My Congressional Hypothesis

So far 17 Republican congressmen plus 6 Republican senators have announced they won't be running as incumbents. The buzz is that this is not only a bad sign for the how the Republican party's doing, but that it will spell trouble for the Republicans come election time.

Now, of course, the Republicans ARE in a bit of trouble come election time (though they still might hold onto the White House). But I don't think the two are related. In fact, I think these resignations will HELP the Republicans come election time. And I think the Republican leadership KNOWS this, but doesn't want to tell anyone. Why? Because part of why it will work so well is that no one knows it's a political move.

Look at the people leaving. These are the people who embody what sickens the country about the Republican party. On top of the scandals and corruption, throw in the fact that these are some of the most loyal self-proclaimed "Bush Republicans" around. What's the GOP's biggest liability in the coming election? Bush's Hindenburg-like approval rating. The GOP is gracefully clearing out extremists who are, in the public eye, inextricably linked with an unpopular, failed, and even hidden, Bush agenda.

So now in 17 congressional districts and 6 state senate elections, the Republicans can run moderates; they can run young guys with clean records; but most importantly, they can run people who have little or no association with the Bush White House. If they take back either the house or the senate, that's how they have to do it. They got creamed in the last round.

Their presidential candidate, whoever he may be, can handle being a Bush Republican, because he'll have experience, and a lot of visibility and ability to clarify all his differences. He'll be his own man. But those running for congress don't have the luxury of that much media attention, money, and other things that equate to public exposure. (Also, let's be honest, it's easier to win when running against a woman or a guy whose middle name is Hussein--but more on why the Democratic candidates are so weak later.)

I'm calling it now: all these resignations are more than rats fleeing a sinking ship. They're washing the stench of failure off some of their more visible failures, and they'll be able to run untainted candidate on a level playing field. Same old tactics; fresh new faces.

Thoughts?

(PS - if any of my readers are over 25 and live in traditionally conservative districts where a "Bush Republican" is running as an incumbent, you've got a decent chance to make it to congress as a Democrat or even an independent in this climate.)

My Burger Limerick

Cynara asked for a burger-related limerick. Here's what I came up with in 80 seconds at 1:50 in the morning. I thought I'd share it with everyone, because--as I've mentioned--it's 1:50 (now 1:52) in the morning.

There once was a burger called Brighton
Whose toppings could truly enlighten
With bacon and cheese
But no mayonnaise please
It's a meal that I have set my sights on.

My Old Iraq Plan

I'm leaving for Boston tomorrow, so I probably won't be updating until after the Thanksgiving weekend. Before I go, I'd like to wish all my readers (both of you) a happy Thanksgiving.

I'd also like to point out that this article in the New York Times recommends pretty much EXACTLY the same plan I proposed back in 2003. I was told that I was being silly and naive, and that politics didn't work that way. Oh, how foolish I was in my younger years, to think of a plan that, after 4 years of quagmire, a former US Ambassador and current consultant to the US Government on Iraq policy is now espousing.

I have an idea: let's start judging ideas based on their merits instead of their source.

My Rockapella Speech

How many people have heard President Bush speak about tracking down terrorists a few dozen times? OK, you can put your hands down. Now, here's the 64,000 dollar question of this post: if, when writing these addresses to the nation, the speech writing team were replaced by the guys who wrote the "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?" theme song, how long would it take people to notice?

Imagine the President goes on TV; the subject of terrorism gets brought up in a press conference; and he starts saying things like: "We will hunt these sticky-fingered filchers down no matter what, and it must be a global effort. They cannot hide. If they step foot on US soil, airport security will not permit them to leave O'Hare, much less rearm in Czechoslovakia and come back. We will not stand idly by while they finance their efforts through scams in Scandinavia under the noses of their lax police forces. We will not permit them to take a boat to China and seek asylum among those who claim to want friendly relationships with our great nation. No weapons purchased from arms dealers in Kiev will make their way to the Carolinas..."

Seriously, how different does that sound from what he usually says? My answer, sadly, has to be "not very." The only difference I can see is that this version makes it sound like he knows a little bit more about geography than he usually does.

PS - It's been suggested that I submit some modified version of my last two posts (My Mayor I and II) as an editorial to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Any thoughts?

My New Mayor II

After Mayor-elect Nutter called for help from the best and brightest of the city, I started thinking, "I wonder if he means me." I sent my resume in just in case he did mean me. And I started my cover letter with the message I'd want to send were I the new mayor (or rather, if I were the new mayor and only had 30 minutes to think of and write something):

[Editor's note and required background information: "A Prayer for the City" is a famous book chronicling how Mayor Rendell & Co got us through Philadelphia's last crisis]

My favorite thing to do after the Eagles win is to take a walk down any street in the city. It is during these hours that Philadelphia achieves its highest potential. People who met hours before stream out of sports bars with their arms around each other singing; perfect strangers hop on each others’ backs and let out yelps of joy; t-shirt clad joggers feel free to smile, stop and chat with anyone wearing a jersey; we feel camaraderie; we feel safe; and we are a family.

And it shouldn’t be just after Eagle wins that we act like it. It’s not enough just to live close together. We need to be a community, to ask “what’s up?” and care about the answer, to look after each other, to watch over our neighbors and neighborhoods, to grow together, to learn together, and to raise and educate children together. We must share in each others’ joys and victories, and support each other in times of sorrow and need. And in doing so, we’ll save lives. We’ll protect and be protected. And we’ll imbue our communities with strength so deeply rooted that no budget deficit or crime wave can undermine it.

Philadelphia has some tough times ahead, and the city government may not have all the resources it would like to support community efforts. But I have faith that the communities will rise to the challenge if asked, as potential public servants and local leaders are eager to answer the Mayor-elect’s call for assistance and collaboration.

This time around we won’t need a prayer for our city. Civic pride must and will extend beyond volunteerism and civil service. Individual citizens will share in the sacrifice, share in the burden, share in the planning, share in the work, and share in our inevitable triumph. I’ve lived in and around Philadelphia my whole life, and I’m confident we’ll stand up and be counted together. We’ll face challenges with resolve, and say “bring it on.” I’m thrilled to see that, less than 48 hours after the polls closed, the Mayor-elect has already started doing all the right things, and it gives me hope. We won’t need a prayer for the city this time around. We’ll create our own miracles.

My New Mayor

Michael Nutter, the Mayor-elect of Philadelphia, has one of the toughest jobs in the world ahead of him. He'll soon be steering the good ship Philadelphia, now facing a wave of violence, into the dark, murky waters of financial hardship, along with other obtuse seafaring metaphors. But despite an incompetent and corrupt predecessor, this isn't shaping up to be a Titanic story. There's no one I'd rather have captaining this cruise-liner upon which I find myself than the thoughtful local statesman (cityman?) behind my beloved Philadelphia smoking ban. And as captain, he's not just protecting his passengers: he's asking for their help.

Extending my streak of cliches, just as people are asked to answer calls of heroism, Michael Nutter is dialing up the best and brightest of our great city, and the CallerID says "Civic Duty." He's asking businesses to lend employees to the city--from top executives to rising stars--to serve on boards and commissions and to work as city employees. He's imploring bright energetic Philadelphia-lovers to take a year or two and work for the city, even if a life of public service isn't for everyone.

Two days after the election, Nutter is showing the kind of leadership that this city needs (and better leadership than Street showed in 8 years). I think this is exactly what we need, and it shouldn't stop after our best and brightest solve this impending crisis (I have confidence). Working for the city should be like the Peace Corps or Teach for America. We should create fellowship opportunities for young people to serve their communities as civil servants for a year or two. Competition for these coveted opportunities should be fierce, and we should make it prestigious enough that the only complaint the program's detractors will have will be that too many amazing people are being turned away for want of more slots on the elite roster of the Philadelphia Fellows. We should cheer these people as heroes.

Or at least that would be my goal if I were starting this. I hope Mayor Nutter has similar designs. I think this is going to work, and we shouldn't stop just because there's no more crisis.

My Almost Major

My high school physics teacher made quite a few attempts to get me to major in physics. I still like physics, even though I never took a course in it in college. And the other day, DeluxX sent me a list of signs that one might be a physics major. I was surprised how many apply to me, or almost do. The list is below, with the ones that don't apply deleted:

You might be a physics major...

• if you have no life - and you can PROVE it mathematically. [if you count Excel]
  
• if you know vector calculus but you can't remember how to do long division.
• if you chuckle whenever anyone says 'centrifugal force.'
• if when you look in a mirror, you see a physics major. [sometimes, more so after reading this list]
• if it is sunny and 70 degrees outside, and you are working on a computer.
• if you think in 'math.'
• if you have a pet named after a scientist. [my roommate has a pet named after a fictional doctor, close enough]
• if you laugh at jokes about mathematicians.
• if the Humane society has you arrested because you actually performed the Schrodinger's Cat experiment. [If I weren't allergic, this would be believable]
• if you can't remember what's behind the door in the science building which says 'Exit.'
• if you avoid doing anything because you don't want to contribute to the eventual heat-death of the universe. [I get worried about things like this about once a year...I also try to breathe slower to make up for all the trees I kill]
• if you consider ANY non-science course 'easy.' [I consider any non-science course a physics major would ever take easy..."Mathematical Modeling Applications in Finance" wasn't at all easy, nor was Financial Derivatives, but a physics major would never be exposed to them, so I'm counting this one. Most intro or intermediate courses outside of science are unbelievably easy, and in the humanities they almost all are, especially compared to physics.]
• if when your professor asks you where your homework is, you claim to have accidentally determined its momentum so precisely, that according to Heisenberg it could be anywhere in the universe. [I tried that once...]
  
• if you'll assume that a 'horse' is a 'sphere' in order to make the math easier.
• if you understood more than five of these indicators.
• if you make a hard copy of this list, and post it on your door. [Door, blog, whatever]

I also think the following jokes are funny:

"A student recognizes Einstein in a train and asks: Excuse me, professor, but does New York stop by this train?"

"Researchers in Fairbanks Alaska announced last week that they have discovered a superconductor which will operate at room temperature." [think about it]

"Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip?
To get to the same side"

"Two fermions walk into a bar. One orders a drink. The other says 'I'll have what he's having.'"

"There is this farmer who is having problems with his chickens. All of the sudden, they are all getting very sick and he doesn't know what is wrong with them. After trying all conventional means, he calls a biologist, a chemist, and a physicist to see if they can figure out what is wrong. So the biologist looks at the chickens, examines them a bit, and says he has no clue what could be wrong with them. Then the chemist takes some tests and makes some measurements, but he can't come to any conclusions either. So the physicist tries. He stands there and looks at the chickens for a long time without touching them or anything. Then all of the sudden he starts scribbling away in a notebook. Finally, after several gruesome calculations, he exclaims, 'I've got it! But it only works for spherical chickens in a vacuum.'"

Thanks to physlink.com for the jokes, and others. I didn't include some of my favorites that appear on the site because most everyone I know has already heard them before from me.

My National Pickup Line Contest

So a while back, I saw a banner ad for a pickup line contest. Remington, a company that makes things like electric razors, was running a national contest to see who could come up with the best and worst pickup lines (translation: most likely to work and funniest). I clicked on the ad, hoping to get a few laughs out of it (it was judged by anyone logging on and voting).

Most of them were pretty unfunny, so I--being the suave urban sophisticate and pickup artist that I am--submitted a few of my own unbelievably nerdy ones. Fully aware this was primarily promotional, I used my junk e-mail address to avoid corporate spam. I soon forgot about the contest.

Last week as I was performing my monthly check of my junk e-mail account, and lo and behold! I get an e-mail notifying me that I WON. The top and bottom 5 lines got prizes, and I was solidly in that latter group. My submission was deemed by the Internet community to be among the funniest and most desperately hopeless attempts to seduce women.

I had missed the deadline for responding to get my prizes, but the woman there said she'd try to get them to me anyway, as they were running behind schedule themselves. So I hurriedly faxed in my form, and now I'm waiting to get my free electric razor and my 10 t-shirts that say:

"I wish you were cos(x) and I were sin(x), so I could always fill the area under your curves."

Awesome.

PS - The woman I talked to loved the line and wanted to know if it had any success...and later admitted to having formed that opinion after requiring a colleague to explain it to her.

PPS - If you don't get the line, put down your Art History/Anthropology/Communications reading (or whatever phony major you chose) and go ask someone with skills.

PPPS - I have Cynara's permission to go out to bars and see if these shirts work. Anyone wanna come? Or know any nerdy bars where all the hotties know calculus?

PPPPS - I hate it when people add multiple postscripts by adding an extra "S" each time. It's Postscript and Post-Postscript, etc. Post means "after." After the script, after the script after the script, and so on and so forth. Post Script Script doesn't make any sense. If you're a PS, PSS, PSSS person, consider yourself officially "ON NOTICE."

My Local Election Recommendation

If you're registered to vote in Philadelphia, please do this year. You'll see on the ballot that Judge Teresa Carr Deni has been recommended for retention to the Municipal Court by the Philadelphia Bar Association. I'd like to recommend the opposite. And here's why:

She recently presided over a case in which a 20 year old single mother, desperate to make ends meet, was working as a prostitute. This woman, while negotiating for services with a Mr. Gindraw, a potential client, had a gun pulled on her. She was subsequently forced at gunpoint to have unprotected sex with the gun holder and three of his friends.

Judge Deni decided that this was not rape (or even sexual assault or assault) because of her profession, that being a sex worker essentially meant all sex was consensual. The fact that she wasn't paid for this reduced the offense to "theft of services." (Incidentally, after being released by Judge Deni, Mr. Gindraw organized another gang rape 4 days later.)

While others who wrote about this expressed moral outrage, I went straight to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's definition of rape. And according to Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, Crimes and Offenses (Title 18), Part II (Definition of Specific Offenses), Chapter 31 (Sexual Offenses), Subchapter B, Section 3121, rape, a felony in the first degree, has occurred when a person engages in sexual intercourse with someone:
"1. By forcible compulsion.
2. By threat of forcible compulsion that would prevent resistance by a person of
reasonable resolution.
3. [there are four more definitions not applicable here]"

If this wasn't by forcible compulsion or threat of forcible compulsion that would prevent resistance by a person of reasonable resolution, I don't know what would. The Judge's personal opinions aside, it's her job to interpret and apply the law. And there is NO argument to be made that what happened wasn't, BY LEGAL DEFINITION, rape.

Regardless of the specifics of this case, a person has no business being a judge in our society when she puts her own feelings and opinions above her job, above her responsibilities and sworn duties, and above the law. In this case, her personal contempt for prostitutes got in the way of the law, and incidentally resulted in another gang rape. Judge Deni was quoted saying that calling this rape “minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped.”

So please, if you're registered to vote in Philadelphia, let's fire this person for not doing her job.

Our Children

The United States House of Representatives sustained President Bush's veto of a bill that would have expanded the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) by 35 billion dollars, and benefited over 10 million children--including providing coverage to almost 4 million American kids who currently don't have any medical insurance (to provide some sense of scale, covering 4 million kids costs about 5 weeks in Iraq).

These are kids we're talking about. Not even assistance to families or parents with kids, JUST THE KIDS. And why? Because the President thinks that this will encourage people to use public insurance instead of private insurance. Of course, this program is only available to children whose parents can't afford insurance for their kids, or those whose parents are affording it only by making tremendous sacrifices.

At a time when every industrialized nation manages to provide healthcare for virtually all of its citizens, 45 million Americans--almost one out of every six of us--goes without. And why can't we cover these people? The White House tells us it's because it would encourage others to drop private insurance and go on public plans. But riddle the American public this, Mr. President, what's so bad about that, if the private system is failing so badly that about 15% of us can't get insurance? And this is where many Republican leaders, not just the President, stand by a policy even dumber than the RIAA's business model of suing its customers: they blame the uninsured. Their stance is that Americans who aren't covered by already existing public programs, with very few exceptions, should be able to easily get insurance on their own, through employers or the private market.

So why are they uninsured? You'll get answers like "they don't want to be insured" or "they mad bad decisions and should live with the consequences of their actions."

Fine. Let's take a break from reality for the minute and temporarily grant those assumptions. Let's take them as given. Uninsured Americans don't want insurance or don't deserve it because they screwed up, and the government can't bail everyone out. But what about their kids?

Would any responsible parent making a low to mid 5-figure income decide that their kid shouldn't have health insurance? If parents really were deciding that for their children, what percentage of them should be tried in a court of law and have the kids removed by child services for dangerous and criminal levels of negligence? And what about the parents who screwed up, who can't get insurance because of their bad decisions? Are we really going to visit the sins of the father upon his sons? Do the daughters of financially ignorant mothers deserve to live without medical care? Do we really say that there are children in our country who deserve to die because they contracted a dangerous illness the same year their parents lost their jobs?

That's what's been happening, and that's what 229 House Democrats and 44 House Republicans were trying to stop. 273 people tryied to protected millions of those whom our leaders call "our future," thwarted by one man's veto and enough party loyalty to make it stick.

What do I say to this? Maybe only rich peoples' kids are our future? Please don't reelect these congressmen? I don't know what I CAN say to this. I think this isn't a job for me, but a job for us. We need to let people know this isn't what we sent them to Washington to do. I just wish I knew how. If anyone does, let me know soon, because the House leaders are going to make a few changes and try again. I'm looking forward to that.