A rumination on ruination (and Romneynation)

It is looking slightly less likely this week that Mitt Romney will be elected President than it did two weeks ago. Not less likely enough for any sense of comfort yet, but the polls are turning slowly toward President Obama as Romney continues to demonstrate what a lousy Presidential candidate he is.  Many of us liberals hoped and expected this would be the case, but I don't think we expected him to be this bad.  The debates will still be critical, but I doubt that they will change anything greatly unless there is a major revelation  or huge faux pas, like Obama showing what he really thinks of Romney by kicking him in the groin or something.

Despite this slightly optimistic prospect, I still ponder a forlorn future if somehow Mitt does win.  He would be a rubber stamp President, because he'd have no chance of re-election if he did something against the highly conservative thinkings of the Tea Party, personified by his running mate, Paul Ryan.  Because this group thinks so little of government and what it does, they would gut what it does well.  Recent projections show what the fiscal cliff would do to science budgets, and it is science that drives our health advances and the basic technological underpinnings that advance our increasingly technological society.  The Tea Party doesn't see that at all, they just lump "guvmint spindin" into one big pot.   And because they wave the U.S. flag so much, they think that any thing defense-related is sacrosanct (even  jets the DoD doesn't want).  And while they cut funding, they also pay lip service to the social conventions of their conservative brethren, and if in power would let them control society to an even greater level.

We are a highly divided country, that much is obvious.  It is the only reason that the Presidential race remains as close as it does. My greatest concern now is that if Obama is re-elected, the chagrined GOP will let the country go over the  fiscal cliff that they created, because all the bad stuff might be blamed on Obama, which would increase their chances of getting a GOP Prez four years from now.   In 2008 they vowed the day after the election to do everything in their power to make Obama a one-term  President.  I expect them to plan to do everything in their power to make it more likely that a GOP candidate will be elected in 2016, again starting the day after the  election, and letting the U.S. reach and go over the fiscal cliff would be Step One.

This would almost certainly cause a new recesssion, which they would blame on Obama.  Defense cuts would be blamed on Obama. Bridge collapses due to unfunded infrastructure repairs would be blamed on Obama.  Everything bad that might happen (oh yeah, increased taxes from letting the damned Bush tax cuts expire) would be blamed on Obama.

And so the country would face a bleak prospect at that point, with the GOP non-statesmans presiding over the disaster.  The terror of this possibility makes it seem unthinkable.  But they are so craven, so spiteful, and so devoted to their "cause" that I think it possible they will indeed do everything in their power to let it happen.

So we face ruination either way, Romneynation or not.  If I am surprised in  December, I will thank the lucky stars and the gods that have made it so.  And thus I will pray unceasingly and widely for a change in trajectory.

Charon is big! (compared to Pluto)

New images from Earth-based telescopes show Pluto and its big moon Charon together.

Sharpest ground-based images of Pluto and Charon

Charon truly is big compared to Pluto;  it has an approximate diameter of 1,207 km, while Pluto is 2,330 km.   Some astronomers don't call Pluto a dwarf planet, they call the Pluto system a dwarf double planet.

Rebound?? Did you say "Rebound"?

According to observations, goliath groupers are rebounding.  ANYTIME I hear that a fish stock or species is rebounding, I'm happy.

Not enough to fish for yet -- have to wait until 2015.

Divers flock to see rebound of Goliath grouper

They can get kinda big.   (These used to be called 'jewfish', but that's not exactly politically correct taxonomy anymore).

If it wasn't for that

Lists of the "hottest" people in Congress are working from a fairly shallow pool. For one thing, they are constrained by the average age of people in Congress,  which tends toward the "middle" of middle age and older, and that category rarely lends itself to physically attractive hotness.  (What a drag it is getting old).

So when I looked at one of these lists and discovered South Dakota's Congresswoman Kristi Noem, I was a bit surprised.  She does fit the frame of hot, and this is with three children as well.  I wouldn't go so far as to put her in the MIL... category, but she's got some eye appeal.

Representative Kristi Noem, R-South Dakota

But the problem is... she's Republican.  Conservative Republican, of course, in the mold of Sarah Palin, with whom she is sometimes compared.  To get elected in the Red stateness of South Dakota, that's probably necessary.  And she has taken some rare surprising stands at odds with GOP dogma on energy, probably because she's from a subsidized farm state, but she's pro-life (i.e., against women's right to govern their own reproductive rights), and she appears to toe the line of the GOP view on the environment.

To her credit, though, she expressed frustration that the dysfunctional Congress didn't pass a farm bill, which is mainly the fault of the GOP anyway. 

A sonnet for September

"It's So Simple"

Supreme, desired, acclaimed, revered, unique
in each of separate lives, yet common, shared --
so similar that we perceive and seek
to shout of its vitality when bared
as whole as we can be, so full revealed
that sheer transparency exposes less
than in those moments we impart.  Our field
of core reality in pure compress-
ion, physical expression of our joy
to be accepted, welcomed as we gush
our pleasure into her;  we are not coy
as revelation and emotion rush
together - and she thanks us with the flow
within her, our delight a naked glow.

More notes on the election in Virginia (and Florida)

I see Virginia as key, indicating the direction of the nation, which is why I keep looking at it.  Here's news on the Senate race:

Senate polls:  Democrats gaining (HuffPost)

"And in Virginia, one of the most consistently close races in the country, five of seven polls conducted since the Democratic convention have shown Democrat Tim Kaine leading, with margins varying between 1 and 8 percentage points."

Why?  Virginia is a cross-section:  rural, mountainous, and urban, with African-American strongholds, conservative white people strongholds, conservative Christian strongholds, liberal Democratic suburbs, conservative Republican suburbs; just about everything.  If not just Obama but Kaine are nudging ahead, that means that the little things are pushing the Democrats ahead.  A few more women are perceiving the dangers that Republicans pose to their rights and freedoms;  intelligent suburbanites are seeing how tissue paper thin the Republican tickets positions are.  And it could be enough.

Here's Obama vs. Romney in Virginia from the Huffington Post.  The Fox News poll, September 16-18, has Obama 49%, Romney 42%.   The polls keep edging him ahead beyond the margin-of-error.

I sure hope so.

Also from Florida:
"In Florida eight of nine new polls conducted in early September show Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) leading Republican challenger Rep. Connie Mack. The HuffPost Pollster chart currently gives Nelson a 7 percentage point lead (46.7 to 39.4 percent) roughly double the margins favoring the Democrat earlier in the year."

That's a good wind blowing, too.  (Obama vs. Romney in Florida -- also a lead just outside the margin of error).

The historical virtue of the Web

A few posts ago I made a small verbal joke about Erin Heatherton and Joey Heatherton, the former a current Victoria's Secret model and Leo DiCaprio's girl of the moment, and the latter a sexpot actress / singer (a really good one) who was a variety show favorite.  Joey did Bob Hope, Dean Martin, Johnny Carson, many others, with a little girl voice, usually playing a curvaceous ingenue seemingly unaware of her magnetic mesmerization of men.

Here's an example of her singing:  "Someone to Watch Over Me".  It doesn't have the go-go dancing she was also famous for -- and she was a great dancer, too.  

The Web allows us glimpses of past history like this -- even clips back to when Joey Heatherton was a teenager.  Even a decade ago we couldn't find what we can find now.  Which is pretty amazing.

Which brings me to the real subject of this post -- Joey Heatherton's appearance in Playboy.  Well, I heard about it, but I missed the issue (slightly before my eligibility to see the mags).  And thus for years and years and years I thought that I had missed seeing the lovely Miss Heatherton, who I had found entertaining and mesmerizing, see above -- unveiled.  (Or as in the case of some of these pictures, partially veiled.) 

And then, after my mention of her, I realized that the pictures from her appearance of Playboy were likely to be on the Web.  Actually, I realized that her pictures from Playboy were undoubtedly on the Web.

So I looked for them.  And so I found them.  And suffice it to say, she was curvaceous and lovely, with, without mincing words, fabulous breasts.   My imagination couldn't make her (or them) better than they were.

So thank you, Web.  For giving us a chance to revisit history, in all its forms.

(Now, if you think I'm going to put some of those pictures here, nope.  I've been relatively circumspect about that which I actually provide here.  But I will provide a link (definitely needing care when clicking on it), and the advice that searching for "Joey Heatherton" + nude + Playboy will provide everything that I found.  And I also found out she made a topless appearance in a movie with Richard Burton, too.  Quick research indicated that the movie wasn't too great.  But she was topless. )

Favorite black-and-white

Favorite color


I'm also going to mention that a couple of these pictures revealed she had pubic hair (most girls do, you know).  I eventually am going to write my tribute to the lost beauty of pubic hair.  But I need a lot of time to compose it.