Random Jetlag Blogging

I arrived back on the island where I am currently based “yesterday” morning (January 11).  I slept seven hours “last night”, awaking at 11pm (GMT).  I lecture in two hours or so.  I’m sure it will go well indeed, once I work out just where and when I am.

While the social science on a relationship between what passes for political rhetoric in the USA and the events in Tucson is understandably mixed, it is safe to say that the right wing are not the victims.  Unless, of course, you’re Trent Humphries, co-founder of the Tucson branch of the Tea Party International, who believes that “The Democrats are using this opportunity to bludgeon their opponents.”

Oh, if only we were that organized.  It shouldn’t take too much political moxie to work out that the best way to approach this if you’re on the hard right is to point out that Tucson was a senseless tragedy, that violence has no place in society or even politics, and maybe that some on the right have turned the rhetoric up perhaps a little too high on the inflammatory scale.  What you wouldn’t want to do is claim that you, too, are victims.  But at least he recognizes that guns are likely taking a back seat in politics for the time being: “I’m pretty sure that for a little while yet you won’t be seeing any politician holding an AK-47 or an M16. I’m pretty sure that’s going to go away, and the last place that would go away is Arizona”.

An AK-47?

In this review of the right blogosphere, the narcissism stretches far.  (h/t John Emerson and Mark Devlin).

UPDATE:  I was wrong.  It’s really all about Sarah.  “Blood libel” will henceforth enter the lexicon.

In different news, USMNT center back Oguchi Onyewu has moved on loan from AC Milan to FC Twente Enschede, the defending champions of the Dutch Eredivisie (and also located right across the street and rail line from my old office at U. Twente).