Quickies

• Rick Santorum says he's the only person that will talk about the dangers of contraception in this country as he again voiced his support for states being able to outlaw birth control.  Atrios has a good point about this.  Essentially, Atrios says, the whole abortion debate is really more to do about controlling sexual encounters/practices than about controlling the number of abortions.  I think that's true.  I'll add, though, that it's not just about controlling sexual practices but nothing short of another sad, sorry version of legislating what Republicans believe to be morality.  Their perceived morality for others that is. 

• Did you know growth takes time?

• Steve Benen makes a good point.  Not one single Republican candidate is talking about George Bush.  It's almost like he never existed.  There's obvious reasons for this.  He's pathetically unpopular.  He left office with the lowest approval rating in history.  He turned over a country that had almost collapsed.  There just isn't much to want to invoke from his 8 years.  The flip side of this is Democrats are not ashamed one bit to talk up Clinton or even Obama.  Returning to Bush policies now would be disastrous-- again.

• The best summation of Ron Paul I've read yet.

• And let me stress again, I'm glad Ron Paul is running for president.  He's talking a lot about things Democrats, liberals and progressives have supposedly cared about for years but done very little at achieving once in power.  So, yeah, I'm glad to see him running.