Pat Buchanan jumps up and down in cheering on a right wing election triumph for France.

In Sunday’s first-round of regional elections in France, the clear and stunning winner was the National Front of Marine Le Pen.
Her party rolled up 30 percent of the vote, and came in first in 6 of 13 regions. Marine herself won 40 percent of her northeast district.
Despite tremendous and positive publicity from his presidential role in the Charlie Hebdo and Paris massacres and the climate summit, Francois Hollande’s Socialist Party ran third.
What drove the victory of the National Front?

Take a guess.

Angela Merkel and open borders are yesterday in Europe; Marine Le Pen is tomorrow.

Message sent loud and clear.

Rand Paul is kicking ass and taking names, surging in the polls… and …
Okay.  Here’s how desperate it was for him.  He actually had to tweet a self-congratulatory poll result of… fifth in Iowa… as a means to encourage him from falling out of the main stage at the next Republican debate.

Paul held on to his seat in the main debate due to a Sunday Fox News poll that placed him 5th in Iowa.
Paul, who had been fighting to stay away from the earlier “kids’ table” debate, was quick to tweet about the results, saying they were just “another reason” he should be in the larger debate.

Interesting to note, in the “Alex Jones” prison planet / infowars land, Rand Paul has lost his spot out to Donald Trump — who is now forever photo-centered the better to highlight stories about the political correct media and liberals and minorities going apeshit about Donald Trump’s front-running status.

On Donald Trump, Jeb Bush has a conspiracy theory…

Appearing on WBZ-TV Sunday morning, the former Florida governor slammed his Republican presidential opponent as “not motivated to win the presidency” and continued to proclaim that Trump is in cahoots with Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner. Bush also contended that Trump is neither a “serious person” nor a “serious candidate.”

Actually, some amusement springing out of Jeb Bush on petty threats of lawsuits from Trump in the general hustle of a nomination fight.  Of course, all Trump has to say is “I lead in the polls and you’re boring”, which is what he’s been saying all year to everyone… except when someone pulls ahead of him in which case we have… Trump calling Cruz a “maniac” (or, not boring… you can’t win either way with Trump!)

… and I think we have more vetting to be done with Cruz?

In the wake of Trump controversially calling for a ban on Muslims entering America, Cruz also unsurprisingly toppled Trump in another key factor: Likeability.
He earned a 73% percent vote for that quality — far above any other GOP competitor.

People who don’t like Ted Cruz include Bob Dole, all the Bushes, John McCain…

of course, who the heck is John McCain?  He’s backing Lindsey Graham…

You do have to wonder about some of this.  Like… if Ben Carson bolts the Republican Party because they manage to eke out a win at convention time against a not above 50 percent in delegate count Donald Trump — a person who stayed out of politics until he stumbled into them — does that … matter?

Good news for John Kasich.  He is a popular governor in Ohio.  Unlike Chris Christie, who is not a popular governor in New Jersey.

Explaining the strange confusion of how the 2008 Republican fight broke down after a slew of candidates strangely unacceptable to the Republican rank and file…

Moving from 2007 into the 2008, the Republican nomination fight slid into three factions: in the hawkish military conservative wing, John McCain beat out Rudy Giuliani, in the social conservative wing, Mike Huckabee beat out Sam Brownback, and in the “establishment politico” wing, Mitt Romney beat out Fred Thompson.

It appears that we have in 2015 going into 2016 another three wings of the Republican party.  In the Celebrity/Outsider wing, Donald Trump looks poised to beat out Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, In the “Libertarian/ Tea Party” wing Ted Cruz looks to be beating out Rand Paul, and in the Establishment Politico wing, Marco Rubio looks like he’s beating out Jeb Bush.

The interesting thing about Ted Cruz is how Donald Trump has shifted about the Overton Window to let him in as “credible” as nominal Republican nominee possibility  — at least as a whole you can move down the right-wing scale of conservative causes and spot him somewhere, where with Trump his appeal seems to be from out of right-wing talk radio — Xenophobia, sure, but large amounts of bluster.

I see Scott Weiland, most famously front-man for the group “Stone Temple Pilots”, has passed on.  The word for what that means is, oh, “group for its time” — or maybe even defines a “precise moment in time”.

A staple of alternative and modern and “album oriented that doesn’t lag off in the 80s” rock radio through the 90s, they have that assorted song list from their first couple of major albums, and then some songs played from the third release “for a while”…

… It’s that damned Seattle sound ala Pearl Jam, except by way of arena rock?  Or something like that?  They fit the niche, which was… you need to fit a rock radio play list, and have music that sounds like a few much better bands to play around them.

I more or less liked them, but only marginally.  I ended up with the “Tiny Music” album, and zipped through a tune or two from it in some vaguely defined album rotation…

So that’s how then we get down deeper into the album.

And the impenetrably dull memories that the passing of Scott Weiland inspires in me.

So.  Spanish class.  And this girl in class starts humming “Art School Girl“.  Another guy sings a couple lines.  “Oh, yeah.  I know that song.”  I say.

And now I’m in a conversation with her and another guy on whether this song, which is lost down this  is… good?  So now I just see Br(—) singing “Andy Warhol everywhere” … and deciding… well, it’s hard to say what we decided.

An Atheist, a Christian, and Muslims are responsible for the last three “major” mass shootings in America.  Definitions are fungible, and we’re getting into this new figure where you have to spell out what you mean by “more occurrences than were days in the year”, but this is what’s stuck in the 24/7 news cycle.  (Now I also see this arbitrary number of a category defined by “at least 9 killings”, which is kind of — if cringe-ily– amusing.)

And I’m either assuming or siding the Roseburg Community College shooter as an atheist in order to fit the narrative — for convenience sake — Secular to be sure — possibly the query upon shooting demanding they share their religion — or maybe I’m sliding into a line of response from people who are defensive about calling out anti-abortion rhetoric for the Planned Parenthood Act of Terrorism…

who, say what you you want about these three shootings (I imagine it starts and ends with “Good God Almighty, Again?), at least makes some sort of sense and follows a logical thoughtline, so when you see the news that some guy shot at a Planned Parenthood — you know what it was about.  (“NO MORE BABY PARTS!” was his stated reason.)

[I assume he was a Christian.  Somehow I don’t see this being a Nat Hentoff-esque political contrarian of an Atheist Jew anti-abortion advocate.]

Leaving aside the Community College shooter, which is forever going to be understood as him still smarting at being declined for a date at some high school dance — (surely there’s more in whatever manifesto he handed over, but here’s where I’m going to shuffle into the “No Notoriety” meme and state I don’t much care what’s in it) —

— This is what makes the Santa Berbendino act a little… funny(?).  ISIS did it.  Or, two radicalized believers in Holy Jihad.  Apparently.  But it’s… just a bunch of random shootings.  So the first assumption I’d make when I heard “a tragedy in California” was… some random (white) miscreant dude.  But no, there’s a political aim here… the crazy Islamic Militants set out to disrupt American society, by…

… um… doing a variation of an act done in American society anyways?  The most darkly comedic comment I can make is that the perpetrators of this act of mass violence are fully assimilated into American society, after all.

… and that a radical Muslim committed to waging war against the American Satan best find something to differentiate, because this needs too much explaining.

David Letterman…

Has a beard, he mocks as Charles Darwin, everyone else — thinking seasonally — views as Santa Clause…

… is, I suppose, doing an infrequent show of sorts at his alma mater, co-paneling celebrity guests, as he donates crap from his old show to Ball State…

… really, doesn’t look like he’s doing a show anymore…

… has done at least one top ten least, for the sake of Trump bashing…

… I could have sworn I saw a report of him fundraising for some Senator… (Baldwin of Wisconsin), but I can’t find it.  He has thrown himself into some climate change group, so make of it what you will.

Big dooings with what it means to compete in the world of Curling.

Curling Canada has followed the lead of the World Curling Federation in banning controversial broom heads for the 2015-16 season.
Olympic gold medallists Brad Jacobs, Brad Gushue, Jennifer Jones and former world champion Glenn Howard were among 50 Canadian and international teams who signed a statement in October, saying their teams will not sweep with broom heads that have “directional fabric.”
Coarse material on the broom heads creates a sandpaper effect on the ice, and with it sweepers have been able to manipulate the rock’s trajectory in ways they never could before.
Fearing that throwing accuracy and athleticism would be diminished, the curlers said they want to protect “the integrity of the game” in refusing to use the brush heads.
The athletes’ decision to police themselves had the sport’s governing bodies scrambling to come up with policies and guidelines for brush head technology.

Fights are breaking out… by the makers of the brooms…

To Archie Manavian, the president of Hardline, the agreement smelled of conspiracy.
“This is nothing other than corporate bullying,” Manavian said. “The bottom line is we have not changed anything on the IcePad the last three years. The complaints only started this year — the reason for that is our competitors are jealous of our success. Our broom is the best one out there — there’s no question about it — and sales started to skyrocket.”
Scott Taylor, the president of BalancePlus, said: “I can’t really respond to his comments. The thing that needs to be done by his company or others is to provide equipment that’s good for the sport. We’d hate to see anything in the way of equipment development that doesn’t make sense anymore.”

And you do see what makes the traditionalists upset over the new brooming technology.

Pete Fenson, a bronze medalist for the United States at the 2006 Turin Games, learned the game using cornhusk brooms while growing up in northern Minnesota. The new brooms, with carbon fiber shafts, allow curlers to sweep paths for stones, also known as rocks, in such ways that “it almost looks like they’re on remote control,” said Fenson, who has a sponsorship agreement with BalancePlus. “In the past, players that have the best feel for the game, work the hardest, are in the best shape and understand the game the best — those are the ones who were usually the most successful.”

Clearly the world of Curling has to take a stand somewhere.  I mean, next thing you know, we’ll have the brooms able to throw marbles out at the competitors, and then it’d just be a whole other game.

George P Bush goes on the stump boosting Jeb Bush. To give credence to a cartoon by Matt Boors with a punchline of the family being his one and only support.

Lindsey Graham hopes John McCain will save him. (How about Joseph Lieberman while he’s at it?)

Ted Cruz faults Marco Rubio for Benghazi. And uses the word “neo-con”, as though he’s Rand Paul… (aiming in the same direction, but not getting the press notice as a lower tier candidate, because… he doesn’t support so many wars. Irony.)

Note to NPR: what success did Ron Paul get that eludes Rand Paul? Wasn’t… getting much vote — like father like son.

Headlines always show some… creepy opportunism in politics. In Wake Of Paris Attacks, Chris Christie Sees An Opportunity. Right. I recall Scott Walker’s big meta and then not meta narrative was his stand on the Unions shows how he will be “Man enough” to deal with Islamic Terrorists. (The problem for Walker became when he had to make the connection explicitly.)

So, we have with Ted Cruz making the rounds. Ted Cruz: ‘Majority of Violent Criminals Are Democrats’ … (See Ted Bundy, for instance.) Ted Cruz: GOP isn’t ‘condom police’. (Better than Leonard Cohen’s “Jazz Police.” Jizz Police?)

Jim Gilmore joins with Kasich and calls Trump “Fascist”, or at least using “Fascist Talk.”

It is telling when the major media goes on Mike Huckabee with fluff piece headlined with the premise of him strumming along to Aerosmith and “Life’s a Journey, not a Destination“.