144 Or Less / 12-17-11

If you mean to sign a pledge defending marriage, but instead you end up offending it, you might be Newt Gingrich.

First of all, I'm sorry -- really sorry. Secondly, you should rethink your decision to sign this.

This is, in short, the latest Republican-sponsored quixotic battle against same-sex marriage.

Given that you cheated on your first two wives, once while you were impeaching Clinton for lying about sexual indiscretions, then also while another was fighting off cancer (successfully!), you're better off signing an overt declaration of war on marriage rather than a laughable oath to "protect" it from committed people who would like their children to grow up in a stable home where two loving parents don't have to explain to their children why the government disallows their union.

Long sentence there. Shorter ones now.

Now go win the nomination, you double-talking sleazebag. Please.

(Word count: 144)

And Now It's Ron Paul's Turn / 12-17-11

Not his turn to win, mind you. Don't get your man-panties in a bunch. Or even your lady panties. Which is somewhat redundant, come to think of it, and why wouldn't you think of it?

(I'm glad I don't have to be as serious for this one as for the Romney one.)

My last two full posts have laid out why Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich won't win the 2012 Republican nomination. Since those guys account for about two-thirds of Republican voters, that means Ron Paul, who generally places third in national and state-by-state polls, is the new favorite to oppose Obama next year... right?

Yeah no. Not happening. Whatever the opposite of "right" is. Is there even a word for that?

It's not going to be Paul either. (Waiting for your objection. Noted. Waiting for your next question.) Then who? (There we go. Thanks for participating.)

To be totally honest, I haven't figured that one out yet. Possible future post, yay! No, for now, I'm just excluding people one at a time. In much the same way that I've been methodically honing my impressions of God by excluding traits -- God is not male, is not the world's manager, is not Santa Claus, is not summoned by our prayers to magically heal and protect us, is not fighting a proxy war through us against some red dude with horns and a pitchfork -- I also have been trimming the Republican field of candidates.

Which doesn't necessarily mean I'll finish this journey with a good answer. Why should it?

Redirecting. Ron Paul will not be the nominee for a variety of reasons, none of which is convincing enough on its own, but when combined with its buddies, gains extra power. Yes, just like the Constructicons. I was thinking that too.

1. Paul is 76 years old. I'm not being ageist. I'm being realistic. Everyone else is being ageist. The oldest presidential candidate to ever win a first term was Ronald Reagan, who was 69 years old in 1980. (Modern technology has permitted Reagan to age only six years since then!) Paul is in good health. He's a doctor. He's a spry 76. But he'd be 77 and five months on Inauguration Day, and people don't put people in office when 80 is right around their corner. Not in this country, anyway.

2. Paul isn't a Republican. (This is probably a good 1. reason, but I wrote 1. first, so this is 2.) He wears the R label, but only because he's not a Democrat either. He's a Libertarian Lite. A Conservative Constitutionalist. (A con-con, if you will. I will. I already did.) Here is his list of positions. You put him in a box, if you can find one the right shape. He voted against the 2011 Republican budget as drafted by Paul Ryan. Good for him. But you could say that loyalty to the party brand is not his forte.

You know, that's practically a disqualifying offense on its own. Practically.

3. Paul is ignored/laughed at/derided/choose your term/mocked by the mainstream media. Hoping for this to change is pointless. Should Paul win three early states (Iowa, NH and Nevada are certainly fertile ground for him, and the February calendar is caucus-heavy, which bodes well for him too), Paul's most unpopular traits will certainly get highlighted. Mind you, this will not deter his most hard-core supporters, but it will help empty the bandwagon pretty quickly.

4. He doesn't look the part. Voters like their candidates to look presidential, and Paul's rumpled suits, 5'10''-or-so height, and semi-grouchy mannerisms are a turn-off for too many people. It's shallow. It's also hard to deny. Although if denial is one of your specialties, go right ahead.

5. He's a sure loser in the general election. Paul's right on the national pulse when it comes to certain things (lower taxes, against wars of choice, pro-civil-liberties, slashing foreign aid) but is so very extreme in his proposed budget cuts, his contempt of labor unions, and his plans to scrap the Federal Reserve would make for so very many effective negative ads it's not even funny. (If the inevitable ads were funny, like Jack-in-the-Box-meets-Old-Spice funny, then it's all worth it, he should totally score the nomination.)

The above reasons don't preclude a major role for Paul in the process. I can see a scenario where he finishes with the second-most delegates, and another where he is offered the vice-presidential slot on the ticket. But in only the most far-fetched parallel universe is he the Republican nominee.

In conclusion? Sorry Noah S., Matt L. and Mike G.

But if not Ron Paul, who?

The Gingrich Who Stole Christmas / 12-14-11

My last post ended with "If not Romney, who?"

Glad you asked. Turns out Newt Gingrich enjoys a double-digit lead in national polling for the 2012 Republican nomination. He leads in Iowa, where they'll be voting in three weeks. He leads nationally. He leads in Florida and South Carolina, states which hold the other January primaries, by an average of 19 points. Real Clear Politics does a poll of polls every day, and here's their latest one, showing Gingrich with a 12-point cushion. The predictive model at Fivethirtyeight.com, which rose to prominence in 2008 with its statistically rigorous look at the election, predicts he'll win the first caucus.

Newt Gingrich has stolen Christmas from Mitt Romney and is now the undisputed front-runner.

Yes, that Newt Gingrich. Yes, him. It's almost too easy to write the post about how the man will not be the Republican nominee.

Oh, I'm going to write the post anyway. Not doing so would be a wasted opportunity. It would be borderline irresponsible. Besides, I have to write this tonight, so I can give the same treatment to Ron Paul tomorrow. After that, eh, who knows. Because if it's not going to be one of the three front-runners... wow. If it's not one of those three guys, and I really don't think it'll be, then we're in for a doozy of a primary season, and a Republican convention actually worth paying attention to.

Seriously, my political lobe is all tingly. *shivers*

So. Newt will not win the nomination for a variety of reasons. Let's give these reasons some sequential numbers.

1. He says stuff. So much stuff. Even for a Republican, it's seriously crazy stuff. For example, last week, he warmed up by stating in a debate that our child labor laws are "truly stupid," then stood by his remarks. Just read the first few quotes here, remembering that this is Newt defending his stance that children should in part replace adult janitors who, according to him, make too much money. Oh, and calling Palestinians an "invented" people is just the sort of thing a president ought to do, too. (And that was just last week! Both statemenst! Days apart!)

2. He has more enemies than friends in the GOP power corridors. More on why this matters this two reasons later.

3. He's not going to win Iowa or New Hampshire, and that will take the sails out of his campaign. According to multiple reports, he's massively disorganized compared to Paul, Perry and Bachmann -- even compared to Romney. One of those four is winning the Hawkeye State. (My money's on Paul.) Meanwhile, Romney will at least eke out a win in New Hampshire. Fundraising will dry up and supporters will voice their doubts more openly after the perceived front-runner fails to take either of the first two contests.

4. His personal life is too much of a liability. And because of 2., 4. is amplified. Any campaign manager who wants to destroy Newt can make it happen. It's not hard. You just remind people that the guy led the drive to impeach Clinton... while he was having an affair of his own. You remind them that at the height of the mortgage crisis, he took $1.6 million in pay from Freddie Mac... then claimed, straight-faced, he was being paid for his services as a historian. You remind them he cheated on his first wife, then divorced his second one while she was dying of cancer so he could marry his current spouse... before Wife Number Two had the decency to die. Those are the broad strokes, but after that who cares about the details: There's three women, lots of cheating, and massive douchebaggery, all rolled into one guy.

And I haven't even yet mentioned the time Newt admitted that he shut down the government in part so he could exact revenge on the President for making him sit in the back of Air Force One.

I'm all for politicians making mistakes and learning from them, you know, like regular people, but the baggage above is too much for Newt to overcome. And we're just talking, so far, about the luggage he checked at the counter. There's plenty more: carry-ons, backpacks, rolling suitcases, laptops, and fanny packs full of additional icky Newtrivia, just waiting to be unpacked on the national scene.

5. My favorite. He made a well-intentioned video to help raise awareness of climate change. In the video, he sits on the couch with fellow former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or as she's known to Republican voters, Harpy McLucifer (D-San Frangaysco). Newt might as well have shot a commercial for an abortion clinic and solicited funds for Planned Parenthood, standing in front of a juicy Robert Mapplethorpe painting. That would have gone over way better.

Newt will win some delegates along the way. Just not the nomination.

But if not Newt, who?

[Respoiler: Ron Paul's up next. Guess how the post ends!]

Mitt Romney, The LDS Question, and Flipfloppery / 12-13-11

Going to tread lightly here, because this is a sensitive topic. Don't expect a lot of biting wit.

Mitt Romney has two problems.

First, he's a Mormon.

Important clarification: He doesn't have a problem with me. I would vote for a Democrat who's a Mormon. If Harry Reid (you know, the Senate Majority Leader) were running for office in my state, I would choose him over the right-wing alternative. His policy squares with mine. He could be an atheist, a Baptist, a Buddhist, whatever, I really couldn't possibly care less. I want left-wingers in office enacting left-wing policies, thwarting right-wing initiatives.

Yeah, well, as luck would have it, Mitt Romney isn't running for my vote, for the Senate in a reliably blue state, or for governor again, as a moderate Republican.

He's running for the chance to represent the Republicans in an election for President of the United States. And to get there, he needs to win over the people who vote in primaries.

And yeah. Between 40 and 60 percent of the R primary electorate, depending on the state, is made up of evangelical Christians. About half of those of those believe Mormonism is a cult. Trust my numbers, or just do the math: roughly, a quarter of R primary voters gladly place Romney in the Cult Box.

Important fact: Christians classify their Mormon brethren in that uncomplimentary way for multiple reasons. But chief among those is that in LDS circles, the Book of Mormon is viewed as equal to the Bible.

Understatement: fair or unfair, when the LDS church went that route, it was practically asking for the "cult" label. Denying the divinity of Christ is the biggest massive breach of orthodoxy I can imagine, and right behind that, in second place, lies messing with the ultimate authority of the Word of God.

Like I said, that's neither here nor there for me. I have my own tenuous relationship with so-called orthodox dogma. (Really? A virgin birth? Are you serious?)

But again, I'm not voting in the Republican primaries. It's most definitely here and there for a large swath of the people Romney needs to reach.

When combined with his propensity to, um, how to say this -- his propensity to let his views on certain issues "evolve," and his extremely moderate past during his governorship of Massachusetts, Romney has a big problem. He's not appealing to the people who decide if he's appealing.

So he keeps polling between 20 and 30 percent, time and again, week after week, state after state. Forgive me, but duh.

I'll be shocked if Romney garners more than a third of the Republican vote in any primary outside of New England and the Mountain West. And that's no path to the nomination.

But if not Mitt, who?

Tomorrow, I'll give newt Gingrich the same treatment. (Spoiler: The post ends with "But if not Newt, who?")

Ho, Ho, Ho Say Can You See / 11-28-11

With Thanks being all safely Given and out of our public consciousness for eleven months and three weeks, another holiday takes center stage, which it has already taken, because it could.

I'm talking about Christmas! No, really! (ed. note: strike two previous sentences)

Christmas, the superpower of holidays.

At its core, Christmas is good. It grew out of a fantastic idea, a revolutionary idea -- God born as a human! God as a child? What! God as a finite, mortal being. What an idea. If you haven't considered it in a while, do so again. Boggle your mind.

Christmas is brimming with exuberance, optimism, gregariousness, charity. Christmas time moves people. Siblings spend their precious funds on siblings; strangers feed strangers in soup kitchens; poor kids receive gifts from anonymous donors who drop them off at suddenly altruistic places of business. The Christmas spirit is uplifting and real. Just look at the results.

If you're a certain brand of person, you would put your life on the line for Christmas. An edict barring the celebration of Christmas, under penalty of death, would not stop people from celebrating the holiday.

What I'm trying to say is that good people, given the right circumstances, would give their lives for Christmas. Because Christmas is capable of bringing out the best in us.

And Christmas can also be rude, or even ugly. It pokes its head where it doesn't belong, like November 3rd. Uninvited, and all. It can even make quite a mess, in spite of its good intentions: have you seen shoppers assault each other for bits of branded plastic or fur-covered batteries? If not, you've not been paying very good attention.

For the last two months of the year, the marketplace pleads for your money, with no limits on its cravenness. My God, ads on the radio urge us to buy CARS for our loved ones. There is no room for restraint at the inn.

There are not too many ways to say it: Christmas gets used. The Starbucks in which I sit does not serve a $4.75 eggnog latte to spread holiday cheer. (Hint: It's more for the crazy profit margin.) The big-box electronics store doesn't hawk its $799 TV (marked down $200!) just so you can share quality family time watching "Elf" every weekend.

And Christmas is part legend, a malleable one which gathers all kinds of mythology along the way. You think Abraham Lincoln is amazing? All he did was hold together a nation by sheer force of will. Santa delivers presents to every (deserving) kid faster than the speed of sound. And time. And light. You think it was cool when American ingenuity put a man on the moon 42 years ago? Mary's water broke at the end of a hundreds-of-miles-long donkeyback ride, then she birthed a deity in a feeding trough.

Christmas' ideals exhort us to be better. We often rise to the challenge.

Christmas is also covered in warts. If you take the time to look.

Boiling it down even further: Each year, when the calendar completes its circle, here we stand, ready to celebrate the greatest holiday on earth, because it's who we are, and without Christmas, many of us would feel a little empty, a little less significant, a little littler.

Holy Santa, America is Christmas.

The Complete Works of the 2012 GOP Nomination Campaign (abridged) / 11-8-11

[The curtain comes up. A bare stage, save for a television set and a dozen people, milling about.]

GUY IN CORNER: Not Mitt

PERSON WITH CHURRO: We love you Saaarah, oh yes we do

GUY IN CORNER: Not Mitt

QUIET PERSON (lip synching): /huntsman/

GIRL (skipping across stage): Christie, Christie, Christie

PERSON WITH CHURRO: And you too Michele

BOY (marching, carrying sign across stage, chanting): Ron Paul, that is all... Ron Paul, that is all...

GUY IN CORNER: Not Mitt

PERSON WITH BIBLE: I <3 Huckabee

PERSON BACKSTAGE (yelling): Santorum!

QUIET PERSON: /huntsman/

PERSON WITH CHURRO: Saaaaraaaaah Palin (clap clap clapclapclap)

TWO GUYS IN CORNER: Not Mitt

CRAZY PERSON (dancing, chanting): Obamacare Obamacare Obamanation Obamacare

THREE GUYS IN CORNER: Not Mitt

CRAZY PERSON (still dancing): Birth Certificate!

PERSON WITH CHURRO: Obamacare

PERSON WITH BIBLE: Obamanation

TWO GUYS IN CORNER: Not Mitt

CRAZY PERSON: (unintelligible yelling)

NOW JUST ONE GUY IN CORNER: Not Mitt

HERMAN CAIN: Me

BOY: Ron Paul, that is all...

RICK PERRY: I'm not George Bush

GIRL (skipping, not running): Christie, Christie, Christie

OLD GUY: Newwwwwt

THREE GUYS IN CORNER: Not Mitt

FOX NEWS: Cain Is Able

EVERYONE (running to TV): oooooooooooo

FOX NEWS: Not Mitt

FOX NEWS: Cain Is Able

EVERYONE (droning): Cain Is Able Cain Is Able

BOY (oblivious): Ron Paul, that is all... Ron Paul, that is all...

PERSON WITH CHURRO (weeping): I dropped my churro

PERSON BACKSTAGE: Santor-- (loud banging noise) -- owww hey owww

HERMAN CAIN: Nineninenine

FOX NEWS: Not Mitt

EVERYONE: Not Mitt

CAIN: Nineninenine

CAIN: NinenineNIIINE

PERSON WITH BIBLE: I still <3 Huckabee

FOX NEWS: Shut up

CAIN: Nineninenine

FOUR WOMEN: Nein! Nein! Nein!

FOX NEWS: Shut up

FOX NEWS: Cain is Able

EVERYONE: Wait a second

RICK PERRY: I'm not Rick Perry

EVERYONE: Not Mitt

MITT ROMNEY: I'm not Mitt Romney

BOY: Ron Paul, that is all...

GIRL (slowing down): Christie, Christie, Chris --

OLD GUY: Newwwwwt

CRAZY PERSON (sitting): Sad

PERSON WITH CHURRO (hanging head): Sad

GIRL (walking off stage): Sad

HERMAN CAIN: Hey baby

FOX NEWS:

RICK PERRY: I'm not Mitt Romney

GUY IN CORNER: Not Mitt... ?

EVERYONE: Mitt?

FOX NEWS:

FOX NEWS:

FOX NEWS: Aw nuts

QUIET PERSON: /i told you/

[Curtain descends.]

BOY (still marching with sign, still chanting): Ron Paul, that is all... Ron Paul, that is all...

You Heard Me / 10-29-11

Not that you were paying attention to a World Series that lacked the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, and all teams from Chicago or L.A. (plus nobody invited the Mariners! Again!), but yeah, there was a fair amount of drama in the Fall Classic this past week.

The Cardinals, twice a mere strike from defeat, won it all Friday night. They came back from a two-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth AND tenth innings to wrest Game 6 from the Texas Rangers, then cruised to a 6-2 Game 7 victory to claim the trophy.

This series had it all. Individual heroics, eye-popping errors (confession: "eye-pooping" was the first thing my fingers typed, and that's not so far off), outstanding pitching performances, epic at-bats, game-saving hits and catches, meltdowns, questionable decisions; oh, there was more than enough drama.

And God. There was some God, too. Well, according to Texas slugger Josh Hamilton, who says God dropped by for a nice little mid-game chat.

In the heat of the moment Thursday night, Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa couldn't place a call to the bullpen to get the right pitcher in the game. But in the opposing dugout, minutes later, Hamilton had a direct line to the Deity Formerly Known As Bruce.

"I was walking to the plate. And it happened as I was brushing dirt in the batter's box. Very cool. Y'all ought to try it sometime," said Hamilton, a self-avowed born-again Christian who turned to Jesus after years of substance abuse and all the lovely things that come with a destructive lifestyle.

I won't leave you hanging, like a lousy curveball, any longer. Here's the Transcript:

"He said, 'You haven't hit one in a while and this is the time you're going to,' '' Hamilton said. "But there was a period at the end of that. He didn't say, 'You're going to hit it and you're going to win.' "

Hamilton hit a home run that trip to the plate.

(Now to his credit, Hamilton didn't ask God to give away the game's final outcome. That would have sucked. Not for God. Strictly for Josh. Who lost the game, and the series.)

You've probably noticed that I don't take this kind of chatter very seriously, so then here are some assorted conclusions one might draw from the Hamilton-Yahweh pep talk:

1. God dislikes the Rangers. (Chalk one up for divine good taste. What whaat!)

2. Or... God was just popping in to deliver some free information about the near future. You know, between checking in on the earthquake in Turkey earlier that day that killed at least 500 people, the developing floods in Bangkok, and scattered famines and wars.

(Everyone needs some R&R, right? Letting the world's countless tragedies take their collective toll is demanding work. Not that I'd know. God doesn't talk to me. Too busy, you know, whispering some athletics-based fortunetelling in a dude's ear.)

3. Athletes really are more special than the rest of us. (We should totally pay the best ones five figures, daily. Eh, what's this now? Oh.)

4. It was actually Satan, messin' with Texas. (Ol' Luce is probably the only one who can get away with it!)

5. It was actually God. (empty parentheses, for sure)

6. Some combination of Hamilton being wrong/deceitful/confused. (Rats. The answers are losing their snark! Quick! Be all clever-like!)

7. God did speak to Hamilton, but told him he was going to ground out to shortstop. Josh is just covering for a giant Oops. (There you go, me.)

7. Something else happened. Not God speaking to Hamilton, but also not God not speaking to Hamilton. (It's very mystical. "Well, that's not very snarky." "Shut up, inner dialogue!" "Don't talk to me like that, please." "Excuse me. Who are you to say how I may and may not--")

144 Or Less, Vol. XI / 10-29-11

Recently in this space I detailed Ron Paul's fantastical path to the 2012 Republican nomination (ed. note: "fantastical" does not share a meaning with "fantastic"), plus a list of things I genuinely like about the Herminator.

Well, each time I burrow into deeper examination of a flawed GOP field, I'm left to conclude that Mitt Romney eventually wins the nomination.

Which is how I happened upon this, from Steve Benen, in Washington Monthly:

"As hard as it is to believe, it’s very likely the Republican presidential nomination will go to a French-​​speaking Mormon vulture capitalist named Willard, who used to support abortion rights, gay rights, gun control, 'amnesty' for undocumented immigrants, and combating climate change, and who distanced himself from Reagan, attended Planned Parenthood fundraisers, and helped create the blueprint for the Affordable Care Act."

This can't happen, right? Right?

(Word count: 144)

Nine-Nine-Nine Things I Like About Herman Cain / 10-21-11

You're going to assume that I made the following list in jest.

You're going to wait, and wait, and wait for the sarcastic kicker.

Well, it ain't comin. Read ahead. See?

Ha. Joke's on you. These are nine things I legitimately like about Herman Cain and his presidential campaign. What that's now? Yes, I know he's a Republican, shut up already.

1. He offers a solution to our taxation quagmire. His 9-9-9 plan isn't just an inspiration for this babblefest I call "blogging." It's an actual alternative to the mess in which we find ourselves today, wherein:

One party won't raise taxes or cut benefits;

The other wants to cut taxes but not the benefits;

Meanwhile, the deficit continues to mount, health care costs continue to rise and the safety net gets more and more expensive.

Say what you want about 9-9-9. It's gimmicky. It's too simple. It's regressive. Fine, whatever. But at least Cain is contributing to the discussion in a positive way, detailing a plan of attack, rather than delivering the same empty promises I like to call "lies."

2. He is not easily ruffled by white people calling him "brother." He's not even ruffled by white people with questionable race-related incidents in their past calling him "brother," over and over, on a national stage. In fact, if one of his rivals for the GOP nomination had once leased a hunting ranch called "N*ggerhead" for a decade, using it with his family, and that same rival had called Cain "brother," over and over, in a kinda douchey condescending sort of way, and this had all happened on October 19, 2011 during a debate in Las Vegas, Cain would have remained unruffled throughout.

That was a purely hypothetical exercise, of course, right.

3. He is pro-choice. Not personally, no -- he's on record as being strongly opposed to abortion, but he also adamantly made the case this week, in an interview on CNN, that abortion is a choice best left up to the woman, not the government.

His actual words: "It's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision."

After clarifying that he considers himself pro-life, he followed up: "I can have an opinion on an issue without it being a directive on the nation. The government shouldn't be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to social decisions that they need to make."

Asked if a woman should be forced to carry a fetus to term after being raped, he answered, "That's her choice. That is not government's choice. I support life from conception."

(He backtracked the next day on his website. That's kind of what politicians do, though.)

4. Although I just called him a politician, he's really an outsider, which is good. Politics needs these guys. Like a '92 Perot or a Ralph Nader of any vintage, non-career politicians serve an extremely important function: they tether the lifelong insiders to the real world. Sometimes they use graphs. I like it when they use graphs.

5. Cain is black. (I know, you're colorblind, you hadn't even noticed.) Your political correctness notwithstanding, the man's race is somewhat of a coup for the Republicans, whose base, according to the latest official numbers, is:

--->103.7 percent white

--->.00002 percent Latino (that's counting W's Spanish-speaking skills and Marco Rubio, who's Cuban anyway)

--->That rich Asian-American guy

--->Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and a 99-year-old former actor in a nursing home somewhere who's still wearing blackface.

If the Republican Party is going to survive at all, and outgrow its current rift with minorities, it needs, well, nonwhite faces. And it would be good for the country, somehow, if the right-wing party was still in existence a generation from now. So, yeah.

6. He's a successful businessman. Wildly successful. He's a multi-millionaire! He was president and CEO of Godfather's, a chain he saved from extinction in the 1980's and 90's. When Cain talks money, you have to at least listen. And money troubles are kinda exactly what the nation's going through right now.

7. He legitimately thinks he has something to offer the nation, so he's following through with that notion. He didn't have to run for President. He's not on his third campaign for the Oval Office. I get the feeling he's not necessarily chasing power for power's sake, although to run for this office in the first place, it does take a certain amount of self-esteem.

8. His family story is compelling. He was raised in a lower-middle-class home, in which hard work, education and faith were paramount. Check his wiki page. And then, imagine this: his childhood values seem to have stuck. He's been married to the same woman for 43 years, he owns a master's degree in computer science from Purdue and is an associate minister at his church.

(Lots more money in the Cain household this time around, though. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

9. He beat cancer. Stage Four cancer, in his colon and liver, five years ago. He was given a 30 percent chance of survival; now he says he's in remission. You have to respect someone who takes on death, and wins. (My advisers just whispered that beating cancer constitutes merely a temporary victory. Screw that. Any effort that forestalls death is a win in my book.)

Done. Nine items, no sarcastic kickers. Granted, there is no chance I would ever cast a vote for Herman Cain, and I could just as easily make a list twice this long about things that turn me off about him. Maybe some other time.

(P.S.: I found this after finishing the post, so call it 9a. In 2009, Cain founded something called "Hermanator's Intelligent Thinkers Movement," an activist program that fights for conservative causes. Forget the agenda. The acronym spells Hit 'em, and you get to use the term "Hermanator"? Legen. Dary.)

The Ron Paul Scenario / 10-20-11

Ron Paul is, by all mainstream media accounts, the longest of long shots to win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

And yet.

And yet.

There exists a scenario by which Paul could nab the nomination. I'd like to explore it today. Won't you ride with me? Please ride with me. And remember to keep your eyeballs inside the car at all times.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Part of the reason the MSM is so quick to discount Paul is that he doesn't fit into a neat little box like Rick Perry (gunslingin' conservative), Mitt Romney (establishment moderate), Herman Cain (outsider businessman) or even Sarah Palin (populist freakshow).

Some highlights and lowlights of Paul's career:

He voted against the Iraq war. The money quote: he found himself "annoyed by the evangelicals being so supportive of pre-emptive war, which seems to contradict everything That I was taught as a Christian." He voted against the so-called Patriot Act and calls gay marriage a states' issue, not to be trifled with by the federal government.

At the same time, Paul says hospitals should not have to treat illegal aliens in emergency rooms. He would eliminate FEMA, the IRS and the Department of Education. (Say what you will, the country is better for having all three of those entities.) He voted against legislation aimed at catching online child predators.

The eccentricities: He's opposed to all foreign aid, he favors decriminalizing marijuana, he opposes the trade embargo on Cuba, and he habitually votes against legislation not expressly authorized by the Constitution. He'd scrap the Federal Reserve and return to the gold standard abandoned under Nixon. Also, he's 76. I'm told that's considered ancient.

(All information gleaned from his extremely informative wiki page.)

Summarizing, if Ron Paul were an ice cream, he'd be the anti-vanilla. He'd be Rocky Road, except with chili peppers instead of marshmallows.

And yet.

And yet.

Paul won the Value Voters straw poll last month. He polls at around 10 percent, give or take. He lost by less than a percentage point to Michele Bachmann in Iowa over the summer. He's tantalizing in his potential to win, or get crushed like a bug.

So how on God's greenish earth does this guy snake his way to the nomination?

Well, Rick Perry and Herman Cain have some pretty serious flaws. Perry reminds everyone of Bush, and not of W's theoretically good parts. The guy leased a ranch called "N*ggerhead," and not by accident, nope, for a whole decade. He invested in porn; he volunteered for Al Gore. His oft-touted "Texas Miracle" boils down to finding a few minimum-wage jobs without health insurance for his poorest citizens, of which there are many, all while watching the state's unemployment rate rise faster than the nation as a whole. Look it up. He calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme. "Vote for me! I'll dismantle the safety net!" Interesting strategy.

Cain? Turns out he's pro-choice. Or maybe not. His evolving stances and awkward dances on the abortion issue make Romney look like a poster child of consistency. (In case you're not following the race too closely yet, that's a jab at both men. In case you don't know anything about American politics, conservative primary voters care a great deal about abortion.)

And the pizza magnate's gimmicky 9-9-9 tax plan got destroyed by his competitors in a debate last week. It wasn't pretty, from a Hermanesque standpoint.

So what about Mitt? Good ol' Mittens, the guy who stays put with a 28 percent share of primary voters, no matter what. Doesn't go up, doesn't go down. Does his ceiling even stretch to 50 percent, ever? Or is he this year's version of what Hillary was in 2008, when she fell victim to a vehement ABC -- Anybody But Clinton -- swath of the Democratic electorate?

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum (Google him, it's worth it), Jon Huntsman and Bachmann are either dead in the water or losing traction quickly. Chris Christie isn't running, neither is Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee's obviously lying facedown in a ditch somewhere, and in case you forgot, Tim Pawlenty dropped out over the summer.

The nominee will be Cain, Perry, Romney or Paul. Except it won't be Cain, not after this week's multiple meltdowns. He is not ready for prime time, all the time.

Really, it'll be Perry, Romney or Paul. Except it won't be Perry. He debates poorly, he looks unpresidential, he turns too many folks off, he won't play well in the general election, and every intangible in the book seems to be working against him. In another election cycle, maybe.

So it'll be Romney or Paul.

But say something happens to Romney. Already, he's treated us to "Corporations are people, my friend" and "I'm running for office, for Pete's sake, I can't have illegals!" That's just in the last eight weeks, with 54 more of those to go before Election Day. Oh, and there's the little matter of how he set up Obamacare in Massachusetts. Say he compounds gaffe with gaffe, loses his cool a couple times, flips or flops on this or that issue, again, and who knows?

Better yet, say the Republican primary voters who actually show up are:

* Conservative Christians who believe Mormonism is a cult

* Social conservatives who dislike his record

* Wary of insiders this election cycle

* Folks concerned about his flipfloppiness

* Still upset about health care legislation

and those voters go ahead and choose an alternative. What happens then? Does Romney crest past 30 percent anywhere besides New Hampshire?

If Romney, Cain and Perry are somehow out of the picture, your nominee stands to be one of the also-rans from six paragraphs ago, or Paul. The latter has an organization that puts his remaining opponents to shame. He has name recognition. By all accounts, he's a smart man, if quirky, and he projects an image of responsibility and honesty. He has a devoted following. (You could call them disciples! Or discipauls!)

Let's go to the calendar, then, and play this thing out chronologically.

It's January 15, and Ron's just finished winning Iowa and Nevada, nicely sandwiching his second-place finish to Romney -- by five percentage points! -- in New Hampshire. Paul is blowing expectations out of the water. He starts to raise funds like Obama 2008. Or, to be more precise, like Ron Paul 2007.

He loses to Perry in South Carolina on the 21st, but the four social conservatives split the far-right vote in Florida ten days later. Romney wins there, by default, with 26 percent. Nobody is impressed, especially because he just finished fifth in SC. Fifth!

Following a string of unimpressive results in the caucuses of CO, MN and ME on February 7, Perry's funds dry up at last and he drops out. Bachmann leaves the race a week later, but only after hanging on to barely take the Minnesota caucuses, where Paul finishes second.

Eight states have voted. Romney leads Paul by one delegate.

The two split Michigan and Arizona. Massachusetts selects Romney on March 6, but that's the same day Texas goes big for native son Paul. In fact, the other 11 states voting that day swing 7-2 to Paul, with him winning all five caucuses plus Vermont and Ohio. Cain nets the two leftovers, Oklahoma and Georgia, but having won just those two contests, and polling at 10 percent nationally, he calls it a campaign.

So do Santorum and Huntsman, who've won nothing; neither man has even placed second thus far.

With the pool of candidates thinning, Romney experiences a small uptick in poll numbers, but faced with essentially a choice between a libertarian and a moderate, many primary voters stay home. The ones who don't are, you guessed it, the Discipauls, who are emboldened by their man's now sizeable lead in delegates.

Gingrich stays in, gets a bump in the polls, and annoys the hell out of Mitt.

Desperate, Romney goes negative. He makes a disturbing campaign ad that is generally reviled, he loses his temper, he says something stupid, again.

To the great chagrin of the Republican establishment, Paul wraps up the nomination in April and coasts into the convention with a backroom deal-proof lead in delegates.

Granted, the scenario described above is... farfetched. But so very much NOT out of the realm of possibility. Here's the primary calendar. It's front-loaded with Western states, Southern states and caucuses.

It could happen. It won't. But it could.

What's Wrong With This Picture? / 10-13-11

A lot, is what's wrong.

Because I'm out of practice, I'm not going to organize my thoughts at first; just going to respond, in sequence, to each of the statements on the sheet.

"About to graduate debt-free." That's actually admirable. College ain't cheap.

"working 30+ hours a week making barely above minimum wage." That's why you're going to college, after all, so you don't have to work a crap job, so you can get one that allows you to make a living. That's almost full time... huh. I am honestly impressed with your dedication. No snark.

"in-state public university." Yeah, that's one way to make it affordable. Not everyone can -- nor should they -- go to Stanford. (My kids should.)

"started saving at age 17." Smart.

"I received two scholarships which cover 90 percent of my tuition." Again, that's pretty cool. Basically, you only owe 10 percent of your class costs, plus books, and living expenses. The crap job should be able to cover most of that. Makes sense.

"I have a 3.8 GPA." More on that in a few moments.

The "I live frugally" paragraphs. Kudos. More people should do that, to avoid accumulating debt before entering the real world, where debt can eat you up.

"If I did have debt, I would not blame, etc..." Not sure what this paragraph is doing here, unless the person is more interested in making a self-righteous point or a political statement. Both of which are cool. I do that all the time! You're reading that kind of thing right now.

"and will continue to work my @$$ of for everything I have." Just say ass. Otherwise, you look and sound 13 years old.

"I am NOT the 99%." Well, by definition, you are, since the other 1 percent refers to the richest 1 percent of Americans. I don't think you are part of the 1 percent. Maybe that 3.8 GPA is being dragged down by a poor math score? (That was mean, yes, but I won't take it back.)

So let me get this straight.

That sheet describes the kind of effort it takes to graduate debt-free

-- from an in-state university

-- with 90 percent of the tuition eliminated

-- forgoing all luxuries

-- working nearly full time.

Damn. I'm not encouraged. I'm depressed. Our higher education system is financially broken, and we need immediate reform. This is not a picture worth celebrating. It's one we ought to never have to see in the first place.

Ten Years. Now What? / 9-11-11

Happy September 11 to you.

I know, right? What do you say? How do you, well, celebrate? Celebrate? Remember? What. Gah.

Me? I slept in. I helped my brother move. I picked blackberries with my boys. We had a family dinner. I watched football, and agonized over the waning minutes of the fourth quarter of a Cowboys-Jets game (yep) that would mean fantasy league victory or defeat. (Thanks, Tony Romo, for your late-game ADHD moments!)

The most altruistic things I did, I would have done any other day. Packed a few boxes, moved some cabinets, made desserts for the neighbor kids, spent time being a good dad. It could have been Octemberpril 34th, for all the attention I paid the calendar today. I could have freakin' mowed the lawn, it was that kind of day.

That means something. For sure, some folks made today a day of service, or they did something significant to better the nation. Or they laid a flower somewhere, or they lit a candle, or they flew their flag.

Aw crap. The flag. Totally meant to do that. Our family loves displaying the flag. We take great pride in this nation's ideals, as symbolized by the Stars and Stripes. We flew it on Memorial Day 2011, Flag Day 2011, July Fourth 2011, and it'll probably make its way out there at Veterans Day 2011 too. Missed it today, though.

That means something.

Hm. There are no universally accepted 9/11 customs. It's only been ten years, after all. I didn't expect we'd all be exchanging gifts or sending family picture postcards or dressing up in red, white and blue, or anything like that on such short notice. But the event that was meant to unite us -- the event that did unite us, if ever so briefly -- has instead served mainly as a politicized flash point that separates Americans... often along party lines.

How you feel about the response to Sept. 11 -- a bungled war in Afghanistan, a couple trillion dollars and thousands of lives spent to messily redo Iraq, a ten-year manhunt for bin Laden that ended in a somewhat less than satisfying way -- how you feel about our last decade as a nation is bound to color how you commemorate it. And for half of us, we look at the last decade as an embarrassment, a missed opportunity, a stretch of history we'd rather forget quickly than relive annually. And then, for the other half of us, our military achievements of the last ten years have been giant foreign policy victories that have strengthened American hegemony, made us safer here at home, and crushed Al Qaeda like an unwanted insect.

Yeah, that's not the makings of a national holiday. Not even close.

OK, fine, maybe we can all agree on honoring first responders, firefighters, police officers, and ordinary heroes among us. I still get emotional thinking about what those folks accomplished that day. The bravery exhibited still floors me. When I put myself in their shoes...

But, like half the nation, I am shamed by the unconscionable actions we took between Sept. 12, 2001 and today. Such a colossal waste of life, money and such a wasted opportunity.

I'm not going to say that means the terrorists win. As comedian John Oliver likes to say, the terrorists are morons.

(Thank goodness, that means something too.)

But I think that in a way, America loses, until we figure out how to disassociate the date itself from the tragic, obscene, shameful acts of terrorism we perpetrated on innocent civilians, using that near-holy day of September 11, 2001 as a pretext.

So, no, not Happy September 11. Maybe someday. Or someday, Solemn September 11. Or Selfless September 11.

Can't wait until we get there, but like so many others these days, I am not hopeful.

Libya vs. Iraq: Return on Investment / 9-8-11

After seven months of fighting: the outcome is certain: Libyan rebels, assisted by coalition forces, have executed a successful coup against one of the most despotic despots of the last century.

Only four towns, shown here in green, are controlled by forces loyal to Dictator-For-Life-But-Not-Too-Much-Longer Muammar Gaddafi. That's as of today. Feel free to check back in next week.

As you might have noticed, a certain anniversary is coming up. Sunday will mark ten years. Like a marriage, sometimes the past decade has felt like an entire lifetime, and sometimes it's felt like only weeks have passed.

With that on my mind, that's probably why I started comparing outcomes between what happened in Iraq since Sept. 11, 2001 and what has transpired in Libya this year.

U.S. military casualties in Iraq: 4,474.

In Libya: Zero.

Cost of military operations in Iraq, 2002-2011: between $2 and $3 trillion (estimate)

In Libya: about $1 billion (estimate)

(That's "billion," with a "b." Do the math -- no, let me do it, you're lazy: Libya's running about 0.04 percent of Iraq's cost so far. Or 0.08 percent. Or 0.01 percent. Somewhere in there, way after the decimal point.)

Oil in Iraq: Lots. It's the 12th-highest oil-producing country.

Oil in Libya: Hell yes. Libyans are 18th highest on the list.

(The U.S. is third. Huh. You learn something new every day.)

Apples and oranges, you're free to say. You should say! The objectives and methods employed by our forces in Iraq and Libya were dissimilar, to say the least. In Libya, the NATO-led coalition performed airstrikes to achieve its military goals; in Iraq, there was that ground invasion the media mentioned once or twice. In Iraq, no rebel force rose up against Saddam; in Libya, that's how the whole war started.

Yes, but let's compare results in the last two wars of choice initiated by our leaders.

Iraq: Saddam gone, fledgling democracy in gear, $2,500,000,000,000 invested.

Libya: Gaddafi gone, fledgling democracy awaits, $1,000,000,000 invested.

Look at those zeroes. Again, I say, Huh.

Novel Excerpt / 8-17-11

As promised, this is a brief excerpt from Chapter 11 of my novel/novella/long-short story, "Uncommonly Normal," which can be purchased on that amazon website right here.

Please enjoy responsibly. Like a normal person.

Chapter 11

Retirement’s a Party

Age: Social Security eligible

They threw me a retirement party.

“Yes, that was sweet of them.”

I was crotchety. I said I didn’t want one.

“It doesn’t seem like they listened to you.”

Nobody listens any more, Ricardo. That’s what’s wrong with the world.

“Are you saying that to sound normal, or because you believe it to be true?”

Well, Ricardo, I appreciated the sentiment. And I told them all as much. But I was somewhat embarrassed by all the attention. Wouldn’t you be?

“Hard to say. I have no frame of reference. And no imminent plans to retire. And no compulsion to act mildly embarrassed at functions that call for appropriate displays of mild embarrassment.”

You were there, weren’t you. It sounds like you were there without my knowledge.

“I do plenty of stuff without your knowledge. Sometimes I don’t even tell you when I save your life.”

Say, how many times have you done that? Save my life, I mean. Is it more than five? More than ten? Just once?

“That’s classified. Besides, it’s not always a life-saving operation, old pal. I do plenty of housekeeping kind of stuff too; it ranges from shielding your seven-year-old face from disfigurement to keeping you from falling down the stairs.”

Like the day of this story. Awww.

“That was nice of me, wasn’t it. Your first week of retirement didn’t need to be spent in the hospital. You didn’t need a year of PT to retrain your broken hip. At your age, especially.”

Thank you. I think. ‘At my age.’ Bastard. Get off my lawn.

“Hey, I’d like to hear your version of the party.”

Should I anticipate you’ll be, ah, contributing to the story?

“You should anticipate what you always do: every life experience is another opportunity to fit your square brain into a round hole.”

(That would be harsh, coming from anyone else.)

* * *

“Give it up for the old guy!” That’s Tran. Working together for almost twenty years allows him to say such things. Plenty of applause ensues.

As you might imagine, with my history of avoiding freakish behavior at all costs, I’ve managed to not make a whole lot of enemies at work. I tried, selectively, (because who doesn’t have nemeses? They’re virtually necessary) but the few people who worked up enough fervor to dislike me, those folks organically faded out of my life. Some even died. I’m trying to not be disturbed by that fact. People I know have been dying left and right, and it doesn’t feel OK. It doesn’t even feel normal, even if it should. That’s going to take a lot more getting used to.

So they threw me a big shebang, here in this banquet hall on the Friday evening of my last day. There’s a cake with what looks like a hundred thousand candles. They appear to have bought me something. Tran’s hauling over a stash of gifts right now.

“Here you go, pal. Don’t strain yourself,” he teases.

Three wrapped presents; the first two happen to be bulk-sized tubs of generic Metamucil.

Generic. Nice.

I laugh, just enough. “Very funny, people, hahaha.” The third package is substantially larger; taller and cylinder-shaped, with a metal rattling sound inside. “Canes? A whole set?” I guess playfully.

“Close,” Tran says.

Turns out, they’re golf clubs. A fancy, expensive set. And in the bag, a certificate for one weekly round at a nice-but-not-too-nice local course for a year.

“We pooled our money and the company chipped in,” Tran pre-empts, before I can predictably complain that it’s too much.

I’m touched. “I’m touched, everyone,” I admit. I look at Leah. “I didn’t know he was that great of a co-worker!” she yells. “He’s only an average husband!” Lots of laughing, even by me.

That line doesn’t sink in until much later. I think she was just being funny.

“Speech!” someone cries out.

I pretend to decline, which, as expected, is ineffective. The “speech!” chant grows, synchronizes itself, and I am officially on the spot.

“I didn’t practice anything,” I say, delivering the first line of my rehearsed speech, “but I can ramble on incoherently for a while, then doze off mid-sentence. Don’t wake me, I get cranky these days.”

I let the laughs die down.

“Those of you who’ve had the disproportionately special privilege of working with me know that I’m not a feather-ruffler. I’m a good negotiator, I think. I can find the middle ground, after all the practice I’ve had.”

A hearty “That’s right!” leaps from the back. Though it couldn’t have been, it sure sounded a lot like Ricardo’s voice. I recover quickly and go on.

“I’m a decent enough listener. I could be more organized and more consistently on time.” Some knowing chuckles. “Make no mistake, though, people. It will be a while before I miss setting my alarm and driving into the city at rush hour five times a week. Even to see you guys.

“Still, I’ll probably miss you before you miss me.”

(That’s the money line, the one I knew had to be in there, required by law to be included in a retirement party speech.)

I ramble on for a couple more minutes, with some juicy story about Tran, some obligatory complaining about some unenforceable yet immortal workplace regulation, before I neatly wrap it up.

“Don’t get too comfy, everyone. Leah may yet send me back this way. Give her a couple months of me puttering around the house, and she may choose to preserve her sanity and secretly fill out a job application with my name on it. So if you suddenly see me in the call center, you’ll know how I got there.

“In all seriousness, thank you all immensely.”

And that was that.

Jim Jones 2012 / 8-14-11

I used to shake my fits at their antics, roll my eyes at their lies.

Now I just feel pity for them.

The Republican candidates for president, that's who.

Last week at the Iowa debate, they were offered a hypothetical situation in which they could defeat the deficit by passing ten times as many spending cuts as tax raises. (Ten times!) They were asked to raise their hand if they would oppose such a deal.

Hey, guess what? They all raised their hands, like the dutiful little unthinking boys and girls they've become.

Because they've been brainwashed, you see.

(I know the real answer is somewhat different. It's political suicide to declare any kind of support for any kind of tax increase with primary season just around the corner. The R's had no choice, from a strategic standpoint. Adorably, Tim Pawlenty -- who has since dropped out, to which I must add a punctuationally illegal exclamation point! -- hesitated. He recovered and shot his arm up too. But what an cute little almost-thinker he was, if only for a moment. Seriously. He quit the race three days later.)

Anyway, the brainwashed thing makes so much sense. Because here's what the Republicans said no to Thursday night: eliminating the national debt.

They didn't just say no to balancing the budget and living with the $14.6 trillion or so we now owe, paying our minimum balance of $500 billion (!!!!) every year, never getting anywhere in the long term. They said no to turning that entire balance, the one we've spent our history accumulating, into zero.

All $14.6 trillion, gone. They declined that offer.

Analogy time. They said no to this domestic situation:

I make $60,000 a year. Pleasant salary for a single guy.

Well... I pay $20,000 for housing, $10,000 in taxes, $30,000 to survive, and I'm also on the hook for $5,000 annually in the form of minimum payments on my credit cards. How long will I last at this rate? Hm.

But look! I am offered another part-time job that will cause me to make a little less at my old job, and will cut into my leisure time because I'll be working more hours, but my income will increase overall to $75,000. I'll be able to pay off my cards AND save a little each month AND treat myself to something nice again. A vacation? A new home theater? A motorcycle.

Do I say no to the second job? Not only would I be able to pay off my credit cards, but I would be able to start setting myself up for life.

And I could always quit after my financial house is back in order. The second job, the extra revenue -- I won't always need it. I just am in kind of a bind right now, and it would come in awfully handy.

Analogy over. Reality now: Instituting a new tax bracket on ultra-wealthy Americans would raise about $800 billion over the next decade. (Got some numbers from here, so I'm not totally guessing.)

Couple that with the $8 trillion in cuts that come bundled with the extra revenue, and that pesky debt plus its annoying interest is halfway gone within ten years. Not only that, but you're running a surplus now. Within another decade, the entire debt has disappeared, and you could choose to lower tax rates or expand your safety net. Both, even.

Oh, but it gets better.

You don't need a 10-to-1 cuts-to-taxes ratio to get there. 4-1 is enough. And you can cross off the debt in less than one decade. Just let the Bush tax cuts expire next year, as they are scheduled to. The federal coffers will ka-ching to the tune of $3.6 trillion more in the next ten years. And $14.4 trillion in cuts come packaged with that, remember. That's a total of $18 trillion.

Debt gone.

To recap: the Republican candidates are so committed to lower taxes that they wouldn't even raise taxes if it were only on the richest one percent of taxpayers, only by a handful of percentage points, and even if it led to reducing the national debt to zero.

Like the headline says: Jim Jones 2012, everyone!

144 Or Less, Vol. X / 8-13-11

Fourth post in four days.

Saw this plastered on a car's bumper:

I'm an American

and a Christian too!

Line 1 is bold. Driving around Suburb, WA, you gotta brand yourself. Lest anyone think you're neither of those things mentioned.

But line 2 is why the sticker, uh, stuck with me. Who defines themselves in that order? And in the superhypothetical setting of a Judgment Day, is that your plan?

"Hi."

"Hey God."

"S'up?"

"You know, the usual. Dead."

"So, you wanna spend some eternity in heaven?"

"Wait wait, I know this one... here goes... I'm an American."

"Well, in that case."

Looking terribly forward to the next generation:

I'm Caucasian

and alive too!

Or:

I speak English

and I chew my food before swallowing too!

Gosh, I hope I don't know this person.

(Word count: 139)

What This Nation Needs Right Now / 8-13-11

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is more Rick Perry.

Katy's dad formally announced he's running for President this morning, joining a crowded field of one principled libertarian, one billionaire who's never held office, one serial marriagist, two Mormons (ed. note: unlike most right-wing evangelicals, I have no personal issues with the LDS faith), one wild-eyed homophobe, and lastly, whatever Tim Pawlenty's handlers want him to be this week. Plus maybe Sarah "There Is No I In Quit" Palin. If we're lucky.

Perry's announcement comes with a negative amount of surprise. His entrance was long rumored, and he did so officially Saturday morning. Welcome to the party, Governor.

(Rejected material, on account of it being too easy:

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is another Texas governor who wears his supposed religion on his sleeve.)

Real material:

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is a guy who can create jobs. Texas' unemployment rate was a shiny 4.2 percent when Perry took office in 2000. It was still 4.4 in early 2008. Now it's 8.4, and it's been hangin' in the 8's since. Sure sounds like a guy who can transcend macroeconomic trends and can put people to work regardless.

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is a guy who can lead us out of perilous debt. Like in Texas. With GOP control of every branch of government and the courts, he implemented the kind of fiscally sound ideas that... oh... they're going to fall short by $27 billion in the next two years. Proportionally, that's a larger deficit than California.

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is a guy who can fix health care. His solution in Texas has been clean and cheap: stop letting people get coverage at all. One in four Texans goes without health insurance, compared to one in six nationally. That's because 550,000 jobs in Texas are minimum wage and come without pesky "benefits" like insurance. In fact, Texas leads the nation, tied with Mississippi, in jobs that pay the minimum or lower, and those kinds of jobs have doubled since 2008.

Yes sir, what this nation needs right now is a guy who can pray.

Well, that can't work any worse that what he's tried so far.

Domestic Terrorism / 8-9-11

When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Filibuster) says things like this,

"In the future, any president, this one or another one, when they request us to raise the debt ceiling, it will not be clean anymore,"

it's not hard to get at his meaning. The debt ceiling fight is far from over, y'all. Don't expect us to roll over next time. We take the long-term economic health of the country seriously, and we will fight to restrain spending every chance we get.

In a way, I like hearing him say that. Measures have to be taken to combat our mounting debt. The conversation needs to be had on a regular basis, so that we don't keep kicking the proverbial can down the proverbial road for as far as the proverbial eye can see. For sure, I don't believe him for a second when he implies that President Red Meat Republican would face a similar showdown. Yet he makes it sound like future debt increases will run into similar roadblocks as we saw this summer. And this in very plain language.

Now, when McConnell says things like this, in the same interview,

"I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting. Most of us didn't think that. What we did learn is this: it's a hostage that's worth ransoming,"

you just have to first admire the man's candor, then shake your head in consternation, then begin to unpack the unsavory things you just read. You have to. It's required.

Unpacking:

"some of our members" = Tea Party wing.

"a hostage you might take a chance at shooting" = if they didn't get their way, they were ready to wreck the economy. Our economy, and by extension, the planet's. Be assured that as the U.S. economy goes, so does the world's. What else could "the hostage" be?

"Most of us" = People who actually make the decisions. (This is comforting. At least the Senate leader understands that the TP can not be trusted with serious adult policymaking.)

"it's a hostage worth ransoming." = We're still very excited, as a party, to continue to use the threat of economic meltdown to get our way. After all, we got most of what we wanted, because the President had the good sense to pay most of our demands. He saw default as an actual calamity. Not a tool to make policy. Given a totally awesome win-win choice between Dollarmageddon and partial capitulation, he chose the latter.

Don't be fooled: an actual default on our obligations would bring about serious calamity. Interest rates would immediately leap. Bankruptcies and foreclosures would skyrocket in number. And the end result would be a downgrade of the country's credit that would actually add trillions of dollars to the deficit by bumping up the amount of interest the government pays on its loans.

The interest, annually, on our debt is between $400 and $430 billion, depending on when and where you check. Yes, that's just the interest. Should the rate rise four percentage points (and here I'm getting my numbers from the Congressional Budget Office), that number would pass $500 billion in 2012 and $1 trillion in 2015.

Replay: interest rates up 4 percent. Government now faces a choice between gutting the military, the safety net, or raising taxes in the midst of the toughest economic times in 70 years.

Well, what if interest rates climb 6 points? Are we then done, as a nation, economically? We wouldn't be able to afford, oh, anything, or pay our debts, and the bottom half of the middle class would cease to exist. Eaten alive by interest. With no significant social programs to fall back on.

Then what?

So, that's the hostage situation McConnell and the rest of the Republicans in Congress are OPENLY admitting they will recreate. Hostage: their word. Not mine. But at least you get to BE the hostage.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2011 Republican Party.

Kiss My Angry Middle Class / 8-8-11

For a long time now, I've pined for a third party to gain viability in American politics. I momentarily shut off the urge three years ago to enthusiastically support then-candidate Obama's White House run.

I'm feeling the urge again.

President B. Hussein Obama, it appears, has governed like a centrist on a mission. On a mission to find the position squarely between the R's and the D's on, oh, pretty much everything except health care. And even then, the centerpiece of the recently passed health care legislation, the individual mandate, is torn straight from the playbook of the conservative Heritage Foundation. Republicans championed it in 1994 as an alternative to health care reforms proposed by the much-beloved Hillary Clinton.

Well, maybe the President has been sprinting on purpose toward the center since his inauguration. If you're a pathetic swing voter (ed. note: apologies to actual swing voters), it makes for a pretty compelling reason to re-elect him, and he does appear to love building consensus. Allow me to expand on this briefly before we get to my hot sexy political fantasy.

On matters of taxes, the White House has capitulated to not just the Republicans, but the fringiest of right-wingers, the millimeters-from-fascist Tea Party wing, on two very visible occasions (extending the Reckless Bush Tax Cuts and during the recent debt-ceiling negotiations). Tax-policy wise, Obama might as well be a mainstream Republican. Oh yes, he's the last one left, by the looks of it. Someone update the Endangered Species list, stat.

Meanwhile, on social issues, Obama's Supreme Court appointments look solidly liberal. And DADT is mercifully gone, as per his instructions. (This paragraph virtually ensures my vote for him again next fall. I can scarcely imagine the alternative.)

Guantanamo? Still open for business. Warrantless eavesdropping? Continues. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Pullouts are happening. Aiming for the center again? Bulls-eye, Mr. President.

When it comes to treatment of the middle class, however, the current set-up is discouraging. On one "side": pro-obscenely-wealthy Republicans. On the other, but same, side: pro-regular-wealthy Democrats. Bisecting those two forces: a pro-kinda-wealthy President... ugh. The system needs someone fighting for us, if the three major players on the scene continue to show disinterest.

And by "fighting for us," I mean, to be perfectly clear, making economic policy that benefits the middle class. You know, the 80 percent of the country that keeps America running.

The thing is, people have been trying to launch third parties for quite a while. Ross Perot, in '92, tapped into a similar vein of dissatisfaction with the status quo; he scored 19 percent of the vote even after sabotaging his own campaign. The Green Party's been around long enough to swing some elections the wrong way and to elect local officials here and there. And it's plain to see we're only a couple twists of fate away from the Tea Party throwing a massive hissy fit, packing its bags and slamming the door in the Republicans' stunned faces. Recently, you might have noticed the Coffee Party on facebook. These guys get around, and maybe they're on to something.

Maybe. The Coffee Party is a good start, for sure. But its very name is borrowed from the Tea Loonies. And the Coffee Party's official motto -- "the middle class is too big to fail" -- comes off like a bunch of bitter welfare junkies got jealous one day that certain corporations got bailed out, and now they're wondering where to apply for their own government handout.

What we need in present-day America is a viable political force, a hefty, organized organization dedicated to preserving the economic conditions that led to creating the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth. We need a good platform, full of nuance and simplicity, that emphasizes cooperation rather than bickering, solutions rather than empty political "victories," and the interest of the many rather than of the very few. Politics should be about preserving liberty, finding answers, and enabling prosperity. (You know, the easy stuff.)

What we also need is a good name for this movement.

The People's Party is dead on arrival. So's the National Party. As is the Social Justice Party. the Constitution Party? Already taken by some delusional crazyheads.

The Liberty Party's a good name. I've used it before, most recently in this post from last September. The name sounds like the Libertarians, but it's different enough to sidestep confusion.

The Solutions Party -- this is easily my new favorite. It's a little intellectual-sounding, sure, and I admit it doesn't immediately evoke grand ideals, but it does evoke the actual fixing of problems. Let's run with this for a while. Freedom-loving intellectuals that we are.

Here's its platform.

1. Problem: Social issues are touchy. Solution: States decide social issues, like pot legalization, abortion, gay marriage, and other less fiery topics, like gun regulation.

Of course, the Supreme Court can strike down unconstitutional or discriminatory laws. But the SP politicians will fight for states' rights. Because social issues are complicated matters on which reasonable people can present conflicting arguments, the way forward is not to scream at or past each other. The answer is to present laws to the people, see what they think of it, pass something appealing, and see what the judges, whose job it is to interpret the Constitution, think of it. And then try again, if need be.

2. Problem: Government programs cost money, and nobody wants to pay. Solution: We must implement a tax code that ensures the poor pay some, the middle class pay more, the rich pay even more, and the richest pay the most.

It's the only way to pay for social programs, which are necessary. Imagine no welfare, no Social Security. That's cruel. The solution to cruelty (which is just another form of uncivilization): Establishing and maintaining a safety net, because real people experience real hardship.

The only way to have a lasting safety net is to pay for it. Taxes are a force for compassion when they are used in this way.

3. Problem: Deficits threaten our long-term economic health. Solution: Pick your moments to open the federal purse strings.

Deficits are to be avoided, but there's a time and a place for large-scale stimulus of the economy, fueled by reasonable amounts of borrowing at reasonable rates. There's also a time to run a surplus. The economy will often dictate when these times are. Severe recessions or depressions call for the government to step in and fill the void. Times of robust growth are a great time to keep the deficit in check, and if not to actually decrease it, to prevent it from growing. Holding the national debt steady is the same as shrinking it, if the country's economy grows as a whole.

Times of pleasant economic expansion are not to be treated as blank checks to create new programs. We have enough entitlements already. If we'll only pay for them.

4. Problem: War sucks. Solution: Be certain of a mission and rectitude before embarking on military action.

War is terribly expensive in lives and in cash better spent at home. Military action should always remain on the table, but should not permanently live at the top of the list of options. Pacifism is out of the question for a country; it's fine for individuals and their consciences, great, but not at all OK as a means of defending the richest and most influential nation on the planet.

Presidents who start unnecessary or unjustified wars should be prosecuted. It's too large of a crime to let go unpunished.

5. Problem: We're not anywhere near energy independent. Solution: Go green now. With a vengeance.

Energy must come from as many green sources as possible, be as homegrown as possible, and all avenues of producing energy must be investigated and researched to their fullest, funded by public and private partnerships. In the meantime, we should drill for oil where we can and farm wind where we can. Pour billions into solar energy research. Ingenuity will find a way, but not without some serious cash behind it.

6. Problem: Unemployment. Solution: Balance in how the government treats businesses.

Corporations are not people. Their rights are not the same as those of citizens, their responsibilities are not the same, and their tax burden is not the same. Taxes on businesses must be kept as low as possible to encourage job creation, while not allowing any industry to collect enough subsidies to eliminate its tax burden entirely.

7. Problem: Middle-class wages are stagnant. Solution: CEO pay must be capped.

The free market exists to enrich the country, not the fortunate few ladies and gentlemen who head Fortune 500 companies. Cap CEO pay at x times the average worker of said company, and more employees will make more money.

This is highly interventionistic. It also makes so very much sense. If you can get past the idea of "It's my business, I can run it any old way I want" mindset FOR THIS NARROW BRANCH OF CAPITALISM ONLY, then checks on extreme wealth make sense. Should this type of regulation seep, little by little, into the marketplace, to pave the way for communism? Yeah no.

8. Problem: Elected officials spend more time fund-raising than legislating. Solution: National campaigns become publicly financed.

This is a pretty straightforward fix. Moving along.

9. Problem: Lack of access to higher education perpetuates a cycle of poverty and ignorance. Solution: Free higher education for everyone.

College should be free, including tuition, room and board, at state-run universities, for all comers. Period. Do what you want if you're Harvard or Central Connecticut College of the Coming Biblically Based Apocalypse (Go Horsemen!), but let's get working on breaking the cycle of poverty that stems from unequal access to higher education. More education = larger, smarter middle class = brighter future for the country.

There could be more planks to the platform. I just cobbled this together in a quarter-assed sort of way, as a harmless hobby, really. But then again, 1. covers a lot of legislative and ideological ground.

My hope is that the Solutions Party, as presented, is not placeable upon the left-right continuum. That's good, I believe. One wing of the political spectrum does not have a monopoly on sensible solutions. Otherwise, why would there even be more than one wing?

Now if only the SP could avoid the fate of all its predecessors so far -- that is, becoming the outhouse of American politics...

Patriot Facts / 6-23-11

My cat is fluffy.

(They teach you how to write compelling lead sentences, called "ledes," at journalism school. I think I slept in that day.)

So fluffy, sometimes we call him "Floofy." And by we, I mean someone in our household made it up as a clever nickname, and it caught on, because cute, and now the cat gets called that nickname more often than his totally awesome given name, a name which someone brilliant in our household pulled out of thin air, but we'll get to that part in due time, within some other hideously constructed run-on sentence.

Fear not. This is not a post about my cat.

So my five-year-old and I walk out the front door the other day, and there's the cat, rolling around in the front yard. The boy walks over to pet the cat on the belly. Those two get along great. It's sweet.

Fear not. This is not a post about my five-year-old.

But the five-year-old DOES say, mid-stroke, "He's so floofy."

Me: "He is. Imagine this, though, Alex -- the other day, I petted a cat that was EVEN softer than Sherlock."

(Which is, again, such a boss name for a cat. Seriously. Props to whoever came up with that. Kudos.)

Alex: *jaw drops open*

Me: "S'true."

Alex: *exaggeratedly pained expression*

Alex: "Dad, why are you being mean to Floofy?"

Suspend all remaining fear. This is a post about patriotism. Because having a discussion about what's wrong with America is too often like trying to explain to a small child that his pet can be outdone in some facet by another pet.

Me: "Well, in Sweden, their infant mortality rate --"

Patriot blinded by jingosim: "Socialists."

Me: "The thing is, our education administrators could take a cue from --"

PBJ: "We're the best."

Me: "Mounting deficits in Greece could wreck that nation's economy --"

PBJ: "Can't happen here."

Me: "Health insurance is guaranteed by the Canadian governm --"

PBJ: "Pussies."

Me: "Heart disease is lower in countries that outlaw chemicals in food and --"

PBJ: "McNuggets kick ass. 20 for $4.99, dude."

Facts. I got 'em. (Pardon the lack of links. Mostly trusting wikipedia here anyway.)

The U.N. lists 33 countries ahead of the U.S. in infant mortality rate. Singapore, Slovenia, Israel, New Caledonia all come out with better results.

Results of worldwide testing in math, reading and science in 2010 reveal U.S. students to be "average" among the 70 nations who participated.

The CIA's factbook for 2011 estimates that 49 countries have a higher life expectancy at birth than the United States. Jordan is one of those 49. Bosnia too.

We spend between 5 and 10 percent each year, as a government, on interest stemming from our national debt. (Just the interest, mind you.) This is in part because our national debt represents about 60 percent of our GDP. You know how much Russia's national debt is, relative to their GDP? Less than 10 percent. Huh. Wonder if that'll ever matter.

I love my country. But can we just admit already that as Americans, we could learn A LOT from how the rest of the world conducts its business? Can we just get over ourselves, face our deficiencies, and actually begin to address them?

Or will countless reports that highlight our warts continue to get swept under the suicidal banner of "No need to worry about that, we're the best"? I faintly hope not.

This Is Me Threading the Needle / 6-22-11

I appreciate you deeply, faithful reader, but please do not assume at any point during this post that you know what I'm about to say. Ahem.

First of all, I find it reprehensible when a victim is blamed for the crime committed against him or her. Remember that.

Now that we understand each other, here are four scenarios in which people make choices that lead directly or indirectly to discomfort. Maybe it'll be more clear where I'm headed in a few paragraphs.

1. If my home is burglarized while I am away, and I locked the doors and windows, it is not my fault that I bought a large TV or an XBox or some nice jewelry. I do not deserve to have nice things stolen from me just because I own nice things.

2. If I forget to renew my car insurance policy, and I hit a telephone pole, and I break a few bones, and the bank takes my house because I can't pay the hospital bill, I don't deserve to be penniless and homeless. I deserved to learn a painful lesson, but I didn't deserve to have my life ruined for combining an minor lapse in judgment with plain old bad luck.

3. At the same time, if I ride a bike naked through Fremont on a sunny summer solstice day, I can't very well complain of an uncomfortable itch the next morning.

4. AND... if I bathe in beef broth then go spend the night sleeping in a hammock between two trees in a forest full of grizzly bears, I can't expect anything less than to be eaten alive.

Now that that's out of the way, what to make of Slutwalk?

Background: In April, a Toronto police officer, addressing a small gathering of law students, seemed to suggest that certain victims of rape may themselves be partially to blame. His words, verbatim: women should "avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimized."

That was dumb. Classic blame-the-victim bullsh*t, because nothing a woman does entitles a man to sexually take advantage of her. Nothing. That includes the way she dresses, speaks or flirts. Rape is obviously inexcusable in all cases, and wholly the fault of the perpetrator.

Well, in what can only be described as "predictable," women and women's organizations erupted in fury. The officer was properly reamed, the first Slutwalk came to life, and women in four continents pulled together to march in all kinds of attire, denouncing the idea that rapists were lured into a violent crime by a little cleavage and a tight skirt.

Good for them. (The women, not the rapists.) All's well that ends well... except.

Except.

The officer's comments keep getting interpreted as belonging to the fourth category of statement I began this post with. Yeah, the bears and beef broth one. I don't know the officer, and I don't even care to look up the guy's name. Still, I would like to give him a minuscule portion of Doubt Benefit, and allow him to rephrase, so we can place his improved analysis where it might actually resonate, rather than chafe: squarely in between the second and third categories.

Here's some context to what he said (what?? context?? that has no place in public discourse!!):

"You know, I think we're beating around the bush here. I've been told I'm not supposed to say this -- however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized."

How to make this constructive instead of destructive... searching... searching... all right. This isn't perfect, but see what you think:

"Certain men will always find a way to abuse certain women, and it quite often will have nothing to do with the woman's appearance or her choice of wardrobe. Rape is so very often rooted anyway in psychological unrest, not sexual frustration.

"But if you, as a woman, wanted to take one additional step that could cut down, albeit marginally, the likelihood of you suffering a sexual assault, you could always choose to dress more modestly. If you want to avoid the unthinkable, then fastening an extra button on your blouse from time to time seems like another way to stack the odds more in your favor.

"It's not fair to you, because you ought to be allowed to wear what you want, within the confines of the law. And it's anything but foolproof, because these are deranged men we're dealing with here. But I'll tell you what: a modicum of modesty is probably marginally effective. And sometimes, marginally is all you need."

I mean, really. Try and deny that revealing attire makes guys think of sex. (To be fair: staplers, baseball, the letter Q, and white noise all are also perfectly capable of making us think of sex.)

Try and deny that certain unstable men will be pushed over the edge -- and yes, driven to contemplate, then carry out, a sexual assualt -- by so many plunging necklines and miniscule shorts.

You can't do it, can you? Your denial doesn't stretch that far, right?

Solutions to this dilemma are evasive. Burqas? No thank you very much. Fewer clothes? Yeah, right. Status quo? Blech.

No, the only solution is to determinedly steer clear from blaming the victim, to prosecute offenders, and to have enough self-awareness to stop deluding yourself into thinking that wearing a swimsuit in public HELPS men see you as a whole person.

(Far be it from me to give fashion advice to anyone, by the way.)

Unfortunately, such subtleties will be lost on those who advocate for dress, or for those who would ardently defend the dresser's right to be as suggestive as she wishes. Eh. At least this gives our citizens yet another chance to yell past each other.