New Wisconsin poll: Walker by six among likely voters, Romney tied with Obama at 46

The last Marquette poll, which had Walker leading Barrett by one thin point, made me want to drink whiskey in the daytime. This one makes me want to drink champagne. Yesterday’s dKos/PPP poll had nearly identical numbers so it’s safe to say this really is the state of the race in Wisconsin at this moment.

I can’t believe I’m asking this, but are we headed for a Scott Walker landslide?

Republicans are more likely to say they are “absolutely certain” to vote on June 5, at 91 percent, than are Democrats and independents, both at 83 percent. In other areas of participation, Republicans also have an advantage. Sixty-two percent of Republicans say that they have tried to persuade someone to vote for or against a candidate, compared to 54 percent among Democrats and 48 percent among independents…

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Report: GOP might keep parts of ObamaCare if law is struck down

The sourcing on this one is awfully thin, which raises two possibilities. One: The details are exaggerated or outright made up to try to start a firestorm among ObamaCare-hating conservatives. Two: The details are spot-on and are being deliberately leaked to see how ObamaCare-hating conservatives react. Can some parts of this thing be preserved or must the stench of The One’s greatest victory be completely expunged before Congress takes another run at health care?

If the law is upheld, Republicans will take to the floor to tear out its most controversial pieces, such as the individual mandate and requirements that employers provide insurance or face fines.

If the law is partially or fully overturned they’ll draw up bills to keep the popular, consumer-friendly portions in place — like allowing adult children to remain on parents’ health care plans until age 26, and forcing insurance companies to provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Ripping these provisions from law is too politically risky, Republicans say…

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Audio: Cherokee genealogist says it’s time for Elizabeth Warren to come clean

Via William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection, who’s owned this story along with the Breitbart team. Her name is Twila Barnes, she’s 7/32 Cherokee, and she just dropped a truth bomb on the Democrats’ favorite non-minority “minority”:

You see, Ms. Warren, some of us have independently done our own research and we know you have no documentation supporting your claim of Cherokee ancestry.* We wonder why you believe you have the right to claim Cherokee ancestry and to call yourself a Native American when you have no evidence to support your claim. While you cling to a family story and the inaccurate report that ONE document was found that supports your claim, we real Cherokees understand that those things mean nothing. You see, we Cherokees have lots and lots and lots of documentation supporting our claims of our ancestry. Our Cherokee ancestors are found on every roll of the Cherokee Nation (30+ rolls!) dating back to before the removal and in all sorts of other documentation, including but not limited to claims against the US government for lost property; the Moravian missionary records; ration lists before and after the forced removal, etc…yet your ancestors are found in NONE of those records…

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Breitbart.com: Document supporting Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry claim doesn’t exist

The exciting conclusion to the Case of the Missing Marriage Application. Remember, after a bit of sleuthing, Michael Patrick Leahy determined that the whole 1/32 claim came down to an 1894 marriage application that had supposedly been unearthed by an amateur genealogist but which no one else had actually seen. Leahy couldn’t reach that genealogist on Friday; today, he did. Mystery solved:

Lynda Smith, the amateur genealogist who unknowingly found herself at the root of the false “Elizabeth Warren is 1/32 Cherokee” meme introduced to the media by “noted” genealogist Chris Child of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, acknowledged in an email to me this past Saturday, May 12, that her statement in a March 2006 family newsletter upon which Mr. Child based his claim of Ms. Warren’s Cherokee ancestry was made with no supporting documentation. It was, in fact, an honest mistake that Ms. Smith now acknowledges is entirely without foundation…

According to Ms. Smith:

“I am rather embarrassed about this posting of mine [on rootsweb about William J. Crawford], especially since it seems to be of some importance…. I’ve been through all papers in my Crawford file and I didn’t find who sent that Cherokee reference to me…”

Read the whole thing for an explanation of Smith’s mistake. The obvious question: Why did the professional genealogist who confirmed Warren’s ancestry for the Boston Herald rely on an amateur’s research instead of demanding to see the original documents? Investigative reporter and genealogist Thomas Lipscomb was wondering that too and sent this e-mail to Powerline:

No reputable genealogist or genealogical organization would ever use a family newsletter by an amateur genealogist as the basis for an opinion. They require direct documentation from a certified copy of a birth or marriage certificate or some other objective evidence. While family newsletters, or family web postings may provide a useful tip as to where the real documentation may be, they are just as likely to be dead wrong encrustations of family myth that may or may not be true, but can’t be proven.

While family members may find these myths of interest, professionals like the New England Historic Genealogical Society and Christopher Child, or the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, where I have served on the Heraldry Committee, will not accept them as documentation for any kind of genealogical claim. And they certainly won’t take a chance of embarrassing themselves professionally by making a public statement on the basis of flimsy evidence they regard as little more than rumor.

Read all of that too. But wait — you’re not done reading yet. One last piece is William Jacobson’s new post chronicling his e-mail exchange with the New England Historic Genealogical Society and the curious appearance in his comments of someone who’s very interested in spinning what the NEHGS originally told the Herald. Did they really confirm that Warren is Native American, or did they merely confirm that she had an ancestor by the name of O.C. Sarah Smith whom others were claiming was Native American? Spintastic.

Via the Daily Caller, here’s Warren standing by her claim even as Scott Brown’s campaign insists that there’s nothing left of her minority status. Alternate headline: “Elizabeth Warren: I’m very proud of my Native American heritage that apparently no one can document.”

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Breitbart.com: Document supporting Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry claim doesn’t exist

The exciting conclusion to the Case of the Missing Marriage Application. Remember, after a bit of sleuthing, Michael Patrick Leahy determined that the whole 1/32 claim came down to an 1894 marriage application that had supposedly been unearthed by an amateur genealogist but which no one else had actually seen. Leahy couldn’t reach that genealogist on Friday; today, he did. Mystery solved:

Lynda Smith, the amateur genealogist who unknowingly found herself at the root of the false “Elizabeth Warren is 1/32 Cherokee” meme introduced to the media by “noted” genealogist Chris Child of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, acknowledged in an email to me this past Saturday, May 12, that her statement in a March 2006 family newsletter upon which Mr. Child based his claim of Ms. Warren’s Cherokee ancestry was made with no supporting documentation. It was, in fact, an honest mistake that Ms. Smith now acknowledges is entirely without foundation…

According to Ms. Smith:

“I am rather embarrassed about this posting of mine [on rootsweb about William J. Crawford], especially since it seems to be of some importance…. I’ve been through all papers in my Crawford file and I didn’t find who sent that Cherokee reference to me…”

Read the whole thing for an explanation of Smith’s mistake. The obvious question: Why did the professional genealogist who confirmed Warren’s ancestry for the Boston Herald rely on an amateur’s research instead of demanding to see the original documents? Investigative reporter and genealogist Thomas Lipscomb was wondering that too and sent this e-mail to Powerline:

No reputable genealogist or genealogical organization would ever use a family newsletter by an amateur genealogist as the basis for an opinion. They require direct documentation from a certified copy of a birth or marriage certificate or some other objective evidence. While family newsletters, or family web postings may provide a useful tip as to where the real documentation may be, they are just as likely to be dead wrong encrustations of family myth that may or may not be true, but can’t be proven.

While family members may find these myths of interest, professionals like the New England Historic Genealogical Society and Christopher Child, or the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, where I have served on the Heraldry Committee, will not accept them as documentation for any kind of genealogical claim. And they certainly won’t take a chance of embarrassing themselves professionally by making a public statement on the basis of flimsy evidence they regard as little more than rumor.

Read all of that too. But wait — you’re not done reading yet. One last piece is William Jacobson’s new post chronicling his e-mail exchange with the New England Historic Genealogical Society and the curious appearance in his comments of someone who’s very interested in spinning what the NEHGS originally told the Herald. Did they really confirm that Warren is Native American, or did they merely confirm that she had an ancestor by the name of O.C. Sarah Smith whom others were claiming was Native American? Spintastic.

Via the Daily Caller, here’s Warren standing by her claim even as Scott Brown’s campaign insists that there’s nothing left of her minority status. Alternate headline: “Elizabeth Warren: I’m very proud of my Native American heritage that apparently no one can document.”

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Victory: Federal judge strikes down NLRB’s rule approving “ambush” union elections

Big win, but it’ll probably take electing President Romney to make sure they don’t make it stick on the second try.

“According to Woody Allen, eighty percent of life is just showing up,” Boasberg wrote in an opinion issued today. “When it comes to satisfying a quorum requirement, though, showing up is even more important than that.”

The rule change, challenged in court by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, simplified and shortened balloting at a time when the unionized share of the workforce is falling, according to labor relations consultant Phillip Wilson. The compressed schedule could have cut the time permitted for voting in half to as few as 15 days, Wilson said.

Unions win 87 percent of elections held 15 days or less after a request, a rate that falls to 58 percent when the vote takes place after 36 to 40 days, according to a February report by Bloomberg Government.

O’s two Democratic appointees wanted to give unions a shot at quietly gathering the necessary signatures for an election and then dumping the petition on management before the company had a chance to make its case to the employees against unionization. The third member of the NLRB, Republican Brian Hayes, opposed the plan. No problem, though — Dems win 2-1, right? Nope. Not if Hayes doesn’t vote:

When the final rule came up, the NLRB’s lone Republican commissioner, Brian Hayes, did not cast a vote. He was given only a matter of hours on the NLRB’s electronic ballot system before the Democratic majority went ahead and published it that day, without anyone requesting a response.

Mr. Becker claimed that Mr. Hayes had “effectively indicated his opposition” and therefore he was “present” even though he was not, in fact, present. Basically, the NLRB argued that the quorum requirement was satisfied because there were three members in office when the rule was “approved.”

With a final vote of just 2-0 on what’s supposed to be a five-member Board, the court ruled that there was no quorum and therefore the rule was invalid. Think of Hayes’s absence as the anti-union version of those Wisconsin Democrats who fled the Capitol last year in order to deny Scott Walker a quorum to pass his collective bargaining reforms. What happens, though, now that Obama’s gone and dubiously recess-appointed a bunch of new members to the NLRB? Presumably the new members will pass the “ambush” election rule with a quorum and then the next court battle will be over whether those recess appointments were in fact valid. That suit has already been filed, in fact; if the next court throws out the recess appointments then the ambush rule stays blocked. If not, then President Romney’s our only hope.

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Victory: Federal judge strikes down NLRB’s rule approving “ambush” union elections

Big win, but it’ll probably take electing President Romney to make sure they don’t make it stick on the second try.

“According to Woody Allen, eighty percent of life is just showing up,” Boasberg wrote in an opinion issued today. “When it comes to satisfying a quorum requirement, though, showing up is even more important than that.”

The rule change, challenged in court by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, simplified and shortened balloting at a time when the unionized share of the workforce is falling, according to labor relations consultant Phillip Wilson. The compressed schedule could have cut the time permitted for voting in half to as few as 15 days, Wilson said.

Unions win 87 percent of elections held 15 days or less after a request, a rate that falls to 58 percent when the vote takes place after 36 to 40 days, according to a February report by Bloomberg Government.

O’s two Democratic appointees wanted to give unions a shot at quietly gathering the necessary signatures for an election and then dumping the petition on management before the company had a chance to make its case to the employees against unionization. The third member of the NLRB, Republican Brian Hayes, opposed the plan. No problem, though — Dems win 2-1, right? Nope. Not if Hayes doesn’t vote:

When the final rule came up, the NLRB’s lone Republican commissioner, Brian Hayes, did not cast a vote. He was given only a matter of hours on the NLRB’s electronic ballot system before the Democratic majority went ahead and published it that day, without anyone requesting a response.

Mr. Becker claimed that Mr. Hayes had “effectively indicated his opposition” and therefore he was “present” even though he was not, in fact, present. Basically, the NLRB argued that the quorum requirement was satisfied because there were three members in office when the rule was “approved.”

With a final vote of just 2-0 on what’s supposed to be a five-member Board, the court ruled that there was no quorum and therefore the rule was invalid. Think of Hayes’s absence as the anti-union version of those Wisconsin Democrats who fled the Capitol last year in order to deny Scott Walker a quorum to pass his collective bargaining reforms. What happens, though, now that Obama’s gone and dubiously recess-appointed a bunch of new members to the NLRB? Presumably the new members will pass the “ambush” election rule with a quorum and then the next court battle will be over whether those recess appointments were in fact valid. That suit has already been filed, in fact; if the next court throws out the recess appointments then the ambush rule stays blocked. If not, then President Romney’s our only hope.

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Angry Boehner to Dems: Enough with the “war on women” crap already

The exciting conclusion to the great student-loan interest-rate debate. Remember, Romney sided with Obama on extending the current lower rate a few days ago so the questions for House Republicans were (a) whether they’d go along and (b) if so, how they’d pay for it. The solution: Extend the rate and offset the $6 billion cost by cutting a similar amount from the new Prevention and Public Health Fund in ObamaCare instead. No way were the Democrats going to let the GOP get away that easily, though, so here was Pelosi this morning demagoging the issue in the shrillest, most electorally advantageous way possible:

“Their priority is to protect the subsidies for Big Oil,” said Pelosi at a Capitol Hill press conference on Thursday. “Our priority is to prevent breast cancer, cervical cancer, to immunize our children, so that they are healthy.”
Pelosi also charged that Republicans view Obamacare as a slush fund for the administration. “It may be a slush fund to him [House Speaker Boehner], but it’s survival to women,” she said. “It’s survival to women. And that just goes to show you what a luxury he thinks it is to have good health for women. We do not agree.”

Interesting point. If the Prevention Fund is this important to saving lives, obviously it’s pure insanity to touch it. Except that … Democrats themselves already tried to cut billions from the Fund:

Democrats voted solidly earlier this year to take money from the preventive health fund to help keep doctors’ Medicare reimbursements from dropping. Obama’s own budget in February proposed cutting $4 billion from the same fund to pay for some of his priorities.

Turns out women’s health isn’t any special priority of the Fund either. Skim the list of programs for yourself; WaPo’s Suzy Khimm notes that it’s aimed mainly at training doctors and reducing obesity and tobacco use. “War on Obesity” doesn’t do much to move votes, though, which is where Pelosi comes in. And that bring us to Boehner’s angry meme-busting rebuttal, which, according to ABC, inspired Maxine Waters, Donna Edwards, Marcy Kaptur, Yvette Clark and a few other women Democrats to actually walk out in fake-outrage. Perfect Friday night viewing.
The bill passed 215-195, incidentally, although fully 30 Republicans defected. (So did 13 Democrats or else the measure would have failed.) Obama’s threatening a veto but that’s pure posturing since Senate Democrats are bound to reject the House proposal in favor of one of their own before it reaches his desk. O simply wants to be on record as opposing this dangerous woman-hating cancer-spreading legislation in case any undecideds are following the coverage. Exit quotation from the White House: “Women, in particular, will benefit from this Prevention Fund, which would provide for hundreds of thousands of screenings for breast and cervical cancer.”

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* * Vault * Green Room * Ed Morrissey Show Video: Obama’s campaign movie gets the “Mystery Science Theater” treatment

Via Jim Treacher, this is actually more “Pop-Up Video” than MST but Andrew Klavan and Bill Whittle are game in the Tom Servo and Crow roles, respectively. Carve out eight minutes and then forward it to any fencesitters you know. It’s an engaging, easily digestible way to counter Team Hopenchange’s myth-making about his first term with facts that the average voter might not otherwise spend time on. A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.

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* * Vault * Green Room * Ed Morrissey Show Video: Obama’s campaign movie gets the “Mystery Science Theater” treatment

Via Jim Treacher, this is actually more “Pop-Up Video” than MST but Andrew Klavan and Bill Whittle are game in the Tom Servo and Crow roles, respectively. Carve out eight minutes and then forward it to any fencesitters you know. It’s an engaging, easily digestible way to counter Team Hopenchange’s myth-making about his first term with facts that the average voter might not otherwise spend time on. A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.

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The unserious nature of Washington, Exhibit A: The student loan debate

Over the last week, President Obama made a series of speeches at colleges around the country in which he decried the coming rise of student loan interest rates on July 1. Obama, joined by Mitt Romney, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)  and House Republicans, has said he refuses to let rates rise from 3.4% to 6.8%. Following his lead, as Morgen Richmond noted yesterday, Democrats immediately jumped on the chance to raise taxes on upper earners. Republicans, meanwhile, pushed a bill through the House today that takes $5.9 billion from what Speaker Boehner called an “ObamaCare slush fund” to pay for the extension.
Unwittingly, this student loan debate highlights the debacle that is politics in Washington. To wit:
1. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the House legislation was part of the “war on women” because it took from a women’s health program. I must say, she’s good at staying on message. Good at solving the nation’s problems, or leading her caucus to do so? Not so much.
2. Pelosi also denounced “robbing from Paula to pay Peter.” This from the same women who wants to tax the wealthy because they are wealthy. And while I actually agree with her that we should get rid of oil subsidies, tax credits, etc., a) I support eliminating all such subsidies and credits, not just for companies I personally or professionally dislike, and b) Pelosi is being intellectually dishonest in pretending many of the oil industry’s “subsidies” are specifically targeted to them. Jazz Shaw nicely pointed this out last year.
3. Much like they did with the payroll tax holiday extension, Republicans let themselves get suckered into a media game. The fact is that federal subsidies to higher education institutions and/or students increase the tuition students pay, and helps increase the size of the college bubble that is likely to come crashing down soon. Republicans would better serve the public in highlighting this fact instead of playing to the voters’ lack of economic knowledge.
4. The Republican National Committee has stepped up to challenge Obama’s travels to various states under the auspices of “official events,” despite the obvious campaign style and intention of the tour. (For the record, I am aware that President Bush did the same thing. That was just as wrong.) However, the fact that it took ABC News’ Jake Tapper to really bring this issue to the public’s attention says a lot about the willingness of Congress to do its duty and challenge the President on this and other issues of the public trust and corruption, since the RNC’s challenge has no actual legislative power or authority.
5. How many more “temporary” patches to subsidies, tax breaks, pay cuts and like can the federal government afford? The Alternative Minimum Tax, the Bush tax policies, the Doc Fix, the payroll tax holiday, etc. have all been temporarily patched to prevent angering this constituency or that demographic. Once again, elections take priority over effective policy on taxes, spending and other critical issues.
As the two parties head into formal election mode – Romney is about to be the GOP nominee for President, and President Obama just announced his first “official” campaign rally will be May 5 – the voters should note the unserious nature of Washington and give a bipartisan reminder in November that we want real solutions. After all, there are 1.2 million abortions annually in this country. We have the federal government violating the First Amendment with various mandates. Debt is skyrocketing, the economy stinks, Social Security and Medicare are going bankrupt fast, we refuse to solve our immigration problems, major tax hikes are on the horizon and we’re still sacrificing troops for Karzai despite no discernible national interest…and the primary focus of Washington is on student loans.
Of course, the people may not want real solutions. In that case, I’d say it’s time to start packing; America’s decline may soon be steepening.
Dustin Siggins is an associate producer with The Laura Ingraham Show and co-author with William Beach of The Heritage Foundation on a forthcoming book about the national debt. The opinions expressed are his own.

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.
To see the comments on the original post, look here.

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Study: Analytic thinking causes religious belief to diminish

Alternate headline: “Hey, who’s up for an angry, thousand-comment thread on Friday night?”

First, students were randomly assigned to look at images of Auguste Rodin’s sculpture “The Thinker,” or of the ancient Greek statue of a discus thrower, “Discobolus.” Those who viewed “The Thinker” were prompted to think more analytically and expressed less belief in God — they scored an average of 41.42 on a 100-point scale, compared with an average of 61.55 for the group that viewed the discus thrower, according to the study.
Two additional experiments used word games rather than images. In one case, participants were asked to arrange a series of words into a sentence. Some were given neutral words and others were presented with trigger words such as “think,” “reason” and “analyze” to prime them to think more analytically. And indeed, those who got the “thinking” words expressed less religiosity on a 10-to-70 scale: They ranked themselves at 34.39, on average, while those in the control group averaged 40.16.
In the final experiment, students in the control group read text in a clear, legible font, while those in the other group were forced to squint at a font that was hard to read, a chore that has been shown to trigger analytic thinking. Sure enough, those who read the less legible font rated their belief in supernatural agents at 10.40 on a 3-to-21 scale, compared with 12.16 for those who read the clear font.

Lots of news stories about this on the wires today, as you might expect, but I think people are overinterpreting the results. As I understand it, the researchers aren’t claiming that analytic thinking will turn you atheist or that nonbelievers are sharper critical thinkers than the faithful. They’re claiming that intuition is a component of religious belief and that intuition tends to dim when the mind is preoccupied with reasoning, which means religious belief dims with it. Note: Dims, but not disappears. Per the study, you’re talking about small, if statistically significant, differences in belief between the test subjects and the control group. Says one psychologist of the results:

“In some ways this confirms what many people, both religious and nonreligious, have said about religious belief for a long time, that it’s more of a feeling than a thought,” says Nicholas Epley, a psychologist at the University of Chicago. But he predicts the findings won’t change anyone’s mind about whether God exists or whether religious belief is rational. “If you think that reasoning analytically is the way to go about understanding the world accurately, you might see this as evidence that being religious doesn’t make much sense,” he says. “If you’re a religious person, I think you take this evidence as showing that God has given you a system for belief that just reveals itself to you as common sense.”

Yeah, I’m not sure why these results are controversial; they can be interpreted in different ways. For instance, religious friends tell me that their faith isn’t merely something they’ve reasoned through but something they “feel” or “experience.” For God to enter your heart, you must be “open” to him. In other words, faith isn’t strictly analytic; there’s more to it, or so I’m told. It may be that, as your mind adjusts to perform analytic tasks by applying certain known criteria, its capacity to analyze something that doesn’t operate according to known criteria momentarily decreases. You become less “open” to supernatural possibilities. If that’s true, then it’s not that “intuitive” understandings are necessarily false (although maybe they are), it’s that it’s hard for the brain to switch quickly from one paradigm to the other. Or maybe there’s another explanation? I’m all for the “atheists are inherently awesome” theory, if anyone wants to offer it!

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Study: Analytic thinking causes religious belief to diminish

Alternate headline: “Hey, who’s up for an angry, thousand-comment thread on Friday night?”

First, students were randomly assigned to look at images of Auguste Rodin’s sculpture “The Thinker,” or of the ancient Greek statue of a discus thrower, “Discobolus.” Those who viewed “The Thinker” were prompted to think more analytically and expressed less belief in God — they scored an average of 41.42 on a 100-point scale, compared with an average of 61.55 for the group that viewed the discus thrower, according to the study.
Two additional experiments used word games rather than images. In one case, participants were asked to arrange a series of words into a sentence. Some were given neutral words and others were presented with trigger words such as “think,” “reason” and “analyze” to prime them to think more analytically. And indeed, those who got the “thinking” words expressed less religiosity on a 10-to-70 scale: They ranked themselves at 34.39, on average, while those in the control group averaged 40.16.
In the final experiment, students in the control group read text in a clear, legible font, while those in the other group were forced to squint at a font that was hard to read, a chore that has been shown to trigger analytic thinking. Sure enough, those who read the less legible font rated their belief in supernatural agents at 10.40 on a 3-to-21 scale, compared with 12.16 for those who read the clear font.

Lots of news stories about this on the wires today, as you might expect, but I think people are overinterpreting the results. As I understand it, the researchers aren’t claiming that analytic thinking will turn you atheist or that nonbelievers are sharper critical thinkers than the faithful. They’re claiming that intuition is a component of religious belief and that intuition tends to dim when the mind is preoccupied with reasoning, which means religious belief dims with it. Note: Dims, but not disappears. Per the study, you’re talking about small, if statistically significant, differences in belief between the test subjects and the control group. Says one psychologist of the results:

“In some ways this confirms what many people, both religious and nonreligious, have said about religious belief for a long time, that it’s more of a feeling than a thought,” says Nicholas Epley, a psychologist at the University of Chicago. But he predicts the findings won’t change anyone’s mind about whether God exists or whether religious belief is rational. “If you think that reasoning analytically is the way to go about understanding the world accurately, you might see this as evidence that being religious doesn’t make much sense,” he says. “If you’re a religious person, I think you take this evidence as showing that God has given you a system for belief that just reveals itself to you as common sense.”

Yeah, I’m not sure why these results are controversial; they can be interpreted in different ways. For instance, religious friends tell me that their faith isn’t merely something they’ve reasoned through but something they “feel” or “experience.” For God to enter your heart, you must be “open” to him. In other words, faith isn’t strictly analytic; there’s more to it, or so I’m told. It may be that, as your mind adjusts to perform analytic tasks by applying certain known criteria, its capacity to analyze something that doesn’t operate according to known criteria momentarily decreases. You become less “open” to supernatural possibilities. If that’s true, then it’s not that “intuitive” understandings are necessarily false (although maybe they are), it’s that it’s hard for the brain to switch quickly from one paradigm to the other. Or maybe there’s another explanation? I’m all for the “atheists are inherently awesome” theory, if anyone wants to offer it!

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Quotes of the day

“A year after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, President Barack Obama’s team is launching another precision operation: a full-scale public relations offensive aimed at using the bin Laden mission to boost the president’s reelection bid…
“‘It was the defining moment of the first term. To think people aren’t going to talk about it, Republicans are really naive,’ said Chris Lehane, a former spokesman for Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). ‘It’s going to be very difficult for the Republican Party, [whose] entire campaign in 2004 was predicated on issues like this, complaining somehow about all of this. … Any number of presidents, Democrat and Republican, did not succeed in getting bin Laden, and there’s one who did.’…
“‘There really is a double standard. … President Bush could barely use the number 9/11 in a sentence without somebody accusing him of politicizing 9/11,’ Fleischer said, adding that he thinks it is ‘perfectly appropriate for both presidents’ to discuss such events in their campaigns.

*** “President Barack Obama, taking an election-year victory lap of sorts one year after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, did an unprecedented television interview in the White House’s strategic nerve center, the Situation Room.
“NBC’s sit-down with Obama will air on May 2, one year after Navy SEALs dropped into the al-Qaida chief’s compound in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad and killed him. The network said it had also interviewed Obama’s top national security and foreign policy aides, including: Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Joints Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough and John Brennan, Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser.”

*** “U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) released the following statement on President Obama’s decision to play politics with the one year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death:
“Shame on Barack Obama for diminishing the memory of September 11th and the killing of Osama bin Laden by turning it into a cheap political attack ad. This is the same President who once criticized Hillary Clinton for invoking bin Laden ‘to score political points.’
“This is the same President who said, after bin Laden was dead, that we shouldn’t ‘spike the ball’ after the touchdown. And now Barack Obama is not only trying to score political points by invoking Osama bin Laden, he is doing a shameless end-zone dance to help himself get reelected.
“No one disputes that the President deserves credit for ordering the raid, but to politicize it in this way is the height of hypocrisy.”

*** “Hours before McCain, a spokeswoman for Romney’s campaign likewise criticized the video.
“‘The killing of Osama bin Laden was a momentous day for all Americans and the world, and Governor Romney congratulated the military, our intelligence agencies, and the president. It’s now sad to see the Obama campaign seek to use an event that unified our country to once again divide us, in order to try to distract voters’ attention from the failures of his administration,’ press secretary Andrea Saul said.”

*** “But in 2008 Obama likewise thought killing the 9/11 mastermind wasn’t the central goal, saying the top priority should be capturing the leader alive.
“‘What would be important would be for us to do it in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he’s engaged in and not to make him into a martyr, and to assure that the United States government is abiding by basic conventions that would strengthen our hand in the broader battle against terrorism,’ Obama said as he unveiled his new national security team in June 2008.”

*** “Vice President Joe Biden traveled to New York University to give a speech lauding the decision to kill bin Laden, at the same time accusing Romney of shying away from the hunt. Biden quoted a 2007 Associated Press interview in which Romney said, ‘It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,’ and suggested that Romney essentially gave up on the bin Laden hunt while Barack Obama courageously stayed the course…
“So just what did Romney say in that interview? Yes, he did say ‘moving heaven and earth,’ but he also discussed at some length a greater war on terror that targeted not only al Qaeda but other terrorist groups as well…
“GOVERNOR ROMNEY: I think, I wouldn’t want to over-concentrate on Bin Laden. He’s one of many, many people who are involved in this global Jihadist effort. He’s by no means the only leader. It’s a very diverse group – Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and of course different names throughout the world. It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. It is worth fashioning and executing an effective strategy to defeat global, violent Jihad and I have a plan for doing that.”

*** “Earlier this week, an Obama-appointed federal judge ruled in favor of the government in a national security case (needless to say), when he denied a FOIA request to obtain all photos and videos taken during and after the raid in Pakistan that resulted in Osama bin Laden’s death. The DOJ responded to the lawsuit by arguing (needless to say) that the requested materials ‘are classified and are being withheld from the public to avoid inciting violence against Americans overseas and compromising secret systems and techniques used by the CIA and the military.’ Among other things, disclosure of these materials would have helped resolve the seriously conflicting statements made by White House officials about what happened during the raid and what its actual goals and operating rules were.
“But while the Obama administration has insisted to the court that all such materials are classified and cannot be disclosed without compromising crucial National Security secrets, the President’s aides have been continuously leaking information about the raid in order to create politically beneficial pictures of what happened.”

*** “President Obama is shamelessly turning the one decision he got right into a pathetic political act of self-congratulation,’ McCain boldly declared, despite backing the President on the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, defending the President’s involvement in Libya from Republicans, and applauding the President’s decision to block the release of photos documenting abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Candidate McCain also used the idea that he would make the decision to order the killing of Osama bin Laden while a putative President Obama would not on the campaign trail in 2008.
“Expect more to come of the Romney campaign trying to paint President Obama’s foreign policy as “weak” while agreeing in principle with everything the President’s done and pushing for more of the same.”

*** “If showing OBL-as-a-corpse photos would incite the Islamists, why wouldn’t reelection campaign ads incite them, too?”

Read More

Quotes of the day

“A year after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, President Barack Obama’s team is launching another precision operation: a full-scale public relations offensive aimed at using the bin Laden mission to boost the president’s reelection bid…
“‘It was the defining moment of the first term. To think people aren’t going to talk about it, Republicans are really naive,’ said Chris Lehane, a former spokesman for Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). ‘It’s going to be very difficult for the Republican Party, [whose] entire campaign in 2004 was predicated on issues like this, complaining somehow about all of this. … Any number of presidents, Democrat and Republican, did not succeed in getting bin Laden, and there’s one who did.’…
“‘There really is a double standard. … President Bush could barely use the number 9/11 in a sentence without somebody accusing him of politicizing 9/11,’ Fleischer said, adding that he thinks it is ‘perfectly appropriate for both presidents’ to discuss such events in their campaigns.

*** “President Barack Obama, taking an election-year victory lap of sorts one year after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, did an unprecedented television interview in the White House’s strategic nerve center, the Situation Room.
“NBC’s sit-down with Obama will air on May 2, one year after Navy SEALs dropped into the al-Qaida chief’s compound in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad and killed him. The network said it had also interviewed Obama’s top national security and foreign policy aides, including: Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Joints Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough and John Brennan, Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser.”

*** “U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) released the following statement on President Obama’s decision to play politics with the one year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death:
“Shame on Barack Obama for diminishing the memory of September 11th and the killing of Osama bin Laden by turning it into a cheap political attack ad. This is the same President who once criticized Hillary Clinton for invoking bin Laden ‘to score political points.’
“This is the same President who said, after bin Laden was dead, that we shouldn’t ‘spike the ball’ after the touchdown. And now Barack Obama is not only trying to score political points by invoking Osama bin Laden, he is doing a shameless end-zone dance to help himself get reelected.
“No one disputes that the President deserves credit for ordering the raid, but to politicize it in this way is the height of hypocrisy.”

*** “Hours before McCain, a spokeswoman for Romney’s campaign likewise criticized the video.
“‘The killing of Osama bin Laden was a momentous day for all Americans and the world, and Governor Romney congratulated the military, our intelligence agencies, and the president. It’s now sad to see the Obama campaign seek to use an event that unified our country to once again divide us, in order to try to distract voters’ attention from the failures of his administration,’ press secretary Andrea Saul said.”

*** “But in 2008 Obama likewise thought killing the 9/11 mastermind wasn’t the central goal, saying the top priority should be capturing the leader alive.
“‘What would be important would be for us to do it in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he’s engaged in and not to make him into a martyr, and to assure that the United States government is abiding by basic conventions that would strengthen our hand in the broader battle against terrorism,’ Obama said as he unveiled his new national security team in June 2008.”

*** “Vice President Joe Biden traveled to New York University to give a speech lauding the decision to kill bin Laden, at the same time accusing Romney of shying away from the hunt. Biden quoted a 2007 Associated Press interview in which Romney said, ‘It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,’ and suggested that Romney essentially gave up on the bin Laden hunt while Barack Obama courageously stayed the course…
“So just what did Romney say in that interview? Yes, he did say ‘moving heaven and earth,’ but he also discussed at some length a greater war on terror that targeted not only al Qaeda but other terrorist groups as well…
“GOVERNOR ROMNEY: I think, I wouldn’t want to over-concentrate on Bin Laden. He’s one of many, many people who are involved in this global Jihadist effort. He’s by no means the only leader. It’s a very diverse group – Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and of course different names throughout the world. It’s not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. It is worth fashioning and executing an effective strategy to defeat global, violent Jihad and I have a plan for doing that.”

*** “Earlier this week, an Obama-appointed federal judge ruled in favor of the government in a national security case (needless to say), when he denied a FOIA request to obtain all photos and videos taken during and after the raid in Pakistan that resulted in Osama bin Laden’s death. The DOJ responded to the lawsuit by arguing (needless to say) that the requested materials ‘are classified and are being withheld from the public to avoid inciting violence against Americans overseas and compromising secret systems and techniques used by the CIA and the military.’ Among other things, disclosure of these materials would have helped resolve the seriously conflicting statements made by White House officials about what happened during the raid and what its actual goals and operating rules were.
“But while the Obama administration has insisted to the court that all such materials are classified and cannot be disclosed without compromising crucial National Security secrets, the President’s aides have been continuously leaking information about the raid in order to create politically beneficial pictures of what happened.”

*** “President Obama is shamelessly turning the one decision he got right into a pathetic political act of self-congratulation,’ McCain boldly declared, despite backing the President on the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, defending the President’s involvement in Libya from Republicans, and applauding the President’s decision to block the release of photos documenting abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Candidate McCain also used the idea that he would make the decision to order the killing of Osama bin Laden while a putative President Obama would not on the campaign trail in 2008.
“Expect more to come of the Romney campaign trying to paint President Obama’s foreign policy as “weak” while agreeing in principle with everything the President’s done and pushing for more of the same.”

*** “If showing OBL-as-a-corpse photos would incite the Islamists, why wouldn’t reelection campaign ads incite them, too?”

Read More

Weekly initial jobless claims at 388K

Up? Down? All around?  The new level for weekly jobless claims this week hit 388,000, according to the Department of Labor, which would have been an increase of 2,000 over last week’s initial level of 386,000.  Last week’s report got revised upward by 3,000, though, so the DoL calls this a decrease of 1,000:

In the week ending April 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 388,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 389,000. The 4-week moving average was 381,750, an increase of 6,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 375,500.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent for the week ending April 14, unchanged from the prior week.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 14 was 3,315,000, an increase of 3,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,312,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,311,750, a decrease of 9,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,321,500.

The four-week moving average tells the story more clearly.  Just two weeks ago, it was at 368,500 while the jobless claims increased.  The ramp-up in joblessness is not a huge trend, but it’s definitely turning into a trend, and it’s going in the wrong direction.
AP’s Chris Rugaber notes that this is the highest level in three months, both in the weekly level and in the four-week rolling average:

The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits remained stuck near a three-month high last week, a sign that hiring has likely slowed since winter.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications dipped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000. It was little changed from the previous week’s figure, the highest since Jan. 7.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose to 381,750, also the highest in three months.

Rugaber shoots down the notion that the slowdown occurred because of “temporary layoffs during the spring holidays” by noting that hiring has obviously not rebounded since.  I’m not aware of any significant seasonal cycle of drops in employment over spring breaks.  The fact that the March jobs report was so mediocre and that this trend has been under way for a month makes it pretty clear that this is no seasonal burp.
For comedy, try Reuters, which headlines its report “Jobless claims ease but four-week average rises”:

 New claims for unemployment benefits fell slightly last week but a trend reading rose to its highest since January, the latest sign of a weaker pace of healing in the still-struggling labor market.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week’s figure was revised up to 389,000 from the previously reported 386,000.

Er … right.  Jobless claims “eased” only if you compare the revised number from last week to the initial number from this week.  If the pattern holds, next week’s revised number will be a few thousand higher than today’s number, which is exactly what we saw over the last few weeks.  The story in this case isn’t that jobless claims are easing, but that they’re increasing.  The AP gets it right, while Reuters apparently is trying out for a spot on Team Obama.
Hey, at least they didn’t repeat the 400K myth this week.  Maybe we’ll see less of it as claims keep climbing higher to the 400K level.
Update: Suitably Flip has more on the revisions game:

For the 59th week of the last 60, the previous initial jobless claim report was revised upward, from 386,000 to 389,000.  And once again, this enables the Labor Department to report a week-over-week decline in new jobless claims, from the adjusted 389,000 to an adjusted 388,000.  Upon next week’s revision, this week will almost certainly have shown another increase.
If that sounds familiar, it may be because last week, the government reported a decline of 2,000 (but only after upwardly revising the previous week by 8,000).
Looking back over the last five weeks, the cumulative reported weekly changes (from previous weeks’ adjusted data to the new unadjusted numbers) showed a net decline of 1,000, despite an actual cumulative net increase of 24,000.  And that’s without the 5th revision factored in, at which point the cumulative increase will be closer to 30,000.
In addition to serving as fodder for another round of “Jobless Claims Fall” headlines, this week’s underestimate has the additional side effect of avoiding the probably true headline “Jobless Claims Reach New 2012 High” from being written (at least for another week).  They started at 390,000 in early January and, assuming next week brings an upward revision of more than 2,000 (revisions have ranged from +3,000 to +10,000 over the last month), then we’re already sitting at year-to-date highs.

Give credit to the AP for actually headlining the news, rather than the spin.

Read More

Weekly initial jobless claims at 388K

Up? Down? All around?  The new level for weekly jobless claims this week hit 388,000, according to the Department of Labor, which would have been an increase of 2,000 over last week’s initial level of 386,000.  Last week’s report got revised upward by 3,000, though, so the DoL calls this a decrease of 1,000:

In the week ending April 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 388,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 389,000. The 4-week moving average was 381,750, an increase of 6,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 375,500.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent for the week ending April 14, unchanged from the prior week.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 14 was 3,315,000, an increase of 3,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,312,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,311,750, a decrease of 9,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,321,500.

The four-week moving average tells the story more clearly.  Just two weeks ago, it was at 368,500 while the jobless claims increased.  The ramp-up in joblessness is not a huge trend, but it’s definitely turning into a trend, and it’s going in the wrong direction.
AP’s Chris Rugaber notes that this is the highest level in three months, both in the weekly level and in the four-week rolling average:

The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits remained stuck near a three-month high last week, a sign that hiring has likely slowed since winter.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications dipped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000. It was little changed from the previous week’s figure, the highest since Jan. 7.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose to 381,750, also the highest in three months.

Rugaber shoots down the notion that the slowdown occurred because of “temporary layoffs during the spring holidays” by noting that hiring has obviously not rebounded since.  I’m not aware of any significant seasonal cycle of drops in employment over spring breaks.  The fact that the March jobs report was so mediocre and that this trend has been under way for a month makes it pretty clear that this is no seasonal burp.
For comedy, try Reuters, which headlines its report “Jobless claims ease but four-week average rises”:

 New claims for unemployment benefits fell slightly last week but a trend reading rose to its highest since January, the latest sign of a weaker pace of healing in the still-struggling labor market.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week’s figure was revised up to 389,000 from the previously reported 386,000.

Er … right.  Jobless claims “eased” only if you compare the revised number from last week to the initial number from this week.  If the pattern holds, next week’s revised number will be a few thousand higher than today’s number, which is exactly what we saw over the last few weeks.  The story in this case isn’t that jobless claims are easing, but that they’re increasing.  The AP gets it right, while Reuters apparently is trying out for a spot on Team Obama.
Hey, at least they didn’t repeat the 400K myth this week.  Maybe we’ll see less of it as claims keep climbing higher to the 400K level.
Update: Suitably Flip has more on the revisions game:

For the 59th week of the last 60, the previous initial jobless claim report was revised upward, from 386,000 to 389,000.  And once again, this enables the Labor Department to report a week-over-week decline in new jobless claims, from the adjusted 389,000 to an adjusted 388,000.  Upon next week’s revision, this week will almost certainly have shown another increase.
If that sounds familiar, it may be because last week, the government reported a decline of 2,000 (but only after upwardly revising the previous week by 8,000).
Looking back over the last five weeks, the cumulative reported weekly changes (from previous weeks’ adjusted data to the new unadjusted numbers) showed a net decline of 1,000, despite an actual cumulative net increase of 24,000.  And that’s without the 5th revision factored in, at which point the cumulative increase will be closer to 30,000.
In addition to serving as fodder for another round of “Jobless Claims Fall” headlines, this week’s underestimate has the additional side effect of avoiding the probably true headline “Jobless Claims Reach New 2012 High” from being written (at least for another week).  They started at 390,000 in early January and, assuming next week brings an upward revision of more than 2,000 (revisions have ranged from +3,000 to +10,000 over the last month), then we’re already sitting at year-to-date highs.

Give credit to the AP for actually headlining the news, rather than the spin.

Read More

The Ed Morrissey Show: Kerry Picket, Steven Crowder

Today on The Ed Morrissey Show (3 pm ET), Kerry Picket brings us up to date on the goings-on inside the nation’s capital, and Steven Crowder returns to discuss his latest video efforts.
The Ed Morrissey Show and its dynamic chatroom can be seen on the permanent TEMS page — be sure to join us, and don’t forget to keep up with the debate on my Facebook page, too!Video streaming by Ustream

Marizela Perez has been missing for a year.

Marizela’s case has a connection here at Hot Air, as she is the cousin of the Boss Emeritus, Michelle Malkin. Michelle is trying to spread the word through Facebook and Q13Fox/KCPQ in Seattle. We want to encourage prayers for Marizela’s family, and also try to reach anyone in the area who knows where Marizela might be and ask them to contact the police.

The search has its own website now, Find Marizela, for the latest in the efforts to bring Marizela home. There is also a fund for the family to keep the search efforts going. Be sure to check there and at Michelle’s site for further developments, and keep the family in your prayers.

America’s Most Wanted is now on the case, too.

Michelle has a new update on the case on the one-year anniversary:

Exactly one year ago today, my 18-year-old cousin Marizela (known affectionately to her family and friends as “Emem” or “Mei”) Perez disappeared from the University of Washington campus in Seattle.

She is still missing.

Those words form on the computer screen with disembodied disbelief. But my heart is screaming:

SHE IS STILL MISSING. WHY, DEAR GOD, WHY?!!!!!

The not-knowing is every parent’s worst nightmare. It brought normal life to a standstill for Marizela’s parents, Edgar and Jasmin. And yet, they have to keep living and working and praying for their only daughter. Because that is what they must do. Their strength and dignity through all the suffering has been an inspiration to me.

There have been no new developments in Emem’s case. No word from the police or the medical examiner’s office. No activity on her bank accounts or social media accounts.

And no response from the Google legal department to our request for help in January.

Keep the prayers coming.

Read More

The Ed Morrissey Show: Kerry Picket, Steven Crowder

Today on The Ed Morrissey Show (3 pm ET), Kerry Picket brings us up to date on the goings-on inside the nation’s capital, and Steven Crowder returns to discuss his latest video efforts.
The Ed Morrissey Show and its dynamic chatroom can be seen on the permanent TEMS page — be sure to join us, and don’t forget to keep up with the debate on my Facebook page, too!Video streaming by Ustream

Marizela Perez has been missing for a year.

Marizela’s case has a connection here at Hot Air, as she is the cousin of the Boss Emeritus, Michelle Malkin. Michelle is trying to spread the word through Facebook and Q13Fox/KCPQ in Seattle. We want to encourage prayers for Marizela’s family, and also try to reach anyone in the area who knows where Marizela might be and ask them to contact the police.

The search has its own website now, Find Marizela, for the latest in the efforts to bring Marizela home. There is also a fund for the family to keep the search efforts going. Be sure to check there and at Michelle’s site for further developments, and keep the family in your prayers.

America’s Most Wanted is now on the case, too.

Michelle has a new update on the case on the one-year anniversary:

Exactly one year ago today, my 18-year-old cousin Marizela (known affectionately to her family and friends as “Emem” or “Mei”) Perez disappeared from the University of Washington campus in Seattle.

She is still missing.

Those words form on the computer screen with disembodied disbelief. But my heart is screaming:

SHE IS STILL MISSING. WHY, DEAR GOD, WHY?!!!!!

The not-knowing is every parent’s worst nightmare. It brought normal life to a standstill for Marizela’s parents, Edgar and Jasmin. And yet, they have to keep living and working and praying for their only daughter. Because that is what they must do. Their strength and dignity through all the suffering has been an inspiration to me.

There have been no new developments in Emem’s case. No word from the police or the medical examiner’s office. No activity on her bank accounts or social media accounts.

And no response from the Google legal department to our request for help in January.

Keep the prayers coming.

Read More

Great news: Pitiful sporting event likely to be canceled

In an age when left and right agree on so little, my friends, let’s at least agree on this.

Many players who will be selected during this week’s NFL draft are regarded as future Pro Bowl selections, but the game itself likely will be suspended this season and beyond, according to league sources…
If the game is suspended, the league still would have a Pro Bowl balloting process to identify the season’s top players and would direct teams to remain open to negotiating Pro Bowl clauses into player contracts and to honor Pro Bowl incentive and escalator clauses to avoid any serious conflict with the players association. Those players also likely would be honored in some fashion during Super Bowl week.
The league and union held discussions last week on whether the Pro Bowl can become more attractive but neither side has embraced an alternative solution, sources said. Both sides also concede that heightened player health and safety issues have been a contributing factor to a diminished product.

Over at NBC’s “Pro Football Talk” site, the online poll on whether to cancel the game is currently split 82/17 in favor of euthanasia. I’ll neither confirm nor deny that I’ve ever watched the Pro Bowl, but if I’ve watched, then hypothetically I might have wondered if the game would actually be better as flag football. With the fear of brute contact gone, guys could play harder. You’d tune in to watch the NFL’s best and brightest using rules designed for eight-year-olds, right?
In honor of the occasion, here’s one of my all-time favorite Onion vids. Question: Is there any way to make this game kinda sorta competitive? There are plenty of other things the league could do the week before the Super Bowl to pique fans’ interest — here’s one — but if they’re intent on keeping the Pro Bowl, their options are slim. One obvious possibility is paying giant bonuses to the winners. To America’s everlasting shame, the Pro Bowl actually gets higher ratings than baseball’s All-Star Game; a newly competitive Pro Bowl would get higher ratings still. Give the winning side an enormous chunk of the ad revenue. The other possibility that occurs to me is following baseball’s lead by rewarding the winning side with some sort of home-field advantage. That won’t work for the Super Bowl since it’s played on a neutral field, but what if teams in the winning conference got an extra home game the following season against teams in the losing conference? I doubt that’d fly since there’s likely too much money to be lost in playing seven games at home instead of eight, but if you want a competitive game, that’d do it. Any other ideas? Surely there are ways to make this embarrassing spectacle slightly less embarrassing.

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