Saturday, October 20, 2012

Salt Lake City Tribune endorses… Obama

For all the right reasons, The Salt Lake Tribune, of all newspapers, turned away from Mitt Romney and endorsed President Obama. Read it here. Every moderate, every undecided voter, hell, everyone should read this. It is one of the best descriptions that has been published about the choice that faces America.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

The truth about Bain

David Stockman was Ronald Reagan's budget director and worked as a private-equity investor for 17 years. He explains why Romney's often poor choices at Bain Capital do not qualify him for president.
Read it here.


Thursday, October 4, 2012

Time is plastic


Quantum Mechanics asserts that a "particle" can be in two states at the same time, that it assumes one state only when observed. Two "entangled" particles communicate instantly their respective states if one is observed no matter the distance between them. A "particle" may be in two "places" at the same time, its position essentially a "wave" of probability. 

Each requires the assumption that "time" is absolute.

What happens if time itself is indeterminate, flexible, malleable on a quantum scale? What happens to our ideas of particles? What happens to our miles per hour, feet per second, angstrom per attosecond if the denominator, the number below the slash, the devisor, is not fixed, if it can't be fixed, if it may be unknowable at all beyond a vague assumption? If it changes?

If our universe is of space-time and the cone of light speed defines causality, what happens to us if the speed of light is no longer absolute not because the distance covered is greater or less, but because the time it takes is constantly changing?

Everything happens at once.

Romney won first debate

It's hard to catch a greased pig, but Obama let one get away.

Mitt Romney made a number of claims over the last year that he disavowed on Wednesday night. Obama should have been able to point out where and when and subject Romney to the lawyer's question: "Are you lying now or were you lying then?" Obama did not and looked pained and frustrated that Romney was able to lie his way out of his own history.

Jim Lehrer stunk worse than Obama in this debate but not by a whole lot. Lehrer looked like my grandmother trying to separate fornicating dogs. How many years has it been since he has felt his own testosterone?

Romney wasn't great in the debate but he was good enough. He kept on message, hammering again and again even falsehoods like the $716 billion in cuts to Medicaid. The president addressed the issue once but let Romney repeat the claim without rebuttal a second and a third time.

A simple message is effective, even if false, because it is simple. The response has to be simple and forceful. Being forceful is part of the message. Obama failed to deliver either because he assumed that Lehrer would establish control or he felt that he had made the case and could let the facts speak.

He was wrong. Romney won the debate because a lie told over and over with passion does become true. It is the package, Mr. President, not the content. It doesn't matter if you have distaste for that, it doesn't matter if Romney changes the content and the package every time he speaks, it doesn't matter if he says he will do the impossible and you have to defend what you have done.

Take off the gloves, Mr. President. No more Mr. Harvard Law Professor.