Experience as qualification, etc.

Okay, let me see if I understand the whole experience argument correctly.

One should only vote for McCain if they think he will not die during his term in office.

And one should only vote for Obama if they think he will die on his first day in office.

That pretty much sums it up, right?

Certainly one cannot coherently argue against the Democrat presidential candidate as unprepared to be president without using the same argument against the Republican vice presidential candidate. And certainly one cannot coherently argue against the Republican vice presidential candidate as unprepared to be president without using the same argument against the Democrat presidential candidate.

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Megan McArdle on the Fannie/Freddie bailout:

The claim that this represents the failure of markets is more than a tad silly. Fannie and Freddie weren't truly private companies, didn't act like truly private companies, and wouldn't have been allowed to so dominate the market if they had been. This is yet another failure of a government program.

Given that the whole mortgage crisis is a consequence of the Community Reinvestment Act, and thus the product of congressional action, blaming the free market takes some serious chutzpah.

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Random statistic: in a 2007 Pew Research Center poll, 71% of blacks said that rap music was having a “bad influence” on society while 74% of whites agreed. 61% of blacks said the same of hip hop music, 64% of whites agreed.

So it turns out that not only is the “anti-rap/hip hop positions are racist” myth false, but in an ironic twist the myth itself is racist.

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The (London) Observer’s Richard Moore reports what has to be in the running for quote of the year from British speed cyclist Chris Hoy:

Next day, Hoy meets some Scottish journalists. One puts it to him that: 'In the last 24 hours everyone has been offering an opinion on Chris Hoy. But what does Chris Hoy think of Chris Hoy?'

Hoy doesn't miss a beat: 'Chris Hoy thinks that the day Chris Hoy refers to Chris Hoy in the third person is the day that Chris Hoy disappears up his own arse.'

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What a contrast between two Boston sports figures:

Paul Pierce suffers the most minor knee sprain in the history of sports, returning to the game a little over a minute later with no ill effects whatsoever in that game or any other, and is rolled off the court in a wheelchair.

Tom Brady suffers a catastrophic knee injury, a torn ACL and torn MCL combo that will require total knee reconstruction surgery, and walks off the field under his own power.

That’s about as far apart on the grown ass man/wimpy little boy spectrum as you can get.