Big old tough guys

Pavel Gubarev, in gubernatorial regalia. Photo by lenta.ru via Kiyiv Post.

From Sabrina Tavernise's astounding reporting for the Times:

Four rebels in fatigues were wandering through the ruins, looking through people’s belongings and riffling through guidebooks and bags. When asked who was responsible for the crash, they looked incredulous and said that it had of course been the Ukrainian military.

Cheap shots: Glitter edition

Liberal names start and finish with schwa, like "Amanda". From SodaHead.

The Washington Times ventures into the realm of linguistics:

A research paper by a team of University of Chicago political scientists found that liberals and conservatives, in addition to all of their other differences, have distinct tendencies when it comes to choosing names for their newborns. 

Names with the soft consonant “l” or that end in a long “a” — for example, President Obama’s daughter Malia — are more likely to be found in Democratic neighborhoods, while names with hard vowel sounds such as K, G or B — think former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s sons Track and Trig — are more popular in Republican communities.

In fact the paper—"Liberellas versus Konservatives: Social Status, Ideology, and Birth
Names in the United States", by J. Eric Oliver, Thomas Wood, and Alexandra Bass—does not anywhere allege that /k/, /g/, and /b/ are vowels. Nor does it argue that conservatives give all their children boys' names (like Romney) and liberals give all their children girls' names (like Obama). For instance, Palin is a conservative but has given girls' names to some of her kids, though only the female ones. [jump]

Cheap shots and chasers 2/10

Updated 2/11/2012

“I was a severely conservative Republican governor,” Mr. Romney said after listing his accomplishments in Massachusetts. (Times)

Gosh, sounds scary—and did his insurance cover it?

From the CNN transcripts:

PAUL: If you had an honest bailout, the people who owned those bonds would have been protected. But he turned ownership over to the unions. So, that is not fair. He used force to transfer -- he was wrong to break the contract.

 ....

MORGAN: ...would you honestly look at them in the eye and say they had to have that child if they were impregnated?

PAUL: No. If it's an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room. I would give them a shot of estrogen or give them --

If it's a dishonest rape, you see—one where the cad starts out by taking her to an hotel and plying her with a small port wine--then it's her lookout. It's the same the whole world over, it's the poor what takes the blame; it's the rich what gets the pleasure, and that's why they call it conservative.

And you can't leave out Rick Santorum, at the CPAC:

... he hammered Mr. Obama for policies that he said had undermined the country’s future and the liberty of its citizens. As an example, Mr. Santorum cited the president’s recent decision requiring that health insurance plans offered by religious-affiliated hospitals, universities and charities provide female employees with access to free birth control.

“It’s not about contraception,” Mr. Santorum said. “It’s about economic liberty. It’s about freedom of speech. It’s about freedom of liberty. It’s about government control of your lives, and it’s got to stop.”

 Sure, Mr. S., and what about my unalienable right to entitlement? And the pursuit of following things?

Update:
I heard the sound on NPR: Santorum did not say "freedom of liberty" but "freedom of religion", which actually does make some sense—an argument I don't understand myself but which has been made by a lot of people.

The phrase was a mistranscription by the Times's Michael D. Shear writing for their online campaign diary The Caucus, and not noticed by any copy editors. I don't blame Shear, who is probably not getting much sleep, but the copy editor deserves a great big wag of the finger. I'm leaving this post as is in the name of copy editors everywhere (it's not a job, it's a vocation, and you keep doing it your whole life whatever your title may be).

Another first: Flamed!

Government boobs? Yay! From Europe: An interdisciplinary approach, an educational website created by students at the Universiteit Utrecht

In a giant step forward for the Rectification of Names, I have just received my first angry wingnut comment, from someone offended by my rudeness back in December on the subject of Dr. Ron Paul:

A, rather, mediocre smear attempt at honorable Dr.Paul. I guess, you would prefer to live in a police state, as long as you can suck on a big government tit.

As you can see by that flurry of commas, like a sudden flight of grouse (he also signs himself "Daniel.", with a period), [jump]

Post-partisan depression

I wonder how often this story gets written? I don't think I've seen it with this much front-page splash:

Jonathan Gabhart, a 21-year-old college student from Spencer, Iowa, is leaning toward voting for Ron Paul because of the Texas lawmaker’s unpolished speaking style — a “high-pitched, squirrelly voice,” as he put it. “He seems like a real person because of his eccentricities.”

Nancy Weaver, a 60-year-old retiree in Grinnell, Iowa, favors Representative Michele Bachmann because the congresswoman raised 23 foster children. “That’s a huge endeavor for any man or woman,” she said.

Iowa and New Hampshire Republican voters interviewed by Michael Barbaro and Ashley Barker at the Times knew nothing or next to about candidates' policy positions and programs but lots about their families and personal quirks, and were making their decisions on that basis. But isn't this actually pervasive, among Republicans and Democrats and those crusty old independents alike?

Ron Paul is no sodomechthriac

Update below the fold

Poor Ron Paul has been taking a lot of heat because of the former campaign staffer who claims that the candidate is not homophobic, even though he is afraid to shake hands with gay men, or to use their bathrooms.

Of course he clearly is a homophobe by any etymologically rational definition of the term--composed out of homo- (ὁμο) (short for the modern Greco-Roman bastard term homosexual) and phobos (φόβος) (Ancient Greek for "fear"). That is, he is scared to death of gay people. He may love them all personally, as his Savior commands, and respect their right to Do It any way they like, as a true libertarian must, but he fears that something really bad will happen to him if he touches one of them, or something that one of them has sat upon. Not the same thing at all. Similarly [see below the jump]...

 If you are chiefly worried about homophobia, you might find this song pretty offensive, with its rank stereotyping and reference to old spouses' tales. If it's sodomechthria that concerns you, you may like it anyway.