Now that Mitt Romney is the Republicanc candidate for president in all but name, the nation turns to consider his nominee for Vice-President. Who should fill the role? There are, of course, many possibilities.

Senator Marco Rubio

PROS:
- Shores up the conservative base
- Extremely telegenic
- Guarantees that at least a half-dozen Hispanic people will vote for Mitt Romney

CONS:
- Problematic backstory
- Far-right positions potentially alienating to centrists
- Does not appear to, like, know a lot of things

Representative Paul Ryan

PROS:
- Young and energetic
- Beloved by media types who enjoy that he makes right-wing economic theory seem reasonable and practical in a Mr. Rogers Repossesses Your House sort of way
- Really good at holding up charts, graphs, or anything made of paper

CONS:
- Kind of emphasizes how rich Mitt Romney really is
- Gets pissy whenever anybody points out that his budget plan will make poor people eat dog food even though dog food these days is healthy and good for you
- Two words: death stare

Rick Santorum

PROS:
- Is white and male, which helps with white male people and also people who like sweater-vests
- Would really piss off Dan Savage, and the base likes that
- Would give Andy Samberg many more opportunities to work on his lousy Santorum impression

CONS:
- Unpopular in his home state of Pennsylvania
- Religious extremism is kind of creepy
- Is a giant fucking asshole

Kcarab Amabo, The Mirror Universe Barack Obama

PROS:
- Combines Barack Obama’s charisma with the soul-destroying ruthless drive for power necessary to thrive in the modern GOP
- Proven track record of leadership in the Mirror Universe, which still totally exists and has not collapsed into a singularity due to Presidential science experiments that went against God Himself
- Has memorized all of the Evil Overlord List and in fact has added entries of his own, mostly about singularities

CONS:
- Birth certificate may lead some to believe he is actually Yrrab Oreteos, a citizen of Aisenodni, rather than a full-blooded Nacirema
- All the backwards spelling will eventually get on people’s nerves
- You don’t want to put someone more talented than you in the #2 spot, Mitt Romney, even if he is evil and ambitious
- Horrifying fascination with gravitational anomalies

A Sexy Pirate

PROS:
- Sexy
- So sexy
- Women voters will love the sexy

CONS:
- Pirates so 2005
- Constantly calling the US Armed Forces “the ARRRRRRmy” will get old real fast
- Will suggest to corporate America a lack of concern over intellectual property rights

Jason Sudeikis

PROS:
- Would stop Jason Sudeikis from impersonating Mitt Romney
- Much more charming than Mitt Romney
- Captures vital “people who still think Saturday Night Live is cool” demographic

CONS:
- Hollywood elite
- Sudeikis’ Romney impersonation more likeable than Mitt Romney and its loss may hurt the campaign
- Will hurt Romney with those sectors of the Republican base who hate laughter when it is not directed at minorities

Pope Benedict XVI

PROS:
- Puts the whole “Mormon issue” to rest and provides the campaign a clear answer re: separation of church and state
- Catholics will be told to vote Romney/Benedict or be cast into the pits of Hell
- Mitt likes eating fish on Friday already anyhow

CONS:
- Really old – like, “stinky” old
- Likely to cause a religious war of some kind
- Jedi will rise up to support Barack Obama in the general election and the Stormtroopers are not yet ready

A Giant Novelty Can of Tab

PROS:
- Increases Romney’s appeal to 40something women
- Who could have a problem with Tab?
- No calories!

CONS:
- Kind of out of date
- Nobody really likes Tab
- Pink can problematic in the Deep South

T-Pain

PROS:
- Kind of awesome even though he is killing music as we know it
- Impeccable dresser, will lend sense of style to the campaign
- Wobbly techno-voice could subliminally reassure people who think Romney is already inclined to be shaky on the issues by making wobbliness cool

CONS:
- Well, he’s black, for a start
- Association with “hippity-hop” music problematic with GOP base, who only like that sort of music when it is performed ironically by white suburban guys talking about the Founding Fathers
- Mitt Romney will not be able to tell the difference between him and Will.I.Am

One Of The Ponies From My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

PROS:
- Guarantees “brony” vote
- Appeal to younger voters hits Obama in key demographic
- Was cool about a year ago, which for a Republican campaign is amazingly up-to-date

CONS:
- “Brony” vote outnumbered by “we hate bronies” vote
- Republicans traditionally terrified of bright colours
- Seriously, which one is that? We can never remember

An Oil Tanker

PROS:
- Is very, very big and will impress voters
- Gets all the subtext out of the way
- Like, all of it

CONS:
- Leaky
- May explode
- Sort of a “high risk, high reward” candidate

Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford

PROS:
- Is white and male and fat and very conservative – he’s like a less-moderate Chris Christie!
- Anti-elitist in all the ways that Republicans like
- Complete disregard for “facts” will work well in debates when his claims of things that are obviously and wildly untrue will confound Joe Biden

CONS:
- None at all
- Seriously
- Please, take him

A Woman

PROS:
- Shows that the campaign is open to modern thinking
- May help the campaign win back female voters alienated by the GOP’s track record on, well, everything
- Probably will smell better than Mitt Romney

CONS:
- Could potentially wear immodest clothing
- Republicans already tried this once and it didn’t so much work that time
- Might get all the other women jealous, because you know how women are, am I right, fellows?

A Clone of Mitt Romney Grown In A Vat

PROS:
- Allows Mitt Romney to take wildly differing positions on any issue simultaneously

CONS:
- Means that there are two of Mitt Romney

(previously)

By popular request (presumably because of this). Originals via.

(Source.) (Unrelated.)

(Previously. Two. Three.)

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Now let us NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN.

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Given that TF2 is now free to play, this seemed necessary.

(re: this.)

A while back, Pajiba ran an article suggesting that, contrary to popular belief, Americans preferred to see relatively good movies rather than mindlessly spending their money on total crap.

I thought the idea of the analysis was interesting but the execution flawed; after all, Box Office Mojo’s “critical grades” bias themselves heavily towards the Bs by the system with which they weight user grades, so that The Departed, Wall-E and Slumdog Millionaire are all B+ movies and therefore only very slightly critically better than The Transformers, Fast and Furious and National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

So instead, I spent a few weeks when I had time collating the same sort of data, weighing movies’ box-office performance against their Rotten Tomatoes rating, on the basis that RT ratings would be more critically accurate than BOM ratings. And… well, see below.

(I really hope this doesn’t crash the server too badly.)

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