Moose of Reason

Would you believe me if I told you that “OMG” originated not in a middle school cafeteria in the past decade but almost 100 years ago in a letter written by a British Admiral?

Read about it and LOL.

“At breakfast, he has me read from The Times. Old, blind, and sick as Ayrs is, he could hold his own in a college debating society, though I notice he rarely proposes alternatives for the systems he ridicules.
“Liberality? Timidity in the rich!”
“Socialism? The younger brother of a decrepit despotism, which it wants to succeed.”
“Conservatives? Adventitious liars, whose doctrine of free will is their greatest deception.”
What sort of state does he want? “None! The better organized the state, the duller its humanity.”

In a tight contest for re-election in 2008, incumbent Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) faced off with Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford. Senator McConnell polled at 28% among black likely voters. Two years later, then-candidate Rand Paul polled 37% among black likely voters against state Attorney General Jack Conway. How did he do it?

This could be part of it:

Other times throughout the campaign, Paul espoused free markets, school choice, and an antipathy toward military adventurism.

Something must have stuck.

Last night, President Obama led in Ohio and Florida by a small fraction of the vote. He led by so few votes that some people accuse Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson of handing over those states to the President. However, that isn’t true in either state.

First, Florida:

Obama: 4,235,270
Romney: 4,162,081

Obama’s lead there is 73,189. Gary Johnson’s vote totals there were 44,681, for a difference of 28,508. For argument’s sake, let’s say that we apply 100% of Johnson’s votes and all of Rocky Anderson’s votes (1,753) to Romney, and to be fair we give Jill Stein’s and Roseanne Barr’s votes (8,933 and 8,147, respectively) to Obama. The new totals become:

Obama: 4,252,350
Romney: 4,208,515

Obama’s lead becomes 43,835 votes. This is assuming that had no Libertarian candidate been on the ballot, that all of Johnson’s voters would have voted for Romney for President. Many of them would have voted for Obama instead, presumably for Johnson’s anti-war views or his support for drug legalization and gay marriage.

Onto Ohio:

Obama: 2,697,260
Romney: 2,593,779

In Ohio, Obama’s lead is 103,481 votes. Johnson’s vote totals were 47,287. The difference between these totals is 56,194. Therefore, even if every single Johnson voter had voted for Romney, he would still have lost the race by that amount. Let us again add Johnson’s votes to Romney as well as Jill Stein’s (17,860) and Richard Duncan’s (12,148) votes to Obama.

Obama: 2,727,268
Romney: 2,641,066

The difference between Obama’s and Romney’s vote totals in Ohio becomes 86,202, again with Obama winning.

It’s not Gary’s fault.

Role-reversal.

The coalition would not say what its concerns were, but some Afghan officials have raised objections to the system of no-trial detention that the United States insisted the Afghan government embrace at Parwan.

Is that our country?

Words. The things people say have a different meaning when you leave out certain words that they said. When people bring up the phrase, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” from one of then-candidate Barack Obama’s campaign speeches, they leave out the specific things that Obama purported to fundamentally transform.

OBAMA: Five days.

After decades of broken politics in Washington, and eight years of failed policies from George W. Bush, and 21 months of a campaign that’s taken us from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunshine of California, we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.

OBAMA: In five days, you can turn the page on policies that put greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street before the hard work and sacrifice of folks on Main Street.

In five days, you can choose policies that invest in our middle class, and create new jobs, and grow this economy, so that everyone has a chance to succeed, not just the CEO, but the secretary and janitor, not just…

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: … the factory owner, but the men and women on the factory floor.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: In five days, you can put an end to the politics that would divide a nation just to win an election, that tries to pit region against region, and city against town, and Republican against Democrat, that asks — asks us to fear at a time when we need to hope.

In five days, at this defining moment in history, you can give this country the change we need.

Among the steps listed to “fundamentally transform” our country:

1. An allusion to financial “reform” — what eventually became “Dodd-Frank.”
2. A call for more laws and regulations, in an attempt to grow the economy, and he wasn’t kidding.
3, 4, and 5. Platitudes.

In other words, “fundamentally transform” was as vapid a vessel as “Change we can believe in.”