Isegoria

In How to Get Condi to Power, Uriah Kriegel explains how “the notion of a Rice presidency is appealing to three different groups within the GOP”:

First and foremost is the moderate wing of the party. Secretary Rice combines an unwavering hawkish foreign policy with socially moderate positions on abortion, race relations, etc. She is a deeply religious person who is nonetheless not, politically speaking, guided by religion. And as such, she appeals to Republicans worried about the rise of Evangelicals evident during the Bush presidency.

Obviously, Rice not only represents, but also embodies, the socially inclusive element in the Party of Lincoln.
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This is also part of her appeal to a second Republican group — the libertarian/meritocratic wing headed by anti-regulation, small-government Republicans and associated Big Business interests. Despite the challenges presented by her racial and socioeconomic background, Rice ascended to her current stature on the merit of her intellectual and moral character.
[...]
This also ties to the third group Rice appeals to, the “Emerging Majority” Republicans and the pragmatically-oriented apparatchiks and wonks in conservative think-tanks throughout the country. This wing may value Rice’s moderation (and competence) not only for its own sake, but also for its political potential.

There are obstacles though:

First of all, successful presidential candidates who have never been previously elected to office are extremely rare in American history, and tend to be retired generals (e.g. Eisenhower).

Second, Rice has been able to sustain her unblemished integrity precisely because she has never run for office. As long as she speaks in favor of freedom and democracy, she is bound to look dignified; once she speaks in favor of herself, sustaining the image of integrity would require some political skill we simply don’t know whether she has.

Third, personal facts about Secretary Rice are likely to present a challenge to her candidacy. Rice is a strong and independent single woman in her fifties who has never been married.

Candy Makers Cater to the Health-Conscious with flavanol-rich dark chocolate:

Mars Inc., maker of Milky Way, Snickers and M&M’s candies, next month plans to launch nationwide a new line of products made with a dark chocolate the company claims has health benefits.

Called CocoaVia, the products are made with a kind of dark chocolate high in flavanols, an antioxidant found in cocoa beans that is thought to have a blood-thinning effect similar to aspirin and may even lower blood pressure. The snacks also are enriched with vitamins and injected with cholesterol-lowering plant sterols from soy.

According to The Golden Legend (Aurea Legenda), which records many fanciful stories of the lives of the saints, Saint Valentine was a martyr, executed by Emperor Claudius for denying the Roman gods.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, there were at least three such Saint Valentines, all martyrs, all “mentioned in the early martyrologies under date of 14 February.”

None of them had any particular relevance to lovers — except for that date:

The popular customs associated with Saint Valentine’s Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, i.e. half way through the second month of the year, the birds began to pair. [...] For this reason the day was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers’ tokens. Both the French and English literatures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contain allusions to the practice.

From Tucker took winding road to “Transamerica”:

New York-based Tucker had always wanted to direct movies. After years of odd jobs as a starving photographer/painter and a stint in business with his financial whiz of a brother, he wrote ‘Transamerica,’ a story about Bree, a preop transsexual woman who finds out right before her scheduled surgery that she once sired a son. She rescues the troubled teenager from a lockup, and together they drive cross-country, where he eventually learns her secret and meets her family. ‘Transamerica’ is more of a healing family comedy than a threatening exploration of transgender issues. ‘I know what it feels like to be an outsider,’ Tucker says. ‘I have felt misunderstood. Bree feels so unloved and born into the wrong body.’

At first the project met with nothing but slamming doors, but Tucker finally raised a little less than $1 million from family, friends and his credit cards. ‘Once I took the risk of being in debt for the next 15 years, the gates opened in a nice way,’ he says.

“Once I took the risk of being in debt for the next 15 years, the gates opened in a nice way.” I’d love to see interviews with the dozen daring young filmmakers for whom the gates did not open in a nice way.

From Muhammad on museum walls:

While lethal riots persist in the Middle East and American cartoonists and editors wring their hands over what it means to publish pictures of Muhammad, the Western world’s curators of Islamic art whisper and wonder.

As they understand it, the Koran does not forbid representations of Muhammad, though other revered texts have led millions of Muslims to scorn the idea. They know that many Islamic artists have taken on the subject. And they know that pictures of Muhammad — not caricatures, but respectful representations, executed by and for Muslims, sometimes with the prophet’s face shrouded by a veil, sometimes not — can be found in museums throughout Europe and North America.

(Hat tip to Virginia Postrel.)

The last thing that GM or Ford needed to see — Toyota in Nascar:

As if the Big Three automakers didn’t already have enough competition from Toyota, this Sunday will mark the last all-American Daytona 500.

Starting with the 2007 season Toyota will have cars in the nation’s premier Nascar auto race, as the Japanese automaker tries to make further gains in U.S. auto sales. To date, only Chevrolet, Ford and Dodge have had cars in the race.

Steve Sailer publically asks questions many Americans privately ask in their own living rooms — like Are Russian male figure skaters as gay as American ones?