No Football

Workout notes rest, and some yoga.

No, no football in this post; I’ll save that for the next post.

Local: Remember the remark that one of our local Republican candidates for congress made? It hasn’t gone unnoticed.

The hullabaloo over state Rep. Aaron Schock’s proposal to offer nuclear arms to Taiwan if China doesn’t go along with U.S. policy toward Iran isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

In fact, the issue – which both his Republican primary opponents and even the Democratic opponent were quick to chime in on their two cents last week – likely will catapult as election season continues to gear up.

Many are calling the issue a huge gaffe for Schock, R-Peoria, who’s essentially hinging his political career on this congressional campaign.

Republican opponent Jim McConoughey said the proposal oozes of the 26-year-old’s inexperience and immaturity about what a nuclear threat could do to the United States.

McConoughey held a press conference on Thursday about Schock’s statements – spurred by a column in the Springfield State Journal-Register based on Schock’s nearly 30-page announcement speech.

Had he not, would the issue have died? Likely no. Schock said he took positions on issues because he wants voters to know where he stands. He also gave specifics on education, immigration, the economy and energy.

Politicians have a fine line they have to walk. When they give voters what they want – detail and specifics – they risk being attacked. Schock didn’t back down.

That last line says it all; in fact I submit that the voters really don’t want detail; we tend to vote for people who tell us what we want to hear, though we never admit this.

Hat tip to the Peoria Pundit.

For those who don’t get the reference:

From The film Dr. Strangelove.

Science/technology:
About those letters that you sometimes have to type in to enter comments on someone’s blog: do you know that this technology came from an attempt to scan books and other typeset documents into a computer? It turns out that the computers still struggle to recognize certain numbers and letters, especially when they are typeset in a particular way, whereas humans have no trouble. Cosmic Variance talks about this here. It is a short but delightful post.

Science Avenger talks a bit more about the scientist that wrote a bogus article in hopes that the so called “climate change skeptics” would pick it up. The author wasn’t disappointed.

Republicans

I got the following message from the Mike Huckabee campaign:

I’m writing you personally because I understand we share common convictions regarding the upcoming Republican Presidential Primary.

Faith, Family and Freedom are the 3 cornerstones of my campaign. If they are important to you as well, I ask you to read this note carefully and/or visit my campaign website and give me your immediate support. While other campaigns are running away from and stumbling through answers regarding where they really stand on these key principles, our campaign embraces the importance of them as a necessary thread that should run through those who lead our nation.

Our campaign is surging thanks to a hugely successful e-campaign last month as people start paying attention to our ideas and message. They are responding to a hard-working consistent conservative with the most executive experience of running a government than anyone in the presidential race and the only candidate who has successfully run against the Clinton political machine not once, but 4 times in Arkansas.

Note: “Faith, Family and Freedom”. Hmmm, he means freedom to think just like him? And note his crack about running against the Clinton “political machine”. Actually, when I visited the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Bill Clinton was indeed in town, to attend to Huckabee’s inauguration!