Category: 1

Since I’ve got my bowling league tonight, Kathleen will step in and make observations on both our behalves. Swing by!

PAD

Governor: allow me to warn you off a particular direction that your advisors seem to be taking you, as per the New York Times. According to the newspaper of record:

Mr. Romney’s team has concluded that debates are about creating moments and has equipped him with a series of zingers that he has memorized and has been practicing on aides since August.

Please don’t do this. I mean, yes, I want to see you crash and burn in the elections, but I also have a fundamental sense of decency.

Do not do this to yourself.

You’re not funny.

Your aides claim that you have a dry wit. No. Jack Benny had a dry wit. You are a modern day Jack Benny in the sense that in modern day, Jack Benny is dead.

I know the temptation is great to aim for the sound bite audience. After all, most Americans are ADD when it comes to serious political topics and have a much easier time wrapping what passes for their brains around jokes, quips, and memorable bon mots. And you probably figure that Obama is a stiff and thus an easy target. I think that’s a serious miscalculation. Obama was able to crack jokes about bin Laden at the same time that he was dispatching Seal Team Six to cap him. Obama is funny in the clutch; you’re funny as a crutch.

In my opinion, the absolute worst thing you can do is go into the debates under the impression that you’re going to be a conservative pundit a la Stephen Colbert. Governor, I’ve met Stephen Colbert. I’ve watched Stephen Colbert. Stephen Colbert is an acquaintance of mine. You,sir, are no Stephen Colbert.

PAD

I’m not marking this as a spoiler because it’s just me doing totally nuts speculation.

The Doctor and River Song actually produce a child. The child is a foundling and adopted in the late 1980s by Mr. and Mrs. Pond. They name her “Amy” and raise her as their own. Amy, in a story development that Heinlein would approve of, grows up and gives birth to her own mother. And in her final appearance, on the verge of death (via accident or perhaps simply old age) Amy Pond regenerates into the Doctor’s new companion.

I’m sure it’s not remotely right, but it’s fun to think about.

PAD

In the year 2000, Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital took over KB Toys, a company that has made children happy since 1922.

In no time flat, Mitt Romney and his associates saddled KB with massive debt and drove it into bankruptcy while pocketing $83 million dollars for themselves.

The ramifications of this are obvious:

Mitt Romney doesn’t care about making children happy.

Mitt Romney doesn’t care about toys.

If Mitt Romney doesn’t care about making children happy and Mitt Romney doesn’t care about toys…

It means Mitt Romney doesn’t care about Santa.

And if Mitt Romney doesn’t care about Santa, then Mitt Romney doesn’t care about Christmas.

And if Mitt Romney doesn’t care about Christmas, then that means he’s part of the war against Christmas.

Don’t join the war against Christmas.

Vote Obama.

Thank you.

PAD

As my nine year old daughter gets older, she craves more freedom at conventions. Even large ones like Dragon*Con. If she needs to go to the rest room and it’s across the hall, she doesn’t want to feel she needs to be escorted. If I’ve a table in artist’s alley, which is a completely contained area with guards at the exits, she wants to be able to walk around without my holding her hand. Think of it as monitored independence.

But she thinks ahead.

When we were getting her her badge for Dragon*Con, she insisted on a name other than her own on the badge. Not a gaming or character name, but just a simple, ordinary girl’s name that wasn’t hers.

“Why?” said my wife.

“Because,” replied my daughter, “if I’m walking around and someone runs up to me and tells me you sent them, and they call me by the fake name on the badge, I know they’re bad people.”

I think that’s freaking brilliant for ANY parent who has a youngster of any age at the convention. The broader rule is that dressing your kids in clothing that has their name on it is a risky proposition. But convention badges is another good place to avoid ID’ing your child or, even better, mis-IDing her to red flag anyone with bad intentions.

PAD

Whenever Republicans are called on unscrupulous behavior, their response is always the same:

“Yeah, well, the Democrats have done the same thing!”

There’s never any statute of limitation on any alleged act. Doesn’t matter if the allegations refer to something that happened last year or last century. “Democrats did it too!” is the constant refrain. Express outrage over their concerted nationwide voter disenfranchisement, and they’ll excuse it with allegations about the 1960 Presidential election.

Here’s the thing: I think Democrats should aspire to be better than the GOP. It would literally never occur to me (at least) to seek cover in the craptastic behavior of conservatives as some sort of excuse for my party’s missteps (real or imagined.) To hold up the GOP’s attempts at blocking voter rights, gay rights, women’s rights and say, “See? They’ve done worse!” Because that…what? Makes Democratic misdeeds okay? Serves as a blanket pardon? Why does one group’s immoral behavior somehow validate similar actions by the other?

The GOP has made no secret of its hatred for liberals: on Fox, on line, in bookstores. So it’s bizarre to me that “Democrats have done the same (or worse)” is remotely an appropriate response. I don’t know about you, but if there are people I hate, I want to be nothing like them rather than seek excuses for my own douchebaggery in their actions.

I suppose what they’re attempting to do is invalidate any criticism from liberals by endeavoring to paint liberals as hypocrites. Those annoying liberals, setting high standards for ethical behavior and then failing to live up to those standards with their own actions. There may be some validity to that. On the other hand, which is preferable? To have standards set so high that sometimes one fails to live up to them, and thus come across as hypocritical? Or to have standards set so low that there’s nothing to live up to and thus come across as an ignorant áššhølë?

You don’t get to act like you’re better than the other guy if you embrace his own alleged failings to pardon your own.

PAD

Okay, as I promised, since we’re over a thousand hits so far on Kathleen’s video (although let’s try to pump those numbers; she’d never had a video go viral and it’s her birthday today, so that’d be nice to see happen.)

Anyway, here:

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