20 million and change

“I just want someone smart running the country again,” said Tim Robbins recently on the Jon Stewart Show. The left-of-center audience erupted with cheers.

What an elitist! He thinks it takes intelligence to run this country, when all it really takes is a good shade of lipstick and a wink.

But who would want to run the country now, I think, in the worst of times? Bill Clinton thinks it’s the best time to be chief executive of the USA. “Anything you do has got to be better than this,” he says with his blue eyes flashing. A good ol’ boy philosophy if ever there was one.

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So what’s the frackin’ hurry?

DUCK!

Deep between your ears, there is a set of neurological structures called the limbic system. One of its functions is to help the organism detect threats and respond to them more quickly than the rational mind can manage. If you’ve ever jumped into fight-or-flight mode because of something you saw out of the corner of your eye, or because of a sudden warning shout or unidentified noise, you’ve felt your limbic system in action.

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