Contradictions

Meanwhile, of that realm known as contradictions, John Byrne tells us that,

Mary Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and onetime gay outreach director for Coors Brewing Company, gave $1,000 to a Republican Senate hopeful who voted against same-sex marriage and allowing gay couples to adopt children in the District of Columbia.

Cheney, 40, has a two-year old son with her partner of 17 years, Heather Poe. The donation to former Rep. Rob Portman (R-OH) was made in May. Portman is seeking the Senate seat that will be vacated by Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) when he retires in 2011.

Cheney’s donation is remarkable considering her public comments on same-sex marriage and gay adoption. In 2004, she reportedly considered quitting her father’s re-election campaign after President Bush endorsed a federal marriage banning gay marriage. In 2007, she rebuked televangelist James Dobson for comments criticizing gay couples’ adoption.

Old rockers never die …

… or else they die over and over and over again. Christina Fincher, for Reuters:

British police are to re-examine the death of former Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones after receiving new information.

Jones, a founding member of the rock band, was 27 when he was found dead at the bottom of a swimming pool at his home in southern England 40 years ago.

An inquest recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.

A spokesman for Sussex police said on Monday the force had received new information about the musician’s death from an investigative journalist.

“These papers will be examined by Sussex Police but it is too early to comment at this time on what the outcome will be,” he said ….

A Rolling Stone gathers no moss. Moldy mystery, though? Hell, we already knew that from Keith Richards.

What? Yeah, I’m completely empty these days.

But really. How is that guy still breathing? It’s a mystery of the Universe. And don’t get me started on … um … er … never mind. I’m just reaching. You know. Craving attention, or something.

Serious People

Ladies and gentlemen, Paul Krugman:

I do have one qualm, though, which isn’t really about Bernanke, but rather about the broader symbolism of the reappointment — namely, it unfortunately seems to be a reaffirmation of Serious Person Syndrome, aka it’s better to have been conventionally wrong than unconventionally right.

Thus, you’re not considered serious on national security unless you bought the case for invading Iraq, even though the skeptics were completely right; you’re not considered a serious political commentator unless you dismissed all the things those reflexive anti-Bushists were saying, even though they all turn out to have been true; and you’re not considered serious about economic policy unless you dismissed warnings about a housing bubble and waved off worries about future crises.

All that while praising Bernanke’s reappointment as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Still, though, he has a point about Serious Person Syndrome. That’s the important part. Come on, Bernanke nominated for another term? Was that somehow unexpected?

So, anyway, I looked up the phrase, and aside from Schott’s Vocab, where I picked this up, the phrase isn’t largely used. The rest of the Google result is dominated by “Stiff Person Syndrome”.

So now I want to call the Bernankes and such, the Serious Person Syndrome people, well, yeah.

Never mind.

Stranger than fiction

And I thought the races were bad enough.

Click the headline. It’s real.

(A nod to Mr. Schmader for pointing this one out.)

Um … yeah

Things you don’t really want to see … or maybe you do. Mr. Fish (aka Dwayne Booth) on a man, his dog, and something I just don’t want to explain:

“Grin and Beer It”

To be fair, Mr. Fish is also the source of a couple of the funniest cartoons I’ve seen lately, including the real reason behind the drug war:

“I CNN see for miles and miles and miles”