Cheap shots 10/5

Updated 2/4/2013

Noted by Charles P. Pierce:

In advance of tonight's second debate between Senator Scott Brown and his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren, the Boston Globe released the results of its most recent poll over the weekend. Warren has taken a five-point lead, 43-38, which the Globe mysteriously refers to as her "appearing" to have "inched ahead" to a "slim" lead which is "within the poll's margin of error, which is plus or minus 4.4 percent," although how a five-point lead is within a 4.4 point margin of error is not for small minds to ponder.

Indeed--is there something in mathematical space corresponding to the phenomenon of retroactionary time? (Sorry about the link, I just learned from a Big Bad Bald post how to code this multiple pimping and had to try it out.)

From Byte-Size Bio.

From Driftglass:

Meanwhile, Mr. Gregory's tinier, brunetter counterpart on "This Week" absolutely gives the game away (emphasis added):

STEPHANOPOULOS: But let me just stop you there. If truth is going to be on trial, isn't that going to have to be up to the candidates? I don't believe the moderators who've been chosen or the mandate they have is to be fact-checkers in this debate.

And that, in a pistachio nutshell, is the mentality behind America's Sunday morning Mouse Circus.  It has nothing to do with truth or fact or journalism.  It is a gladiatorial conflict: throw Ann Coulter and E.J Dionne in a cage with a couple of sharp sticks and let them have at it.  No rules, no refs and woe betide the poor fool who steps into the ring thinking lying and cheating will be penalized.

Heavens no, George, the job of the moderator is to bring moderation, isn't it? And it wouldn't be very moderate to go around calling people liars. Indeed, it's the political journalist's motto: liberty in the pursuit of extremism is no vice, but justice has nothing to do with the pursuit of moderation.

Jessica Mensch and Emily Pelstring, Abortion Spa, Red Bird Gallery, Montréal, 2010.

From Gawker:

It turns out that Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comment might not be the most inaccurate and stupid statement of the Missouri Representative's career. In a 2008 speech on the House floor, Rep. Akin said (emphasis mine):

"You find that along with the culture of death go all kinds of other law-breaking: Not following good sanitary procedure, giving abortions to women who are not actually pregnant, cheating on taxes, all these kinds of things."

Just wow. The Vixen thinks he must be imagining some kind of common malpractice, like a garage mechanic replacing your brakes when they were fine ("You're looking a little tired, I think you should try a liver transplant"), but my guess is he believes it's an erotic experience women can do without their husbands, getting pregnant but in reverse, the way some men in Daoist or Tantric practice are said to be able to injaculate, if I can put it that way, heightening their pleasure and retaining all their vital fluids at the same time. Those ladies are so hot for an abortion that they won't even wait to get it the normal way.

Update 2/4/2013:
In fairness, I just ran across a rational explanation of this from Akin that ran in Raw Story that week: a report he had seen in the Chicago Sun-Times, November 1978, alleging "dozens" of abortionists on Michigan Avenue making a habit of falsely telling women they were pregnant, giving them a procedure, and billing them for an abortion. The implication that if there were no abortions there would also be no fake abortions seems likely to be true.

"When You're this serious about your entertainment, there's only one place for you."

And you'll feel so much better when we get you there, really you will, so much less stressed, and your mom and I will be visiting every week...

High Royds Asylum, West Yorkshire. From Weirdly Odd.

From The Hill, via Kaili Joy Grey, this bit from Mrs. Romney:

"Women, you need to wake up," she urged them. "Women have to ask themselves who's going to have and be there for you. I can promise you, I know, that Mitt will be there for you. He will stand up for you, he will hear your voices."

To me the Mormon angle makes this really creepy: She's recruiting sister-wives! He'll be there when you wake up, with a refreshing cup of Ovaltine! And Anne taking out her rollers in the next room!