference or quote some minor celebrity, historical figure, eccentric, or a group of sufferers; because my editors are ideologically committed to the idea that all news stories need a "human interest", and I'm not convinced that the scientists are interesting enough.

At this point I will include a picture, because our search engine optimisation experts have determined that humans are incapable of reading more than 400 words without one.

[This picture has been optimised by SEO experts to appeal to our key target demographics]

This subheading hints at controversy with a curt phrase and a question mark?

This paragraph will explain that while some scientists believe one thing to be true, other people believe another, different thing to be true.

In this paragraph I will provide balance with a quote from another scientist in the field. Since I picked their name at random from a Google search, and since the research probably hasn't even been published yet for them to see it, their response to my e-mail will be bland and non-committal.

"The research is useful", they will say, "and gives us new information. However, we need more research before we can say if the conclusions are correct, so I would advise caution for now."

If the subject is politically sensitive this paragraph will contain quotes from some fringe special interest group of people who, though having no apparent understanding of the subject, help to give the impression that genuine public "controversy" exists.

This paragraph will provide more comments from the author restating their beliefs about the research by basically repeating the same stuff they said in the earlier quotes but with slightly different words. They won't address any of the criticisms above because I only had time to send out one round of e-mails.

This paragraph contained useful information or context, but was removed by the sub-editor to keep the article within an arbitrary word limit in case the internet runs out of space.

The final paragraph will state that some part of the result is still ambiguous, and that research will continue.

Related Links:

The Journal (not the actual paper, we don't link to papers).

The University Home Page (finding the researcher's page would be too much effort).

Unrelated story from 2007 matched by keyword analysis.

Special interest group linked to for balance.