Cornell University mathematicians celebrate a less dramatic Pi Day in 2012. SURELY we can clear this bar today!
So much is happening this next week that it almost defies description, but let’s work though our headline — which does not even address the Special Election in Senate District 37, where Don-Wag and The Moorlach face off against each other and The Namazing Namazi and Democratic write-in candidate Louise Youbetterknowhowtospell-Herlastnamebynow. (For the latest in illegal campaign developments, see here.) With luck, we’ll be able to do this over again in May! Meanwhile, in other countries:
Israel: The election for which the U.S. Congress sacrificed its own President’s stature and our system’s dignity will also take place on Tuesday. You know Bibi “Benjamin” Netanyahu, who is credited with popularizing the phrase “it’s all about the Benjamin” — now get to know Isaac “Bougie” Herzog, who has an unexpectedly good chance to replace him. Bougie is in a coalition with Tsipi Livni, who would serve out the intended last two years of the four year Prime Minister’s term. (So really it should be “Bougie, Tsipi, Bibi, Putin and Pi” — but that would have ruined the call-out to the nursery rhyme.)
Their coalition is, somewhat controversially, called the Zionist Union — which should not freak you out (which Netanyahu and his further-right challengers should do.) As I’ve explained here a time or two, this is an attempt to reclaim the term “Zionist,” as American liberals might try to reclaim the term “Patriot,” as not requiring the chauvinistic and bellicose connotations that the Right attaches to both words. You can buy it, you can not buy it — either way, that’s what they say. (Just as it would be very hard for someone who denied being a “patriot” to win a national election in the U.S., it would be very hard for someone who denied being a “Zionist” to win one in Israel.)
Even if I weren’t already on the same page as Bougie and his leftward possible future coalition partners such as Meretz, I would still like to see Netanyahu get his tuchis “netan”ed to him just to make House Speaker John Boehner feel even sicker inside that the diet of scotch and cigarettes already accomplishes. Feel welcome to join me in that hope.
Russia: Putin him out of his misery? The news is only starting to get through here in the U.S. that something pretty big may be happening in Mother Russia. President Vladimir Putin has not been seen publicly in coming up on nine days, and that is very unlike him, what with all of the gays to bash and the prominent political opponents to have shot. (That last is just an allegation, of course.) Rumors abound: that he’s dead, that he’s dying, that he’s incapacitated; that he’s been ousted in a coup, that an ongoing attempted coup continues to be outgoing, that he’s isolated in office, or planning an even coupier coup on his own. The problem he faces is not simply the falling value of carbon fuels and the falling fortunes in Crimea, but that apparently the assassination of Boris Nemtsov — among his most powerful, prominent, and persuasive critics — pushed people a little too far along the “Who is Caligula going after next?” path. We don’t see real transitions in governmental power that often in Russia — Putin’s been there since Drunk Uncle Boris Yeltsin resigned in 1999 — so this week may literally be one for the history books. If Putin is or gets out of office, Prime Minister and former Putin Puppet President Dmitri Medvedev (who has in recent years been a bit more on the outs) would take over for 90 days, and would be the likeliest best to win election outright.
Chicago: Wait, Chicago isn’t in a foreign country, so we’ll wait for 1-3 weeks before telling you how good guy Chuy Garcia may actually have a shot at knocking off the most vicious Business Democrat in the land, Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Getting rid of Netanhayu and Rahm in the space of three weeks might really be too much joy for some of us.
Everywhere: And, both domestically and foreignly, about 12 hours after this piece was supposed to be posted (although we admit that this was about π hours late), is the most pi you’re ever going to see in your lifetime. Yes, March 14 of every year is “Pi Day,” for our favorite transcendental number (which, unlike some of us, doesn’t go on and on repeating itself forever.) Normally, the best you can do to celebrate the Great Circle Explainer is to clink a glass at 1:59:26 a.m. or p.m., which gets you to eight digits of pi. (For Europeans, who reverse the day and month in calendar notation, Pi Day would have to be on January 3, with the celebration at 4:15. And it stops there, until there are more than 90 seconds in a minute.) But tomorrow is the chance of a lifetime — and it even gives you the chance to sleep in! Because it is 2015, the calendar date is 3/14/15, so you can go an extra two digits and celebrate at 9:26:53 a.m. (You can do p.m. too, but if you wait you’re really not an orthodox Pi-baby.) If you want to wait until just under 53.6 seconds, you can — but that’s too orthodox.
Anyway, Happy Pi Day, and enjoy this first Weekend Open Thread of this year’s Daylight Savings Time. Talk about the above stories or anything else you’d like, within reasonable bounds of decency and discretion.
*Likeability is supposed to be a determining factor in these things. If so, we will have to make our picks: Herzog, Moorlach, Medvedev and Garcia in a tie with Emanuel.
Obvisously, the results have already been pre-determined and our personal selections mean nothing. Sort of like putting your money into the Super Bowl pool – when someone already knows, who is going to win and by how much!
*Top late – but we just thought of a great Moorlach Campaign Slogan:
“The hits just keep on coming!”
OK……in all fairness we should add these to:
“By By Ms. American PI – took our Chevy to the levy and they had it made in Guadalajara!”
“Bibi, Bibi….he loves to have you call him Bibi – send those suckers East and out of Israeli Airspace!”
*The Putin Pukein Toocan”
“Rahm it home Garcia!”
“Time to WAG the dog!”
“Put another Herzog on the birthday cake!”
and finally – “Naz-e-ateing but cute!”
Michael Douglas: ” With little knowledge of what it meant to be a Jew, I found myself passionately defending the Jewish people. Now, half a century later, I have to defend my son. Anti-Semitism, I’ve seen, is like a disease that goes dormant, flaring up with the next political trigger.”
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0315-douglas-anti-semitism-20150315-story.html
What an impoverished imagination Michael Douglas has.
The first and third reasons he presents are true. So is the second — but it is woefully incomplete. Here, let me rewrite it into a fourth reason:
To recognize this fourth root cause is not to justify it. This assignment of collective guilt, like the first three root causes, is unfair to those targeted, just as is the “collateral damage” imposed upon the residents Gaza or upon those whose homes are bulldozed as “collective punishment,” a nicer term for “corruption of blood.” I am saddened and angered by what happened to Mr. Douglas’s son, as I am towards all such instances of bigotry that come to my attention. But we Jews have to recognize that our unqualified and unexamined support for Israel has this as a consequence — and that is a very good self-interested reason to oppose war fetishists such as Mr. Netanyahu and those to his right.
How can an intelligent man and a rational thinker like Michael Douglas fail to include the fourth possibility in his list? Perhaps it is in part due to his lack of religious education. He would likely have been exposed to Rabbi Hillel’s famous dictum, only the first part of which he seems to have intuited:
I am glad that Mr. Douglas is “for himself” — but if he is only that, the what is he? (And if what he is is blind to the suffering of others, while abetting and justify it, that what should the directly or vicariously aggrieved think of him?) And, as Hillel notes, this is not an abstract academic question, but one that we must always answer with what President Obama once called “the fierce urgency of Now.”
Better call Fiala.
No need. He’s left plenty of traces hereabouts.
Putin is fine.
He’s just binge-watching House of Cards.
We LOVE Benjamin Netanyahu. I wish we had a REAL American President like him, instead of that pro-ISLAMIC, pro-ILLEGAL ,anti-Semitic piece of dreck, Barack Hussein Obama, and his partner in crime, anti-Semite John Kerry.
No wonder the lunatic left hates Netanyahu. They will not tolerate anyone who speaks the truth. Trusting Iran to curtail its nuclear weapons capability is reminiscent of the Allies trusting Nazi Germany to keep their word prior to World War II.
What the anti-Semites want is the complete destruction of the State of Israel, and the first step is the defeat of Benjamin Netanyahu. Is it any wonder why Obama’s operatives are hard at work in Israel, so they can install an Obama puppet in Netanyahu’s place.
Kudos to Senator Tom Cotton (R, Arkansas) for speaking the truth and exposing Hussein Obama’s real motives.
“We LOVE?” Do you have a mouse in your pocket or are you just used to deploying the royal pronoun?
I’m still waiting for somebody to explain why the Israel uber alles is good foreign policy for my country (the USA).
One hardly knows where to begin with this. I will begin by ignoring it.
Why? Normally allies are a boon to a nation’s security and economic well-being.
Why? Because I’m “the lunatic left.” Booga-booga!
(You can see some of my general thoughts related to the matter in response to Ricardo’s comment above.)
He speaks the truth, eh? Does that include blatantly racist rhetoric, warning about Arabs showing up at polling places?
In case your unquestioning loyalty is hindering your objectivity, that would be like an American Presidential candidate warning about blacks showing up to vote.