Weekend of the World - Egg and Chicken

1. The egg came first - The euphemistic question: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg" doesn't really need asking anymore . Thanks to evolution we know that the egg came first.

Once there were no chickens, but there were two birds that were nearly chickens, but not quite. And those birds got it on (cluck clucky cluck cluck cluck...oh yeah. Aside: I'm sure you can find not-quite-chicken pornography on the internet if you're interested). The female not-quite-chicken was knocked up and laid an egg that contained a slightly mutated offspring that was genetically a chicken - the first chicken - the Eve of chickens if you will. But Chicken Eve definitely came from an egg, because that's where chickens come from, so the answer to "Which came first the chicken or the egg?" is definitively egg. And when someone says "We have a chicken and egg situation here." You can reply "No we don't, we have a situation where we don't know the chronology of events."

2. Obama's flexibility comment - Back in March, Obama was caught on a hot mike telling Russian President Medvedev "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility." when talking about missile defense negotiations with Putin. The right pounced on this as a sign of Obama's duplicity and just this week I saw Lynn Cheney comment on it (Why is she relevant again?) The assertion seems to be that Obama is telling us one thing and Putin another and thus he's lying to us. Now I'm not sure exactly what he's telling Putin that he's not telling us. He basically tells Putin he can't negotiate on any of this stuff right now. Is he telling the American people something different? But even if we're hearing a different story, what makes people so sure that he's lying to US. Certainly there are times when, strategically speaking, it is useful to stall, and telling him that he can't deal until after the election - even though he doesn't plan to deal at all - has got to be a tried and true technique. Of course, Obama can't pull us aside and tell us - "Shhh....I'm just telling him that to delay. I don't plan on being any more flexible if I win re-election."