Check-in on the GOP Race

It wasn't too long ago I opined that Rick Perry might have the inside track to the Republican nomination for President, what with his conservative bonafides and presumptive frontrunner Mitt Romney's authenticity issues. Well, that was before he was confirmed as a total doofus. He still has a large warchest (of pre-doofus-confirmation fundraising monies), but for all intents and purposes, he is out of the race.

One-time frontrunner Herman Cain has run into a multitude of well-documented problems as well, most of his own creation. I found this profile to be an instructive look at the candidate. Here's a relevant excerpt:

"Let us pause here to make a necessarily severe assessment: to say that Herman Cain has an imperfect grasp of policy would be unfair not only to George W. Bush in 1999 but also to Britney Spears in 1999. Herman Cain seems like someone who, quite frankly, has never opened a newspaper.

But I suspect Cain’s flubs are unrelated to intelligence. In 2010, Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute set off a lively debate by suggesting conservatives had fallen prey to “epistemic closure,” a fancy way of saying that they were getting all their information and opinions exclusively from one another. This may or may not be true of the conservative movement. But it is certainly true of Herman Cain.

“I can honestly say that if I hadn’t been on the radio, I wouldn’t have been as familiar with the issues as I am now,” Cain has written. “I believe that having that program was God’s way of forcing me to understand the critical issues confronting our nation.”

In short, Cain’s briefings on politics came from heated right-wing callers on talk radio. “Epistemic closure” is probably too mild a term for such conditions."

Based on the junk circulating on talk radio, of either political persuasion, it seems we are fortunate Cain's meteor is losing altitude.

That brings us to the new leader in the flavor-of-the-week race to find the best alternative to Romney: Newt. That he is even still in the race is amazing to me, after his ill-advised June vacation to the Greek Isles prompted a mass exodus of most of his campaign staff. But, in his own words, '“I told somebody at one point, ‘This is like watching Walton or Kroc develop Walmart and McDonald’s.’” — Newt Gingrich, on his own presidential campaign.'

With an ego like that, the 'idea man' of the GOP is liable to come through with some innovative, risk-taking, maybe a little off-the-wall initiatives, right? His latest is a doozy: putting poverty-striken children to work as janitors in their schools. Ok, Newt. Good luck with that one.

Maybe Mitt's the guy after all.




I thought this was interesting, and presented in a cool way:


A beautiful video of Earth from space:

Earth from Michael König on Vimeo.

Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over
NASA, ISS

I love watching lightning strikes from above. Very cool.