Pixel Perfect

Per our previously stated goal of sharing good news on Fridays, Hope n' Change is delighted to point out that our first lady has never looked younger, more vibrant, or more beautiful than she does right now...unless you accidentally see her in person. But what are the odds of that?

No, like millions of other Americans standing in grocery store checkout lines clutching their EBT cards, you'll be seeing Michelle grinning at you from the cover of Redbook magazine - even if you can't initially guess who the hell that cute 25-year old is (Halle Berry's sister, maybe...?)

The before and after pictures above were taken within days of one another, rather underscoring the miraculous transformation. The first was at an event where Michelle was speaking to sick youngsters at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (see? We're reporting good news!) and thoughtfully she did something severe and unexplainable with her hair to give it sort of a chemo-chic look to help fit in with the sick kids. And that was a very, very nice thing to do.

And in fairness, she might have been feeling a little haggard because, in her remarks, she said "it can be hard" living with the president - a sentiment with which we wholeheartedly agree!

In her subsequent Redbook picture, the first lady has grown a remarkably full head of remarkably straight hair in a remarkably short time, her chin has narrowed to a point, she's shed about 40 pounds, and her smiling face is as unlined as a mirror from which her husband, in his younger and less serious days, had vigorously snorted cocaine.

But besides looking glamorous, the first lady also has a very, very important cover story called "Help Our Female Veterans! How we can ALL give back!" in which she talks to five female veterans who've had trouble finding stateside employment...much like about 63 million other people.

But why are the vets having such a problem? "She's been trained to be a leader," Michelle says of one of the vets, "And this country's not giving her that opportunity."

That's right - it's not a problem with the economy, or the negative impact of the president's policies on hiring. The problem is this stinking country - a country which, so short a time ago, Michelle decided to be proud of for the first time in her adult life. And now...we have all let her down.

So Damn It, America - let's do the right thing on this Good News Friday! Let's spread Mrs. Obama's positive, inspirational message and start hiring female veterans like mad!

Or at least teach them how to use Photoshop. Obviously there's a lot of work to be had in that area.

No News is Good News and Neither is No Good News

In complete honesty, Hope n' Change looked at the news today, the news looked back, and then by mutual agreement we decided to more or less take the day off and alternate between sipping Key Lime rum spritzers and beating our head on the desk.

Seriously - look what we had to work with: Jesse Jackson shows up in Dallas to allegedly make sure that the Ebola patient will get "the best humanitarian care," but actually because it's physically impossible for Jesse Jackson to avoid being drawn to so many cameras in one place.

And speaking of Ebola, some experts are now coming forward to say that it may spread more easily than we're previously thought. "Dr. C.J. Peters, who battled a 1989 outbreak of the virus among research monkeys housed in Virginia and who later led the CDC's most far-reaching study of Ebola's transmissibility in humans, said he would not rule out the possibility that it spreads through the air in tight quarters." Which is a terrifying thought, but does make us feel slightly better about Jesse Jackson visiting the tight quarters where the Dallas Ebola patient was staying.

In London, four young men were arrested under suspicion of being about to launch terroristic beheadings. Shockingly (at least to many American liberals and politicians) the men all seem to have ties to radical Islam. What are the odds?

Meanwhile ISIS is about to win a huge blood-soaked victory in Kobani thanks to Obama's "barely there" air support of Kurdish fighters, Barry has departed on a four day fundraising binge, Lois Lerner is trying to break into neighbors' homes rather than face reporters asking questions about the IRS abuse of Conservatives, and the stock market took it up the keister yesterday. Sideways.

And adding insult to injury, we JUST got a notice in the mail today that our crappy, overpriced health insurance is going up in price another $4,000 - with no increase in benefits - due to the "rising cost of providing quality medical services" under Obamacare.

But all is not lost. Things like this video clip still make Hope n' Change laugh. Especially when we're drinking spritzers.

Axe Not

Just to get it out of the way, today's cartoon is not intended to be racist. We are quite specifically not saying that all black Americans speak in ebonics and have a poor work ethic. We are, however, saying we've met a buttload who do fit that description and it raises a serious problem which transcends race. More specifically, we want to talk about human nature.

Thomas Eric Duncan, the first man diagnosed with Ebola in the United States (who is currently fighting for his life), probably isn't a bad man. By all accounts, he is a good man who did his best to help loved ones who had Ebola and learned that, in Liberia, the infected are only turned away from medical care. So when he realized he was likely to become symptomatic, he fled to the United States in hopes of saving his own life. That's human nature.

So, too, the admittance personnel at Texas Presbyterian Hospital are probably fine people who have to deal with hundreds of people a day who may or may not be telling the truth about their medical conditions or history. Lies may be told, and/or mistakes may be made. Human nature.

But now we see where those very human failings can lead us - and why the bloodless calculations of Obamacare and the government must fail when they don't take human nature and fallibility into account.

This goes to the very heart of what's wrong about Barack Hussein Obama; he loves to pontificate about theory and intellectual exercises, but he simply doesn't have any understanding of how real people think and act. That can be a problem in an election, but an unimaginable disaster when setting policy.

Clearly, there are no "fail-safe" measures in place for preventing pandemics in the United States. And similarly, the president's policies fail to account for the human element in virtually every other arena: national security, healthcare, economics, and foreign affairs.

Because the shortcomings and self-interest of "human nature" are a constant which must always be considered, it's critical that our next president actually be human instead of a coldly calculating, professorial automaton. Or whatevah'.