I so called it (sort of)
I would like to give myself a moment of unadulterated bragging. Here's my comment, a few hours before the Sanford affair broke:
"A governor doesn't go to Argentina unannounced without talking to his staff or his family unless it's really interesting/scandalous.
My top guesses:
1) Paying mistress' ransom after she was abducted by Argentine gangsters who told him he better keep quiet about it.
2) Somehow putting to rest some ugly, ugly secret before 2012 Presidential run. It also probably involves a mistress.
If you have any guesses, take a stab at it!"
Okay, so I didn't hit it right on the nose, but I got the mistress part correct. You can pretty much count on strange behavior by power-hungry, self-important men to be due to an affair.
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Let me be the first to congratulate you, sincerely, heartily, and with a booming laugh--at Sanford's expense!
Absolutely, deliciously, pure comedy GOLD, baby! Another one bites the dust!
ha ha
June 24, 2009 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
BTW, I really dig your photo of the late, great Carl Sagan. His non-fiction books influenced me greatly a few years back, and I should put one or more of them on my list at my blog here at TPM. Especially The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. No one taught me more about the various ways the rightwingnuts abuse to make their points in 'debate' than he did, simply putting ancient rhetorical rules in modern readable English, and showing concrete examples.
June 24, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely, Daddy-O. He was probably my greatest inspiration, and even though he was a scientist, he made me want to observe societal problems and public policies with unflinching skepticism. Plus, he really drove home the idea that group identities, whether they're about national origin, race, religion, culture, language, etc. are completely meaningless and only serve to divide us. I've only read a few pages of Demon Haunted World- I should pick it up again. 'Cosmos' is a religious experience. A masterpiece.
June 24, 2009 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm gonna have to pick it up, too, and add it to my library instead of borrowing it from the local branch.
I miss him terribly. And there are some funky-assed theories that made the rounds in Christian theocrat circles that claim he had a bedside conversion--or that he was struck down by God, of course.
I don't care if he was an atheist or not. I'm just barely a Christian at this point, and most of my best friends are atheists. One thing I'm sure of: Science is a gift from God, and excoriating it because it comes into conflict with fundamentalist values is idiotic. Antibiotics have saved at least a million more lives than prayer has. Maybe a billion. Maybe more.
So THANK GOD FOR THEM--and a scientist, too, whether he's an atheist or not!
June 24, 2009 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink