Sometimes I love Ron Paul. Especially when he says things like this:

I’ve been asking the same question for years. And even if states are seen as having the power to police what we can and cannot put into our bodies, what gives the federal government that power? Certainly not the Constitution.

Even though Ron Paul has no chance of winning the nomination, I’m glad to see that at least one Republican has the balls to condemn the drug war in public.

I’m so fatigued by reading about politics that I am starting to misread politics into non-political headlines.

Earlier, when I saw a headline proclaiming that “parasitic wasp is no match for a drunken fruit fly,” I assumed it was some snarky political junkie analyzing the election or something.

Wrong. It really was about an alcohol-related battle involving insects:

Wow. I wish I could do that to parasites. But frankly, I’m surprised that the potential victims have not gone the activist route and formed the WASPS Against Drunken Fruit Flies.

But that would be silly, because if we look at the bigger picture, the root cause becomes clear.

Behind every drunken fruit fly is a spoiled fruit.

(Parenthetically, I should make it clear that I am not blaming Dan Savage backlash for Rick Santorum’s surge. Again, this is not about politics and besides, I hate repeating myself.)

I also refuse to consider the political implications of a truly beautiful creature called the Hairy Frogfish.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/F8VyOuJ8Uak?fs=1

Not only does it know how to walk, but waves an irresistible lure.

(Probably a lesson in there on avoiding temptation, but I’m not going to touch it….)

The latest Ulsterman discusses money laundering by the Obama machine. If you are new to the issue keep reading. It starts to get clear near the end of the piece.

My money is on the drug cartels, among others.

While I have been trying to sleep through the sudden Santorum surge in the hope of making it go away, Ace has a very articulate series of impassioned posts which are not only waking me up, but are making me feel guilty that I am not doing enough. An erstwhile Perry supporter, Ace now faces the charge of RINO-ism — and even with “going Charles Johnson” — simply for sounding the alarm.

The reasoning is simple. If he is the nominee, Santorum will lose, and Obama will win.

What really makes me feel guilty is that it’s looking like my own state, Michigan, will be pivotal. Now that hurts.

And as if Ace hadn’t made me feel guilty enough, an article in Reason highlights the crucial treachery of the Tea Party movement (which I have supported under the naive belief that they would stick to Tea Party principles):

It is easy for me to sit around and gripe, and also very easy for me to wash my hands of any responsibility and make this yet another argument for “WHY I AM NOT A CONSERVATIVE.”

But I would be less than honest if I failed to point out that even from a conservative standpoint, the only things that seem to be “conservative” about Rick Santorum are his stands on abortion, homosexuality, and birth control. As Ace points out, the man actually thinks birth control is a matter of public policy. Precisely the opposite of what a huge majority of Americans think. Hence, Santorum is not only giving Obama a lift, he’s giving Obamacare a lift.

The rest of his record is so gung-ho Big Government that it is appalling. Seriously, here it is in detail; check it out. Yet he has managed to position himself as the anti-libertarian candidate (never mind that Ronald Reagan famously called libertarianism the heart and soul of conservatism), and this seems to have obscured the fact that other than his socially conservative positions, the man is every inch a big government RINO.  As to why the red meaters don’t care, I’m not sure. Perhaps they put social conservatism first, or perhaps they put Beat Romney first.

Beating Obama is irrelevant. These people do not mind losing.  The problem is, it won’t only be their loss.

I hate to end on such a sour note, but this is serious stuff. I don’t like to see an impending train wreck and not even say something. Still, there is one mildly amusing aspect about the train wreck, and it involves Santorum’s favorite attire, which Ace cannot ignore:

Yes, he does wear a sweater vest. Whether it is supposed to be cute and endear him to women and the vast number of 1970s preppy wannabes, I don’t know. Reason’s Gene Healy noticed it too, in the headline:

I’m thinking that the sweater vest may be intended as a prop to soften him up. Whether Rick needed to “soften” his image, I don’t know. I always thought he looked rather like a cherub, in an innocent sort of way, so I’m not sure he needed the sweater vest.

However, in a coincidence that cannot be a coincidence this morning, I noticed that former Drill Instructor R. Lee Ermey (a man whose image really did need softening) has also used the sweater vest as a prop.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/gJAZyQHh9JU?fs=1

At least Ermey is being deliberately funny.

Is it too late for him to enter the race? I’d love to see Santorum being sweater vest upstaged.

I can remember back when I was a kid, when being against birth control was seen as almost as nutty as not believing in evolution.

It all seems so damn long ago. Way back in the modern era, when no one knew how backward we were.

This is not to say that I use birth control, or care whether anyone else does. (I also think evolution is an obvious fact of biology, and while I know there are others who disagree, I would like to hope that I wouldn’t have to vote for such people for president.)

I can also remember when the Republican Party was the party of common sense. At least, they had more common sense than the Democrats.

And while I don’t know whether Rick Santorum is in the lead to become the GOP nominee, I’m wondering how well his views on birth control are setting with the general public.

Jennifer Rubin is a conservative (at least, she was back in the old days before Ann Coulter was accused of liberal treason), and she finds the situation “mind-numbing“:

Women vote, but to say that this is about women misses the point.

The GOP is lucky the election is still 9 months away, because right now this loony tune shit is helping Obama, big time. Worse yet, it’s even helping Obamacare!

What a wonderful red herring. A majority of Americans disapprove of Obamacare, yet if that all-encompassing monster can be reduced to a debate over “birth control,” they are easy to hoodwink. And by deliberately making it look to them as if he’s “attacking religion,” Obama is manipulating the red-meat conservatives into doing the heavy lifting for him.

It’s working. He’s at 50% approval now, and he hasn’t been there for some time.

Great if you want Obama to win and the GOP to lose.

But OTOH, if winning isn’t the goal, then carry on.

I’m a bit skeptical, especially as to exactly how this accident (an electronic cigarette apparently exploded in a man’s face) might have happened.

But I noticed that the e-cigarette does use a lithium ion battery.

They certainly can explode, and they have in occasional cellphones and laptops (although 43 fires in 60 million laptops seems like pretty good odds). They have also exploded in electric cars, like the new Chevy Volt. However, I suspect that electronic cigarettes would be more likely to be banned because of a lithium battery malfunction.

Never mind how many people have died because of cigarette lighters.

Hey, matches can be dangerous too!

Earlier I read the libertarian case for Santorum (by John Samples, Director of Cato’s Center for Representative Government):

Maybe so. But here’s the problem. Whether he wins the nomination or not, Santorum does not represent a clear majority of the Republican Party, and he certainly does not speak for a majority of Americans. I suppose it would be nice if his defeat meant that the Republican Party would then become more libertarian, but that means maybe in 2016, and maybe not. Eventually I’ll be too old and tired to care.

Coco may have the right idea.

Now, if only her master had such sense…

We hear so much these days about the problems with American education. Take this comment about the relative states of South Korean and American education. The South Koreans are educating more scientists and engineers per capita.

It has been obvious since the launching of Sputnik that science and technology are the keys to national wealth. So let me ask you: why didn’t you become a scientist or engineer?

The following reading list may provide some helpful insights.

A comment
*
The IQ of Nations
*
A book review
*
Some Charts and stuff
*
More Charts and Stuff
*
They found that intelligence made a difference in gross domestic product. For each one-point increase in a country’s average IQ, the per capita GDP was $229 higher. It made an even bigger difference if the smartest 5 percent of the population got smarter; for every additional IQ point in that group, a country’s per capita GDP was $468 higher.”
*
Moreover, he argues, because of Americans’ growing tendency to pair up with the similarly educated, working-class children are increasingly genetically predisposed to be on the dim side.“

Where will it all end? Who knows? All I can tell you is that I came from a working class background. My education is limited to one year of college – I flunked out. And yet I became an aerospace engineer. Plus #3 son is a working engineer and #1 daughter is in training (finishing her 3rd year) to become a Chemical Engineer. Rumor has it that her current boyfriend is in training to be an Electrical Engineer. I’m doing my part. I hope.

I don’t think America holds back anyone who wants to succeed. A bad attitude and a lack of ability will hold you back. A man has got to know his limitations.

Just for fun I used this handy probability calculator to figure out what % of the population is suitable for a science/engineering career.

For America:

Mean IQ: 98
Standard deviation: 15
IQ cut off >= 125
Result: 3.577%

Mean IQ: 98
Standard deviation: 15
IQ cut off >= 130
Result: 1.629%

For South Korea:

Mean IQ: 106
Standard deviation: 15
IQ cut off >= 125
Result: 10.26%

Mean IQ: 106
Standard deviation: 15
IQ cut off >= 130
Result: 5.466%

Well isn’t that interesting. Now what I need are stats about the relative rates of science/engineering education in the two countries in order to figure out if we are missing talent. Comments appreciated.

While I haven’t followed Rick Santorum as closely as I probably should have, via Glenn Reynolds I found a lovely remark he made about libertarians which displeased Neal Boortz big time:

Hey, at least we know where the guy stands! There is something refreshing about his honesty in admitting what he thinks, even if it is so obviously wrong. Neal Boortz does an excellent job of explaining what ought to be obvious, but apparently isn’t.

Libertarians are not anarchists (gasp!):

I want desperately to give Santorum the benefit of the doubt. (Personally, I hope he is a clever demagogue of some sort rather than a naive true believer.)

However, as to his constitutional point, I also think it is worth noting that most libertarians believe in a narrow, quite literal reading of the Constitution. They are likely to say things like “What part of ‘Congress shall make no law’ don’t they understand?”

Santorum’s view of the Constitution is, IMO, so analogous to the “Living, Breathing” liberal view that the man gives me the willies.

This came up during a debate between Santorum and Perry, and while Perry is hardly a libertarian, he is at least a constitutionalist. Santorum is not. He clearly believes that his view of morality trumps all laws, including the law of our land, which is the Constitution.

What’s fascinating about this is that if he is right, for example, in his position that neither the states nor the people have a right to allow gay marriage because it is morally wrong, then no constitutional amendment prohibiting it would be needed, right? So why support a superfluous and unnecessary amendment? Might that be a tacit acknowledgement that the Constitution means something? Or is the idea that some moral wrongs are more morally wrong than others and are more in need of moral amendments to the Constitution? Prohibition of alcohol was one such moral amendment, and many people thought then and think now that consumption of alcohol is morally wrong. If enough people feel that strongly about something, then under our system it is their right to amend the Constitution. But again, if strong moral beliefs alone are enough that the Constitution may be disregarded, then why bother with amendments?

Take Santorum’s opinion on birth control. Please!

So, does that mean he would support an amendment banning birth control, or is no amendment needed? If not, why not?

Splain, Rick, splain!

The left is gloating over this, and while Rachel Maddow is struggling to look outraged when she talks about Santorum, I think he secretly makes her wet.  sends a thrill up her leg.

It occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t allowed to say what I first said so I unsaid it and made it clean enough for Chris Matthews (with apologies to my betters, of course….)

Aside from whether the left wants Santorum to be the true voice of the GOP, I really and truly hope that the man is a lying demagogue.

Finally, I earned something!

I was awarded the above Certificate of Achievement, suitable for framing.

And you can get one too! All you need to do is answer a simple 20 question test that Virginia Postrel linked in her very amusing “Can You Pass the ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ Test” article.

The idea is to to determine your level of engagement with — or isolation from — mainstream American culture. If you are totally isolated, you live within a bubble and score zero.

I’m said to not have a bubble:

I would have scored higher had I watched an entire Oprah show, or had the first question been worded the same way as the one in Charles Murray’s Coming Apart: the State of White America, 1960-2010. While the book asks, “Have you ever walked on a factory floor?” the online test puts it this way, “Have you ever worked on a factory floor?” Not quite the same thing, and even Mitt Romney would probably be able to say truthfully that he has walked on a factory floor. Oddly, if he was running the company at the time he walked on its factory floor, he could probably say that he had worked on the factory floor. I worked on the floor of a former factory, and I worked as an auto mechanic as well as a construction worker, but as to why that sort of work (or the work of plumbers, electricians, welders) doesn’t count as “mainstream” in the same way as a factory floor job, I’m not sure. But I answered the question as it was asked, without reading in my own possible interpretations of it.

Similarly, I answered the following question honestly as I could, with a “NO”:

I have long considered a business suit to be a uniform, but as it is considered the uniform of the rich and powerful (as opposed to miserable attorneys who hate the law), it really wouldn’t have been fair for me to answer “YES.” I have also worn a jumpsuit to work, but I don’t think that is a uniform in the sense they mean. Clearly, they mean military, police, fire, security guard, maybe some receptionist, bellboy and certain waiters type uniforms. As to doctors’ or nurses’ white uniforms, who knows? Such questions can get complicated.

I’m glad that with seven points I have at least a hint of a bubble, because I don’t consider myself especially “mainstream.” I despise the new bureaucratic overlords and the public policy/public health/safety nazi/drug warriors classes who now run our lives. I hate most popular television programming and there are a lot of popular culture trends I don’t follow, and know little about. Yet the elite make me far more sick, because they are not as easy to ignore. It just fries me that men who couldn’t change a tire if their lives depended on it believe it is their right to run the lives of the dwindling core of men who can. It bothers me that welding and machine shop jobs go begging, while clueless kids (some with working class parents) go into a lifetime of debt in exchange for worthless degrees in post modernist gobbledygook.  They look down on community college students taking vocational classes as their inferiors, but look at what happens a few years down the pike. The former end up demonstrating in the streets because there are hardly any jobs for humanities majors, while the kids who learned how to weld end up making six figure salaries, and even Jay Leno is jealous.

I called this tension “the war between the useless and the useful,” and it is pathetic to see the former being placed in charge of the latter.

The bubble  needs bursting, badly.

Jeff Id at The Air Vent is discussing his politics and how it can contaminate his objectivity. And he waxes philosophical about the human need for challenge and how it shapes his political views. The post is not very long but it is very deep.

Jeff looks at how the desire by some for greater rewards for less effort has political consequences. Followed by economic and social consequences. He also notes that it is inherently anti-human. Which got me to thinking about my views on the matter and how my attitude shapes my politics. So I commented:

I believe most engineers tend to think like that. Because 80% of all engineers are in the top 10% of the field. The rest are in the top 20% (heh). Which explains why most engineers tend to be conservative/libertarian.

I promised Joshua of Post Libertarian almost a month ago that I would post this. As you can tell I’m rather far behind. You have no idea the complications you can run into in a circuit with less than 20 parts. Magnetic components will do that to you.

In any case here are Joshua’s views:

====

A couple weeks ago Simon said he was planning to vote for Ron Paul to “tweak the establishment Rs” even though he believed Paul’s foreign policy would be disastrous – particularly his plan to close down our hundreds of military bases around the world and bring all those troops home. I don’t agree with Paul on everything, either, but this particular position had always seemed like common sense to me. After reading Simon’s post I realized things might not be so straightforward. I found myself searching for reasons to defend Paul’s position, and Simon has graciously allowed me to do so in a guest post. Please note that I am not completely convinced of my argument, and I admit that Simon probably knows far more about this issue than I do, but I want to explain the reasons I am very skeptical of what seems to me to be “alarmist rhetoric,” in the hopes that Simon will respond and allow me to more properly evaluate my position.

They say power abhors a vacuum, and removing our troops from around the world would let another entity will fill that vacuum – perhaps one we don’t like. But that assumes our bases are still actually projecting power. What if they’re just taking up space?

Following the second devastating world war, global violence has been vastly declining. Stephen Pinker notes that “the number of battle deaths in interstate wars has declined from more than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to less than 2,000 per year” in the 2000s (in addition to great declines in homicides and genocides). As technology increases and democracy flourishes across the globe, many countries decide they would rather trade with each and become richer than fight and destroy resources (modern Keynesianism notwithstanding). Thomas Friedman has the “The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention”, which used to say that “no two countries that both had a McDonald’s had fought a war against each other, since each got its McDonald’s.” It was technically proven wrong when NATO bombed Serbia, but Friedman argued that the war ended very quickly because of the capitalistic connections. It’s also mostly true that two democracies have never gone to war with each other, at least in recent history – although it depends on how you define “war” and “democracy”. The overall point is that as democracy increases and markets innovate, people would rather enjoy the fruits of the market than risk violence. People would rather go to McDonald’s or check Facebook than go to war.

But does all of this mean we no longer need thousands of troops stationed in bases around the world? There are plenty of countries – like Iran and North Korea – that are resisting the global tide. Even the Arab Spring is not guaranteed to yield democratic flowers in the world’s garden. Besides, some may even argue that our global bases caused the decline in violence over the last 60 years (though like most historical events with multiple factors, it might be hard to prove). There is still plenty of potential global instability in the world, so we must look at what benefits the United States receives from its bases and try to decide if they justify the costs.

So what are the costs of maintaining our bases around the world? Most directly, of course, there are the billions of dollars. It’s difficult to estimate how much of the Defense Department’s $700 billion or so annual budget is directly involved in maintaining overseas bases, but I found one estimate putting it around $250 billion a year. There are also more subtle consequences. One reason the military budget of the United States is almost as large as the rest of the world combined is that we end up subsidizing the effective budgets of other nations through our presence in their lands. Former Republican candidate Gary Johnson (now seeking the Libertarian nomination) has made the audacious claim that “Europe can afford its health system because the United States is paying for national defense there.” Is the United States subsidizing socialism in other countries by freeing up money for other forms of inefficient government meddling? CATO thinks so. They also argue that our bases in Japan damage that country’s independence even while allowing the Japanese to complain about the small part of the costs borne by themselves. CATO is predictably biased about this sort of thing, but I’d love to hear what’s wrong with their analysis.

Now let’s look at the benefits. If the United States is spending lots of money and propping up other government behavior around the world, what are we getting out of it all? Some say we are able to respond quicker to dangerous situations when they arise. But with modern technology we have drones and unmanned aircraft that can cover hundreds if not thousands of miles per hour (of course, they have other limitations, but the tradeoff is certainly far from a total loss). Some say we are able to use these bases for better hospitalization, such as flying injured troops from Iraq to Germany to stabilize them before bringing them back to the United States. But surely we don’t need troops in the five figures to run a hospital? If that’s the only way our allies will provide us a hospital then what kind of allies are they?

Others, including Simon, say that the bases act as deterrents for the more dubious governments around the world. Our bases in Japan are not for Japan; they are for China – or maybe North Korea. Our presence in Germany is not for Germany; it is for Russia. But what exactly do we suppose these troops are deterring? If one of these rogue states is going to drop an atomic bomb, these military bases aren’t going to do much about that. If they are going to engage in more traditional warfare and invade one of our allies, well, I think our allies are doing well enough on their own. The United States has almost 40,000 troops in Japan. But the Japan Self-Defense Forces have over 247,000 active troops and the country’s military expenditures rank 7th worldwide. We have over 53,000 troops in Germany. Germany’s military has over 200,000 active troops and the 6th largest expenditures in the world. I think these countries can defend the threats of non-democracies without us taking up space there and donating millions to their military budgets. As the Cold War collapsed, we closed 60% of our bases in the 1990′s, and the world did not erupt in violence. There is even less reason to believe such things would happen if we finished the closings today.

In summary, if our bases are supposed to protect fires from flaring up away from home, it seems to me that there are 1) not as many fires as there used to be, 2) more rich, democratic countries around the world with vested interests in keeping fires away from their homes, and 3) better technology that allows us to respond quicker to fires if and when we ever need to. Thus, my question: is all of this still worth the cost? Those who say we still need all these bases are afraid of bad guys expanding their power. Those who say we don’t still need them are afraid of the “military industrial complex” hastening the end of our “empire.” There are fearful catastrophes in either path that make it difficult to apply normal risk assessments, and it’s why I hesitate to make a strong claim either way, especially when there is far too much that I don’t know. But these are the reasons I am not nearly as afraid as some that disaster would unfold if we finally stopped the sun from “never setting” on our military.

Thanks again to Simon for the opportunity to make this post; I look forward to his response. If you like my style feel free to check out my blog at postlibertarian.com.

I believe I have posted this song before. I’m doing it again because I really like the visuals in this version.

And my thanks to Sarah for my promotion to music editor at CV. Heh.

In Which I Usurp M. Simon’s Role [(mwah ah ah) ahem. Coff. And oh, yeah, crossposted at According To Hoyt.)]

Okay, that’s not his sole role, or even his more interesting posts, but you will admit that when you come across a musical album review at CV you go “Ahah M. Simon.â€Â  Well, no.  I’m Sarah.  I have bumps in different places, and besides I call less attention to myself if I wear a mini skirt except in a few very select gatherings.  (Highland Games, of course.)

Anyway, to begin with let me admit that I have a bad Leonard Cohen habit.  In fact, the only reason boy #2 is not named Leonard is that my husband put his foot down and said “No†fairly emphatically.

As with Heinlein, I’m one of the odd fans of Cohen, the ones who prefer late Cohen, very mature Cohen, over the Cohen of the seventies.

I’d always liked his music.  Dance Me To The End Of Love is Dan’s and my song, as much as we can be said to have “a song.â€Â  (Our musical tastes tend to be diametric opposites.  Yes, it’s possible to be happily married despite that.  This is why G-d invented headphones.)

But when Ten New Songs came out, I remember I saved listening to it till I’d finished cleaning the house.  Then I sat down in my office, to do some editing and put the album in.  There I was, in freshly clean and vacuumed office, with a cup of tea, ready to do some work.  Then the songs hit.  And … oh my.  I found myself just closing my eyes to enjoy them and not getting much else done.

The difference between young Cohen and old Cohen is the difference between unaged Port Wine and Port Wine properly aged in oak barrels.  One can be drunk lightly chilled as refreshment in summer – or listened to as a background to life – the other needs your full attention and will make you moan in sheer pleasure.

Still I confess I had some misgivings about his newest album Old Ideas, because the man is pushing 78 and how many people can sing at that age?

Well, I ordered it, and my husband ordered it for me.  I cancelled my order, and his came through.

First of all, if you’ve never listened Cohen let me point out that part of his attraction is highly targeted and part, probably, acquired taste.  I can’t speak to the acquired taste.  I started listening to him before ten, because my much older brother listened to him.  I don’t remember not liking his songs.  (Yes, including Don’t Go Home With Your Hardon.  Everytime I talk about Cohen SOMEONE brings this song up as if in the hope of shocking me.  Oh, please.  Have ya’ll read what I write?  There are things that shock me deeply.  Consensual sex is never one of them.)  Part of it (part of the targeted thing) is that Cohen’s mix of mysticism, sex, religious (several religions) fascination and beautiful, exalted language (in most cases) acts like catnip to people like me.  Oh, h*ll, it couldn’t be more targeted to me if he’d stopped in the middle of the song and said “This is for you Mrs. Sarah Hoyt, sitting there on your chair, surrounded by high falluting books and writing compulsively as though some higher power tells you to.  Yes, you, who have a complicated relationship with the fact that when you weren’t paying attention some bastard encumbered you with a physical body.  Yes, you, who believes in G-d almost despite herself and who has an even more complicated relationship with Him, which includes trying to discuss the plot of your life.â€

And yet, as I said, as I put this album in the MP3 player it was with some trepidation.  There’s nothing like watching the decay of a great artist to drive home to the rest of us that we too are mortal.

In a way my fears were justified.  This album is very much about the artist and mortality.  On the other hand, my fears were insane, because this album, from the first song takes the artistic fears, the mortality, the lack of control over our own careers, the creativity that goes where it lists, and the hankering for something beyond and above ourselves that we can almost touch at the edge of our creative jags.  As for how Cohen sounds, the best way to put it was the comment on one of the youtube videos “He sounds so very nearly dead and so, so good.â€

The minute the first song started playing, I found myself in tears, because it is so much “artist at the end of life.â€Â  (On this, I’d like to point out that the Canadian reviewer of this album is an ignoramus, being totally puzzled by “a brief elaboration of a tube.â€Â  Kids – as far as it goes, evolutionarily, we are.  Also, there’s the sexual innuendo, which with Cohen you have to assume is intended.)   That is one of my favorite songs, probably for this part “He wants to write a love song/an anthem of forgiving/a manual of rliving with defeat/ A cry above the suffering/A sacrifice recovering/But that isn’t what I need him/ to complete.â€Â  As someone who just recently found herself writing A Few Good Men and ignoring the three books under contract, let me tell you this sounds “right.â€

As for the refrain “Going home/Without my burden/Going home/Behind the curtain/Going home/Without the Costume/That I wore.†anyone who believes in anything more hereafter can resonate with that.

Next is Amen and to me it has a special impact, partly because… Well, ya’ll know I write to music, right?  Well.  I tried and tried and tried to write The Brave And The Free, but I couldn’t tune in to the main character or to the voice character.  And then this started playing, and suddenly I HAD it.

Show me the place is another artist end of life song and it is full of religious imagery.

Darkness and Anyhow are not among my favorites, but they are still better than most other songs.

Crazy To Love You works on so many levels, from love affairs, to my relationship to my (admittedly fraught) career. I keep finding the words “Had to do time in the tower/Begging my crazy to quit†and also “Crazy has places to hide in/Deeper than saying goodbye†coming to my mind unbidden.  There are nods to Buddhism (when being confused between two religions isn’t enough, or why Sarah became a Buddhist at 12 though she got over it by fourteen.) such as “I’m tired of choosing desire/Been saved by a sweet fatigue.â€
Come Healing is clearly a blessing song and it will touch you if you’re the kind to be touched by that.

Banjo – and we’re back to the relationship between art and artist.  Weirdly, within minutes of the release of the album there were MISHEARD lyrics for it on line that were ALMOST worthy of Cohen: “There’s something that I’m watching/Means a lot to me/It’s a broken angel bobbing/On the dark infested sea.â€Â  The word should be banjo, not angel, but I can see why the confusion.

Lullaby – is just that.

Different sides is very much a religious song, with allusions to the separation of the surface being from another (clearly G-d, becasue “You to your side, call the Word.â€) while “up above†there’s unity.  Of course my joke having always been that whatever Cohen wrote he was writing love songs to G-d, in one of the most misguided attempts at courtship since my (fixed) cat tried to copulate with my toe, I think this song is a marital argument.  And it’s magnificent.  “Both of us say there are laws to obey/But frankly I don’t like your tone.â€

Anyway, I’m going to listen to Amen again, and then write the first chapter of the Brave And The Free again.

“Tell me again, when I’m clean and I’m sober/Tell me again when I’ve seen through the horror/Tell me that you love me then.â€

While I don’t have all day to study it in detail, I found this Atlantic article (“How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy“) deeply absorbing. A scientist has spent many years researching the psychological effects of human infection by the common protozoal agent Toxoplasma gondii, transmitted primarily by the house cat. He claims to have studied infected versus uninfected humans in detail, and documented distinct personality differences:

There’s a lot more, and not surprisingly, driving is affected too. (Better not let the busybody insurance companies know about this, or they’ll raise the rates on cat owners. And cat haters might claim that cats have killed more people than dogs!)

I’m a natural born skeptic, but I try to keep an open mind, and thus I am not happy to admit that the researcher’s thesis might just have merit. I had heard about T. gondii but I am ashamed to admit that I had not known about the way the disease benefits the cat by reprogramming the brains of rodents. This has been documented for years, and is even noted in the Wiki entry:

I almost feel like having myself tested, simply out of morbid curiosity. Not that there is any cure, and not that I can do anything about it, but if I thought that my personality was being influenced by a protozoan, well, it helps to know these things. The more information we have, the better. Seriously, if I consider my anxious and introverted nature, might I not be better off being able to blame a protozoan than to blame myself?

What’s even more fascinating is the possibility that this is the tip of the iceberg. There could be a whole host of personality changing organisms. I mean, just look at some of the things that happen in nature:

OK, OK, I’m… considering. And I don’t especially like it. Who knows what organisms may be possessing us, influencing us, and even making us do things without our knowledge? Seriously, this sort of thing belongs in science fiction. To think that this is all happening according to the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God is deeply disturbing.

Should I be worried? Nah. Not only am I a morbidly reckless fatalist, but I’m allergic to cats. And besides, I have been around dogs for so long that I’m probably infected with another organism that prevents me from being influenced by the cat organism.

But sometimes I worry that Coco is acting too much like a cat.

AFTERTHOUGHT: This organism has infected 10 to 20 percent of Americans. And while there has been little more than a collective “ho hum” to that, I find myself having to ask a rhetorical question.

Would there be more public outcry if a potentially brain-influencing infection were transmitted sexually?

And if so, how rational is that?

Via Glenn Reynolds (who properly warns not to take counsel of your fears), I was drawn one of the most thoughtful — if fearfully depressing — analyses of the Republican plight that I have seen.

Here’s John Hinderaker:

Oh yes. And he chose to start it right here in Ann Arbor, a block away from where I live. (I dryly noted the irony of Republican suicide in the face of the reinvention of Obama mania.)

I couldn’t agree more with Hinderaker. We have a Democrat who can be beaten in the White House who is one of the worst presidents in history, and in the face of this, the GOP appears to be hell-bent on committing suicide.  I have noticed and so have a lot of people. Many of my readers probably think the party is so moribund that suicide is long overdue, but I disagree. Not so much with the suicide as with the timing.

For cripes sake, there will be plenty of time to commit suicide after the election!

Right now the focus ought to be on winning. But as I have noticed, there is not even agreement on that.

Winning does not count. Suicide comes first!

Saying that this simply does not compute does not solve the problem, and I’m not sure it’s quite accurate to characterize the problem as a war between those who want to win elections and those who want their principles (as opposed to others’ principles) to prevail regardless of consequences.  The social conservatives have their principles, the economic conservatives have theirs, the libertarians have theirs, there are Tea Party principles, and I suppose a smidgen of a decrepit principle or two might even be found among the despised country club big business Republicans of the Northeast.

So many Republicans are so pissed off at so many other Republicans that at times like this I have to wonder exactly what it is that constitutes the base.

The base. That’s the group that cannot stomach Romney. Who are these people, and what do “they” want? I put “they” in quotes because depending on how the base is defined, I might even be part of it. I am, after all, a Tea Party sympathizing libertarian who detests big government and all the sneaky and underhanded wheeling and dealing that greases its wheels no matter who gets elected. Yes, I detest that process every bit as much as the red meat socon Birther WND types I am so quick to distance myself from. What this might mean is that while the base may not agree on all issues (and maybe “it” agrees on very few), there is a definite overarching common thread.  It would be a mistake to try to pin it down as libertarianism, social conservatism, economic conservatism, constitutional conservatism, and it might even be a mistake to call it conservatism.

For lack of a term, I’ll just call this unifying thread “Anti-Sausage.”

What those who are pissed at Romney and pissed at the traditional Republican machine are against most of all can be summed up in the famous phrase misattributed to Bismarck over a century ago (there are many versions):

I would submit that one of the most vile sausages ever made stuffed was that 2000 page unread monstrosity known as “Obamacare.” The people who passed it not only never read it, but even admitted that it would be better to pass it and read it later. Obamacare makes the sausage comparison seem lame, for at least we have the USDA and the FDA to police  sausage making; no such restraints are placed on the makers of legislation. (Hence the Tea Party movement. )

But there is something Bismarck did say (or at least seems to have said) which is another political truism:

Because not all goals are possible, politics inherently means compromise with principle. In a two or more party system when the making sausage, you try to get your stuff in, and keep the other guy’s stuff out, and politicians being human beings, because of the very nature of human interaction there will be tradeoffs along the lines of “I’ll let you put some of your stuff in if you let me put some of my stuff in,” or “I’ll let you put some of your stuff in if you agree to leave certain stuff out!” (And innumerable variations about agreements on what future sausages to make or not make, new redesigns for older sausages, etc.)

The process stinks. The anti-sausage people have had it with the sausage, and they have had it with politics.

It might help if they realized what unites them, and what they are against. They don’t want to support anyone who wants to continue the principle-destroying (not destroyed so much as ground up into the noxious mix), sausage-making machine.

The problem is, they are supposed to be electing their candidate for a job that amounts to Sausage Executive in Chief.  Enabling and enforcing the machine that cranks out the unwanted sausages, and then forcing us all to eat them is what he does, and what all of them promise to do with the exception of Ron Paul who does not count because he is too anti-sausage for serious consideration. Being anti-sausage, it seems, does have its limits.

After all, the goal of trying to elect an anti-sausage sausage kingpin who does the best job of saying he is anti-sausage without being really anti-sausage.

Is there such a thing as the art of the impossible?

In response to Eric’s post about winning elections commenter Richard had this to say (among other things):

To which I responded:

Conservatives as they are currently understood have a program of moral socialism in store for us. The Liberals of course prefer economic socialism. We will have 4 more years of socialist government no matter what.

With a vote for the Libertarian candidate I can’t lose. I will get socialism (coming no matter what) and I can at least claim moral superiority amongst the wreckage.

So what will I actually do in November? TBD

Last night, I asked what I thought was a rhetorical question.

Several commenters replied that the goal is not beating Obama, so I guess my question was not as rhetorical as I thought.

If the goal is not beating Obama, despite the fact that the polls show he can be beaten, then I would say that the Republicans are simply victims of themselves. I say this as just another foolishly loyal Republican voter who will vote for the Republican candidate, whoever he turns out to be.

Here’s something I found at right wing WorldNetDaily of all places:

And here, from the leftie CNN, is the clueless Donald Trump, trying in his silly way to be logical:

The problem I have is with the major assumption being made. The “dominant paradigm,” if you will. Trump is one of those guys who believes in winning elections as opposed to losing them. So are most people. And when I asked the rhetorical question last night, I was of course going along with the dominant paradigm.

But if winning is to be abandoned, that’s a major paradigm shift for the GOP. I think it’s a losing one, but that merely restates the question because if the goal is not to win, then it is silly to posit that losing is necessarily bad.

Is there consensus on changing the goal? If winning is to be abandoned as strategy, and the Republicans lose, what is to be done in the next five years with a lame duck Obama who can do as he wishes? Whine and complain? Get even more sick and tired of ever-more-entrenched Obamacare?  Start an armed revolution? Position another loser to head the 2016 ticket? I think a lot of Republicans will get tired of this new, losing paradigm. I know I will.

After all, if winning is not the goal, I would be much happier in the Libertarian Party. At least I agree with that pack of losers.

Why is it that the only choices offered to GOP primary voters are Establishment RINO types, ridiculous social conservatives, or ridiculous libertarians?

Commenting on Rick Santorum’s “victories” in three “primaries,” Bill Quick (via Stacy McCain) said this:

As an Anyone But Gingrich guy, I can certainly sympathize with the Anyone But Romney people. I have never endorsed Romney and I don’t like him or trust him.

However, at some point the goal ought to be beating Barack Obama. Hell I have even said repeatedly that I would vote for Gingrich over Obama, and the thought sickens me to no end, because Gingrich is a man who seriously believes in capital punishment for victimless crimes (in the name of the war on drugs). Romney is bad, but at least he is not on record as calling for anything as insane as that. Santorum believes that his version of morality trumps the Constitution, so I don’t trust him. I worry that Gingrich and Santorum may both be true believers, and true believers scare the crap out of me me, especially when I disagree with the things in which they truly believe. The logic may sound brutal, but I prefer crowd-pleasing demagogues who just say things I disagree with but don’t mean it over those who say things I disagree with but truly believe it and mean it.

However, I think that Santorum has benefited from backlash in much the same way that Proposition 8 did in California. (When angry gay activists hate anything or anyone too much they can unintentionally help what they hate.) That type of backlash will not elect a president, though. Most people dislike seeing sexual morality debated at all, much less at the presidential level.

The goal is beating Obama, right?

Just thought I’d ask.

As someone who doesn’t like government telling people what to do, I am not especially enamored with the 9th Circuit Court ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.  I didn’t like Prop 8, but I think ordinary voters at the state level ought to have a right to make up their minds about these things. I also agree with Eugene Volokh (himself a gay marriage supporter) that the decision was incorrect.

If a federal court can invalidate Prop 8, they can invalidate a proposition legalizing marijuana, or banning SWAT Teams. Or a more conservative court might agree with Rick Santorum that states have no right to legalize gay marriage. Or even contraception. The issue is not what is right or what should be done, but whether the people in a state have the right to do it. California has as much right to prohibit gay marriage as to allow it. This is why I oppose the federal constitutional “marriage amendment” that so many on the right champion.

Strategically and pragmatically, I think it would have been better for supporters of gay marriage to try again at the polls. Time is on their side, and public opinions are changing, but when the courts force their will on the voters, that has a way of creating an ugly backlash.

People can change their mind, but in a democracy they don’t like being told they don’t count.