On CNN Wednesday, Santorum said he reviewed the context in which he made his remarks and said, “I’m pretty confident that I didn’t say ‘black.’” The GOP contender said he “was starting to say one word, and I sort of came up with another word and moved on and it sounded like black.”

Well, it sure as hell sounds like “black” to me, Rick. You sad little liar you.

http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/cbsnews_player_embed.swf

The CBS article points out that in Iowa the vast majority of welfare recipients are white:

NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said in a statement Wednesday that “Santorum’s targeting of African Americans is inaccurate and outrageous, and lifts up old race-based stereotypes about public assistance.”
Jealous pointed out that federal benefits are determined by income level, not race. In Iowa, for instance, 9 percent of food stamp recipients are black and 84 percent are white.

Since Rick made his remarks at a stop in Sioux City, Iowa, that pretty much makes his comments the usual Republican race-baiting on welfare.

Now true, African-Americans are disproportionally poor and disproportionally on welfare, accordingly. However, since there are considerably more non-black folks in these here United States the raw numbers show more non-black Americans supported on welfare. And in fact more white Americans are on welfare than black Americans.

So if some guy is going to make a dent in the numbers of Americans on the dole, targeting the less populous group is…peculiar. Unless, you know, he’s engaging in race baiting in the good old tradition of Ronald Reagan.

USA: 72.4% white, 12.6% black, 16.3% report Hispanic or Latino origin.

Iowa: 91.3% white, 2.9% black, 5% report Hispanic or Latino origin.

NH: 93.9% white, 1.1% black, 2.8% report Hispanic or Latino origin.

This is hardly news. But it IS pretty damn screwed up that two totally unrepresentative states have such a disproportionate impact on who is a viable candidate for President. This is even before we get to their generally conservative leaning populations, lack of dense urban living and a host of other factors.

Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.

This is quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Good God I hope that New London is the only police force idiotic enough to limit their pool to officers of average intelligence and below.

We have record low tax rates for the extremely wealthy. The smartest investor of the supremely wealthy is himself falsifying the claim that the fabulously well to do are EVER discouraged from investing their money to make more of it. And the obscenely well-off are stockpiling trillions and trillions of dollars of value.

Should be a mighty healthy trickle to the middle class and below, no?

[Demotivator image source]

Midshipman fish (Porichthys genus, not sure about species).

Clamming

However, the good part about running track…on a nice perfect surface, trained to run with form, gradually brought up to actually running fast through dedicated drills…is the flying.

Eventually you will have a race or workout, perhaps many or nearly an entire season. Where you are just floating down the track. Nice, even mid-foot strikes in your barely-padded spikes or flats…..and you can’t even feel it. FLYING!

This brings me to these barefoot running nutjobs. I’m pretty convinced that this RunBare goofaloon trueDisciple is PeeWee…so I may be a bit biased. Dave Munger has a post up with some actual science over at his new blog project, Science Based Running so maybe we better review that first. Okay, I really like the fact that this is within subjects and it does appear to show improved efficiency on treadmill and track with bare over shod feet. What I don’t know, since I don’t have access to the paper, is anything about the running style of the subjects.

So here’s my take on barefoot running. I bet it simply makes you run correctly. Better anyway. More forefoot, less heelstrike plodding. I have ranged all over the foot strike map depending on my level of fitness, training and general involvement in the sport. I am full willing to believe that when I am hitting midfoot instead of hammering the heelstrikes that I am more efficient. I bet a LOT more efficient. Because it certainly feels that way when you are doing it.

The other take on this is that modern running shoes let us get away with running like crap. Poor form doesn’t lead to immediate pain or medium-term injury as much as it would with lesser quality shoes. What about the longer term though? Do the shoes let us run with poor form for longer distances, more often or across a longer span of years? And does that permit all kinds of nagging long-term stresses and injuries to add up?

If so, that would account for the alleged decreased injury factor of bare footin’ it as well.

And all these current fans are just posers.

My top one was when Dire Straits released Brothers in Arms.