Michigan has spoken

The people of our great state -- or, more accurately, those who voted in the Republican primary election yesterday -- narrowly expressed their desire for a presidential candidate with a slight chance of winning a presidential election over one whose odds of doing so are right around those of the Higgs boson being discovered by some guy driving too fast on M-23 during an ice storm (otherwise known as LHC, or the Large Hoonyack Collider.) A Wood-Charles exit poll (described elsewhere on this blog as a poll of voters exiting a bar by the back door as police rush in the front) pointed up the key differences the electorate saw between the candidates.

Issue	Romney	Santorum	Paul	Gingrich
The Economy	Has no clue, but is not Barack Obama, so that has to be better, right?	Has no clue, but is beloved by God and 38% of a random sample of angels and saints, so will come up with something.	Has many interesting solutions to our nation's economic woes, most of them involving tearing something down and not replacing it with anything else.	Has no clue, but believes strongly that he does.
Defense	Has no clue, but has enough money to personally front us an aircraft carrier or two.	Has no clue, but could probably call down a plague of locusts on any nation foolish enough to resist our authoritay.	Has many interesting solutions to our nation's defense woes, most of them involving tearing something down and not replacing it with anything else.	Believes that the best defense is a good offense, and is easily the most offensive of the candidates, now that Trump is out.
Separation of Church and State	Has no clue, but would probably convert to Catholicism if the sale of indulgences were to be legalized.	Would crack down hard on those who want to impose Islamic law on God-fearing Americans, those who wish to force alien beliefs on others, those who do not respect the rights of Americans to worship freely, and those who wear see-through sweater vests to Sunday service. Does have some problems with fundamental contradictions in his view of what constitutes your rights vs. his and on how many steps behind you your wife will be required to walk.	Has many interesting solutions to our nation's religious woes, most of them involving tearing something down and not replacing it with anything else.	Appears to have started his own religion, with himself as deity, prophet, and choir leader.
Foreign Affairs	Has no clue, but has enough money to personally buy France, if that's what it takes.	Has no clue, but believes that God will guide our hands in wrestling with such thorny problems as the Euro crisis, unrest in the Middle East, and tracking down the man who dumped beer down Angela Merkel's back.	Has many interesting solutions to our nation's foreign policy woes, most of them involving tearing something down and not replacing it with anything else.	Has a deep and abiding interest in any phrase containing the word "affairs."
Climate Change	Has no clue, but would probably be against it if he'd heard of it.	Has no clue, but believes that if God had wanted us to drive small cars, he'd have given us wheels.	Has many interesting solutions to our nation's energy woes, most of them involving tearing something down and not replacing it with anything else.	Has no clue, since it wasn't covered in any of the history he allegedly studied.
Local Concerns	Likes cars, thinks our trees are the right size.	Probably likes Michigan a lot less today than he did yesterday.	Has many interesting solutions to our nation's Michigan woes, most of them involving tearing something down and not replacing it with anything else.	Has no clue, thinks the auto maker bail out was a bad ... no, wait, good ... no, bad idea ... where am I speaking today? Is this a good idea or a bad idea state? Good idea? Ok, got it. The bail out was a good idea! And I voted for it! Or would have! If I were still in congress. Really.

Tune in for more on the wonder of it all, plus J. Francis McLuggage announces his own slate of positions on the same issues charted above, as he contemplates a run for the Presidency as an independent.

Another from the Cabela's Collection

Hats not to be worn to the bank.

You wear your stillsuit adjusted Fremen-fashion. It seemed the way.

Yes, now you can confuse helpless game animals and TSA personnel with your own Duke Leto Atreides camo headover. Perfect for those cold mornings hunting sand worms or just practicing your lines: "The water of my life for Paul."

Stern expression not included. Will not stop the slow blade. I was not here, I did not say this.

Did you know ...

A Buddhist millionaire from Michigan is behind Five Hour Energy? If you drink this stuff, you might want to consider whether that's a particularly good idea.

Mmmm -- tasty seal

A 43,000 year old menu?

Cave paintings from Spain whose context (note: not yet the paint itself) is being dated to somewhere around 43K years ago appear to represent yummy seals that would have been a food item for the painters. What's interesting is that a) this date is nearly 10,000 years farther back than the Chauvet paintings seen in Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and b) that puts them within the theoretical scope of occupation of Homo neanderthalensis, our near relative we used to think incapable of artistic expression.

Note that nothing so far would confirm the seals as being Neanderthal work; all that is suggested is that they could be, assuming the carbon dating of associated material is correct. That is, there would have been Neanderthals around to do the painting, if they did. What is more interesting to me, as a student of Archaeologists and their mental conditions, is the sand castles of theory they construct ("Neanderthals were not creative." "Humans and Neanderthals never interbred." "Neanderthals were not capable of speech." Etc., etc.,) all of which come apart at the seams, or seem to, whenever a small new hard datum comes in. Most damaging to the orthodoxy, of course, has been DNA work, which has shown (or has it?) that yes, you bet, H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis got it on, along with a brand new late hominin, still just being called the Denisovans after the place their preserved bits were found.

Regardless, the assumptions regarding recent Homininae are so loose and founded on so little data, apparently on the basis that we must generalize, even when we know damn well we don't have enough information to do so, that just about anything you dig up is likely to overturn something or other. Not that you should expect quick acceptance of your ideas; for all our DNA-munging smarts, e.g., we still haven't agreed on whether the "hobbits" (H. floresiensis) are a separate species or just a family of sick moderns. The fact that none of them are running for the GOP nomination would seem to argue against the latter hypothesis.

The Corner Cases

As clear cut evidence of having too much time on my hands, I've been looking into the fringe candidates for President -- the hopeful, hopeless little twerps who sign up to run for the leadership of this country, without a penny of superPAC money or, in most cases, a clue about the issues on which they nevertheless fearlessly take stands. What's sad is that most of them won't even be awarded the "footnote to history" acolade -- they won't get that far, even. Here's a sampling.

Name	Kathyern Lane (yes, that's really how she spells it)
Party	GOP (she says she flipped a coin)
Qualifications	Claims to have taught herself Japanese
Positions	Repeal Obama Care; drill for oil anywhere we damn please; build lots of nukes; reduce taxes; improve and expand the H1-B program (which, somehow, in her view, will increase jobs for Americans.)
McLuggage Index	Certifiably Insane

---

Name	Roger Gary
Party	Libertarian
Qualifications	None
Positions	Few concrete stands that can be identified, except "keep government out of my hair." Wants TSA to stop molesting people (his phrase) at the airport.
McLuggage Index	A waste of oxygen

---

Name	Jimmy McMillan
Party	The Rent is Too Damn High Party
Qualifications	Has appeared as a panelist on "American's Dumbest Criminals." Funnier than Al Sharpton.
Positions	Obama is “a good-looking young guy, and I’m a handsome old dude. So there’s gonna be some competition there.”
McLuggage Index	Highly amusing to watch; has no policies worth mentioning. Web site appears to be down.

---

Name	Danny Woodring
Party	Independent
Qualifications	Well, at least he doesn't like the Tea Baggers
Positions	The usual crap; cut taxes (but still fix the roads and improve education,) oust the immigrants, "restructure" the H1-B visa program, and do something, not entirely clear what, to defense spending.
McLuggage Index	An excellent example of why you can't and shouldn't elect political outsiders; everything looks so simple when you're on the outside looking in.

---

Name	Vern Wuensche
Party	GOP
Qualifications	He's run a construction business
Positions	Typical small-time, small-mind conservative stuff. His profile on the GOP site, which I assume he or his campaign supplied, contains this unusual statement: "Vern’s inner toughness is a consequence of his modest beginnings plus the difficulties he regularly faced in surviving his business which he was never able to take to the next level. Every five years or so one dishonest individual would wipe out his accumulated capital without any chance of recovery since the legal costs would always exceed the recovery amount." No idea what that's all about.
McLuggage Index	Appears to be a moron.

---

The news from Florida

The giant Lego man is now in the sole custody of the Chairperson of the Sarasota Chalk Festival.

Oh, and some Republican won something. Or else one of them lost ...? The one who wants to be president of the moon, I think.

Leave the damn wolves alone

I thought I was just being paranoid, but I'm not alone. If you haven't seen "The Gray," please don't.

Time to play: Who's talking about whom?

"His record is one of failed leadership. We don't need someone who can speak well perhaps or can say things we agree with, but does not have the experience of being an effective leader," he said.

That quote could be either Mitt Romney talking about Newt Gingrich or Newt Gingrich talking about Mitt Romney. Which do you think? I had to read the article twice to be sure.

Turns out, it was Romney, talking about Newt.

Playing around with polenta

I said I was going to try to get somewhere with polenta this winter, and here's mark III -- cheese polenta, sliced and stuffed with a cold chicken, steak, and Lancashire mince and fried. Oh, and a duck breast with some orange sauce.

I blame Margaret Thatcher ... somehow ...

Do not, ever, under any circumstances, show up in my office for an interview, dressed like this. Just don't.

And for God's sake, see somebody about that edema around your knees! It can't be healthy!