I don't know how I missed this op-ed Tuesday:
Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today
Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.
The authors also point out that as more people get familiar with the Tea Party, they're more likely to loathe them. The 2012 election season should be very, very entertaining.
I love these odd stories about time. Samoa, a small archipelago in the South Pacific, has passed a law to shift from the UTC-11 zone to UTC+13. This shift will cause them to skip December 30th entirely:
But the bill was not passed without its doubters.
Faleata East MP, Aveau Niko Palamo, suggested that instead of one day for the transition to happen, it should be two days.
“What about the people who were born on that day, the weddings and anniversaries commemorated on that day,” says the MP. “The Seventh Day Adventists go to sleep on Thursday and wake up in the middle of the Sabbath.”
As for Aveau’s concern, [Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi] says; “Research shows that no one was born or married on 30 December.”
This is not true. A call to the Samoa Statistics Bureau confirmed that there are 767 births and 43 marriages registered on 30 December.
Well, with respect to the Prime Minister, no one will be born or married this December 30th, but that was a silly thing to say.
Samoa's change moves the International Date Line to the east, but it's not as extreme as Kiribati's wrenching of the IDL two hours east to ensure that it was the first place to greet the new millennium.
I try not to chuckle at politician's gaffes. I mean, we've got Joe Biden on our side, for crying out loud. But Biden's an amateur when compared with Michele Bachmann:
"Before we get started, let's all say 'Happy Birthday' to Elvis Presley today," Bachmann said, kicking off a rally in Spartanburg, South Carolina, CNN reports.
"We played you a little bit of 'Promised Land' when we pulled up. You can't do better than Elvis Presley, and we thought we would celebrate his birthday as we get started celebrating taking our country back to work."
In fact, Elvis Presley was born on January 8, 1935. Today's date, August 16, is the anniversary of his death in 1977 at age 42, likely caused by heart disease that was seriously exacerbated from prescription drug abuse.
I also try not to make "Hound Dog" references gratuitously...
Sometimes The Onion has a satirical piece that's, well, almost completely true:
Visa Exposed As Massive Credit Card Scam
SAN FRANCISCO—In coordinated raids Monday at locations in Delaware, South Dakota, and California, federal agents apprehended dozens of executives at Visa Inc., a sham corporation accused of perpetrating the largest credit card scam in U.S. history.
According to indictments filed in U.S. District Court, Visa posed as a reputable lender, working through banks to peddle a variety of convincing-looking credit cards carefully designed to dupe consumers into spending far more money than they had. The criminal group would then impose a succession of escalating fees on unpaid balances, allegedly bilking some $300 billion from victims in the past year alone.
The article goes on to enumerate Visa's alleged wrongs. Only, most of them are true.
Chuckle, or nervous laughter?
Since I last mentioned an annual study that reports which countries allow visa-free visitors from which other countries, the U.S. has fallen out of second place:
Scandinavians and Finns, by contrast, can travel to 173 countries or territories (out of a possible 223) without the need to fill in forms with curious questions dreamt up by bureaucrats.
The law firm Henley & Partners, which compiles the list, now has the U.S. tied at 5th with Ireland. The other top-5 countries are as follows:
| Rank | Countries | Can visit |
|---|
| 1 | Denmark, Finland, Sweden | 173 |
| 2 | Germany | 172 |
| 3 | Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, UK | 171 |
| 4 | Japan, Norway, Portugal, Spain | 170 |
| 5 | Ireland, US | 169 |
When I have time, I'll try to chase down the raw data to find out, again, which countries we need visas to visit that our European and Japanese friends don't.
Democrats in Wisconsin picked up two state senate seats in an unprecedented recall election:
Democrats defeated Republican state Sen. Dan Kapanke, who represented the most Dem-leaning seat of any Republican in the chamber, by a 55%-45% margin. They also won a 51%-49% victory over state Sen. Randy Hopper, whose campaign was also damaged by a messy divorce, and allegations by his estranged wife that he "now lives mostly in Madison" after having an affair.
This would get Democrats from their previous 19-14 minority, following the 2010 Republican wave, to a 17-16 margin. In two more safe Republican districts, incumbents Robert Cowles and Sheila Harsdorf won by margins of 60%-40% and 58%-42%, respectively
At the very least, this might signal to the Wisconsin GOP that a good chunk of the electorate believes they lurched too far right since being elected:
All six of these districts were, on paper, serious uphill climbs for Democrats. The incumbents were last elected in 2008, winning their districts even in the middle of the huge Democratic wave that year.
After this near-miss, the next question becomes: How will this result impact the Democrats' declared intentions to recall Gov. Scott Walker some time next year? Will the Dems' grassroots energy flatten out -- or can it keep going, towards the lofty goal of collecting over half a million signatures, plus a buffer, to trigger a recall election?
It also means, for the next 15 months or so, Wisconsin politics might be the most divisive and vicious in the country. Thanks for all your help, Koch brothers!
Like most American citizens, I have three representatives in Congress: one in the House, and two in the Senate. My representative is Mike Quigley; the Senate Majority Leader, Dick Durbin; and the other guy, Mark Kirk. I've given money to everyone who's run against Kirk in the last six years, and voted for one of them[1], and I've given money to and voted for my other Senator and my Congressman every time I've been able. Thus, I'm batting .667, which isn't bad.
And why do I want Kirk to retire? Why do I think he completely fails to represent the interests of the State of Illinois, and more specifically, my interests? In part because he says dumb crap like this:
In a potential missile combat scenario between NATO and Iran, Russia is thoroughly irrelevant. So Russian concerns about what we do and not do about the Iranian threat are interesting but largely irrelevant.
O RLY? Does Senator Kirk know that Iran borders Russia, that Russia considers Iran within its sphere of influence, that Russia has sold weapons to Iran, and all that aside, that Russia has just as many missiles as NATO?
Kirk's latest polysyllabic fart, by the way, came in response to a remark the Russian Ambassador's made about him yesterday:
Today in the Senate, I met with Senators Jon Kyl and Mark Kirk. The meeting is very useful because it shows that the alternative to Barack Obama is a collapse of all the programs of cooperation with Russia. Today, I had the impression that I was transported in a time machine back several decades, and in front of me sat two monsters of the Cold War, who looked at me not through pupils, but targeting sights.
Hyperbole aside, I think Ambassador Rogozin is correct: Kirk's politics are an unholy blend of 1963 and 1850, not what either Illinois or the country needs right now.
[1] Kirk represented the 10th District for 9 years, and I supported his opponent Dan Seals twice. However, I live in the 5th District, so I couldn't vote for Seals. Pity; both elections were close.
(Corrected typo, and length of Kirk's time in the House.)
Tokyo.
Two things about this of interest to travelers: First, because it's a frequent-flyer miles purchase, I can hold the reservation without fully committing for a week. So, if something changes before the 3rd, I'm not out anything. Second: as much as the Congressional Republicans boggle my mind, and as much as I wish they'd shut up for ten seconds and reauthorize the FAA, their idiocy is my gain. Instead of the usual expensive tax I'd have to pay to the US for a premium frequent-flyer ticket, I only have to pay Japanese taxes of about $50.
Arigato gozaimas, Congress.