A Few More Quick Thoughts on Gun Control

The gun control debate keeps rolling around in the public consciousness even as the news is dominated by the Fiscal Cliff -- Though it seems we are going to go over that cliff with regards to the spending cuts, but some of us might be saved from tax hikes;  As a beneficiary of the US Defense Budget, I am still worried.  

I know that in my post on the Newton Tragedy I said I was open to arming teachers.  Not so much any more.  A friend of mine pointed out it is possible for one of those teachers to snap and go on a rampage of their own.  The NRA may actually have a good idea with the police officer on station -- I would hope that gun buyers would be willing to pay an extra gun/ammo sales tax to fund the placement of an officer  in every one of our 98,000 or so public schools.  But, as your typical NRA member has something of a tax allergy, I doubt they'd be too happy about that.

In my opinion allowing teachers to carry guns on campus adds an extra layer of unnecessary risk.  What I am going to do next may shock some of you, and I apologize if you feel that applying some numbers to these kinds of horrific events is immoral, but I feel it proves my point.  If you can suspend your moral outrage for a moment and stick with me, I would appreciate it.    

In probability theory, the probability that Event A AND Event B will happen is given by the following formula:

Probability of Event A AND Event B Occurring = P(EventA) * P(EventB)

So what is the probability of a school shooting occurring at your school (or your son's school, or your daughter's school)?  I think the answer is given by asking the question "what is the probability that a school shooting will happen today AND what is the probability that will happen at my school?"

Based on Wikipedia (not the most authoritative source but good enough for this) there were 6 school shootings in 2012.  So the probability that a school shooting will happen today, based on the previous rate, is 6/365 = 1.64%.  

The probability that shooting will happen at my school?  The National Center for Educations Statics says that in 2009 - 2010 there were about 98,800 public schools in the united states.  There are an additional 33,360 private schools, for a total of  132160 schools.  The probability that the school shooting, when it happens, will be at your school is 1/132160 = 0.001%

So based on the formula given above, the probability that a school shooting will happen today and that it will happen at your school is a mere:

P(EventA) * P(EventB) = 0.00164*0.00001 = 0.0000001 = 0.00001%

Which is very small.  

Now, the by the same logic, we could calculate the probability that a teacher will go berserk and go on a similar rampage.  It too will be very small.  But when you introduce a mass of armed teachers on the scene you only add to the risk.  The question now is "Will a school shooting happen today AND will it happen at my school OR will a teacher go on a rampage AND will it happen at my school".  This is expressed in probabilities as:

Probability of Event A AND Event B Occurring OR Event C AND Event D Occurring = P(EventA) * P(EventB) + P(EventC) * P(EventD)

Clearly, all we have done is add to the risks we currently have.  

I will say that the risk is so small that it probably doesn't matter what we do.  For all the measures we could take, your children (my child) are already very safe in their classrooms (at least from something like this happening), and anything we could do is only going to make them marginally safer.  

But of course we should do something.  For all the math I just threw at you, even I recognize that the death of one of those innocent children is one too many.  

So if it really doesn't matter what we do, why NOT arm the teachers?  Because in addition to just adding to one of the (sadly) inherent risks of everyday life, I also believe with every fiber of my being that we should not live in a society where we feel the only way to keep our children safe is to always have someone around them who is packing heat.  I do not think we should live in a society where if I want to I can buy, with relative ease, a weapon more suitable for war than for anything else.  

I support anyone's second amendment right to arm themselves with a pistol, a shotgun, a rifle for hunting or sport or defense.  But an AR-15?  No one needs an AR-15.  If it takes you 45 rounds to kill a deer, well then you're not much of a hunter.  There are those who buy high powered weaponry just for the joy of having them and shooting them - I would argue that it might also be fun to ride a tank down route 17, but that doesn't entitle me to buy one.

If you want an AR-15 that badly, though,  I might be willing to let you have one.  But I am going to subject you to the mightiest background check, make you file all sorts of papers, take all kinds of gun certification classes, and I am going to additionally tax the shit out of it so that I can put an armed police officer in every school.  You want one?  You're going to have to earn it.    

We seriously need to rethink our attitude to the second amendment and our relationship to weaponry.  As I have said before, the second amendment was written in a very different time - I'll bet that one man armed with a Bushmaster rifle and a couple boxes of ammo could probably hold off an entire company or more of His Royal Majesty's 10th Regiment of Foot (at least of the 1776 vintage).  Two men certainly could.  

More fundamentally though, we need to think about the kind of society we are living in.  Why does this keep happening?  What could we be doing better in terms of mental health?  Why is our society so poisoned by violence?  Do we need to, collectively as a society, turn back to God?  Is that even possible to do?

Phew.  Lots of questions.  Few good answers.

In Which Nick Goes to Les Miserables and Cries Tiny, Tiny Tears.

The presents were opened, the turkey was in the oven, and the ghost of Christmas Present had matured into a fine middle age (featuring a rather dignified graying of the temples) when my mother suggested that she and my dad could watch my 4 year old daughter while Trish and I went to the movies.  We agreed to take her up on it, and there was really only one movie I wanted to see:

Les Miserables.

True, if I was looking for a joyful, uplifting capstone to my holiday another movie may have served better, for I knew that Les Miserables wasn't exactly a happy story, but from my memory of seeing it on Broadway about 9 years ago I don't remember it being too bad.

I had gone on my own while co-oping in Red Bank, NJ as a college student.  I remember hoping that maybe I would have the opportunity to sit with one of them thar purty New York girls - how exactly my shy and awkward self would have managed to even speak to one is beyond me, but with a little Big Apple magic I reckoned that anything was possible.

As it turned out, I was flanked by two middle aged menopausal women who were bawling after the first 15 minutes.  I began to fear it was going to be a long afternoon, but they must have got it out of their system because for the rest of the show I don't believe a tear was shed.  I can't say I remember the show that well, but I remember being uplifted and as my wife and I stood in line for tickets I assured her through the murk of the years that there is something of a happy ending.

I couldn't have been more wrong.  The 2012 movie version of Les Miserables is really, really good -  incredibly well done with a number of good performances and one profound one -  but contrary to my memory of seeing the musical it was just emotionally devastating. It's plain to see why - the film has an immediacy and intimacy that watching a Broadway show from the cheap seats just doesn't match. It is one thing to watch an understudy Fantine plow her way through "I dreamed a dream"; quite another to watch Anne Hathaway, with the camera pulled tight to her, sing the song in such a way that will break your heart, as her character rails against the Hell she's living with a full sweep of bitter emotions.  I certainly hope she wins the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for it; it is true that the movie is very fresh in my mind, but I cannot recall a more moving performance by anyone in recent memory.

What else?  The film version - this film version - makes the 19th Century far more visceral.  Again, it is one thing to see costumes and sets from afar on the stage - it is another to see the filth of Parisian street life, the blood of starry eyed revolutionaries being shed, the shit of the Paris sewers.

Ah, but then there is the love story between Cosette and Marius.  Dare I say that this is the stuff of Broadway?  A love built on a mere glance of each other in the streets?  I don't know how Victor Hugo handles it in the book (I have yet to read it, though it's on the list), but on film the love story seems flimsy.  That's probably not the film-makers fault; It's flimsy on stage to.  But it works on Broadway better than it does in a film such this for some reason.  There is honestly no better entertainment than a Broadway show and it is easy to suspend one's disbelief that love could blossom the merest of glances.  It is far more difficult to suspend disbelief when the characters are running around a 19th Century Paris that is rendered with detailed digital clarity.  

So go and see it.  If you like Les Miserables the musical you will probably like the movie - if you don't like the musical to begin with it may be worth going just to see Anne Hathaway's performance alone.  Though $10.00 is probably a lot to pay for one performance.  Maybe if you go by yourself you'll get to sit next to one of them thar purty movie going gals and if you get up the gumption to do so maybe you can ask if she'd like to go for coffee afterwards - or maybe you will be wedged between two aging old men who will constantly gripe about not being able to see and how loud the movie is and how the popcorn is too damn salty (even though they continue to eat it).

Maybe you should just wait until the movie gets pirated, spliced and diced and put up on You Tube.

A Festivus for the Rest of Us!

Growing up, my entire family (even the dog, I think) loved watching Seinfeld, and ever since the Festivus Day episode aired we have made Festivus Day into a sort of a thing.

I say sort of a thing because we didn't make it really a thing - It's not like we used to get the old Festivus pole out of the garage or have the Airing of Grievances or the Feats of Strength or anything like that.  But we always did note the day when it arrived, and it's not uncommon for me to call my parents and wish them a happy Festivus Day.  It does help that my Grandmother's Birthday happens to fall on the Feast of Festivus, and it is in an interesting coincidence given that my Grandmother, God Bless Her, has the art of airing grievances steeped in her old Serbian bones.

Aside from the fact that Festivus Day remains a quirky inside joke with my family, I like to keep the Festivus for two reasons:

1.  It means that Christmas is almost here!

2.  It means the Holiday Season is almost over!

That pretty much sums up what I think about the Holidays in general.  I enjoy Christmas in and of itself; it's a day of food and family and fun, and those are always great things.  I like watching a Christmas Story as much as anybody else (though once a year is plenty).  And Eggnog?  It takes my little two sizes two small heart through some kind of wormhole where on the other side I am wearing a tacky holiday sweater and singing "Hark the Herald Angles Sing" around a blazing fire with 5 or 6 of my closest friends, similarly adorned in yard upon yard of knitted fibers.

But the month long Holiday Season I'd be more than happy to leave behind. The joy of holiday feels to me kind of manufactured and its unrelenting in its tenacity.  But, with advertising so woven into the fabric of our society and with a four year old daughter who is really, really looking forward to Christmas, it has become very difficult to escape.  It may be hard to ask why one would want to escape it all, and that is not something I want to speak to today, but believe you me I'll be quite glad when the decorations get put away and the 2012 Holiday Season is over and done with.

Christmas Day is great, the Holidays kind of suck a little bit, but Festivus Day signals all at one time the opening of Christmas and the death knell of Christmas, and I couldn't be happier.

Ah.  Grievances aired.  Kind of feels good to get that off my chest.  Maybe Frank Costanza had the right idea after all.  I have just been asked to go and cut some green sprigs for Church Christmas decorations, which I think I can count as my Feats of Strength!

It's a little Festivus Day Miracle, and it looks like it just might be the best Festivus Day ever!





 

   

An Ethical Dilemma.

If aliens came down to the planet earth, kidnapped a 6 year old child, and put a gun in your hand and said "we will destroy the Earth if you do not kill this 6 year old child", would you do it?

That is one of the ethical dilemma's posed to me during an Ethics class in Virginia Tech.  The exercise was used to examine different ethical systems and their limitations.  Based on  Kant's categorical imperative, you probably wouldn't -- if killing is wrong than it is always wrong in all situations.  But if you were a Utilitarian, in which actions must be judged based on what is the best outcome for the most people, you would do it without hesitation, though certainly with a heavy heart.

It is perhaps a crass question to raise today, a mere few days after the tragedy in Newton Connecticut that took the lives of 26 people, 20 of them children only 6 and 7 years old.

Yet isn't that exactly what we are doing?  We as a country value our unfettered access to weapons of all kinds so much that we are willing to do nothing to mitigate these kinds of tragedies from happening over and over and over again; only its not the fate of the world that is at stake, but rather our Second Amendment right to bear arms - an amendment written in a very different time when the very best soldiers could fire a mere three poorly aimed rounds a minute.

As I said in the post after the Aurora shootings, I know that we will never ban all guns in this nation, and I don't want to.  I know that banning assault weapons won't keep these kinds of things from happening again.  I also know that probabilistically the chances it could happen to my daughter in her school are infinitesimally small.

But even if these events are mathematically rare, there is no question that they seem to be happening with a sickening regularity, and I know for damn sure our glorious Second Amendment as it currently stands, our "freedom", is not worth the death of one those innocent little children.

So what can we do?  The answer from the right seems to be to just throw more guns at the problem.  Could an administrator with an M-4 taken Lanza out?  Maybe, if he or she knew what was doing.  But by the time the teacher unlocked the weapon, loaded it up, donned her body armor and stormed out into the hall considerable damage would have already been done.

But I'll bite.  You want to make it possible for trained teachers or administrators to keep guns on campus?  I would rather not live in the old west, but okay.  In return, how about banning body armor, or banning 100 round  clips, or requiring special permits for buying assault weapons?  I am not saying you can't have one, if you really want one (though God knows why anyone would actually need one), but I would rather make it very hard to get one.

I don't want to get rid of the second amendment,  but I believe that the nearly unrestricted access to guns we currently have does us no good as a country at large. Closing one's eyes and hiding behind respect for the victims is no answer.  The best way to honor those whose live's were tragically and senselessly cut so short is to work towards a society in which this happens less and less, not more and more.  Something has to change; doing nothing is not worth the cost.

A Grown Man's Thanksgiving in Blacksburg

One Thanksgiving was so much like any other, in those years when the bustling college town of Blacksburg lay momentarily quiet beneath stilled cranes, their naked scaffolding stretching up towards heaven as if in supplication.

My wife, daughter, and I arrived at my parent's house in the late morning to find my father and brother -- arrived from Florida -- on the roof, stringing up Christmas lights.  Years ago my Dad combined an engineer's ruthless desire for efficiency with mankind's never ceasing desire to pierce the darkness; determined to have the biggest light display on the street, he bought hundreds of large multicolored lights and stapled them to 12' x 2" pieces of wood.  Every Thanksgiving, or there abouts, he takes the wooden slats and lights to the roof and simply unfolds the wood, plugs it all in, and with relative ease outlines the house in gaudy Christmas Joy.

Times have changed.  Much as Ruben's sensually curved Venus has been replaced with Flint's purely plastic and manufactured Vikki Vukovockovich, the large colored bulbs of my youth have been replaced by those damn dinky white icicle lights that everyone seems to be putting up these days.  Dad has been slow to adapt, and as he stands precariously perched on the roof, trying to hold the line between tradition and a world that is so rapidly changing all around him, one almost expects him to pull out a fiddle and start playing a sad little gypsy tune.  Grandpa always wanted him to learn to play the accordion, but somehow a man on top of a roof playing a polka doesn't seem to have the same poetical "oomph" attached to it.  Far more comedy, however.

Mom is hard at work, making Turkey, cooking stuffing, putting frozen macaroni and cheese in the oven (which is a shame because Mom's macaroni and cheese is always the best, but there is only so much one can do).  In a sign of caprice which is merely a sign of a woman of Slavic ancestry moving gracefully through middle age, she refuses to watch the Today show since Anne Curry was summarily and tearfully dismissed.  We have to settle for Good Morning America's coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, which is just not the same.

As the morning wears on the lights are done and I am joined in front of the TV by my brother.  The noon time football game starts but we've both been watching soccer for so many years that a game as slow as football American style just doesn't hold our attention anymore.  We change the channel to watch a replay of a UEFA cup match between Manchester United and Galatasarayayamayara, but we already know that Man U won 4 - 0 (which in American football terms roughly equals a 1,000,000,000 to 12) and so it doesn't really captivate us either.  Yawns are being stifled before even the first drumstick or bottle of wine is polished off, and the day is in danger of being lost in a Thanksgiving haze...

That is when my father escorts my 86 year old grandmother Milka, the прабаба, the стара битка секира herself, into the house and guides her frail frame into a comfortable chair.  She undoes her kerchief to reveal white hair pulled back into a severe bun as my mom offers her coffee, black, with a couple cubes of ice melted in (because hot coffee should not be too hot, you see).

The Prababa has been through a lot over the past couple of years.  Last year when she had breast cancer which should have killed her she also had a stroke which should have killed her; miraculously, through the grace of God and in spite of the miracles of modern medicine (the only Doctor who can really handle my Grandmother is a former Top Gun -- which should say a lot about her as a patient) Grandma Milka keeps pressing on down the path of life.  It's been tough on my parents, I admit, to see to her care.  Though she was born in America she is a Serb until she dies, and while she has her wits about her they seem to be the wits of an immigrant who is not too far from the boat (which is odd as she was born, as I said, in America).  As a consequence everything about her home country is a new and wondrous revelation to her, and she asks many, many questions.

It wears on my father.  But my brother and I love it.  The day is saved.

As we are watching football (a game which my grandmother still cannot come to grips with even after seeing it on TV for the past 50 years) she asks how much all the players make.

"It depends", my brother says.  "They are all pretty well paid, but some make more money than others."

"You mean that they all don't make the same amount?"

"Uh.....no."

Evidently, my grandmother believes that every job comes with a set salary that one who is engaged in that profession makes.  If you work at the mill you get $2.00 a week, no matter how good your performance is or how long you have been there.  If you are a football player, well, you must make $5.00 a week, or something like that no matter how good your arm is or how fast you can run.

My brother then makes a heroic but utterly vain effort to teach free-market principles to my grandmother, to describe the laws of supply and demand and how those rules apply to the market of human capital and how pay relates to performance and ability.  Grandma Milka simply shakes her head at one of the founding economic principles of a country she has lived in all her life.

Dinner was a triumph, except for a gravy that was whipped together at the last moment at my brother's demand and was so viscous it had to be spread over turkey and dressing with a knife like peanut butter.  It didn't matter to me:  as Stonewall Jackson wrote in his book of maxims, even bad gravy is better than no gravy at all.

We never move from dinner straight to coffee and pumpkin pie in my family but always allow for a break to let our food digest a bit.  I'm thinking of maybe taking a nap on the couch when the neighbors walk in with their seven year old son, Andrew.  We have a grand discussion touching on politics, books, bootie pops, but it's no thing for a child to sit and listen to or engage in, so in a lull he asks if anyone wants to play a game of chess.  I accept his challenge and we set up in the living room as Mom puts on a pot of coffee.

I am no great chess player, which makes me timid but conservative and tough to crack.  My general strategy involves covering all my pieces so that if my opponent takes any of my pieces I can take one of his or hers; as my opponent is also not usually a great chess player he or she is rarely bold enough to attack.  Soon the board is a tightly wound web of gambits and finally there is nothing to do but start taking pieces.  A bloodbath ensues, and if I can keep the right pieces I will generally win - protecting those pieces during the mid-game is always the hard part.

Now of course, Andrew is seven.  I have no desire to win.  I am still woozy from wine and turkey and I move my pieces carelessly, lose them, but I don't care.

I don't care, that is, until Andrew starts to get a little cocky.  As he sweeps my second knight from the board he does a little dance in his seat and sings in his little sing-songy voice "Looks like I'm gonna win!"

Oh no you won't, Andrew.  No you won't.  I am about to teach you a lesson, young squire, in humility.

I focus my full attention to the game.  I am so far behind, I have lost so many key pieces, that I am not sure I can actually win.  But I start making better moves and out of frustration he starts making bad ones, and I slowly start to turn the tables.  We both lose many pieces but in the end I still have a queen and rook and the game is mine.  Perhaps the gentlemanly thing to do would have been to ask Andrew to resign, but I want to play it out to the last and finally he is checkmated and Andrew is dancing in his seat no longer.

I at least had the polish to congratulate him on an excellent game (which it was), but Andrew looks glum and in the depths of my little two sizes two small heart I felt an incredible, shameful joy.

The pumpkin pie and the coffee go down well, Andrew thankfully cheers up when Mom (who has a heart three sizes bigger than average and that is without the benefit of EPO and other performance enhancing drugs) gives him double whipped cream on his slice, the neighbors leave, the Prababa is driven home. As Thanksgiving winds towards its conclusion we all consider going to fight it out in the Wal-Mart for whatever merchandise we can get our hands on, but the day has been so good and kept so well it seems a great disservice to end a day for family and food by taking part in any kind of hectic Black Thursday shopping frenzy.  Christmas can wait for a few more hours.

It would be a more fitting end to the day if we were all, Pilgrim style, to gather around and read some Bible verses and give thanks to a God who has given us so much; but the Marickovich's aren't really wired that way either.  Any thanks by those who still believe (and I think most of us do, in some way or another) is offered in the privacy and silence of the mind.

As it was, I put my daughter to bed in the guest room and went back into the living room, kicking back on the couch with Gore Vidal's monolithic but excellent Lincoln in hand.  I didn't get through much more than a paragraph in before I was enveloped by a close and holy darkness, and then I slept.





 

On Twinkies and Petraeus

Today we have a couple of unrelated items worth talking about-- though if Twinkie is a euphemism for....well.....If that is the case then maybe the two big items from the news over the past week have more in common then originally thought.

Yum?

First, the Twinke.  Hostess Bakeries are going out of business, and that has triggered a run on various baked goods not seen since the Panic of 1823 in London, when King George IV granted a monopoly to the Torquay Crumpet and Biscuit Company.  The fear of price hikes on a large variety of baked goods by TC&B's Dickensian owner Thaddeus Sneed triggered mass hysteria that left 17 people dead and not a crumb of biscuit in London's rat infested bakeries.

Quite frankly, I don't understand America's affection for the Twinkie, because in my opinion they are not just not very good.  Excuse me for a bit of tree-huggy smugness, but I had to laugh when Hostess said they are closing bakeries.  Twinkies aren't baked, they're manufactured.  I mean, look at the ingredients list:

Enriched wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, niacin, water, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable and/or animal shortening – containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed and canola oil, and beef fat, dextrose, whole eggs, modified corn starch, cellulose gum, whey, leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate), salt, cornstarch, corn flour, corn syrup, solids, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, polysorbate 60, dextrin, calcium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, wheat gluten, calcium sulphate, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, yellow No. 5, red #40

As recent photos of me in the press sunbathing on the French Riviera show, I'm no health nut.  This morning, for example, I ate buttermilk pancakes loaded with butter, syrup, sugar, -- a cornucopia of carbohydrates.   But if it wasn't healthy, at least it was made from scratch.  At least it was all real.  

Twinkies aren't real food.  Why do we love them so?  

We may, as a nation, love them because they hearken back to a time when the USA was Number 1, when America was up on top. If we aren't on top anymore, or if on the horizon we see a day where we are going to be eclipsed by someone else (which history shows is probably inevitable), it may be because we have eaten too many Twinkies, or have gotten too used to the instantaneous "pleasure" that the Twinkies and their ilk symbolize.

So even though I am sad about the lost jobs, I am not upset over the possible demise of the Twinkie.  We as a country can easily do without them.  

Speaking of instantaneous pleasure,  this man is sadly getting a lesson on ethical behavior in the work place:

I know that David Petraeus has his detractors, but I for one am sorry to see his career end because he was embroiled in something of a love triangle (or maybe more of a love square...thankfully not a love circle -- at least that we know of, though I am sure the FBI is getting to the bottom of that).  The man who rethought our approach to counter insurgency in Iraq and was poised to maybe do great things at the CIA that we would never know about has resigned because he exercised poor judgement.

Should his indiscretions have forced him to resign?  On the face of it, I would say no.  I obviously don't condone being unfaithful to your spouse, but I don't agree with the notion that someone in the public trust should automatically have to resign for cheating on his husband or wife.  I am also not sure the FBI should be spending time prying around in people's private lives the way they apparently have in this case.  The revelation that Broadwell may have had access to classified information are far more troubling and give more ground for dismissal.  

I don't believe any of the conspiracy theories about Benghazi and stuff like that.  I don't know if there is anything "fishy" going on, but I kind of doubt it.  Anytime this happens we put immense pressure on the subject official to resign to the point where it must be impossible to stay on the job.

Before we wrap it up, one question remains: is this really the end of these two?

I would say not.

As for the Twinkies, I have a horrible feeling that, like some horrible flesh eating monster from a 1950's B Movie, the devilish little yellow cakes are not dead yet.  Someone will buy up the Hostess "Bakeries" and will start extruding those things out of a tube whatever it is that they do to actually make 'em.  America's bodice ripping (or perhaps more correctly bodice busting) love affair with the Twinkie will in all likelihood continue after a brief hiatus.

I don't think we have heard the last of Petraeus either.  He'll probably lay low for a while, write a book or two, get into teaching and/or inspirational speaking, and then maybe re-enter the political arena. Will he get as far as he would have if he had managed to keep it in his trousers?  Maybe not.  But I imagine he will learn from his mistakes, dust himself off, and get back into the fight somehow.  From what I have read about Petraeus, that seems more like his style.

Twinkie Photo Credit:  (CC) Larry D. Moore

In Which Superdad Meets His Match

It may be a frightening thing to contemplate, and it's not something I think I have talked about much on the interwebs, but I am actually a Father.

That's right.  This guy:

the same guy who wrote this:

But if, say, Anne Hathaway met me at the 46th street gate with a dozen warm doughnuts (again, not of fund raiser quality), well, then we could talk.  No guarantees.  If she was naked, or even mostly naked, that may help sway my decision, but still won't necessarily carry the day in Mr.Cuccinelli's favor.

and this:

"Couldn't help but notice you were enjoying the jazz!!  I really liked the part where the trumpeter went 'skiddly bap bap do bap di dap dap dibbledy dibbledy doowhap POW POW POW BWAAA!  Yeah man, those cats sure can jive.  You gotta smoke?"

and this:

Amelie sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled her bathrobe tightly around her body, trying to keep out the autumn chill that touched her soul like a distant longing.  She listened in the darkness to her husband snoring loudly with smug contentment.  She sighed.  It wasn't that James was a bad guy, but it was just so embarrassing to be with a man who was so worried about giving away Coke's "secret formula" when he was drunk at a party; so worried that he made everyone sign non-disclosure agreements on the back of napkins written in block letters with a sharpie.    

is a dad. A Father.  Ein Papa.   As proof, I submit the following picture of my daughter Elizabeth and me, taken recently as she painted one of the pumpkins we bought at the local pumpkin patch before celebrating Halloween:

Elizabeth and Me.  Photo props to my wife Trish.

Now I will be honest: looking back on it, the blessed state of Fatherhood was one that clearly I was not mentally prepared for.  It took a while for me to grow into the role of being a Dad; it's one that I continue to grow into more and more each day. 

If not mentally prepared for the change, however, I did turn out to be surprisingly adept at the stuff of fatherhood.  There were justifiable concerns in this area.  After all, one has to wonder if a man who once set his own eyebrows aflame during an outdoor candlelight Christmas Eve vigil (my cheeks were numb with cold, and the Andy Rooney like quality of my eyebrows makes them easily combustible)  would have any luck keeping his child alive without a very detailed instruction manual.

As the picture shows, so far so good.  I have a happy, healthy, smart little girl.  In fact, last week while I drove to church to meet my wife and daughter for one St. Mark Lutheran's weekly dinners (prepared by the talented volunteers at Cafe St. Mark) there was a comedy bit on the radio about being a guy being a new dad, the comedian lamenting -- without much hilarity -- the lack of the aforementioned manual. As I listened I gave myself a pat on the back with the knowledge that so far my foray into fatherhood could be considered a great success.

O Beware, those who suck upon the sour teats of Our Lady Hubris!

The church dinner was over, choir practice had begun, and it was time to take Elizabeth home.  Because I arrived late I had to move the car seat from my wife's car to mine (times are tough, the middle class is squeezed, and so we can only afford the one), and I put Elizabeth in the seat but did not strap her in, grabbed my keys which had fallen out of my hoodie pocket on to the bench seat, and closed the door.  The car beeped, indicating the door was locked.

No big deal, I thought.  I'll just take my keys out and unlock the door and....

What is this?  My keys are disconcertingly light.  Something is missing.  The car key and FOB are missing.  The door is still locked.   And it dawns on me that  I have just locked my daughter in the car.

You see, I keep my car keys on a little hook, a clip, so that I can detach my car keys from the rest of my keys.  I do this because I hate carrying my keys around in the pocket of my jeans.  I hate carrying around keys around in the pocket of my jeans because I like to wear tight jeans to accentuate my buttockular region, which if I do say so myself is quite exquisite.  Most of the time my keys live in my satchel bag (aka as a purse) along with whatever book I happen to be reading and some other stuff (mints, a flashlight, pens and pencils, a slide rule, knuckle dusters, flick knife, Hungarian phrase book, a Civil War bullet I bought at an antique store, a flip book in which two stick figures do it if you flip the pages real fast), but if I ever want to walk around without my murse I can just quickly disconnect my car keys from the rest of the set, slip the  FOB in my pocket, and then I can make the world a better place in my own particular way with my tight man booty.

The drawback of this system is that occasionally, just occasionally, my car keys disconnect themselves without me knowing it.  I think they are desperately trying to get to Japan where they were born.

Unfortunately for me they had rather unwisely decided to attempt their latest great escape while I was in the car itself getting my daughter's car seat in place (which naturally I did with great success, because this guy, who just locked his only child in the car, is something of a Superdad), and I was just short of a full set...of keys.

I'd like to say that coolness of head prevailed. It did not.  The problem was clearly too large for me to solve (and it turns out there was indeed a rather simple, elegant solution), all of my circuits overloaded, and I decided this was a matter for the Police, the Fire Department, the Kommando Spezialkrafte, or my wife.

I ran into the darkness of the parking lot, abandoning my now bewildered and frightened child, and went back into the church.  I poked my head into the choir rehearsal room, pointed at Trish, and motioned to her to come outside.   Clearly my face betrayed that something was very wrong, and she ran out into the hall.

"What is it?"

"I've locked Elizabeth inside the car!"

We both rushed out into the parking lot where Elizabeth, realizing the gravity of the situation and upset over my cowardice, was crying.  Much like any Tommy Lee Jones character in movies such as Law Enforcement Officers  of the USandA and The Man Who Ran Away From the Police, wife quickly wrested control of the situation away from the inept keystone cops who had so royally managed to screw-up (me, Superdad), and rapidly seized on the very simple solution I had missed: because Elizabeth was not strapped into her car seat, if we could convince her to get out of her seat and try pushing one of the buttons on the doors to unlock the car, we could get her out.  The Kommando Spezialkrafte would not be necessary.

Trish started talking to Elizabeth through the closed windows, and once Elizabeth was calmed down she happily made her way into the drivers seat where she started mashing all the buttons at my wife's direction; because there are like 8 buttons next to the drivers seat even in my run of the mill Subaru Outback Sport, and since it was dark, she just wasn't hitting the right one.

So it was that Agent Samuel Gerard sent Deputy Roscoe P. Coltrane back into the church to see if Gus, who is basically St. Mark Lutheran's Sargent-At-Arms, had a flashlight.  To do this I had to interrupt choir practice for a second time and as the choir director turned to me with a look of slight yet genteel exasperation I felt some kind of explanation was in order.

"Gus, do you have a flashlight?  I locked my daughter in the car!"

The wide range of human emotion that greeted the news was an amazing thing to behold.  On the women there were looks of shock, deep concern, and touching sympathy.

The men?  They all laughed at me.

Gus, ever resourceful, DID have a flashlight on the hip, and so I went back out into the parking lot only to see that Elizabeth was thankfully out of the car, cradled in Trish's arms, her tiny hands raised in triumph.  "We did it!" shouted Trish.  I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

But one more problem remained.  For some reason my car's alarm had gone off in the process of extracting my daughter from its interior, and the only way to turn it off  was to insert the key into the ignition three times.  Not 4, not 2, and definitely not 5, but 3.

So I proceeded to search the car for my car keys.  I couldn't find them.  I thought maybe they had somehow gotten under the car seat as I was installing it, so I ripped it out.  All the while the horn is blaring and the headlights are blinking and the choir, now hopelessly distracted, is now starting to congregate in the parking lot to see what is going on.

The keys were not under the now dislodged car seat. Confused, I stepped out of the car to get a little fresh air and re-evaluate the situation.  I rubbed the back of my neck and looked down as I often do under duress...

I saw something.  I couldn't be sure...I couldn't quite believe it...

There, on the ground, sitting in a puddle of fresh November rain all this time--

My car keys.







 

A Final Post on the Election (Promise!) -- Who I Actually Voted for and Why

So we had an election last week, as I guess you know.  I was quite sure that I would end up going to bed on Tuesday night not knowing who was going to be our next President, and was about as surprised as Karl Rove when the media networks called the race for Obama at around 11:20 pm.  In the end, this close election was unexpectedly lopsided and Obama almost "made it look easy" to borrow a sports cliche that is completely inapplicable to the event because as of Tuesday morning there was really very little that Obama or Romney could do to influence the election.  

That being said, it was still pretty close.  Obama's margin of victory in many of the crucial states was razor thin, and as of a couple days ago Obama only had a slight edge in the popular vote tally (maybe 3 million or so - a mere 1% of the US population).  Upon reflection, there are only really a few things I think we really learned from this election:

1. The Republicans could really use a gut check towards the center.  
2. The Evangelical vote doesn't mean what it used to:  either the nation is growing more secular to the point where few people share that kind of worldview, or the Evangelical vote in and of itself is fractured between the Old Guard (Pat Robertson and Billy Graham) and new skippy-do-whippies (Rob Bell and a bunch of other people).  The Old Guard cares, perhaps, a little too much about who you are sleeping with and what kind of music you are listening to, where the new skippy-do-whippies (or perhaps more correctly labeled as the Emergent Church) are more concerned about spreading Jesus's message of love and living Christian values in a more corporate way.  
3. Romney obviously doesn't read my blog, because I never did get those doughnuts.
4. My desire to save some trees clearly outweighs any concerns about self-preservation I may have.
5. Obama can cry! He has tears! He is.....he is human after all.

I wish to elaborate a little more on point number 4.  I may have let it slip one time, but I do not, in fact, work at the non-existent Newport News Crackerjack Factory:  I work for Huntington Ingalls Industries - Newport News -- I think its pretty safe to say that without having DDS agents rappelling into my house and two-tapping me.  

At any rate, every time we have a national election I am confronted with the rather uncomfortable reality that a vote for the Republican candidate is typically in my best interest as a shipbuilder (which doesn't elaborate much on my job -- everyone at HII-NNS is a shipbuilder; I could be stocking the vending machines with crackerjack, or fixing leaky roofs, or playing the Goldberg variations for Mike Petters so he can get some rest during his lunch-hour; all of those jobs would still make me a shipbuilder, even though I am not welding plates or joining joiners or grounding things to the...uh...ground).  I am also confronted with the fact that I am a card-carrying member of the Military Industrial Complex who is simultaneously contributing to our defense and preparing our nation for future wars.  

I am not a pacifist, and I think the work I do is worthwhile, and I'm actually quite proud to contribute in my own very, very, very small way to our nation's defense -- though as veterans day is tomorrow I naturally give deference to those who have done so much more than I ever will.  But at the same time there is the reverse of the medal:  I view war as utter tragedy, and in a very, very, very small way I am taking part in my Country's ongoing romance with violence, death, and military might.  We as a nation may have soured on that romance now, but give us 10 or 20 years -- or less -- and I have a horrible feeling we will be at it again.  

Perhaps next time it will be for the right reasons...

At any rate, in an age in which we are so concerned about living out our values as inscribed on the rubber bands around our wrists and where eating a Chik-Fil-A sandwich becomes not only a gastronomical delight but an ethical dilemma, such a conflict can be rather disconcerting.  

That was at the heart of my indecision as a voter.  If I couldn't vote for Romney because the GOP is totally whacked out on their social policies, could I vote for Romney if I think it will make it a little bit more likely I will be able to keep putting food on the table for my family?  

Well, the day before the election I finally came to a rather elegant solution that left my battered soul in peace for a day:  I would vote for Jill Stein, the Green Party Candidate.  In this way I was able to vote with a nod towards my values (though admittedly the Greens are way, way left of where I am and Jill Stein's only talent seems to be getting arrested for various anti-establishment activities) but at the same time I knew that that nod would have no impact on my future in anyway because the Green Party had not a chance of winning.  

For Senate I voted for Tim Kaine because -- well, because he was running against George Allen.  That choice was an easy one.  Yet for the House I voted Republican.  This is a nod towards my self-preservation but also the belief that the people running on the Democratic Ticket didn't have the experience required to be a good congressmen, whatever that means.

As I gave my ballot a final glance I realized that it as incongruous as a lunch consisting of pork rinds and Diet Coke; I shrugged it off as the disjointed ballet of an unsettled mind, resolved to up my dosage of melancholia non magis, and looked towards putting this election behind me so that I could get on with the important business of building ships, raising a child, and writing (perhaps with an eye towards finally getting something published and getting paid for it -- stay tuned).     

What? The Election is Still Tied?? Grab All the French Bread and Cheese You Can and Head for the Hills!!

After more than a year of campaigning, thousands upon of thousands of political adds, and billions of dollars spent, this presidential election is still as tied up as a dominatrix at an S&M convention.  

Last time we were all privy to the joy of a presidential election we all heard about conservative voters making runs on weapons and ammo in case Obama won and took away their God given right to an AR-15.  But with the very real possibility that Mitt Romney just might squeak this one out, how are liberal voters getting ready for a Romney presidency?  We sent MM's reporter in the field, John Marinkovich, out to find out.

Me: Pozdrav, John!

John: And a motherfucking Здраво to you, Nick, you crazy croat bastard.

Me:  So where are you John?

John:  I am at the recently opened Whole Foods in Virginia Beach, where there has been an inexplicable run on French Baguettes and Camembert cheese.  

Me:  Seriously?

John:  Yes.  There is no concrete reason for it;  I think it might just be that people here are just very, very afraid.  There is a look of real terror in the eyes.  

Me:  What else are people buying? 

John:  Every possible type of contraception you can buy.  Condoms, diaphragms  spermicide, birth control pills, peanut butter, tin foil, it's all just flying off the shelves.  People are very worried that Mitt might try to pass legislation that will curtail their hard earned right to fuck whom ever they damn well please without great consequence. 

Me:  Interesting.  Have you  met anyone making preparations to leave the country?

John: Most seem willing to hunker down with their bread, cheese, and condoms and see how things go, but I have met at least one couple, the Featheringtons, who are seriously considering a run up to Canada.  In fact --- Hey!  Mr. Featherington!  Over here! --- would you be willing to speak to Miscellaneous Marickovich?

Mr. F:  What the hell is that?

John:  A blog of absolutely no consequence about nothing in particular.  

Mr. F:  What the hell.  Sure.  

John:  Earlier I found out that you were making preparations to leave the country in the event that Mitt Romney gets elected.  Is that right?  

Mr. F:  Yes.  I do not want to live in a country where French baguettes and Camembert cheese are taxed at 100% to fund the building of warships.

Me:  Ah, so that's what it is.

John:  You were saying earlier that this is a terrible time for you, personally, to leave the country?  Why is that?

Mr. F:  Well, after years of trying the wife and I finally convinced Ludlow Tamingham the Third, our cat, that there is no God.  We thought that it would be a liberating experience for him, to free his mind from age old myths and superstitions that keep getting in the way of human -- and feline -- progress.  

John:  But I guess LT Three didn't take it well?

Mr. F:  Who the hell is LT Three?

John:  Ludlow Tamingham the Third.  Your cat.  

Mr. F:  Ha ha!  That's really sharp.  I like that.  Geez, where did you get that from?  Did you just think that up?

John:  Haven't you been watching ESPN over the last -- you know what, It doesn't matter.  But as you were saying about the cat?

Mr. F:  Yeah.  LT Three...Haha!  I love it....LT Three did not take it well.  He just sits around, staring out the window, reading Sartre and smoking cigarettes.  In his fragile mental state, we are worried that a big move will send him over the edge and trigger some kind of full mental breakdown.

John:  "That God does not exist, I cannot deny.  That my whole being cries out for God, I cannot forget".

Mr. F: Pssshhh!  Stupid cat.  Why doesn't he just cheer up?  I'll tell ya--

Mrs. Featherington:  Frankie!  I just got a call from my girlfriend Sandra!  They got 10 cases of Trojans down at the Walgreens on Holland, but they are going fast!  

Mr. F:  Well what are we waiting around here for?!  TALLYHO!

John: ....Well, I guess that about sums it up.  I'm not sure there is much more to be said.  

Me:  I quite agree John.  Thank you, as always, for your excellent reporting.  Why don't you go get out of the cold and get yourself some šljivovica?

John:  Don't you mean шљивовица?

Me:  Eh, fuck you John.

John:  Right back at you buddy.  See you at Thanksgiving, where we shall feast on pork, garlic, and Schlitz.

Me:  Sounds good.

So, what have we learned today?  Nothing much, except that if your cat believes in God, it's not a good idea to convince the cat otherwise.  Nothing makes life more dreary than a depressed cat.  They shed horribly, smoke like chimney's, and they care even less about you than a well adjusted and happy cat, if that is even possible.  

And that about wraps up MM's Election 2012 coverage.  While I am happy to see this election cycle FINALLY end (though I pray to God that it actually ends today, and not three months from now), I honestly don't know what I am going to write about moving forward.  I'll try to think of something, but as Sartre would say:

Baise-moi, je ne peux pas penser à quelque chose à écrire. Et je suis à court de cigarettes. Merde!

On Books: John Adams by David McCullough AND the BSE.

BSE standing for Big Scary Election, of course; though not as scary as Hurricane Sandy which slammed into the coast last weekend.  For those who were caught in the path of the storm and are still being affected by it, to those who have had their world's flipped upside down by nature's destruction:  our prayers are with you, for whatever that is worth.  Though it must be said that perhaps money and food may be worth more than the prayers of thousands.

More about prayer, perhaps, some other time, and more about the election in a moment.  First, the book I just finished this week:  John Adams by David McCullough.  It was rather interesting to read a biogrpahy of one of our founding fathers at the tail end of a presidential election, but the book is good enough that it would be interesting at any time.  McCullough is an very good writer, and time seems to have made him better.   This book has little of the monotony that his biography of Truman (published in 1992) was sometimes plagued with, and McCullough has actually managed to make his biography of Adams almost a page turner, which for any history book is high praise indeed.

It's a page turner because the life of Adams was so interesting, even if the man himself was not -- and by that I mean there were no French Mistresses, he didn't kill anyone in a duel, he didn't play Mid-Wicket for Kerry County Cricket Club.  Good character may make for a great man, but sadly not always a great character.

But as I noted:  Adams led an interesting life.  Coming from farmers stock out of Braintree, Massachusetts, law his chosen profession, he spent many years abroad as an ambassador in France and Holland during the Revolutionary War, and was the first diplomat from the new nation to meet with King George III after the country had won its independence.  He was key in securing credit for the new nation, and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris. He was the first to experience the frustrating futility of the vice-presidency,  and the first one term president.  His biggest achievement as president, in his eyes, was avoiding all-out war with France, the possibility of which clouded his presidency and contributed to highlighting bitter partisan divisions.

Particularly interesting is the take McCullough has on Thomas Jefferson:  he seems almost to disdain him. Jefferson figures largely in the work, and I believe it was McCullough's original intent to do a sort of join s biography on both men, but he found Adams to be more compelling.  Perhaps it is because Adam lives his values; he his hard working, honest, and no friend to slavery.  Jefferson, the radical republican, half endorses the slaughter of the French Aristocracy even as he strives to live in grand style.  Jefferson, lover of freedom, never confronts slavery and never frees his own slaves.  Jefferson, always yearning for retirement and Monticello, is adept at leading a political opposition that propels him to the Presidency.

What does this have to do with the election?  Simply that when you read this you see how much things have changed, and yet how much they have stayed the same.  Party politics divides us today, and divided us then (the election between Adams and Jefferson in 1800 was particularly rancorous).  We've never been able to, as a country, find a consensus on what America means and on what it is; competing visions of America have existed since its founding.

Is that comforting?  Not really.  Back in the day we had men like Adams and Washington and even Jefferson who could somehow find a way to pull the disparate sides together and move the country forward?  Now?  Well, let me ask you this:  can you think of a leader in congress who would willingly sail across the ocean to Europe and spend years away from home and family working tirelessly for their nation?  Considering the typical "work week" of congress (fly into Washington on Tuesday, work on Wednesday, Thursday, and then its a long, hard flight back home on Friday to Anytown USA), I would say the answer is that there are not many.

In Conclusion:  Good Book.  Poor Leaders.  But everyone loves pie.

Thoughts on the 2nd Presidential Debate!

I'm going to do it!  There is nothing else for me to do this evening and I just feel this strange compulsion to write and watch some crazy good debate action.

But tonight, instead of just commenting on the two men locked in hot one on one campaign action, I will be answering the people's questions.  Will I win the debate?  You be the judge.

Allright:

Question #1:  A young man named Jeremy wants to know if is going to have a job after college.  What can we do to make sure that the man has a job in 2014?  

Well Jeremy, that all depends on what you majored in.  Did you major in science, engineering, technology, or business?  I can tell you that I reckon you are going to have a pretty good chance at getting a job of some kind, somewhere, especially if you are willing to relocate.  Did you major in 1660's English Diarist Studies or Sackbutt performance?  We'll do our best to have a nice, mind-numbing, factory job open for you.  Congratulations, though, on following your dreams.

Mad props to Candy Crowley for telling Romney to shut up and sit the fuck down.  Howard Webb would be proud.

Next?

Question 2:  Is it the Energy Department's purpose to lower gas prices?

Nope.

Ho boy.  I hope "Jeremy the College Kid" doesn't become this election cycle's "Joe the Plummer".

Hey, in case you guys were wondering, a sackbutt is kind of trombone from the middle ages.  Let's see if I can find a good picture of it on the Internet here...

There you go.  Sackbutts, from a 1511 German treatise called "Das Schones Tootenhorn" by Heinz Himmelfahrendingledoppershchillmenschallmenpoofenpop von Ulm.

Next.  Hopefully, the next one will be a better question.  Though I must say for such a mundane question we have gotten a lot of fireworks out these guys.  I wonder if they are actually going to come to blows.  Like are they going to throw off the gloves and try to stab each other with their wingtips?  I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of these three debates someone loses an eye.

Question 3:  Taxes, Glorious Taxes!  Which tax deductions would Romney actually do away with?

I'm going to let Romney answer this one.  If he actually will stoop so low as to actually answer a question.  Romney would have made a great dodge ball player....and maybe he is.

Ugh.  What an awful answer.  So you are going to cap my deductions at $2,000 or so, and then you are going to make my income from investments and capital gains tax free?  That would great, you know, if I actually had capital gains coming in.  But I'm not the Monopoly man; I'm a middle class man working his ass off in a cracker jack factory with a heavy debt load.  I don't think Romney has really thought this one through yet, certainly not to the point where he can make a succinct statement as to what he would do.  I'm sure he has a 13 point plan though.

I actually had a co-worker at work defend low capital gains tax rates, and it was pretty compelling.  The low tax rate on capital gains encourages people to make a risky investment.  My income is guaranteed (provided I don't get fired)...but if you are investing in the market with no guarantee of a return, maybe you should be rewarded for your chutzpah for having a low rate.

The first plank of the the Romney make America okay again is ENERGY INDEPENDENCE IN 5 YEARS????  Are you kidding me?  You may as well say you are going to build three attack submarines a year....

Next?

Question 4:  In what ways can we rectify inequality in the work place, especially income equality for females.

Females and males should make the same amount of money if they are doing the same type of work.

How could I make that happen?  I don't know.  It's a good thing I am not in this debate, because this question really would have caught me flat footed.  As an engineer, I am not used to giving a half answer that I transition into talking points.

Oh, how magnanimous of governor Romney to go out and search high and low for women to fill his cabinet, and to give them flexible schedules so they can do all that stuff at home that they are supposed to be doing because even though they are in high powered political positions they still have vaginas.

Hey, how come women are always the one who have to leave at 7 or 8 so they can make dinner for their kids?  Because I can tell you there a lot of men out there who are coming home from work and then playing with children, cooking dinner, and doing dishes (did you hear that!?  Cooking dinner AND doing dishes!!). This ain't 1950.

Next?

Question 5:  Hey Romney, how different are you from George W. Bush?

Romney has a 5 point plan.  George Bush shot from the hip.  Didn't particularly take aim pretty well, either.

I wonder George Bush is watching this now?  What does he think of all this?  Or is he living blissfully on his ranch clearing brush and riding bikes?

Note that Romney said nothing about how Bush got us involved in a land war in Asia, implying that Romney would be a-okay with doing that again.  Clearly both he and President Bush have never seen The Princess Bride, so I guess that is one way they are not different.

Bold, bold move from Obama, actually trying to make Romney sound like he is worse than Mr. Bush.

And a folksy idiom from Ms. Crowley, saying Question 6 is in the same wheelhouse as Question 5.  I tried to use that idiom at work once, saying that a certain problem was right in my wheelhouse.  I was told never to say something like that again.

I guess that is another way I am not cut out for the campaign trail.  Not only do I have no grasp of the 5 d's of campaigning (dodge duck dive dip and dodge the wrench...I mean balls...I mean questions), but I also sound very clunky when I try to use folksy expressions such as:

That is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

I'm going to give it the old University try.

Mamma warn't born in no log cabin.

I come from humble origins.  My mother was born in a log cabin.

Well you know what they say...fairground food tastes like shit.

My nipples are just exploding with udder delight!

Okay, the next question

Question 6:  Why should I vote for you again, Mr. Obama? I am not better off than I was 4 years ago, and the things I need to live are pretty expensive.  

Sorry to hear life is so hard for you.  Take 50 CC's of "suck it up cupcake" and move on.

Vote for me.

Next!

Question 7:  Immigration. How you doing President Romney?  What are you going to do to immigrants that are here without green cards?

What's that you say?  Papers, please.

Woah woah woah there Romney! "You got an engineering degree, it's stamped to a green card, come on over"? You going to bring in a bunch of foreign scientists and engineers to take jobs from our own homegrown engineers?  From corn/beef/HGH fed Americans?  Is that how you are going to build three attack submarines a year?  You are going to bring in a bunch of ringers to do it for us?

Dude.  At least Romney maybe got the woman's name right.  Come on Obama.

Here in the 7th question Candy Crowley still has a pretty good measure of control over this debate.  

Next question please.  I am getting tired, I'd like to go to bed, and I am still hoping against hope to make it to the gym before work...I've got maybe another 30 minutes to go...

Question 8:  Change of topic.  Huzzah!  Kerry Latka is a man, man!  Obama seems to have been caught flat footed by this, as have I.  Can he recover his wits?  Who denied security for the Libyan mission?

Obama is kinda sorta taking responsibility for the Libyan screw-up, as he should.  He's boxed himself into a corner, and it's mate in one for Romney.  Will he move his rook to pen him in?

Oh no.  He doesn't just move his rook and complete the endgame.  He moves the rook, slams it down on the table, says "Checkmate Mothafucker!" and upends the board scattering pieces everywhere as he accuses Mr. Obama of going to a fundraiser the day after a US ambassador is assassinated and our country is in foreign policy crises mode.  Would Romney act differently under similar circumstances?

He transitions neatly into the Arab Spring and the Middle East.  I really, really, really wonder what else could be done about the Arab Spring.  Its such a fluid situation, there are so many factions.

Obama defends his leadership though, replacing the board, gathering the pieces, and throwing it back in Romney's face.  Hasn't Romney played politics with this whole situation as well?  

Romney accuses Obama of not telling the truth on national TV concerning the Rose Garden speech on the Benghazi attack, claiming that Obama did not call it a terrorist attack during that Rose Garden speech....

....Obama stands his ground and said that he did....

And....

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BARACK OBAMA has seemed to won a most improbable point here late on, and Candy Crowley has given him the goal saying that he did say it was a terrorist attack in the Rose Garden the day after the Benghazi affair.

But did he now? Did he?

Here is the transcript from the White House itself:

Statement by the President on the Attack in Benghazi

I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Right now, the American people have the families of those we lost in our thoughts and prayers. They exemplified America's commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives.

I have directed my Administration to provide all necessary resources to support the security of our personnel in Libya, and to increase security at our diplomatic posts around the globe. While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.

On a personal note, Chris was a courageous and exemplary representative of the United States. Throughout the Libyan revolution, he selflessly served our country and the Libyan people at our mission in Benghazi. As Ambassador in Tripoli, he has supported Libya's transition to democracy. His legacy will endure wherever human beings reach for liberty and justice. I am profoundly grateful for his service to my Administration, and deeply saddened by this loss.

The brave Americans we lost represent the extraordinary service and sacrifices that our civilians make every day around the globe. As we stand united with their families, let us now redouble our own efforts to carry their work forward.

Note that President Obama never actually calls it an act of terror, but rather an outrageous attack.  I think Romney is wrong in spirit, but technically he may be correct.

Tomorrow I am sure we will sort through the mess and Fox News will say that Candy Crowley, CNN anchor and card carrying member of the liberal media, was intent on making sure Obama won the debate.

For me, I think its clear that we need instant replay in these things.  The stakes are too high for the ref to just give a controversial goal to one side or the other.  We have the technology to make sure we get it right, and we should get it right.  On the other hand, this is a truly compelling moment in this debate, and one wonders if an official review would slow the game down too much.

Speaking of which, I have paused the debate to write all this up and do the fact checking that you deserve.  I had thought that Obama had just won the debate, but its turns out tomorrow he may lose it again.

Let's see what happens next...

It's confusion on the pitch.  Romney said Diego Maradona handled the ball before dishing it off to Barack, and Obama has whipped his shirt off in a Brandi Chastainesque celebration as he dives into the corner on his knees, hands splayed out and upwards in gratitude to the football gods.  He must be careful, because he could be booked for that.

Obama seems to know he is won a dubious goal, and with a nod to Crowley and the great mercurial Maradona the debate moves on to the next question.

Question 9:   Can we keep assault rifles out of people's hands?  Should we?

Ya'll know how I feel about this.

Romney's commentary on education and the state of our culture today are prescient.  But now he going to bring up fast and furious, ruining what could have been a good moment for him, I think.  Sometimes it's best to just hold your fire, for all the flak Obama has taken for not doing so during the first debate.

Question 10:  Stand up Carol Goldberg, and ask your question.  How are we going to keep jobs here?

I think, as Tenacious D suggest, we should build a Deth Starr.

Look, It's going to take millions of people to build a ship that looks like a small moon.  Millions.  Lots of engineering, lots of manufacturing, and of course you need people to serve those workers beer and burgers and sell them books and other stuff like that.

Ah, the last question.

Question 11:  Labor is cheap in China.  How you gonna get Apple to build their stuff here?

Look, there isn't enough time to answer this question.  I'll just throw some buzzwords out there.

Science.  Engineering.  Business.  Thought Leadership. America.

Question 12:  So Question 11 was not the last question?  Oh man.  

Hey, listen, I thought question 11 was the last question of the night.  You can't tell me there is one more question and throw another question out there.  I am sorry.  You just can't do that.  In protest, I will not answer this so called last question.

Romney is going to try though.  His message in a nutshell:  I believe in God, and I am awesome.  Don't settle for four more years of American lassitude.  Vote for me.  Don't vote for him.

And now Obama's turn.  His message in a nutshell:  Comrade Gary,  I will fight for you.  My grandad fought the Nazis.  If they were here, I would fight the Nazis too, you better believe it.  Vote for me.

Three more weeks to the election.  Can't come soon enough.

Let's call it a draw.  A quick spell check and it's off to bed.

P.S.

After further review, Obama did in fact refer to the attacks in Benghazi as "acts of terror".  If you actually watch the video of the speech, which is very, very different from the transcript posted previosuly, at 4:19 he does say

No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.  Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America.  We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act.  And make no mistake, justice will be done.

So in the end Obama earned his goal after all (though I am sure Crowley's role in giving it to him will still be a question featuring prominently on Hannity tomorrow), and Romney has a moment where he was mistaken greatly on the floor.  Only time will tell if it will end up mattering very much on Election Day, but its clear here that Romney got too greedy in going for the jugular and Obama scored big on the counterattack.  I wonder who outfoxed who here?

Here is the full speeh:



And a transcript of what was actually said:

10:43 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning.  Every day, all across the world, American diplomats and civilians work tirelessly to advance the interests and values of our nation.  Often, they are away from their families.  Sometimes, they brave great danger.

Yesterday, four of these extraordinary Americans were killed in an attack on our diplomatic post in Benghazi.  Among those killed was our Ambassador, Chris Stevens, as well as Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith.  We are still notifying the families of the others who were killed.  And today, the American people stand united in holding the families of the four Americans in our thoughts and in our prayers.

The United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack.  We're working with the government of Libya to secure our diplomats.  I've also directed my administration to increase our security at diplomatic posts around the world.  And make no mistake, we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people.

Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths.  We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.  But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence.  None.  The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts.

Already, many Libyans have joined us in doing so, and this attack will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya.  Libyan security personnel fought back against the attackers alongside Americans.  Libyans helped some of our diplomats find safety, and they carried Ambassador Stevens’s body to the hospital, where we tragically learned that he had died.

It's especially tragic that Chris Stevens died in Benghazi because it is a city that he helped to save.  At the height of the Libyan revolution, Chris led our diplomatic post in Benghazi.  With characteristic skill, courage, and resolve, he built partnerships with Libyan revolutionaries, and helped them as they planned to build a new Libya.  When the Qaddafi regime came to an end, Chris was there to serve as our ambassador to the new Libya, and he worked tirelessly to support this young democracy, and I think both Secretary Clinton and I relied deeply on his knowledge of the situation on the ground there.  He was a role model to all who worked with him and to the young diplomats who aspire to walk in his footsteps.

Along with his colleagues, Chris died in a country that is still striving to emerge from the recent experience of war. Today, the loss of these four Americans is fresh, but our memories of them linger on.  I have no doubt that their legacy will live on through the work that they did far from our shores and in the hearts of those who love them back home.

Of course, yesterday was already a painful day for our nation as we marked the solemn memory of the 9/11 attacks.  We mourned with the families who were lost on that day.  I visited the graves of troops who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hallowed grounds of Arlington Cemetery, and had the opportunity to say thank you and visit some of our wounded warriors at Walter Reed.  And then last night, we learned the news of this attack in Benghazi. 

As Americans, let us never, ever forget that our freedom is only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases, lay down their lives for it.  Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe.

No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.  Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America.  We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act.  And make no mistake, justice will be done.

But we also know that the lives these Americans led stand in stark contrast to those of their attackers.  These four Americans stood up for freedom and human dignity.  They should give every American great pride in the country that they served, and the hope that our flag represents to people around the globe who also yearn to live in freedom and with dignity.

We grieve with their families, but let us carry on their memory, and let us continue their work of seeking a stronger America and a better world for all of our children.

Thank you.  May God bless the memory of those we lost and may God bless the United States of America.

END
10:48 A.M. EDT