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BLOT: (27 Jan 2012 - 03:08:55 PM)
Lobbying has a really weird place in this country. It is constantly there, constantly wondered about, bandied about, and worried about. Though from what I have seen, it has always been kept in a general check by its lack of guaranteed success. You can give a congressman $5000 and a nice lunch to get him to hear about your support of solar research, but you cannot demand that the congressman vote your way. Your one whip is that you might not be buying lunch the next go around.1
What happens when a lobbying deal goes sour for the lobbyist? What happens when someone doesn't seem to notice that he is talking in front of actual people in a medium being actually watched and even recorded, when it comes to discussing how horrible it is that he isn't able to guarantee results through past favors as opposed to the validity of the law? In this case the MPAA's Chris Dodd (and ex-Senator) talked about protecting studio's intellectual properties via SOPA/PIPA and it is not merely that he said he was disappointed in Congress's general move. No, he decided to pull the "We bought you now give us the service we demand" card:
Those who count on Hollywood for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake," Dodd told Fox News. "Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake."
On one hand, this is a perfectly understandable statement. They had supporters, who were also people they "support" through cash donations, and the support "ceased" being mutual [and/or the support wasn't so mutual as to be blind, tomato tomahtah". But in the real world, about the main justifying factor of lobbying is that votes aren't wink-actually-wink being bought2 and really the money is only going for campaigning and not any real thing3. What's more, lobbying money is never a good justification for supporting lopsided deals, rushing legislation, or any of the other things of which SOPA had a smell. Saying "Let's see you how you change your mind after you need our phat check on this oh so important campaign year!" is simply stating, out loud, where the poor people can hear, "SCREW THE POOR, WE ARE THE POWERFUL!" I know, you know, they know, and dogs know that's what they have been thinking, but again, it's not the kind of thing you can say. Just like a media star is not supposed to mock the poor kid from the ghetto who got a severe sentence for drug possession while said star has been busted a dozen times, makes movies/videos/songs/etc showing possession, and talks to poor people in prison as community service instead of going to jail. Laws are not fair, and never have any intention of being such, but you at least play by certain politenesses.
At any rate, now Chris Dodd has outed why the MPAA spends so much [though I think less than the RIAA], looks like he has won the grand-prize of an investigation. There is already enough supporters on the petition to the White House supposedly to force the subject. There is at least one juicy quote in the article, that echoes what I have said here: "Companies and individuals who 'donate' to US lawmakers usually express the convenient fiction that their financial contributions are expressions of support for a candidate, and not attempts to bribe them on specific issues." Tee hee.
1: Note, this is how I understand it. I know in real life it is much more complicated, has had many variations throughout the years, and in practice is probably much different.
2: They are just being rented! *rimshot*
3: Probably a more meaningful statement before campaign budgets reached the sort of level that effectively no candidate will make as much in a decade as they will spend on a single campaign.
OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: January 2012
BLOT: (26 Jan 2012 - 02:39:38 PM)
When I was younger, and general non-heathened, I still managed to be a bit inquisitive—though hopefully never came across as querulous in my querying—as far as Christians go, which I am sure is a thing perhaps stereotypical for intelligent youth. For me, the number one question was not, "Why do bad things happen to good people?"—for various reasons, the answer, "Because they do," always sufficed—and tended to be a more complex one: Why is God always Good? This is a complicated question, one so complicated it has no effective answer in the framework of religion itself. In my proto-philosophical days, I think I took the answer as something unanswerable, though if I had to squeeze something out I might have said that God is always Good because He prefers to be. Which I think is the answer assumed, I may be wrong, by the majority of people with a Loving God as a concept. In my post-philosophy, days, I tended to lean more towards a concept that what God does Is Good, by definition, even if those things don't really FEEL good [lower-case "g"]. I still like this one. Omnipotent creator behind all matter in all space for all time? You don't push His buttons, you know?
When I said it has no framework, I do not meant that it has not been attempted to be answered, merely that it is axiomatic to the religion of a Fair, Just, and/or Loving God: For Religion to be a livable Truth, God must be Good. Else-wise you got a bunch of people practising obeisance to a deity that is just as likely to smite them for showing up to Church as for not showing up. That's straight up cold-hearted Zeus-on-a-bad-day crap. Different people tried different frameworks to set this up. Spinoza took what is now considered a proto-atheist standpoint, and wrote out a series of rules and arguments about God in Chapter One of
But,it will be said, there is in things no perfection nor imperfection; that which is in them, and which causes them to be called perfect or imperfect, good or bad, depends solely on the will of God. If God had so willed, he might have brought it about that what is now perfection should be extreme imperfection, and vice versa. What is such an assertion, but an open declaration that God, who necessarily understands that which he wishes, might bring it about by his will, that he should understand things differently from the way in which he does understand them? This...is the height of absurdity. Wherefore, I may turn the argument against its employers, as follows: All things depend on the power of God. In order that things should be different from what they are, God's will would necessarily have to be different. But God's will cannot be different (as we have just most clearly demonstrated) from God's perfection. Therefore neither can things be different.1
Spinoza then immediately goes over into what I would consider the meat of the argument to which I am about to get...
I confess, that the theory which subjects all things to the will of an indifferent deity, and asserts that they are all dependent on his fiat, is less far from the truth than the theory of those, who maintain that God acts in all things with a view of promoting what is good. For these latter persons seem to set up something beyond God, which does not depend on God, but which God in acting looks to as an exemplar, or which he aims at as a definite goal. This is only another name for subjecting God to the dominion of destiny, an utter absurdity in respect to God, whom we have shown to be the first and only free cause of the essence of all things and also of their existence. I need, therefore, spend no time in refuting such wild theories.2
Let's go on from that last bit a little. See footnote #2 if you skipped it, read it and went "Wha?" or simply would like to see my take on it. Spinoza held that God can do no good in the way we take it—he goes on later in the appendix to the first chapter to suggest that mankind calls "good" merely what seems to benefit their own interests, with no concern for the Universe as a whole, and therefore most any discussion about good and evil is mostly just an attempt at self-justification and an application of [religiously backed] prejudice—and this answers the question. But it is not the only answer, not by a long shot. The second part I quoted is in response to people who held that GOOD [all-caps] was a quality of being that effectively binds God to do Good. In other words, what God does isn't Good because does it, God does it because it is GOOD.3
The danger of this latter, though it might be the prevalent background of many modern religionists' thoughts, is that it presupposes that something binds God. By His Nature, He has no Will except to do GOOD. If there are many, many GOOD things, then God might be Free to choose amongst them, but if there is only One True Path, then God must follow it, no matter what His Will. And since God's Will is the Engine of the Universe, this means that somewhere out there, nine billion light-years away there is a frozen rock of a planet circling some dying Red Giant star, and there is a stream of liquid nitrogen flowing across its surface, and that stream flows the way it does because to flow any-other-way would be not-Good and not-GOOD in the way that it must be inimical to God's inerrant Will to be Always-GOOD that generates the Universe-at-Whole only in a way that is truly Good/GOOD. You can probably see why Spinoza scoffed.3.5
And Spinoza is not the only one who scoffed, even stick-in-the-mud-but-at-least-I'm-not-Kant Leibniz worked very hard philosophically to say:"Nobody puts God in a corner". In
These metaphysical considerations [about evil being existent in the world] concern the nature of the possible and of the necessary; they go against my fundamental assumption that God has chosen the best of all possible worlds. There are philosophers who have maintained that there is nothing possible except that which actually happens. These are those same people who thought or could have thought that all is necessary unconditionally. Some were of this opinion because they admitted a brute and blind necessity in the cause of the existence of things: and it is these I have most reason for opposing. But there are others who are mistaken only because they misuse terms. They confuse moral necessity with metaphysical necessity: they imagine that since God cannot help acting for the best he is thus deprived of freedom, and things are endued with that necessity which philosophers and theologians endeavour to avoid. With these writers my dispute is only one of words, provided they admit in very deed that God chooses and does the best. But there are others who go further, they think that God could have done better. This is an opinion which must be rejected: for although it does not altogether deprive God of wisdom and goodness, as do the advocates of blind necessity, it sets bounds thereto, thus derogating from God's supreme perfection.4
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an excellent little essay called, "Leibniz on the Problem of Evil" which looks into the many spots Leibniz may or may not have painted himself into while discoursing on Gods. Monads not available for a quote...
At least Thomas Aquinas was a little less bothered by the idea that God had to do this or shoulda-woulda-coulda'd the Universe. He gives what might be the Standard Answer to this, in that his answer in no way would make everyone go, "Oh, ok. Cool," but at least they make a kind of sense if you squint your eyes and roll with it. Both bits taken from the Project Gutenberg version of
[from 1.19.8] Now God wills no good more than He wills His own goodness; yet He wills one good more than another. Hence He in no way wills the evil of sin, which is the privation of right order towards the divine good. The evil of natural defect, or of punishment, He does will, by willing the good to which such evils are attached. Thus in willing justice He wills punishment; and in willing the preservation of the natural order, He wills some things to be naturally corrupted...5
[from 1.19.10] Since then God necessarily wills His own goodness, but other things not necessarily, as shown above (A. 3), He has free will with respect to what He does not necessarily will.6
I found those bits while reading "Aquinas and the Best of All Possible Worlds" on Aquinas Online. I would be remiss not to point that out. Aquinas is almost always kind of awesome to read, even when he seems to be talking out his rear.
For that small handful that has stuck with me, let's take a moment to look in a slightly different direction for a moment. And I warn you, the whole bit that might make you the most upset is, like a hard rain, a-gonna fall.
Most of the debate about God and Good and GOOD and necessity and Necessity stems from the idea that there is a God, a Universe, and a Mankind at the connection point between the two. This morning, though, I made a joke about alternate universe, quantum possibilities if you will, and the "millionbillion Dougs" out there. While I remain appropriately skeptical about the populist notion of a quantum multiverse, I realize that it makes for a rather interesting wrinkle for this whole series of questions above. In Spinoza's case, if there are multiple variations on any given Universe, then God's Will is no longer necessary. In Leibniz, he is no longer backed into a tight spot because while it is true that there seems to be many possible Universes that God could have considered equally Good, well...maybe God chose ALL of them. Aquinas is not really helped since his God can walk around and Will evil as long as it is for a Good cause and only Necessarily Wills Himself so all the rest is existent but not Necessary.
Generally, though, those that hold that God must do Good are given something like a reprieve, since in all the possible Universes that God did not do Good, maybe those Universes can not stay tenable. Maybe they cease to exist immediately or, having less Godness in them, have less reality. It does not make it less complex of an equation, but in general you could say that GOD [all-caps] can choose the realities only where God chooses Good and that GOD does not rely on GOOD but merely prefers it because GOD shuns the realities where God does not choose it [if your head hurts, then you are doing that sentence correctly]. The upshot being that it doesn't matter, at least in this Universe, God is a Froody Dude [sucks to be you, people of Universe #247265-42-3].
But, really, I am most curious now about the concept of alternate universes and how different the whole shebang might be. Did every Garden of Eden end with Eve taking the Fruit and giving it to Adam [in Eve's defense, Adam was right there, but that assumes that Eve did not have the mother of all sexy bottoms and that Adam was able to concentrate when she was around]? Did every world have a Flood? Did every world a Tower of Babel? Was every Egypt beset by Ten Plagues, did some hold out longer or did some abdicate sooner? Did bears sometimes not eat children for mocking a bald man, or were sometimes more children eaten by something else like wolves or lions? Are shellfish and eels abominations in all Universes or just this one? Was there ever a David that did not seduce a post-bath Bathsheba [that's right, the Bible is full of puns!]? Was there ever not a Solomon? What about the temptations of Jesus? Were there ever more? Fewer? Did Jesus feel more or less temptation in alternate worlds? Did Judas not sell out Jesus at any point? Did Pilates refuse to condemn Jesus to die? Was it ever not Saul struck down to become Paul, but sometimes other men? Does Revelations future have many outcomes? In each world, is it different for each future? Have you spent this entire paragraph going "YOU BLASPHEMOUS HERETIC!"? And does the idea of God's Plan ever play nicely with the Multiverse? Is there only one begotten reality? One favored reality? Do the various realities have no difference where the Plan is concerned? Does this mean that nothing like alternate universe can exist if God exist [the two ideas are mutually heretical]? Or, that if it they both exist, one or the other is necessarily different from current conceptualizations?
And that's how things get really complicated...I have no answers, of course. Like I said, I'm skeptical about alternate universes; take Spinoza's view about good versus evil [the Universe turns how it turns, and while it is billions of everything wide and billions of everything deep, and beautiful beyond compare, it is not so much indifferent as incapable of being anything but what we, as petty little humankind on our petty little rock, might call indifferent because ultimately we want it to want us]; do not consider the Bible or any other holy book as The Word; and assume Jesus-that-was to have been a generally sweet Jewish man with remnants of a carpenter's build turned thin due to fasts, who suffered lots of sunburns and sores from his nomadic lifestyle, and was likely about 5' at the tallest. But one of those millionbillion Dougs is still devout, still curious about physics and cosmology, and is right now really concerned about this whole mess. I feel bad for him, in a way.
I will return to this topic later...
GENERAL NOTE: I use a series of texts exactly for the reason that they are well known, on topic, freely available online, and have bits that get more or less right to the point without posting whole chapters. Outside of the general respect for Spinoza, Leibniz, and Aquinas, feel free to assume they are wrong, stupidheaded, and the absolutely worst people to quote on this topic. With the exception of bits of Spinoza, I don't really agree with them either, I just consider them turning points in human understanding and important parts of The Dialogue. If you want to read the texts in a different translation, the original language [Latin for Spinoza and Aquinas, German I think for Leibniz] then I recommend you hit up your nearest academic library. As for the choice of quotes, I am sure if I had more time and more space, I could have gone for better ones. I really do implore you to look further into their writings if you want to know more. Well, maybe not Leibniz. I like the dude, but he could sometimes drone on and on without a whole lot of a leg to stand on.
1: Translation: People say that whether or not something is good depends on God. God obviously doesn't make such distinctions, because this would imply that God changes the values of things as opposed to God merely making things as they are. For something to have potentially different meanings, God would have to be able to potentially different, and this is absurdity [to Spinoza].
2: Translation: While it seems to suck to say that God is indifferent instead of All Loving, the alternative is to say that God has Rules He has to follow. Q.E.D., crazy talk [to Spinoza].
3: Sandra LaFave discusses this some in philosophical way in a bit called "Ethics and Religion". LaFave differentiates between "DCT 1" and "DCT 2", with Divine Command Theory being there defined as "the commandments of God are Good" and the first version being that God makes things Good commanding them while the second version being that God can only command GOOD things.
3.5: I would like to point out that the concept that God simply prefers to do Good things is a possible answer, for sure. It is just a tricky one because if you hold that God is able to have freedom, even the best and most perfect thing [the only perfect thing] will find Godself, presumably, on paths that might not always reflect Good to the fullest. Either God is unable, personally [whatever that means] to choose anything else, and it collapses to God must do GOOD, or is unwilling forever and ever Amen [again collapses to God following a certain GOOD], or it means that God at least could be fickle, and you end up with some of the same issues.
4: Translation: There are those who say that the world must exist and therefore God is a jerk for making things not-cool some of the time (or God is a weakling for not sticking up for keeping evil things out of the necessary and only existence). Instead, God paints an awesome picture with the paints He has, and sometimes these paints aren't as cool as the audience hopes, but that's cool. God is a Froody Dude.
5: Translation: Hot damn.
6: Translation: God wants to be Good and therefore is. He doesn't necessarily will everything else to fall into place though, Omnipotence be damned on the back of logical necessity about the lack of Necessity. Also, God is a Froody Dude.
Musings on Life and Deeper Meaning
OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: January 2012
BLOT: (25 Jan 2012 - 10:27:22 PM)
Got an email tonight from Goodreads. The main important juicy bits are:
As you may have noticed, Goodreads is transitioning to new sources of data for its book records. For years, we've used Amazon's data, and while they have always had certain restrictions and requirements, those terms have gotten harder and harder to adhere to. We have been working diligently to find a new, independent source of data. Amazon has given us until January 30 to stop using their data, and we have to meet this deadline.
You can read more [presumably you have to be signed in, and possibly you need to be a Goodreads Librarian, but maybe not] at a topic dedicated to it. If you are up to for doing some of the "rescue" work, and can do some of it, then the following link is where you go to see which of your books [again, see above requirements] needs fixing, with there being another if you want to take a stab at ALL the books:
http://www.goodreads.com/rescue_books/at_risk
I only had one show up on that list: Robert Aickman's
I have no idea what changes at Amazon prompted this, by the way, and maybe it is tied into the general move away from Amazon that several in the book industry are starting to bandy about [though the deadline suggests a more active withdrawal on Amazon's behalf]. I'm curious if a source like Open Library might be the option, though I have not yet looked into how it transports metadata. Or maybe we need an open-source equivalent to WorldCat, except instead of of catalog data it focuses on good metadata. That might be reinventing the wheel, though. Will investigate.
OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: January 2012
BLOT: (23 Jan 2012 - 09:22:10 PM)
Sarah and I played Agricola, tonight. It was a good game. My Minor Improvements and Occupations generally didn't mesh well but they overall lead to me getting grain and sheep early on and that took all the stress of getting food from the table. From that point on, I was able to plow and fence and expand just fine. Got 52 points total, which I think is my highest non-solo score (solo I think I once pulled 54, though I have only played solo twice). I usually score in the 40s but rarely break the five-oh. I am curious as to what maximum points might be, assuming that is calculable. I mean, the most you can get any of the categories (forget how many they are, something like 8 or 9 but I might be forgetting some) is 4. You get 3 for each family member. So many per room, per stable. This is all over 14 rooms generally while competing for resources and fighting off starvation. I'm sure someone has calculated or discussed this elsewhere. To GOOGLE!*
For those who have no idea what I am talking about, but feel intrigued, Sarah and I are always looking to get a couple more players in our sessions.
Also in gaming news, I finished
What else? I think it was just this past Friday that Sarah and I watched
I think I can end there. I'm pretty sure I did something else this weekend through today [I did, but that was watching
Be good and have a better one...
* Oh well, not definite, but here are some players discussing high scores. Looks like 52 is pretty decent, though others are hitting the 60s and even 70s mark [I'll believe it when I achieve it, heh].
** People continue to range from shocked, to amazed, to even "betrayed" by the fact that women often respond just as well as men to porn, especially porn of certain types [and that type regularly depends on the woman in specific, just like with men].
OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: January 2012
BLOT: (23 Jan 2012 - 06:01:47 PM)
The bulk of
Fureybpx Ubyzrf vf fnvq gb unir qvrq n lrne orsber gur jevgvat bs gur abiry naq Ubhfr bs Fvyx jnf choyvfurq 655 lrnef nsgre vg'f "erny" jevgvat. Gung jbhyq chg gur abiry jevggra ng 6466 naq Ubyzrf qrnq va 6465. Ng gur ntr bs 94. Zna yvirq yvsr uneq. V unir ab vqrn ubj guvf vzcnpgf sna cnfgvpur naq fhpu.
[SPOILER is ROT13+ROT5'd. Copy above paragraph and paste it into my cipherkey/rot13 tool thingie and click "rot13+5"]
Since this novel is approved by the estate, it should be considered at least soft-canon (official, but not written by original author). I'm sure fans will debate this at some point in time, and most already have an opinion, but I personally am going to consider it standing.
OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: January 2012
BLOT: (22 Jan 2012 - 02:26:48 PM)
I am making my way, maybe slowly, through Night Shade's recent ebook version of
On the more positive side, a lot of his stories seem to have relatively simple seeds so that when you do punch through, you have this little core with thick prose wrapped around and you can digest it like poetry. Even if you miss all of the mood, all of this description, you can eek out the essence. This may or may not work for you, but I dig it. Take "The Last Incantation", which has such lines as:
Now Malygris was old, and all the baleful might of his enchantments, all the dreadful or curious demons under his control, all the fear that he had wrought in the hearts of kings and prelates, were no longer enough to assuage the black ennui of his days. In his chair that was fashioned from the ivory of mastodons, inset with terrible cryptic runes of red tourmalines and azure crystals, he stared moodily through the one lozenge-shaped window of fulvous glass. His white eyebrows were contracted to a single line on the umber parchment of his face, and beneath them his eyes were cold and green as the ice of ancient floes; his beard, half white, half of a black with glaucous gleams, fell nearly to his knees and hid many of the writhing serpentine characters inscribed in woven silver athwart the bosom of his violet robe. About him were scattered all the appurtenances of his art; the skulls of men and monsters; phials filled with black or amber liquids, whose sacrilegious use was known to none but himself; little drums of vulture-skin, and crotali made from the bones and teeth of the cockodrill, used as an accompaniment to certain incantations. [(Kindle Locations 406-414), Night Shade edition as bought through Baen].
Then at the end of the story we get the old wizard remembering before his dark arts how he was in love with this beautiful, simple girl and how she had died and she summons her back to be with her. Except, he begins to fear that what he has summoned is something else, some trick. Upon examination he realizes what he has summoned has plain skin and regular hair and is missing the spark of something that he was looking for and he banishes her back to non-existence. When he turns to his familiar to complain, the familiar explains that that was the girl of his dreams, he just no longer had the passion of youth and the fire of love in his heart, and so saw her as she really was. Even if you get caught up wondering what the hell "crotali made from the bones and teeth of the cockodrill" are, you can still get the theme.
I am hoping he tones it down a little, while bringing up the plot and theme, but these are little capsule concepts and so far make for interesting reading.
OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: January 2012
BLOT: (22 Jan 2012 - 02:33:23 AM)
True story, I just rage quit
Bit of news. Big couple of years of Sherlock buffs, no? We got the two movies helmed by Ritchie. We got a number of pastiche novels seeing reprint [can Solar Pons be far behind?]. There was a Basil Rathbone definitive set a few years back. We even have a new novel, officially commissioned by the estate and therefore about as canon as you can be—time will tell how fans take it. And there is Steven Moffat's much beloved and lauded now six-episode series,
I say "version" because Holmes is in the public domain and so CBS is free to play with it, but there is some accusation that CBS initially approached the makers of
Assuming it does, want to guess what they are going to call it? Imagine you have an audience who doesn't really know the base material, but might know a catchphrase that shows up a lot in later media despite not being actual canon? That's right, CBS is calling this
By the way, though I linked to a couple of more "official" stories up there, I first spotted this story over at Zombies Ate My Brains which is fun blog to read if you like certain geeky shows and reading other people's take on them.
OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: January 2012
BLOT: (19 Jan 2012 - 10:55:14 AM)
[I'm going to briefly talk about politics and statistics and rhetoric. If you are wondering why I am doing this to you, may I recommend Cracked.com's The Girl With a Dragon Tatoo [movie] in under 5 Minutes? Warning: There Be Spoilers!]
I'll leave it up to you to go and read about Iowa Caucuses and what they mean and who Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney are and all that, I just want to point out the usual political enthusiasm to which a very minor victory can be translated. Upon very slightly losing [8 votes], Santorum went on record as saying that it didn't really matter and that was basically a tie!
Think about it from his perspective: you've done better than early predictions but still slightly lost numerically, by a number that could simply be chalked up to miscounts or nine people who were going to vote for you being sick that morning. Fair enough, any vote counting that is less than half a percent different [According to Wiki, there were about 121,500 voters so 8 would be maybe half a percent of a percent] should be called a tie. I'd say this is true up to 1-2% at least; too many vectors of potential error exist. And this was a contest were most of the voters did not show up, not even the ones registered to the party. By that consideration [and with presidential elections, where only half shows up at best, we never go by that consideration] we are looking at 100,000s of votes being against anyone there. Fast forward a couple of weeks, and now after a partial but mostly complete recount [some of the boxes are not certifiable, so therefore the results for Iowa this time are incomplete], the favor swung slightly into Santorum's camp. No biggie, right, it's all a tie?
Look, I know it's politics, where you have to take soundbites from your opponents talking to some supporters meeting in 1992 and make a single sentence sound like they are calling for the downfall of the nation, that's fine. I just reserve the right to make fun of it. I'll give it to you, Gidley, the history books truly will record that with an incomplete count, Santorum nearly lost to Romney and managed to only just squeak by with 0.002% of the total votes in his favor in a non-binding [worth no delegates] fluff event that awarded Mike Huckabee a solid 10,000 vote lead over Romney in 2008. Of course, the delight in seeing Santorum's camp implying a historical moment over a 42 out of 121,500 vote swing-around [and no doubt this will impact the momentum of the campaign at least slightly, with a potential boon to South Carolina after a poorer showing in New Hampshire], is only matched by the new word coming down from Romney's camp, and I bet even the non-psychic amongst you can guess what the new word is... "It's practically a tie."2
1: Ok, so he didn't say "MANDATE FROM GOD!", but it's early morning and I'm still cranky enough to be a smartass. And you know that there was at least a little prayer and "Praise Jesus" going on at the news. I'd be a little sad if the Santorum camp didn't have that moment.
2: I was hoping to find some juicy "MANDATE FROM GOD" moment from Romney after Iowa first swung his way, but didn't come up with anything. This made me sad.
OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: January 2012
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