Various & Sundry: Dairy Products for President

Is it nice to be nice? The Dish offers several points of view on the subject, including noting that "nice" used to be an insult. I especially appreciated Edward Champion's perspective: "If you’re 'being nice' to someone, you’re not being honest. You’re humoring a person you don’t want to be with and I don’t think I can trust you."

Meanwhile, on the nasty side of the ledger, Jamelle Bouie suggests that the mudslinging of this presidential campaign is actually a good sign.

If this were truly a trivial contest over inconsequential things, the campaigns would be less vitriolic in their approach. But because it isn’t, and so much rides on this election, it’s only natural that both campaigns would eventually fight it out in the gutter. Or, put another way, the negativity of this election is simply a sign that both sides are deeply serious about the consequences of victory or defeat.

Hmm...I'm willing to consider that.

One thing's for certain: no one is electing this clown mayor of Alameda any time soon. Not after this story came out:

"Families waiting for San Francisco's cable cars on a recent morning couldn't help but notice Kenny the Clown, who wore a curly rainbow wig as he twisted brightly colored balloons into animal shapes for visitors, blasting Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" from an iPad at his feet.

"Little did the clown know that the tablet doubling as his stereo would turn out to have been stolen from the home of the late Steve Jobs."

Of course it might be better to simply let the yogurt take over, as John Scalzi wrote in an older post I only just discovered. No one argues with the yogurt.