Lee Rodgers

January, 2012

NEW YEAR, SAME OLD PROBLEMS ... MORE ELECTRIC CAR FLOPS

Today many might well remember Dean Martin's advice on how to avoid a hangover:
"Either stay sober ... or stay drunk."

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Survey (Rasmussen) says ... 48% of likely U.S. voters think most members of Congress are corrupt; only 28% disagree.
And yet, one of the safest election bets you could make is that a huge majority of those members of Congress will be re-elected.
It's a biennial illustration of the peculiar mental disorder that insists, "While most of the representatives in Congress are crooked, MINE isn't." Or, alternatively, "My member is crooked in a way that meets my approval."

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What are the chances Obama will time an attack on Iran as a lead-in to November's election?

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Mike Rosen in the Denver Post on Obama's class-warfare game ...
     "In his campaign speech earlier this month in Osawatomie, Kan., President Obama dramatically revealed his desperate re-election strategy of class warfare and big government. He has little choice. He certainly can't run on his record, so he's going all in on his fundamental ideology.
     "The speech got rave reviews from the left, encouraged that Obama has rediscovered his inner self. Paul Krugman and E.J. Dionne loved it. So did Robert Reich, the leading advocate for socialism in the Clinton administration during his stint as secretary of labor.
     "Obama's biggest whopper in that speech was his misrepresentation of his conservative critics. As he put it, 'Their philosophy is simple. We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.' What fantasy world does he live in? Does he imagine that our government, whether Democrats or Republicans are in power, comes anywhere close or is likely to leave people to 'fend for themselves and play by their own rules?'"

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Re the latest ambush at ABC's KSFO in San Francisco:
No matter what tale is put out on the air, the cold hard fact is that Officer Vic was fired without notice Friday after fourteen years.
Again, there is apparently an effort to camouflage the cold reality with a pastiche of lies.

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Another electric car failure. Fisker, which turns out a hundred-grand-plus plug-in hybrid has recalled all its cars because of a fire hazard. The Obamorons loaned $529 million of your tax money to develop the car, which was being built ... in Finland!

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The Netherlands, one of the world's most liberal nations, is giving up on multi-culti ...
      A new integration bill which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament earlier this year reads: "The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people. In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role. With this change, the government steps away from the model of a multicultural society.
      "A more obligatory integration is justified because the government also demands that from its own citizens. It is necessary because otherwise the society gradually grows apart and eventually no one feels at home anymore in the Netherlands".
     The new integration policy will place more demands on immigrants. For example, immigrants will be required to learn the Dutch language, and the government will take a tougher approach to immigrants who ignore Dutch values or disobey Dutch law. The government will also stop offering special subsidies for Muslim immigrants because, according to Donner, "it is not the government's job to integrate immigrants."

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Democrats are addicted to fraudulent, illegal voting. Take it from a long-time Chicagoan. Robert Knight elaborates in the Washington Times...
     "The most consequential election in our lifetime is still 10 months away, but it’s clear from the Obama administration’s order halting South Carolina’s new photo ID law that the Democrats already have brought a gun to a knife fight.
     "How else to describe this naked assault on the right of a state to create minimal requirements to curb voter fraud?
     "The U.S. Constitution empowers the states to enact voting procedures with minimal input from the national government, such as setting the voting age and election days for federal offices. The 15th and 19th amendments ensure that no one is denied the right to vote based on race or sex.
     "The Obama administration is playing the same race card that Democrats have played for decades. But this is not about race; it’s about whether legitimately cast votes will be wiped out by illegally cast votes."

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It had to happen eventually. The "sky-cam" that travels on cables above football fields to give those dramatic mobile overhead shots almost fell on an Iowa player in Friday night's loss to Oklahoma.

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Rick provides this list of things we might not know, so that we might start the new year as wiser people ...

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the U.S. Treasury.

It is impossible to lick your elbow. (Go ahead, we'll wait)

The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska

The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%
(now get this...)
The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $ 16,400

The average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given hour: 61,000

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
Spades - King David
Hearts - Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle.
If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died because of wounds received in battle.
If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes (the greatest killer of all).

Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers have in common?
A. All were invented by women.

Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil?
A. Honey

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Distressing news from the NY Post ...
An Illinois couple was busted for showing up nude at a McDonald’s drive-thru.
The 19-year-old guy’s Big Mac was apparently in full view of store workers while his 21-year-old gal pal’s double cheeseburgers were also on the menu.

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Arlys offers this story of enduring love ...
     This 80 year old woman was arrested for shoplifting. When she went before the judge in Cincinnati he asked her, "What did you steal?"
     She replied, "A can of peaches."
     The judge then asked her why she had stolen the can of peaches and she replied that she was hungry.
     The judge then asked her how many peaches were in the can. She replied 6.
     The judge then said, "I will then give you 6 days in jail."
     Before the judge could actually pronounce the punishment, the woman's husband spoke up and asked the judge if he could say something.
     The judge said, "What is it?"
     The husband said, "She also stole a can of peas"

SUNSET TIME IN IOWA ... "CONGRESS" ISN'T RUNNING VS. OBAMA
... MORE AMERICANS ARMED

January 2. Time to start getting organized for (yucch!) taxes.

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The anti-Romneys have come and gone. Pawlenty, Bachman, Cain and Perry all had their brief run-in-the-sun ...
Newt is fading fast ... Santorum appears to be the flavor-of-the-week in Iowa, for whatever that's worth. The sheer lunacy of Ron Paul is being made evident to more and more voters.
Winning the nomination by default is hardly a cheerful prospect, but Romney's inevitability seems to be the constant factor in the Republican race.
One might ponder whether some of those who declined the opportunity to enter the race are now wondering, "What if?"

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Much will be made -- by the media -- over tomorrow's political dog & pony show in Iowa. Never mind. Unless a scenario develops that will make the Republican race a serious scuffle right up to, and thru, the convention (bartering for Ron Paul delegates?!) expect that Florida will be the major turning point.

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The Santorum Iowa "bubble" will disappear within three weeks.

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Along with his class-warfare strategy, an accompanying theme of the Obama campaign is going to be running against "Congress", obviously understanding that millions of Americans are so poorly educated in how the government works that they think the House of Representatives -- Republican-dominated -- IS "Congress". Congress actually consists of both the House and Senate, of course, with the Senate side run by the smiling, affable, handsome and charming ... Harry Reid.
In any case, the mythical opponent "Congress" doesn't exist, and while "Congress" may be unpopular, the fact is most of its members will be re-elected ... as always.

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Good news for self-reliant citizens ... bad news for criminals. The London Telegraph reports that, according to the FBI, over 1.5 million background checks on (American) customers were requested by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System in December. Nearly 500,000 of those were in the six days before Christmas. It was the highest number ever in a single month, surpassing the previous record set in November. On Dec 23 alone there were 102,222 background checks, making it the second busiest single day for buying guns in history.
Interesting that our domestic liberal Big Media have largely ignored this story.

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Lee DeCovnick on The American Thinker website asks the pertinent question ...
"Why do American Jews still support this President? In 2008, Obama received 78% of the Jewish vote. A recent Gallup poll reported that Jewish support had dropped to 54% in the late summer of 2011 while a September 2011 poll by the American Jewish Council had the number down to 45%. Some reality testing has begun to take place in the Jewish community, but frankly, unless Obama bows down toward Mecca on a prayer rug in the Oval Office after signing an executive order requiring Jews to wear yellow armbands in public, he will still receive a plurality of the Jewish vote in 2012."

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Let us hope that 2012 will bring a lessening of the barrage of fake "global warming" nonsense. So much of the "science" has been revealed as either so distorted or totally made-up as to render the entire discussion nothing more than a playground for the mentally deficient.

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Mark Steyn takes a clear-eyed look at the State of the Nation ...
     "A few days before Christmas, we sailed across the psychological Rubicon and joined the club of nations whose government debt now exceeds their total GDP. It barely raised a murmur — and those who took the trouble to address the issue noted complacently that our 100% debt-to-GDP ratio is a mere two-thirds of Greece's.
     "That's true, but at a certain point per capita comparisons are less relevant than the sheer hard dollar sums: Greece owes a few rinky-dink billions; America owes more money than anyone has ever owed anybody ever.
     "At the deepest levels within our governing structures, we are committed to living beyond our means on a scale no civilization has ever done.
     "In September, the 10th anniversary of a murderous strike at the heart of America's most glittering city was commemorated at a building site: The Empire State Building was finished in 18 months during the Depression, but in the 21st century the global superpower cannot put up two replacement skyscrapers within a decade."

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Has television been dredging up old video for a bunch of "year in review" pap, which is standard at this season?
I confess: for the past week I haven't watched anything on TV that didn't involve large, violent young men vying for possession of a football.

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Could we have asked for a more exciting last-weekend of NFL regular-season football? Surely I can't be the only one taking some satisfaction in seeing the season end for the obnoxious Ryan brothers, with the collapse of the Jets and Cowgirls. Rex ... shut up. Rob ... get a haircut.
     The Broncos back into the playoffs, thanks to the Raiders' fold-up vs. the Chargers, but it appears defenses have figured out how to play Tim Tebow. He's been the great, inspiring NFL story of the year, but he was simply awful yesterday. His well of miracles seems to have gone dry.
     Unless owner Jerry Jones has had a personality transplant, expect the Dallas team to have a very different cast next year. And despite Jerry's defense of his head coach, Mr. Garrett's future may not be all that secure.
     The Saints, even with a defense only marginally better than that of Green Bay, are looking like the hot team.

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"Ooops!" One of the football broadcasters yesterday referred to the Jets' loss to the Miami ... HEAT!

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I did make my one annual New Year's resolution. I resolve to live within my income ... even if I have to borrow money to do it.

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According to the Mayan calendar, the world ends on December 21 of this year. Does this mean the next Super Bowl will have to be moved up by a month?

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The "Ineptitude in Crime" award-winner for the week is 53-year-old Michael Fuller of North Carolina who took $476 worth of stuff to the check-out counter at Wal-Mart ... and tried to pay for it with a million-dollar bill.
Mr. Fuller, who wanted change for the bill, was evidently unaware that the largest currency denomination in circulation is the $100 bill.

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Some memorable quotes by great sports figures of the past ...

I’m working as hard as I can to get my life and my cash to run out at the same time. If I can just die after lunch Tuesday, everything will be perfect. -- Doug Sanders, professional golfer

When it’s third and ten, you can take the milk drinkers; I’ll take the whiskey drinkers every time. -- Max McGee, Green Bay Packers receiver

My knees look like they lost a knife fight with a midget. -- E. J. Holub, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker regarding his 12 knee operations

I don’t know. I only played there for nine years. -- Walt Garrison, Dallas Cowboys fullback when asked if Tom Landry ever smiles

I have discovered, in twenty years of moving around the ball park, that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats. -- Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox owner

I have a lifetime contract. That means I can’t be fired during the third quarter if we’re ahead and moving the ball. -- Lou Holtz, then Arkansas football coach

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Words to live by, from the great H. L. Mencken ...
     “Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”
      ... and ...
     “The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”

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Dan Sorkin offers this ...
      A Methodist preacher said, "Anyone with 'special needs' who wants to be prayed over, please come forward to the front by the altar."
      With that, Tyrone got in line. When it was his turn, the Preacher asked, "Tyrone, what do you want me to pray about for you?"
     Tyrone replied, "Preacher, I need you to pray for help with my hearing."
     The preacher prayed and prayed and prayed. He prayed a blue streak for Tyrone, and the whole congregation joined in with great enthusiasm.
     After a few minutes, the preacher asked, "Tyrone, how is your hearing now?"
     Tyrone answered, "I don't know, man. It ain't 'til next week."

CAU-CUSSING: IT'S THE IO-WAY ... MORE FOLK PACKING HEAT
... GORDON GEKKO WAS RIGHT

They're voting today in the highly-unrepresentative Iowa caucuses, which exist primarily to make money for the state party organizations and fill a lot of hotel rooms and restaurant seats during the midwest winter.
     Just for the record -- again -- I am not a fan of either the flip-flopping Romney or the ethically-challenged Gingrich. It appears to me that the rest of the field is inconsequential, except for Mr. Paul, who needs to be in a room with soft walls so he can't hurt himself.
     Nevertheless -- and I suspect I share this opinion with a good many conservatives -- I shall support the ultimate Republican nominee (unless, against all odds, it's Ron Paul, whom I regard as a real menace) over the disaster that IS Barack Obama.
     This conclusion is the result of an understanding that expecting perfection in human beings is bound to lead only to frustration. So repeat the mantra, for your own longterm mental health:
     "Never fall in love with a politician. They'll break your heart every time."
     Such juvenile flirtations are fit only for love-crazed teenagers obsessed with the latest pop-music idol.

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As I read the results of the Rasmussen poll question about whether participants believe Obama will be re-elected, I wonder whether the responses really measure expectations or are more of an exercise in wishful thinking. The poll, which has an excellent track record for accuracy, finds that 47% of likely voters surveyed think he won't be given a second term; 39% do expect him to win.

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Texas Governor Rick Perry entered the race carrying the hopes of many conservatives, but how many would now really want to take the obvious risk of having an inarticulate candidate undergo another brain-freeze in a debate with Obama?

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If a foreign terrorist did to our oil supply what Obama is doing by killing the pipeline from Canada, we'd call it sabotage and demand an appropriate reaction.

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Wes Pruden (Washington Times) summarizes the hard reality facing the finalists in the run for the White House ...
"From here on, beginning next week in New Hampshire, presidential politics is for the grown-ups. After South Carolina on Jan. 21 and Florida on Jan. 31, the suspense is likely to be over. The Republicans will have their opponent for Barack Obama.
"The candidates and their campaigns are about to feel the pain of the meanest, vilest, lowest-down trick you can do to a candidate — reciting his own words back to him, accurately. Since nearly everything a modern president says is captured on tape, there’s an abundance of material."

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Gun sales, continued ...
Wisconsin residents have overwhelmed the state Justice Department with so many concealed weapon permit applications agency officials say they probably won't meet deadlines for issuing approvals this month despite pulling dozens of employees from other tasks to help. As of Dec. 28, that office had received 64,832 applications and issued 36,373 permits.

More Wisconsin residents have apparently considered the question, "Which is more likely to save you if you're confronted by a criminal ... a gun, or a call to 911?"

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Here's something for the one-world "all the world's people are just alike" goo-goos to chew on ...
Two men have been arrested in central India for allegedly killing a 7-year-old girl and cutting out her liver in a ritual sacrifice to ensure a better harvest.

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Prof. Walter Williams reminds us of a fundamental fact ...
     "What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It's really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it's human greed that gets the most wonderful things done. When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I'm talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves. Let's look at it.
     "This winter, Texas ranchers may have to fight the cold of night, perhaps blizzards, to run down, feed and care for stray cattle. They make the personal sacrifice of caring for their animals to ensure that New Yorkers can enjoy beef. Last summer, Idaho potato farmers toiled in blazing sun, in dust and dirt, and maybe being bitten by insects to ensure that New Yorkers had potatoes to go with their beef.
     "Here's my question: Do you think that Texas ranchers and Idaho potato farmers make these personal sacrifices because they love or care about the well-being of New Yorkers? The fact is whether they like New Yorkers or not, they make sure that New Yorkers are supplied with beef and potatoes every day of the week. Why? It's because ranchers and farmers want more for themselves. In a free market system, in order for one to get more for himself, he must serve his fellow man."

Gordon Gekko (the "Wall Street" movie) WAS absolutely correct when he said, "Greed is good." This IS how human progress is largely made. People like Thomas Edison didn't provide the world with vital inventions because of love for their fellow man. They wanted to make money.

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Am I the only one who thinks Fox News uses leftist Alan Colmes for the same reason Big Media liberals use un-representative boobs from the political right -- to prove that their opponents are stupid?

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Sobering reminder from Sara Nunnally on the Escape from America website ...
"Buying things that decrease in value, like cars or boats, is a big no-no for folks on the edge of retirement. You’re tying up cash in an investment that won’t give you a return."

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Could the Monday bowl games have been better?! But spare a bit of pity for two place-kickers. Those for Georgia and Stanford, whose misses will brand them forever among alumni, although a handful of better plays by teammates for the other 59-plus minutes would have changed the outcomes.

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It's a shame about Ndamakong Suh, the Detroit Lions' defensive lineman who came into the NFL with "greatness" written all over him ... an opportunity to become a legend-for-life. Instead of building a marketable permanent image, in two short years he's established his reputation as the dirtiest player in the game who behaves like a total ... rectal orifice.

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A sure sign of functional illiteracy in our youth ...
Instead of "He said," followed by "She said," their narrative becomes "He's like," or "He goes," followed by
"She's like," or "She goes."

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More mangling of the language ...
Saw it on a media-news website. A reference to someone's refusal to "tow the line".
Nope! It's "TOE the line", as in obeying an order in the military to form a straight line.

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The Ineptitude in Crime report ...
In Ogden, Utah, police arrested two men who were shoplifting. While the bad guys were taking the five-finger discount, another thief was breaking into their car ... and stole electronic gear worth $35 more than what the dudes inside were stealing.

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How bad is the economy? Why, it's so bad that ...
      I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.
Wives are having sex with their husbands because they can no longer afford batteries.
     Angelina Jolie adopted a child from America .
A picture is now only worth 200 words.
     When Bill and Hillary travel together, they now have to share a room.
And finally ...
     I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc., I called the Suicide Hotline. I got a call center in Pakistan , and when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.

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Doug is totally responsible for this ...
Evidence has been found that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers. Unfortunately, all the Swiss league records were destroyed in a fire ... so we'll never know for whom the Tells bowled.

IOWA SETTLES---NOTHING ... NY TIMES PLAYS THE RACE CARD ...
MEDIA MADNESS ON PARADE

++ Apologies for the tardiness of today's blog. Server's been down. ++

Summarizing Iowa: the deck has been shuffled, but the game goes on. Santorum is the latest anti-Romney flavor of the week, while Mitt still can't seem to get above about a quarter of Republican support. John McCain's endorsement may do Romney more harm than good.
     As the reasons become more apparent why Republican voters in Pennsylvania gave up on Santorum as a Senator, leading to a crushing loss of his seat, he will undergo the kind of scrutiny that's doomed his predecessors in the anti-Romney role. Whether he can survive that kind of microscopic examination remains to be seen.
     Gingrich will struggle on, but appears to be running out of gas. Ron Paul's core supporters will keep him in the race. Perry is "reassessing", which is usually a prelude to "I'm out". Bachmann is a spent force. And Jon-boy was never a factor, much as the eastern lib-media love him.
     And somewhere, as the pro- and anti-Romneys battle it out, Obama is smiling ...

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A warning sign for Republicans: The Iowa turnout was not impressive, especially absent bad weather, bespeaking a lack of enthusiasm among party supporters.

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Gee, it seems like only yesterday ...
... that Romney and Gingrich were making vows not to make personal attacks on each other. Remember?
Overnight it became, "You're a liar" ... "No, YOU'RE a liar".

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Does Romney have an economic Achilles Heel? Charles Kadlec of FORBES says he does, and this is it ...
     "His support for a weak dollar policy — especially relative to the Chinese yuan — as a way to improve U.S. competitiveness.
     "For all of its intuitive appeal, a weak dollar has failed time and time again to increase U.S. growth rates or benefit its manufacturing sector.
     "If a weak dollar were the path to prosperity, then the 1970s and the last decade would be the good old days, and the strong dollar eras under Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton would be recalled as tough times. Of course, just the opposite is true."

The question, of course, is whether Romney is capable of learning and correcting errors or is he, like Obama, wed to a philosophy even if it's a demonstrated failure.

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The liberal Washington Post has jumped onboard the "Hillary for Veep" bandwagon, buying into the theory that Obama desperately needs something/someone to energize Democrat voters. Doubtless also influenced by the stark reality that Joe Biden is a walking embarrassment.
Of course, making Biden Secretary of State is an invitation to even more embarrassment; the guy's so stupid, reasonable people might fear he could blunder us into another war.

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The New York Times is playing the race-card for Obama. Andrew Rosenthal writes, " ... the level of disrespect for this president that would be unthinkable were he not an African-American ..."
Bul(bleep)! Has this idiot forgotten the shrieking liberals labelling President Bush as "Hitler"?!

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Mark Steyn (National Review) elaborates on one more piece of Ron Paul goofiness ...
"The entitlement state is the single biggest deformation to the Founders’ republic, and it downgrades not only America’s finances but its citizenry. Yet Paul has no serious proposal for dealing with it, and indeed promises voters that we won’t have to as long as we cut 'overseas spending'.
"This is hooey. Well before the end of this decade interest payments on the debt will consume more of the federal budget than military spending. So you could abolish the Pentagon, sell off the fleet to Beijing and the nukes to Tehran and Khartoum and anybody else who wants ‘em, and we’d still be heading off the cliff."

Cong. Paul does, however, have the endorsement of Nevada's notorious Moonlight Bunny Ranch. And no, they don't raise rabbits there. For further info, consult their website. Yes, they DO have one.

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In case you hadn't noticed, we've hit a new record-high national debt. Now, for the first time, our total government debt has surpassed the annual Gross National Product, which is the value of all goods and services produced in the entire nation in a year.
And the Obama determination to break the nation from the inside continues unabated.

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San Francisco media reporter Rich Lieberman says that KGO's Ronn Owens asked new owner Cumulus for a three-year extension of his contract (which has about a year to go) at a lower price -- and was turned down. Uh-oh!

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Isn't it long past time that NBC superimposed the word "Leftist shill" over David Gregory every moment he's seen on "Press the Meat" or "Meet the Press" or whatever they're calling that antique propaganda-fest this week?

Ditto -- again -- Boy George Stephanopoulos, Obama's messenger-boy over at ABC.

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Judging from much of the product they run as programming, you'd think any idiot could run a cable-TV channel. Apparently not. Oprah Winfrey entered the business with cachet galore, but where is her network in the ratings? Missing in action.

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The NY Post reports that Martha Stewart's TV show is dying as of April. Poor ratings.

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If the traditional TV networks aren't trembling at the rumor that Apple is about to provide the breakthrough to direct internet-connected TV, they should be. With network shares steadily declining, this could dramatically increase the audience fragmentation that's already giving TV execs ulcers.

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These bits of wisdom have been attributed to various people. Regardless of the source, here are a few things kids did not and will not learn in today's schools.

Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a corporate vice-president until you earn it.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: They called it opportunity.

Rule 6 : If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault. Don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were.

Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to real life.

Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF.

Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

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Rick, with a blast from the past ...
" Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?' 'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him. 'All the food was slow.'
"'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?' 'It was a place called 'at home,' I explained. 'Mum cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.' "

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The Sky-guy strikes again ...
Three weeks after her wedding, Sara called her minister.
"Reverend," she wailed, "John and I had a DREADFUL fight!"
"Calm down, my child," said the minister. "It's not half as bad as you think. Every marriage has to have its first fight."
"I know, I know!" said Sara, "But what am I going to do with the BODY?"

ROMNEY ROLLING -- SLOWLY ...
BACHMANN & PERRY'S SUSPENDERS ..."HEIL OBAMA!"

Obama spokesparrot Jay Carney says that the Big Zero is ready to take “small, medium and large” actions without the consent of Congress. In other words, he sees himself as above the law.
     Obama's appointments to the National Labor Relations board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which he chooses to call "recess" appointments although the Senate is NOT in recess, are a blatant abuse of power.
     Clearly, the delusional egomaniac has the instincts of a pure tyrant and it's time for Republicans to force him to submit to legal authority in any way possible -- or necessary. Only crazed Democrats obsessed with power at any price could possibly believe that this kind of power-grab isn't the action of a would-be dictator.
     Enough is enough.

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Obama never learns ... or can't shake his emotional ties to Islam. First, there's the Taliban terrorist he wants to release from Guantanamo. Now, after the total, abject failure of his policy of "engagement" with the fanatics who run Iran, he's bent on "engaging" with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the emerging political power in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood, like all Islamists, is determined to control a world run by Islam under their medieval Sharia law. If Obama doesn't share that goal, why does he continue to pursue this mad course?

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Obama apparently likes to fashion his image along the lines of President Theodore Roosevelt. The similarities are strained, especially when anyone with a knowledge of history considers Obama's flaccid reaction to the daily threats from Iran compared to what TR's predictable response would have been.

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To the surprise of exactly no one, Michele Bachmann "suspended", then ended her campaign.
Perry suspended his operation, but may nevertheless resume in South Carolina. After having spent $480 in campaign expenses, including advertising, for each vote he received in Iowa, his prospects are grim.

- - - - -

Why you're right to assume politicians and their spokes-stooges are liars ...
Immediately after it became clear that Michele Bachmann had a dismal finish in Iowa, her campaign manager, Keith Nahigian, said Bachmann was going ahead “full steam.”
Only hours later ... she quit the race.

- - - - -

If Newt Gingrich doesn't win -- big -- in South Carolina, he might as well pack it in.

- - - - -

Jay Cost in the Weekly Standard breaks down the Iowa result ...
"In 2012, Romney won an effective tie for first place. The conservative, anti-Romney vote was spread across four other candidates; Rick Santorum won the most, but still not enough for a clear victory. What’s more, Santorum’s win was due in large part to being the only 'unvetted' conservative in the race. He has baggage of his own, little funding, almost no institutional support, and (unlike Mike Huckabee four years ago) cannot count on the South embracing him as a native son."

In short, while about 75% of Republicans would like to find another candidate, Romney keeps inching toward the nomination.

- - - - -

Undetermined, and probably undeterminable: the number of Democrats who voted for Ron Paul in the Iowa caucuses just to keep the pot stirred and promote even more discord among Republicans.
Interestingly, Paul's own son, the Senator from Kentucky, thinks out-loud that it'd be a bad idea for his father to try a third-party run.

- - - - -

Note to Ann Coulter: Obama did NOT produce a birth certificate. He produced a "certificate of live birth", a State of Hawaii document that can be granted simply on somebody's word. The "birthers", as those who question Obama's legal status are contemptuously called -- usually by leftists -- may be wrong, but that document doesn't prove the matter.

- - - - -

Over a good many years of enduring the hyperbole of presidential campaigns, I've learned that things are never likely to be as good as successful candidates promise for their administrations nor as bad as losers predict they will be if the opponent wins.
This is one time I must re-evaluate.
I deeply fear that four more years of Obama will do (more) dire and irreversible damage to the nation on every level from the economy to the defense capability to what little remains of national unity.

- - - - -

Jay Nordlinger, whose insights and observations are available at National Review Online, recalls this quote ...
"Many people tell me that evangelical or fundamentalist conservatives won’t vote for Romney, owing to religion. I’m sure some won’t. But you may recall that Bob Jones III endorsed Romney in 2008. He is the former president of Bob Jones University, the fundamentalist Harvard, if you will. He said, 'I’m not voting for a preacher. I’m voting for a president.'”

- - - - -

The taxpayer-subsidized GM electric car will continue in production, despite being a smash flop.
Bloomberg biz news reports that Chevy dealers sold 1,529 of the plug-in hybrids last month, leaving the brand 2,329 shy of its goal. The sales goal for 2011 was 10,000 of the cars; actual results won't even come close.

- - - - -

Who'd have believed it? Kodak. a longtime blue-chip giant, going bankrupt.
Oh, yes: the CEO of Kodak, who's leading the company into bankruptcy, is also on Obama's "Jobs Council" -- which is headed by job-killer Jeffrey Immelt of GE.

- - - - -

Keith Olberman, one of the most unstable of the mad leftists that infest television, is apparently not happy with his treatment at Current TV, Al Gore's bargain-basement, ratings-deficient cable TV operation. He did no coverage of the Iowa caucuses, saying in a note to the Hollywood Reporter trade paper, "I was not given a legitimate opportunity to host under acceptable conditions." Whatever that means.
Incidentally, one of the minor honors that has come my way over a long career in media was being labelled by this dope as "The Worst Person in the World" (his daily insult, apparently) during his days at the ongoing silly-fest called MSNBC. I'd wear it proudly if the self-obsessed jerk had a (much) larger audience.
Rupert Murdoch, the media tycoon, perhaps said it best when he fired Olberman from his Fox Sports cable network: "He's crazy."

- - - - -

A lot of people must have made an excellent New Year's resolution; readership his a new record high again yesterday.

- - - - -

The Sad Saga of Dabo Swinney (cont.) ...
Despite losing three of their last four games, Dabo's Clemson team somehow staggered into the Orange Bowl -- and got massacred.
West Virginia scored five touchdowns in the second quarter ... 49 points in the first half ... and waltzed to a blowout 70-33 win.

- - - - -

Mad Mike provides some words to live by from some football legends ...
     "Gentlemen, it is better to have died a small boy........than to fumble THIS football." -- Coach John Heisman, for whom the trophy is named.
     "Show me a good and gracious loser.......and I'll show you a failure." -- Knute Rockne of Notre Dame.
     "At Georgia Southern, we don't cheat.......That costs money and we don't have any." -- Eirk Russell of Georgia Southern.
     "After you retire, there's only one big event left....and I ain't ready for that." -- Bobby Bowden, Florida State.
     "The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely to be the one who dropped it."
     "Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated." -- Lou Holtz, Arkansas, Notre Dame, Minnesota, South Carolina, William and Mary, North Carolina State.
     "When you win, nothing hurts." -- Joe Namath, Alabama.
     "A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall." -- Frank Leahy, Notre Dame.
     "Always remember .....Goliath was a 40 point favorite over David." -- Shug Jordan, Auburn.
     "If lessons are learned in defeat, our team is getting a great education." -- Murray Warmath, Minnesota.

- - - - -

Greg Walker is a 25-year-old seven-feet-tall former college basketball player has become a trans-sexual who now calls herself Lindsey Walker, living a woman's life.
Next comes the challenge of finding a suitable mate. Perhaps someone who aspires to indoor mountain-climbing.

- - - - -

Signs ...
     "If life is a waste of time, And time is a waste of life, then let's all get wasted together and have the time of our lives!" -- Armand's Pizza, Washington , DC --
     "Make love, not war. Or do both -- GET MARRIED!" -- Women's restroom, The Filling Station, Bozeman , MT --
     "You're too good for him.." -- Sign over mirror in Women's restroom, Ed Debevic's, Beverly Hills , CA --
     "A Woman's Rule of Thumb: If it has tires or testicles, You're going to have trouble with it. -- Women's restroom, Dick's Last Resort, Dallas , TX --

- - - - -

Jay Leno --
"It turns out the suspect in the (Los Angeles) arson fires is a German man who is upset about his mother's immigration status. Apparently his mom didn't know you could just walk over from Mexico."

- - - - -

From Rick, a truly sick piece of British humor ...
I was devastated to find out my wife was having an affair but, by turning to religion, but I was soon able to come to terms with the whole thing.
I converted to Islam, and we're stoning her to death in the morning!

IMPEACH? ... OBAMA'S MILITARY CUTS ... ABORTION AS AN ISSUE

Do Obama's non-recess "recess" appointments justify impeachment? Probably. Will it happen? Not a chance. There aren't enough Republicans in the House with the guts to try it, and even if they did -- and succeeded -- they know the Democrat-run Senate would never convict ... just as was the case with Clinton. Impeached, but not convicted.

And to think ... Democrats used to accuse Nixon of trying to impose an "imperial" presidency.

- - - - -

Let's see ... the big Obama plan for national defense is to (A) make major cuts in our own military forces while (B) spending some of the money "saved" by training the military in OTHER countries, in the thumb-sucking hope that they'll fight for OUR interests.
Obama is writing a national suicide note.

- - - - -

Rick Santorum's surge in Iowa is highly unlikely to be repeated in New Hampshire. Then comes conservative South Carolina, where he created a rocky road for himself by campaigning against the most prominent political figure in the state, Senator Jim DeMint the last time he stood for re-election.
By the way ... who was first to use this line? "Santorum is Latin for 'not Romney'."

- - - - -

Mr. Santorum is not only opposed to abortion, he's also opposed to birth control. Wonder how that'll go down with many conservative voters?
Take note, "values" voters. Such matters are only very indirectly subject to any presidential action; they cannot be mandated by the occupant of the White House and because of that, in the real world of politics are of little consequence.
President Reagan, the most-admired Republican president in recent decades, was professedly anti-abortion. What difference did it make after his eight years in office? None.

- - - - -

Wily Wes Pruden of the Washington Times has this perception of the Republican race ...
     "This the Year of the Dork and they’re all running for president.
     "Newt Gingrich wants to send the Army to deal with federal judges who make bad decisions. Ron Paul wants to retreat from the world and hope for the best. Rick Santorum wants to smash all the condom-dispensing machines.
     "Herman Cain is the most sensible candidate of all. He just gave it up and went home to sleep it off on an old sofa in the basement, where his wife can’t find him.
     "That seems to leave Mitt Romney as the last man standing, the Castor Oil Candidate. He’s the heavy favorite Tuesday in New Hampshire, and a new Rassmussen poll shows him leading Rick Santorum by 29 percent to 21 percent. The rap on Mitt is that nobody loves him, and that may be so. But this is the year when nobody likes anybody, and the anybody that nobody likes most is Barack Obama. Another Rasmussen poll shows that a “generic” Republican candidate, meaning almost anybody, would defeat Mr. Obama. Is this the year they gave an election and nobody came?"

- - - - -

Why would anyone want a Rick Perry, who so clearly failed to prepare himself for the debates, given the job with the heaviest burden of responsibility in the world? And why would anyone think a person so inarticulate could succeed in an age when every word of a presidential contender is played and replayed endlessly? No. Not happening. And anyone who fantasizes about a Ron Paul presidency is a de facto supporter of Obama's re-election.

- - - - -

The foot-in-mouth report ...
Campaigning with his (now) favored candidate, Mitt Romney, John McCain said to a South Carolina audience, "I am confident with the leadership and backing of the American people, President OBAMA will turn this country around."

- - - - -

Stephen Moore in the WSJ on Rick Perry's prospects ...
"South Carolina has a history of deciding the eventual GOP primary winner. If Mr. Perry can take first or second place, he can live to fight another day and prepare for Super Tuesday, when voters in the bulk of Southern states go to the polls. Perry supporters also say that a comeback depends on his ability to make this a North versus South race. They say that three-quarters of Republican voters aren't sold on Mr. Romney. The problem for Mr. Perry, of course, is that even more voters aren't sold on him, either, in part because he has done such a lousy job of educating voters about his admirable record on jobs and growth in Texas.
"Many conservative leaders that I talked to after the Iowa caucuses are rallying around the latest flash, Rick Santorum. But others have concluded that despite all of his debate mishaps and his poorly run campaign thus far, Mr. Perry may be the only Republican candidate capable of beating Mr. Romney. As one campaign aide told me: 'We have to make a good second impression'."

And hope springs eternal in the bosom of any ambitious politician.

- - - - -

Always be wary of government run "job training" programs. While some have doubtless prepared graduates for jobs in the real world, experience shows that most are simply vehicles for awarding lucrative contracts to politically-favored folk who provide the "training" with little to show in terms of results.
I have a couple of friends who once went thru a government-paid program that was supposed to provide them with rewarding careers. Their training was in TV repair. And when was the last time you heard of anybody having a defective set repaired? How many TV repair shops are to be found in your town?

- - - - -

Some observations from broadcasting legend Jim Eason ...
     So the Iowa circus has folded the tent, and we move on. "...sound and fury, signifying nothing..."
     Mitt Romney is still trying to shake off the lesser candidates, like someone trailing toilet paper on his shoe.
     The President is supposed to execute the laws, NOT pass them, nor circumvent them with "executive orders." Congress is supposed to legislate...pass our laws. The Supreme Court is supposed to be our "court of highest resort."
     Lately it seems we have elevated the Presidency to the supreme position, like a King, or dictator.

   Just a reminder: it doesn't matter all that much who is in the Oval Office (or on the golf course); go ahead, run Romney, or Paul, or Santorum or Gingrich -- any would be an improvement over this current disaster. But, remember this: whoever runs against Barack Hussein Obama CAN lose -- and give us four more years of disaster.
   Some Republican CAN win -- and here comes the warning...
   Unless we change the makeup of Congress, we are still in trouble. With the same people in the Senate and the House, NO REPUBLICAN can succeed...nobody can clean up the mess...nobody can turn our country around. CONGRESS WON'T ALLOW IT.
   While Romney is not my favorite candidate, he seems to be the odds-on favorite to challenge Obama. I hope he wins. But, unless we change the membership of the House and Senate, nothing will change.

- - - - -

Where are people leaving? According to the nation's largest moving company, United Van Lines, among the states with its largest outbound movers are Illinois and northeastern states Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine.
In sheer total numbers, California probably far outnumbers their combined total.

- - - - -

Another sign of the continuing decline of civilization ...
     For many decades, the Orange Bowl half-time show was the biggest spectacle of the entire football season -- much more lavish than any other Bowl show. It was produced by a man named Earnie Sieler.
     When this year's game came to half-time -- already a blowout by West Virginia over Clemson -- I stayed tuned-in for a few minutes longer to see what they were doing now. It turned out to be another cheesy rock band.
     No more big, colorful production.
     Why? I suspect the answer is the obvious one. They get such "acts" cheap, or free, because of the exposure, especially if they have a new record to hype.

- - - - -

This has circulated on the internet for some time, but reader Rick suggests it be given a close look ...

If a Republican doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one.
If a Democrat doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a Republican is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat.
If a Democrat is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a Republican is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a Democrat is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a Republican is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A Democrat wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a Republican doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Democrats demand that those they don't like be shut down.

If a Republican is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.
A Democrat non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.

If a Republican decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it,
or may choose a job that provides it. A Democrat demands that the rest of us pay for his.

- - - - -

The estimable R. Emmett Tyrrell laments ...
     "... the absurdity of the caucuses and the primaries. Bring back the smoke-filled room. Or at least a room full of Democrats and Republicans that are truly representative of their parties.
     Progressives once saw the primary system as the latest advance in the democratic process. Thrust the party bosses aside and let the citizenry vote for the presidential candidates. The consequence is that the casual voter overwhelms the committed party member. Often the one-issue voter overwhelms the committed party voter with several issues and the good of the party in mind. Large amounts of money go to local media to coax out the casual voter once or twice in an electoral cycle. The result is that a transient mob - and sometimes a very small transient mob - gives us our presidential candidates for the general election: Barack Obama for the Democrats, probably Mitt Romney for the Republicans. In neither case is the candidate a typical Democrat or Republican."

Mr. Tyrrell is an articulate conservative in the tradition of William F. Buckley who famously said, "A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'"
     -- WashTimes.com --

- - - - -

A regular who writes under the nom de plume Dumbplumber distrusts car sales figures ...
"... until someone figures out how many cars and trucks are being sold to the government, would everybody PLEASE stop reporting vehicles sold.
"My point is that I see an awful lot of Chevy and Dodge pickups running around with "Exempt" license plates (government); Ford, not so much. Obama can single handedly insure the success of GM and Chrysler by buying cars into infinity and beyond."

- - - - -

The kind of guest who's always welcome is the old friend who just dropped in, bringing a gourmet treat. Moon Pies and RC Cola. I mean, ANYBODY can bring flowers or wine ...

- - - - -

"Imply" and "Infer" are not synonyms.

- - - - -

From All Comedy Radio ...
"West Virginia humiliated Clemson in the Orange Bowl, 70-33. How embarrassing was it? Clemson students are now telling strangers they go to Penn State."

- - - - -

Craig Ferguson --
"I hope you all had a good holiday. I was in Scotland. I enjoy going back to the country where I was born. That must be what it feels like when Barack Obama visits Kenya."

TREMBLE! OBAMA COULD WIN ...
FAKE UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS ...
HINDSIGHT ON IRAN

I have often been dismissed as a "cynic" when I've said/written that most of my voting choices have been made based upon which candidate I dislike least, seldom voting for a candidate out of any particular enthusiasm.
I suspect this November I shall have more company than usual in using that basis for a vote. I have no trouble containing my admiration for any of the Republican field, but with only one exception (the loony Ron Paul) any of the contenders would have to be an improvement over the power-crazed incumbent.

- - - - -

George Neumayr in The American Spectator with a dismal view of the forthcoming election ...
"No matter how ineptly Barack Obama continues to govern, his chances of winning re-election remain strong. As the results from Iowa suggest, the GOP is too addled and divided to field a formidable and philosophically coherent opponent against him.
"Say this at least for the Democrats: They have the sense to run nominees who actually support the platform of their party. This rudimentary task is too tricky for Republicans to perform. They haven't been able to locate in over a generation a presidential nominee who supports theirs. George Bush Sr., Bob Dole, George Bush Jr., John McCain, and now Mitt Romney in all likelihood: this is a dismal roll call of nominees with little to no interest in the ostensible platform of the GOP."

- - - - -

Obama wants to give federal employees a raise. Question: Do any of your personal experiences with any government agency, or any of your otherwise-acquired bits of knowledge about government personnel performance lead you to believe that a nation wallowing in debt needs to bestow more goodies on the people who helped place us there?
If you come up with an examples other than perhaps your postman (an employee of a federal agency going broke) I'd be surprised.

- - - - -

Draw your own conclusions, but the Daily Caller reports that ...
Ron Paul’s presidential campaign makes some of its volunteers, or “interns,” sign nondisclosure forms and instructs them not talk to the press, The Daily Caller has learned.
On Friday, The DC went looking for some of the hundreds of Paul supporters who turned out to hear the Texas Congressman speak at an airplane hanger, only to find that an overwhelming majority approached by TheDC were from out of state. Many were unwilling to talk. Some said they refused because the campaign asked them not to engage in conversations with members of the media.

- - - - -

For the poll cats ... Rasmussen says ...
"Likely Republican primary voters nationwide now tend to see Romney as the strongest challenger to President Obama, but regardless of who wins their party's nomination, most of these voters are confident their candidate will win the White House in November.
"The latest Rasmussen Reports national survey of likely Republican primary voters shows that 44% believe Romney would be the strongest candidate against Obama in the general election this November. Far behind is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is seen that way by 17%. Fifteen percent (15%) believe former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum would be the strongest general election opponent. No other candidate reaches double-digits."

- - - - -

If a corporate accountant did what the administration does with the unemployment figures, he/she would go to prison for fraud. As Jim Geraghty of National Review summarizes ...
The labor force itself declined by 50K from 153,937 to 153,887. In fact, persons not in the labor force have increased by 7.5 million since January 2007.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics offers this chart:
The recession may have ended in mid-2009 according to the economists, but the normal rate of growth in the size of the labor force stopped in 2008 and has yet to return.
Labor Force Size January 2009: 154,236,000.
Labor Force Size December 2011: 153,887,000.
We’re still down 349,000 from the size of the labor force when Obama’s term began.

Got it? Fewer people are working, but "unemployment is down." A pure case of the Obamunists "cooking the books". This is government-manufactured political propaganda.

- - - - -

An informal poll question. If President Bush had simply decapitated the Iranian regime, already pronounced as the world's largest supporter of organized terrorism, on 9/12/2001, do you think we'd be faced with their threat to close an international waterway (the Straits of Hormuz) today?
Humorist Mort Sahl said, "You have to kill people. How else are they going to learn anything." He may have spoken with more truth than humor.

- - - - -

Offered without comment, this item from Investors Business Daily ...
     An illegal alien just completed 12 surgeries and a record 374-day stay in a Fresno hospital. For him, it was "free" health care. But for taxpayers, the hospital and patients who ultimately pay, it's another big bill.
     Marco Antonio Fuentes had high praise the staff at Community Regional Medical Center who heroically saved his life after he came down with necrotic pancreatitis, a condition that destroyed his intestines. A medical team there rebuilt his gastrointestinal tract, monitored his progress and provided the best of care to him for more than a year.
     And the cost? Somewhere in the millions, by all estimates. As an illegal immigrant, he didn't have to pay a thing. The taxpayers, the charity unit and the other patients will have to foot that bill. Fuentes didn't have a word of thanks for them.
     Fuentes knew enough to recognize that health care is "free" to all illegals in the U.S. and, like millions of other illegals, already considers it an entitlement.

Now, as you've doubtless heard, Obama wants to make it easier for illegal aliens to slip thru our porous immigration system.

- - - - -

The same liberal mindset that declared mass-murderer Jared Loughner some sort of tool of Republicans in the Tucson shooting in which Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously injured ... now declares him to be unfit for trial because he's insane.

- - - - -

Good news department:
Now comes word from North Carolina that two days before the young (and newly-widowed) mother in Oklahoma blew away a young thug who tried to invade her house, a 14-year-old North Carolina boy shot and killed one of four punks who tried a home invasion while he and his sister were alone.
Both cases provide excellent illustrations of why rational people choose to exercise their gun-ownership rights. Especially in an era when crazed liberals invariably try to tilt the justice system in favor of "misunderstood" criminals.

- - - - -

There may yet be hope for (some of) America's youth. This is a hopeful conclusion brought about by Obama's experience this week when he told students at Shaker Heights High School in Ohio that they insipred him. And they laughed at him.

- - - - -

A brief summary of our recent political history from Victor Davis Hanson ...
     "In 2011, President Obama expressed a desire to be reelected on the grounds that he inherited a mess from George W. Bush that he needed more than four years to clean up. That story requires believing that growing the government, putting far more regulations on businesses, and forgoing new sources of gas and oil are making things better rather than worse. But Barack Obama’s last federal budget was almost $1 trillion larger than was Bush’s in 2008. We owe over $4 trillion more than we did in 2008. And the unemployment rate for the last year of the Bush administration averaged 5.8 percent, but in 2010 averaged 9.6 percent. Never have more Americans been on food stamps.
     "Presidents are rarely re-elected on the grounds that 'otherwise it could have been worse.'
     "The year 2011 taught us that when things logically should not go on, they usually don’t — though they end not with a bang but with a whimper."

- - - - -

A reminder to those concerned about Kim Jong Un succeeding his daddy as the Big Honcho in North Korea, with oversight over their nuclear weapons ...
Exactly how is he less-qualified for such a role than our own Commander-in-Chief?

- - - - -

Airbus, the European manufacturer of airliners, insists that the cracks discovered in the wings of some of their big 380 jumbs present no hazard to travelers. Nonetheless, it provides support for the position of a pilot friend. To wit, "If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going!"

- - - - -

From a dismayed reader, Shawn ...
     "With this GOP field being one of the biggest embarrassments in recent memory. Sorry..but Romney may be a smart guy but he just reeks of “used car salesman”. Santorum? Please..and THAT’s how BAD it is that a guy who lost his last election by (almost) 20 points could even last more than 60 days as a candidate.
     "Even if we have control of the house and senate what would it matter? Not only will the executive orders keep coming but Boehner and McConnell don’t have 1 testicle between the 2 of them!"

     ... and Dennis offers this ...
     "A liberal is a person whose compassion for others is sufficient to give them your money."

- - - - -

The Newt Gingrich candidacy has again unleashed a plague upon the language.
So -- again -- there is no such thing as "AN historian".
Would you read "an history book"?
If the "H" is sounded, the word is preceded by "A" -- "A historian". If not ... well, an example would be "AN honor", where the "H" is not sounded, but the following vowel is.
"An" is the correct antecedent only if you ... get the "H" out.

And my burden of trying to save the English language from barbarians continues ...

- - - - -

From Mr. Hill ...
     On their 50th wedding anniversary and during the banquet celebrating it, Bill was asked to give his friends a brief account of the benefits of a marriage of such long duration.
     "Tell us Bill, just what is it you have learned from all those wonderful years with your wife?"
     Bill responds, "Well, I've learned that marriage is the best teacher of all. It teaches you loyalty, forbearance, meekness, self-restraint, forgiveness...and a great many other qualities you wouldn't have needed if you'd stayed single."

- - - - -

Conan O'Brien --
"There's a plan for the Pentagon to cut almost half a trillion dollars from the military. The Pentagon plans to pay for future wars by divorcing Kobe Bryant."

STEP-IN-AWFUL-STUFF AT IT AGAIN ... CLUES FOR POLL-CATS ...
SAINTS JUST BREEZIN' ALONG WITH THE BREES

They can put an ABC logo over Boy George Stephanopoulos, but as last night demonstrated again, he's what he's always been -- a little-league attack dog for Democrats, trained by Bill Clinton. He is, in a word, absurd. He is also a continuing embarrassment to ABC with the pretense that he's an objective journalist. He is neither.
Anybody else up-to-here with these "debates"? All the candidates have said everything they have to say -- or are willing to say -- over and over and over. Borrrrring! Unless there are revelations that would change the dynamics of the race, I plan to watch no more until the final clashes between Obama and Mr. ? for the Republicans.

- - - - -

For the next ten months, the flood-tide of public opinion polls will only grow larger.
It's in human nature to assume that our own views, especially on political matters, are widely shared. Therein lies the seed of the widespread skepticism about polls. When a poll tells us that most of our fellow Americans don't share our views on political issues and people, there is a tendency to disbelieve it.
     During an election year, such skepticism is often justified because there ARE polls that are slanted, the outstanding example being the "push" polls in which the questions are designed to elicit particular answers that satisfy the agenda of the polling organization or its client.
     The most reliable polls tend to be conducted by polling organization that operate year-around, election years being just one seasonal element of their business, producing little or no income. Their bread-and-butter work is done for commercial interests; management people who want the REAL answers about their product or service, while political polling is a loss-leader, to use a retailing term. (An elementary example of commercial polling: "What color car do you prefer?" Mr. Ford would want to know before he turns out a million fuschia sedans.) Organizations like Gallup and Rasmussen don't make their real money from political polls.
     Before you take any poll seriously, you want to know how the questions were worded, who asked them and who commissioned -- i.e., paid for -- the survey to be done.
     The daily summary of polls on the REALCLEARPOLITICS website is a good place to start because it averages-out a variety of polls.

- - - - -

My old friend (and occasional friendly adversary) Debra J. Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle sounds a warning about -- and for -- Obama ...
     "President Obama is running for re-election with an unusual pitch: He can't work with others. He only gets along with yes-men. "I refuse to take no for an answer," Obama said Wednesday of his decision to make a "recess" appointment that placed Richard Cordray as head of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Constitution, of course, gives the president the power to make appointments during Senate recesses. Technically, however, the Senate was in session. The imperial president bypassed Senate rules and years of precedent, because he wouldn't or couldn't cut a deal.
     "What happens if Obama wins re-election in 2012, but the GOP wins the Senate? How will Obama get anything done?
     "Republicans scratch their heads. For years, the chattering classes bemoaned Bush's copious use of executive power. Yet when Obama steps on the Senate, news reports describe Obama's behavior as bold and media savvy."

- - - - -

Wonder how this would work as a clear-cut response to Iran's continuing threat to block and international waterway, the Straits of Hormuz, and thus block a major part of the world's oil supply? "Do it, and you can kiss Tehran goodbye."
I can feel the sensitive wimp liberals trembling at the very idea.

- - - - -

Today's significant statistics ...
Amount of tax dollars subsidizing each ridiculous Chevy Volt electric car, including those that have caught fire -- $250,000.

The city in which, statistically, a person is most likely to get murdered -- New Orleans. (But it IS still the best eating town in America!)

- - - - -

For your entertainment, a few choice Ron Paul quotes ...
     On a border fence -- "Every time you think about the fence, think about the fences being used against us, keeping us in." That's right. Americans by the droves are eager to escape to Mexico.
     On impossible dreams about the budget -- "Cut the budget in half. Everything that's not constitutional. That's a good place to start." And he thinks he could get that thru Congress?
     On a big city's race problem -- "Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." Now THERE'S a campaign commercial!
     On vigilante justice -- "An ex-cop I know advises that if you have to use a gun on a youth, you should leave the scene immediately, disposing of the wiped off gun as soon as possible. Such a gun cannot, of course, be registered to you, but one bought privately (through the classifieds, for example." From his newsletter, 1992.
     On re-naming New York City -- "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," "Lazyopolis."
     On the LA riots after the Rodney King riots -- "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks." From his newsletter, 1992.
     On terrorism -- "Whether the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little." From his newsletter, 1993.
     On the 9/11 attack -- "We see the investigations that have been done so far as more or less cover-up and no real explanation of what went on." So millions just imagined they saw hijacked airliners flown into those buildings?
     On the medieval, murderous Taliban -- "Taliban doesn't mean they want to come here and kill us. The Taliban means they want to kill us over there because all they want to do is get people who occupy their country out of their country just like we would if anybody tried to Occupy us." Even though we'd never sent the U.S. military into Afghanistan until they sheltered Osama Bin Laden.
     "AIDS sufferers enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."    Said the doctor.
     On being a Republican -- "After years of trying to work through the Republican Party both in and out of government, I have reluctantly concluded that my efforts must be carried on outside the Republican Party......
I therefore resign my membership in the Republican Party and enclose my membership card." Ron Paul, 2012 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, in 1987.

How'd you like to be the campaign manager for a candidate running on that platform?

- - - - -

After all the lies and distortions that have been exposed regarding the "global warming" scam, anyone who still buys into it is a willing dupe and probably beyond hope. Like Ron Paul's simple-minded ostriches, it's a waste of time to attempt reasoning with them.

- - - - -

Drew Brees: simply magnificent. And the fact that San Diego virtually GAVE Brees and mighty-mite running back Darren Sproles to the Saints is another example of why the Chargers' management is one of the dumbest in the NFL.
During last night's loss, Lions' Coach Jim Schwartz appeared to be in a continuous state of (A) frustration and (B) confusion, both reflected in the performance of his team. This is a team in serious need of a running game. Contrast the Lions' coach with Sean Payton of New Orleans, who adjusted his strategy after a tough first half and turned a tight game into a blowout for the Saints.

- - - - -

Hopeless battles (cont.) ...
Media is a PLURAL word. TV is a MEDIUM. Radio is a MEDIUM. A newspaper is a MEDIUM. Collectively, they are MEDIA. Therefore, no matter how many people say or write, "The media IS," the correct formulation is, "The media ARE."
Thank you ... I'll go quietly ... no handcuffs necessary ...
But the Wordman is proud of me for continuing to tilt at this particular windmill.

- - - - -

The Lucas Valley laureate with a offers some things to consider -- with a bow to Steven Wright ...
     Healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
     All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, 'I think I'll squeeze these dangly things and drink whatever comes out'?
     Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?
Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

- - - - -

The wisdom of the Sky-guy ...
"In life, it's not who you know that's important, it's how your wife found out!"

- - - - -

From Martin --
Definition of liquidity: when you look at your retirement funds and wet your pants!!

- - - - -

Jimmy Kimmel --
"My resolution this year is to do everything I can to help Kim Kardashian finally find love."

WORSE: DO-NOTHING CONGRESS OR DO-SOMETHING PREZ? ... GO,JOE!

I live outside Tucson, two-and-a-half hours from Phoenix, yet I hear regularly from other supporters of Sheriff Joe Arpaio who somehow assume the good sheriff has authority here. He doesn't. He's the sheriff of Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix. But the good news is ... he's running for a sixth term. I hope the Democrats bet against him, in which case I would expect them to be as impoverished financially as they are mentally.

- - - - -

The incisive Mark Steyn in NRO performs an autopsy on the latest Debate Debacle ...
     "... and then ten days later there they all are again acquiescing in some condescending media bigfoot’s wish to spend 20 minutes discussing whether the Supreme Court has a right to ban diaphragms for transgendered adoptees or whatever hallucinogenic George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer were chugging down in the green room (before the latest debate).
     "This country is broke, and the unprecedented scale of its brokeness is an existential threat. Yet, with the exception of Newt’s occasional flashes of contempt for the questioners, everyone else plays along with this absurd game.
     Re the questions about birth control and gay adoptions ...
     "The correct response is to take an unconstitutional federally-funded supersized condom, roll it over George Stephanopoulos’ head, and say, “That’s odd. I can no longer hear a word you’re saying.”

- - - - -

By now, there's no point complaining about the make-up of the Republican field of contenders. Those who were considered viable prospects but chose not to run are yesterday's news. It's looking more and more as if Romney is the winner, despite the question that lingers: Is Mitt simply the reincarnation of the moderate -- and hapless -- John McCain? Or Bob Dole?
Even if he is, he has to be less of a threat to the nation than the Manchurian Candidate now in office.

- - - - -

Both Democrats and anti-Romney Republicans continue to belabor the point that 75% of Republicans support someone other than Romney. I've pointed it out often enough, myself. But that "someone else" has yet to separate himself from the herd of also-rans in the field, and the likelihood that it will happen decreases daily.

- - - - -

Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Congress-nut from Florida, is vociferously attacking Romney. That should gain some votes for him.

- - - - -

John Podhoretz of the NY Post, who's observed the political wars for a long time, is ready to declare a winner ...
     "That’s a wrap. I’m calling this thing. Unless something terrible comes out about him in the next few weeks, Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee.
     "They all had very good moments — even Rick Perry gave us a sense of what might have been with a successful debate performance in which he did not collapse in the last half hour — but it was all for naught.
     "Paul attacked Santorum. Santorum attacked Paul. Perry attacked Paul. Paul attacked Gingrich. The wildly irrelevant Jon Huntsman mostly stood there and, in the strangest moment so far, said something hostile about Romney in Chinese.
     "And Romney? He’s on his way to a coronation at the Republican convention in Tampa in August."

- - - - -

Obama has clearly taken a page from the old (1948) campaign playbook of Harry Truman and is running against a "do nothing" Congress. But how is a "do nothing" Congress more of a threat to the nation than a "do SOMETHING" president who persists in wrong -- and destructive -- actions?
Given the justifiable accusations that he's a flip-flopper makes the prospect of a Romney presidency an even more compelling reason to elect a Republican Senate. Against both houses of Congress, it would be even more difficult for Romney to exercise whatever left-liberal impulses he may have.

- - - - -

Political definition: Nothing-burger. Jon Huntsman.

- - - - -

We've lost one of the good -- and smart -- people in the political/media world.
Tony Blankley ... stomach cancer. He was 63.

- - - - -

Think the following are politically-loaded questions?
“Each tree had 56 oranges. If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”
“If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week?”
These questions com from a math test administered at a public school in Gwinnett County, Georgia.

- - - - -

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that $45 million spent on a Homeland Security program failed to produce results and was thus a total waste. Don't hold your breath waiting for the the incompetent fools and/or crooks who ran this scam to be fired, much less imprisoned.

- - - - -

Our Lucas Valley correspondent provides a test: "How much mileage on you?" ...
DO YOU REMEMBER --
   Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
     Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
     Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
Coffee shops with tableside juke boxes.
     TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (You got only 3 channels --if you were lucky.)
     Blue flashbulbs.
Studebakers.

- - - - -

The Sky-guy strikes again ...
     Dying husband asks his wife:
     "Our seventh child always looked different from the other six, did he have a different father?"
Wife (crying) :   " Yes......"
Husband :   "Who?"
Wife : "You............"

"FIRING" BLANKS ... FAKE EMPLOYMENT NUMBERS ...
GRANNY IN IRAN? DON'T GO -- CALL

Whether or not one admires Mitt Romney, the transparent and sleazy attempt to take his remark about "firing people" totally out of context is one of the low moments for his opponents. It was clear to anyone that he was referring to the entirely reasonable position that it's desirable to be able to get rid of a health insurance company that isn't meeting one's needs and replace it with another. It's also an obvious sign that the worst offenders in trying to twist that remark into an evil urge to fire people from their jobs, Gingrich, Perry and the snob hypocrite, Huntsman, are getting really desperate. It was contemptible on their part.
In a larger context, it's obvious that some failing, obsolete companies do have to unload workers if they are no longer competitive. That, in fact, is the essence of the capitalist machine that produced the world's richest country, and why the old Soviet Union -- along with similar economies -- failed. They paid the price for continuing "make-work" employment in industries turning out products and services people no longer wanted to buy.
Conservatives can find ample reason to doubt Romney. Turning a quote inside-out and distorting it is likely to be counterproductive for those who choose this kind of pandering to them.

- - - - -

From the Club for Growth, a bastion of economic conservatism, comes this statement:
“Newt Gingrich’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital are disgusting,” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. “There are a number of issues for Mitt Romney’s Republican opponents to attack him for, but attacking him for making investments in companies to create a profit for his investors is just wrong. Because of the efforts of Bain Capital, major companies like Staples, Domino’s Pizza, and the Sports Authority now employ thousands of people and have created billions in wealth in the private economy. Attacking Governor Romney for participating in free-market capitalism is just beyond the pale for any purported ‘Reagan Conservative.’ Newt Gingrich should stop his attacks on free markets and apologize to Governor Romney for them.”

- - - - -

It's Tuesday. Hello, New Hampshire. Who's the "Not Romney" today?
And aren't we all thrilled that Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, has had its quadrennial two minutes of fame?

- - - - -

Jed Babbin is pessimistic about Republican response to Obama's power-grab ...
     "President Obama has made clear his path to re-election. He plans to run against Congress and -- by seizing unconstitutional powers -- go about governing this year with or without the legislative action required by the Constitution. He'll issue executive orders, have his bureaucracy regulate as may please his ideology, and generally do whatever else he can get away with.
     "Obama apparently thinks he can get away with a lot, and judging by the response of the Republican congressional leaders to his actions last week, he's probably right.
     "The question for congressional Republicans is that which the Sean Connery character, Malone, asked Kevin Costner's Elliot Ness in The Untouchables: what are you prepared to do? The unfortunate answer is that congressional Republicans aren't prepared to do what is necessary to rein in a president who is behaving as if he were the imperial president the media shiver about whenever a Republican is in office.
     "The House Repubs will have to threaten to shut down the government and actually do it in order to stop these activities. But they so fear the blame for a shutdown, they'll cave again. And again, and again."
     -- The American Spectator --

- - - - -

As a tribute to the departing White House Chief of Staff, everybody sing along ...
"Won't you go home, Bill Daley ... won't you go home ..."

- - - - -

Better unemployment numbers in December? Puh-leeze! Most of those "jobs created" were strictly seasonal; stores putting on temporary help for the annual sales boost. One job in five consisted of delivering packages. But the propagandists of the Big Media naturally went orgasmic. They're either stupid ... assume you are ... or both.

- - - - -

If Boy George Stephanopolous and Ditsy Diane Sawyer are ABC-TV's idea of being representative of liberals' concerns, then gay couples and contraception far outweigh such trivial matters as terrorists, a nuclear-armed madhouse in Iran and an economy falling apart under the burden of a bloated government. But, as long as Big Media are whoring for Obama, all's well in their world!

- - - - -

Always remember and never forget: Whatever a Democrat says about wanting or not wanting to run against any particular Republican presidential candidate, especially a Democrat with any real standing in the party, assume it's a lie.

- - - - -

Permit this cold but common-sense observation about the American facing the death penalty on (probably drummed-up) charges of spying in Iran while visiting a grandmother there:
Any American who goes to Iran to visit relatives or any other purpose not involving a military mission is a moron.

- - - - -

Word in the broadcasting industry is that Cumulus, now owner of ABC Radio, plans to push a show hosted by Geraldo Rivera onto some of its recently-acquired properties that now feature conservatively-oriented programming. A sample of what outraged conservatives can expect is embodied in this Geraldo quote: "You should need to have a license to have a child. You should be vetted."
Anyone who believes that to be a sane government policy should immediately apply for immigration to the People's Republic of China, where the "one child per family" policy has been enforced with "partial birth" abortions, i.e., killing a baby as it's being born.

- - - - -

The game is over. Did anyone wake up the LSU offense yet? The 'bama defense IS ferocious, but LSU made no serious adjustments and the Bayou Bengals never even made it across the 50-yard-line until midway thru the fourth quarter. A pure failure of coaching. And a pathetic quarterback performance.

- - - - -

Tom has another memory test for us. Do you remember ...
   Dressing up to fly on an airplane
   Dressing up for anything
   Reel-to-reel tape players
   Packards
   Hudsons
   Life Magazine
   A balanced federal budget

- - - - -

Mr. Hill has a reminder of holiday excess at the table ...
     My next door buddy, Ralph, announced that he had stated a diet to lose some pounds he had put on over the holidays.
     "Good!" I exclaimed.
I mentioned to Ralph, "I'm ready to start my diet too. We can be dieting buddies and help each other out. When I feel the urge to drive out and get myself a large juicy burger, large bag of fries, and a thick chocolate malt, I'll call you first."
     "Great!" Ralph replied. "I'll ride with you."

NO SURPRISES IN N.H. ... POLLS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL ...
T-S-A S-T-U-P-I-D-I-T-Y

No real surprise in New Hampshire. The real -- and serious -- polls had it about right. The Democrats who tried to manipulate the vote by pretending to be "independent" seem to have cancelled themselves out by splitting their vote evenly between Romney and Paul.
     Whether Ron Paul means to do so remains to be seen, but the fact is he's Romney's best weapon in the primaries. He can't win, but he prevents the anti-Romney vote from coalescing around a contender who might have a real shot.
     It's hard to see Santorum, even with his "values" campaign, really contending in the south after his dismal showing in New Hampshire. When the economy is THE top issue with most voters, it's difficult to see any election decided on Santorum's anti-abortion (and anti-birth control?) stance when most people recognize that a president has only indirect influence on the issue. After all, Mr. Conservative, Ronald Reagan, didn't end it.
     Huntsman has no chance and never did ... Perry's toast.
     Newt's "rule or ruin" campaign may backfire. And what is he doing, making a joint appearance in South Carolina with that state's only Democrat Congressman, Jim Clyburn, who votes in lockstep with the left-wing Congressional Black Caucus? The same James Clyburn who said (on MSNBC), "He (Newt) tends to fly off the handle. He will say almost anything in order to get a charge. I’m sure that he’s not serious when he says a lot of these things."
     Is Newt re-living his Nancy Pelosi moment?
     Cynics might even wonder how a man with a half-million-dollar line of credit at Tiffany's in order to buy trinkets for the luuuuvely Callista dare say that Romney -- or anybody else -- is making "too much money". Echoes of Barack Obama ...
     Newt's legacy may well be, "The man who re-elected Barack Obama."

- - - - -

Pertinent quote ...
"He (Obama) wasn’t ready to be a US Senator and he wasn’t ready to be president either. And because some Americans put White Guilt above common sense and thereby elected the most unready of candidates to the office of President of the United States, our economy is at a standstill." -- John Ransom, Townhall.com

- - - - -

Correcting would-be correctors: Newt, who was part of the early chorus taking Romney's "firing people" out of context, quickly realized -- as did Ron Paul -- that the ad hominem attack was harming him rather than Romney. THEN both began backtracking.

- - - - -

Michael Goodwin, NY Post ...
"Like the discovery of gambling in 'Casablanca,' the mainstream media is shocked, shocked! to learn there is chaos and back-stabbing in the Obama White House. The media missed the story for the same reason Capt. Renault missed gambling at Rick’s Cafe: They chose to.
"Three years after President Obama took office, much of the national press corps remains remarkably uncurious about what has gone wrong inside the land of Hope & Change."

- - - - -

Vital point: Self-selecting polls, meaning anyone who wants to do so can vote in it, are inherently phony and susceptible to sandbagging by fanatical supporters or opponents of a candidate or issue. They can pile up the votes one way or the other, many by voting repeatedly. Pay no attention to them; they're for fools.

- - - - -

When even the liberal Washington Post says in an editorial that the California High-Speed rail project is dumb, it's time for Jerry and the Sacramento loonies to admit it -- it IS dumb.
I challenge anyone who disagrees to contemplate the prospect of being aboard a 200 MPH train as it crosses one of the state's many earthquake fault-lines when a track moves just and inch or three and the train derails.

- - - - -

Just what the hell are we doing spending $1,800,000 on treatment of sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala?
Yes, this country IS being run by crazy people!

- - - - -

Burt Prelutsky contemplates the Republican field ...
     "I can certainly understand why Gingrich is so angry with Mitt Romney. It’s because of all the negative ads that Romney ran in Iowa. You know, the ones that told the truth about Gingrich’s having been censured by Congress for financial shenanigans when he was the Speaker of the House; that he had fully supported mandated health care; that he had joined Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore in promoting the fraud known as global warming; and that he had been paid 1.6 million of our tax dollars by Freddie Mac.
     "As for Ron Paul’s groupies, they’re always insisting that his detractors don’t really understand the subtle nuances of Paul’s foreign policy, and that, in any case, his domestic policies are utterly sublime. The problems are two-fold: one, the major reasons that young nincompoops champion his domestic platform is because it pretty much consists of legalizing drugs and making certain that the military draft is never reinstated.
     "When Ron Paul’s fans insist that voters overlook a few of his nuttier notions in order to appreciate his overall message, I’m reminded of those screwballs who want people to ignore Louis Farrakhan’s racism and anti-Semitism because, after all, he encourages his followers to dress neatly, bathe regularly and marry the mothers of their children."

- - - - -

I understand the logic of having early small-state primaries one-at-a-time because it does give dark-horse candidates a chance to build momentum without big treasure-chests to spend in many large media markets. Would it not, however, make sense to rotate those lead-in primaries among several states so as to at least mitigate the endlessly repeated argument that a particular state (Iowa or New Hampshire) isn't "representative of America"? Really, what specific state IS? Missouri certainly comes closer to tracking with the national vote than either Iowa or New Hampshire, with big cities on both its eastern and western borders and largely rural in between.

- - - - -

Schneier on Security condenses the TSA (Transportation Security Administration (a/k/a the Airport Gestapo) list of it's own "Top 10 Good Catches of 2011". Guess what. Not one terrorist on the list. But for some reason they decided not to mention its stupidest confiscations:
TSA confiscates a butter knife from an airline pilot. TSA confiscates a teenage girl's purse with an embroidered handgun design. TSA confiscates a 4-inch plastic rifle from a GI Joe action doll on the grounds that it’s a "replica weapon." TSA confiscates a liquid-filled baby rattle from airline pilot’s infant daughter. TSA confiscates a plastic "Star Wars" light-saber from a toddler.
Janet Napolitano, the mentally defective head of Homeland Security which runs this farcical operation, must be soooo proud.

- - - - -

Silly, delusional liberals have tried to convince themselves and others that the Muslim Brotherhood has evolved into a "moderate" political party. The idiots need to chew on this:
In an interview with the Arabic daily al-Hayat, Dr. Rashad Bayoumi was asked if the government of Egypt is required to recognize Israel. He responded: “This is not an option. Whatever the circumstances, we do not recognize Israel at all. It’s an occupying criminal enemy.”
Moderate??!!

- - - - -

Jimmy Carter's pleased with the Muslim Brotherhood victory in Egypt's election. Of course he is: they've vowed to destroy Israel and hate America, so their deepest impulses coincide with his.
The choice of this murderous "leadership" by the Egyptian people proves once again that democracy, per se, does not necessarily bring rational outcomes. It should never be forgotten that Adolf Hitler's party was elected by the German voters. In fact, elected with a higher percentage of the popular vote than was received by Bill Clinton. If you doubt it, look it up. An internet search will suffice.

- - - - -

Thomas Sowell contemplates the post office problem and future ...
     "If FedEx, UPS or someone else can carry the mail cheaper or better than the Postal Service, there is no reason why the public should not get the benefit of having their mail delivered cheaper or better.
      "Politics is the reason why no such test is likely any time soon. Various special interests currently benefit from the way the post office is run -- and especially by the way government backing keeps it afloat.
     "Junk mail, for example, does not have to cover all its costs. You might be happy to get less junk mail if it had to pay a postage rate that covered the full cost of delivering it. But people who send junk mail would lobby Congress to stay on the gravy train.
     "So would people who live in remote areas, where the cost of delivering all mail is higher. But if people who decide to live in remote areas don't pay the costs that their decision imposes on the Postal Service, electric utilities and others, why should other people be forced to pay those costs?
     "That is why the post office should have to face competition in the market, instead of lobbying politicians for government help. We cannot preserve everything that was once useful."

- - - - -

Always remember and never forget ...
The most destructive internal threat to the U.S. economy is the evil, intrusive, bullying bureaucracy called the EPA -- the Environmental Protection Agency. And it was created by ... Richard M. Nixon.

- - - - -

Jim Eason provides a test for the well-read and intellectual, consisting of ITEMS FROM GOSSIP COLUMNS OF THE PAST ...
   Is Lois Lane's jet-set boyfriend (initial "S") flying solo these days?
   Jake Barnes recuperating after minor surgery...
   Has Dolly Levi finally met her match?
   The Reveres of Boston announce the arrival of visitors from abroad...
   Ludwig Van B. is no longer playing it by ear.....

... and these UNFAMILIAR QUOTATIONS ...
   Two's company, three's a crowd...Tinker and Evers
   You have to kick it to get it started...Wernher Von Braun
   If it means risking my life, count me out...Nathan Hale
   That's the dumbest name I ever heard...Juliet
   What was all that racket last night?...Francis Scott Key

- - - - -

Jimmy Fallon --
"The national debt has reached $15 trillion — the size of the entire U.S. economy. Yeah, I don’t wanna say President Obama is out of solutions for the debt, but today he tried handing it off to Tim Tebow."

- - - - -

From Wes and Carlene ...

    I pulled into the crowded parking lot at the local shopping center and rolled down the car windows to make sure my Labrador Retriever Pup had fresh air.
    She was stretched full-out on the back seat and I wanted to impress upon her that she must remain there.
    I walked to the curb backward, pointing my finger at the car and saying emphatically,     "Now you stay. Do you hear me? Stay! Stay!"
    The driver of a nearby car, a blonde, gave me a strange look and said, "Why don't you just put it in 'Park'?"

OBAMA'S DECISION DAY COMING ... BOLTON FOR ROMNEY ...
SPECTER IS STILL SPECTER

Forty days. The clock is ticking on the deadline for Obama to decide on the vital pipeline to deliver oil from Canada to U.S. gulf coast refineries. The deadline was imposed by Congress in the payroll tax-cut extension bill passed three weeks ago. Either way, our two-faced Dear Leader is going to get some of his core supporters ticked-off. Either job-seeking union workers will be angry if he turns it down, or the enviro-nuts will be enraged if he okays it. Never mind that pipelines already criss-cross the nation; the greenies have their "cause", and that's all they care about.
We can be confident Mr. Soros will help B.O. decide.

- - - - -

Obama keeps saying he's going to do as he wishes and ignore Congress. And he's doing it. Two questions:
#1 -- When are even the dumbest Democrats in both House and Senate going to awaken to the realization that he's usurping their own power, not just that of Republicans. After all, if Obama sets a precedent of steam-rolling over Congress, what's to keep the next Republican president from doing the same?
#2 -- When are the largely spineless Republicans going to gather the fortitude to mount a challenge to Obama's dictatorial instincts in the courts?

- - - - -

As endorsements go, this may mean more than most. Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, endorses Mitt Romney ... despite the fact that Newt Gingrich had said he'd nominate Bolton to be Secretary of State should he win the White House.

- - - - -

John Podhoretz of the NY Post pronounces on the Republican race ...
     "Perplexing but true: Mitt Romney is on the glide path to the most easily secured nomination a Republican presidential candidate has ever had — while being one of the weakest major candidates either party has ever seen.
     "Perhaps if Rick Santorum, who basically tied with Romney in Iowa, had translated his success there into New Hampshire momentum, a race would’ve developed. But Santorum didn’t come within 25 points of Romney.
     "Gingrich? His harsh line of attack against Romney’s career at a private investment firm has clearly backfired with the Republican base, as exemplified yesterday by the extraordinarily heated denunciation of Gingrich by Rush Limbaugh — who is, to put it mildly, not a Romney fan.
     "The second-place finisher in New Hampshire was Ron Paul — who benefited from the fact that there are plenty of college kids in New Hampshire willing to take advantage of the state’s open primary to cast a ballot for an isolationist who wants to legalize marijuana.
     "So he (Romney) will win the nomination in a walk. But he will be beaten and battered by the time he crosses the finish line in November — though he may well do so in the first place. Because, while his own record is problematic, Barack Obama’s is worse."

- - - - -

Brit Hume of Fox News opines that, " Ron Paul,has about as much chance at winning the nomination as RuPaul."

- - - - -

Cleopatra punched her own ticket when she clasped an asp to her bosom. Then there's ol' Arlen.
The Democrats, who so eagerly embraced former Senator Arlen Specter when he opportunistically crossed over from the Republican side (having previously made the reverse switch, from Democrat to Republican) may feel less affection for him now. When asked if he thought replacing Biden with Hillary for the VP spot in the election would be advisable, he responded, "That's the second-best alternative. A better alternative is to make Hillary the presidential nominee. As long as we're talking about dumping, let's go to the core problem."

- - - - -

The crooks are everywhere and the fools make it easy for them.
The Daily Caller has video showing election workers in New Hampshire giving out ballots in the names of dead voters at multiple voting precincts during the state’s primary election on Tuesday.
It's the work of conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe and his organization, Project Veritas.Voters in the Granite State are not required to present identification to vote. O’Keefe’s investigators were able to obtain ballots under the names of dead voters at polling locations Tuesday by simply asking for them, he said.

- - - - -

We who live in the states bordering Mexico need to be especially attentive to this observation by Victor Davis Hanson ...
"It is clear that Arizona is not trying to circumvent federal immigration law, but rather is desperately trying to find some way to enforce it, given that the Obama administration has selectively chosen not to do so. In response, the federal government is suing the state of Arizona, even as it assures illegal aliens that they will not be arrested if they have not committed a crime — as if Obama can by himself decide that illegally entering and residing in the United States is not a federal crime in the first place."

- - - - -

It is widely to believe that the latest in a series of Iranian nuclear scientists blown up by a passing motorcyclist attaching a magnetic bomb to his car is -- again -- the work of Israeli intelligence. Good!
If we had a real president with the interests of Americans foremost in his mind, he might find inspiration to put an end to the Venezuelan dictator hobnobbing with Ahmadenijad, the mad Iranian, and joking about launching a nuke at the U.S. even as they proceed to build a missile base in nearby Venezuela capable of doing exactly that.
A lot of American idiots put this nation on a suicide course, intentionally or not, when they elected The Manchurian Candidate.

- - - - -

Another sign of the collapse of civilization as we've known it: The maker of Twinkies ... going bankrupt.
Next, the locusts ...

- - - - -

I saw a print reference to "The Straights of Hormuz". Evidently the writer meant ... aquatic Iranian heterosexuals?

- - - - -

Dan Sorkin provides a heartbreaking story of love gone wrong ...
     A nice, calm and respectable lady went into the pharmacy, walked up to the pharmacist, looked straight into his eyes, and said, "I would like to buy some cyanide."
      The pharmacist asked, "Why in the world do you need cyanide?"
      The lady replied, "I need it to poison my husband."
      The pharmacist's eyes got big and he explained, "Lord have mercy! I can't give you cyanide to kill your husband, that's against the law? I'll lose my license! They'll throw both of us in jail! All kinds of bad things will happen. Absolutely not! You CANNOT have any cyanide!"
      The lady reached into her purse and pulled out a picture of her husband in bed with the pharmacist's wife.
      The pharmacist looked at the picture and replied, "You didn't tell me you had a prescription."

FLORIDA'S "HIGH NOON" SHOOTOUT ... OBAMA & SOLDIERS ...
THE BAIN OF MITT'S EXISTENCE

As expected, Florida is shaping up as the blowout election in the Republican race. Florida follows the South Carolina primary at the end of this month, and Rasmussen polling finds Romney more than doubling Gingrich's support. Romney is at 41% ... Gingrich 19% ... Santorum 17%.
Gingrich needs a powerful performance -- a win, or very close second -- in South Carolina to keep his chances alive. Ditto Santorum.

- - - - -

His ardent fans will disagree, but my impression of Newt Ginrich is that his current no-holds-barred campaign tactics are the result of a growing recognition that the likelihood of him getting the Big Job is diminishing, so he wants to make sure no other Republican succeeds, either.
And no, I'm not a Romney supporter; I'd vote for either over the incumbent. But Gingrich's tactics bespeak a "burn the house down" inclination that can only help Obama. Did Newt really think that his own political and personal history was going to remain secret indefinitely? He DID take beaucoup bucks from the government-run housing program that led to the economic debacle, and he DID get expelled from his Congressional position by his own party.

- - - - -

The liberal Washington Post carried this interpretation of Mitt Romney's Thursday appearance on the "Today" show by Greg Sargent ...
"Romney suggested that concerns about Wall Street conduct and inequality are driven by 'envy,' and even said we needn’t have a public debate about inequitable wealth distribution in this country."
Inequitable? That's a subjective impression. Who defines "inequitable", and how? Mr. Sargent's interpretation may suggest that people who are essentially burdens on society thru lack of ability or willingess to work should have a larger slice of the economic pie. It is just as reasonable -- or even more -- for people with talent and drive to complain that it's nothing more than legalized theft for the government to take over half their income in order to support slackers.

- - - - -

Attorney General Eric Holder blesses Obama's power-grab move in making "recess" appointments to his bureaucracy even though the Senate is not legally in a recess. Exactly what you'd expect from an administration that evolves even deeper into a thugo-cracy. And the spineless, unprincipled nothings in Congress do zero about it.

- - - - -

From Michael Hastings' new book, The Operators, this revelation about Obama's real attitude toward our military people displayed on a presidential trip to Iraq ...
"After the talk, out of earshot from the soldiers and diplomats, he starts to complain. He starts to act very un-Obamalike, according to a U.S. embassy official who helped organize the trip in Baghdad.
"He’s asked to go out to take a few more pictures with soldiers and embassy staffers. He’s asked to sign copies of his book. 'He didn’t want to take pictures with any more soldiers; he was complaining about it,' a State Department official tells me. 'Look, I was excited to meet him. I wanted to like him. Let’s just say the scales fell from my eyes after I did. These are people over here who’ve been fighting the war, or working every day for the war effort, and he didn’t want to take f_ _ _ _ _ g pictures with them?'"

- - - - -

So PBS, the television network supported by taxpayers, is NOW going to present a documentary about Bill Clinton, Horndog, and his parade of bimbos.
If these leeches feeding off the public REALLY wanted to do a public service, why didn't they make these revelations when he first ran for the White House -- or even when he ran for a second term?
Wonder when they'll get around to an expose' on The Won?

- - - - -

History shows that empires do have a finite life-span. Since everything happens faster in today's world, a pessimist (or realist?) might look at the state of this nation with its wretched "leadership" and the voters who put those people in high office and wonder ... has the U.S. just about reached its "sell by" date?

- - - - -

Victor Davis Hanson contrasts the military's job-training skills with those of our colleges ...
"America's armed forces spend about 80 percent of their budgets not on bullets and bombs but on training and compensating soldiers. Often, they do a far better job shaping the minds and character of our youth than do our colleges. Somehow the military can take an 18-year old and teach him to park a $100 million fighter across a carrier deck, but our colleges cannot ensure that his civilian counterpart will show up regularly for classes."

- - - - -

Burt Prelutsky vents on Obama ...
"He’s a hypocrite, a liar and he’s supremely arrogant. If he were only your neighbor, he’d be so obnoxious, you’d consider moving. But here he is the commander-in-chief, and these louts carry on as if the sun shines out of his backside.
"His view of America is a place where the dumbest, the laziest and the least grateful, are entitled to everything that the smartest, most decent, hardest-working individuals have. Redistribution of wealth has a nice, uplifting tone to it, but when you cut through the slag, it comes down to taking by force what taxpaying, law-abiding people have and handing it over to those who want it."

- - - - -

Deroy Murdock (National Review Online) explains why my onetime home-away-from-home, Hong Kong, should be our role model ...
     "Unemployment is just 3.2 percent (versus 8.5 percent in the U.S.), and it shows. Around the clock, 'Hong Kong people' (as they call themselves) buy, sell, produce, and deliver.
     "Hong Kong’s average office-vacancy rate is 3.6 percent. Such voids stand at 10 percent in Midtown Manhattan and average 17.1 percent for the U.S.
     "So, what are the secrets of Hong Kong’s success?
     "In Hong Kong, the top tax rate on salaries is either 17 percent (minus deductions) or 15 percent of gross income, whichever is lower. The tax rate on capital gains, dividends, overseas profits, and death is zero. There is no sales tax.
     "Hong Kong’s debt is just $5.8 billion, totaling 2 percent of GDP. U.S. national debt, in contrast, is morbidly obese at $15 trillion. That equals a frightful 101 percent of GDP.
     "Two of Hong Kong’s positive attributes are difficult to measure, or even notice, from afar. One is the spectacular work ethic of Hong Kong people. The 'I’m on break' entitlement attitude that possesses too many Americans is hard to detect. Also, Hong Kong people, so far, seem immune to the class-warfare/envy virus that has consumed the American Democrat party and infected a growing number of Americans."
     -- The entire article is highly recommended --

- - - - -

If you have frequent-flyer miles on American Airlines, keep an eye on any attempt by Delta to take over AA. Delta is notoriously stingy with its own mileage program, requiring far more miles on most trips.

- - - - -

Survey says ... 43% of Americans believe Tim Tebow, the Denver quarterback, wins with the help of divine intervention. I admire Timmy Terrific but ... really? The Almighty is able to put aside all the world's serious problems in order to manipulate a football game? Really?
Of course, the obnoxious Coach Rex Ryan and his NY Jets were unceremoniously eliminated from the playoffs, so ...

- - - - -

I hear regularly from people familiar with my long tenure at ABC Radio who wonder if there is some sort of political conspiracy behind the ravaging of many of their stations. Short answer: no. In my former hometown, the dismantling of conservative KSFO in San Francisco occurred virtually simultaneously with the ravaging visited upon sister-station and liberally-inclined KGO.
It's about money. The new ownership of ABC wants to run the properties as cheaply as possible ... real talent costs money ... and they choose not to pay for it.
I am VERY glad to be out of it and harbor neither the intent nor desire to return to broadcasting.

- - - - -

"Mute" and "moot" are not synonyms. "Mute" refers to silence, "moot" means hypothetical -- thus, as a practical matter, irrelevant.

- - - - -

Peter contributes a definition relevant to today's "leadership" ...
Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc-ra-cy) -- A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of achieving, and where the members of society least likely to succeed or even to sustain themselves, are abundantly rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

- - - - -

++ THIS COLUMN WILL BE CONSPICUOUS BY ITS ABSENCE FOR A FEW DAYS.
EXPECT RESUMPTION ABOUT JANUARY 23rd. IN THE MEANTIME, YOUR BEHAVIOR will BE MONITORED AND TRANSGRESSIONS PUNISHED UPON MY RETURN! ++

- - - - -

A palindrome (same read forward or backward) from Sky ...
"DAMMIT I'M MAD"

- - - - -

David provides this one ...
     Tom Brady, after living a full life, died. When he got to heaven, God was showing him around. They came to a modest little house with a faded Patriots flag in the window. "This house is yours for eternity Tom," said God. "This is very special; not everyone gets a house up here." Tom felt special, indeed..., and walked up to his house.
     On his way up the porch, he noticed another house just around the corner. It was a huge 3-story mansion with Orange and Blue sidewalks and driveways, a 50-foot tall flagpole with an enormous Broncos logo flag waving, a swimming pool in shape of a horse, a Broncos logo in every window, and a Tim Tebow jersey on the front door.
     Tom looked at God and said "God, I'm not trying to be ungrateful, but I have a question. I was an all-pro QB, I won three Super Bowls, and I even went to the Hall of Fame."
     God said "So what's your point Tom?"
     "Well, why does Tim Tebow get a better house?"
     God chuckled and said "Tom, that's not Tim's house, it's mine."

ON HIATUS FOR A FEW DAYS. EXPECT A RETURN ABOUT JANUARY 23.

NEWT WINS SOUTH CAROLINA; WAS THAT ABC-TV's GOAL?
... BIG LIBERAL UNION BUYING ADS -- FOR NEWT

If you were one of the many feeling conflicted about where to place your support in the Republican primary race last week, you may be even more so after the Gingrich tidal wave rose in South Carolina. I certainly am, even though it was no great surprise.
     It's been apparent for some time that, barring a political earthquake, the race was between Romney and Gingrich, offering a choice between doubts about Romney's commitment to conservative principles and the smell of demagoguery emitted by Gingrich.
     Two things sealed the deal for Newt in South Carolina. First, Romney's floundering response about questions regarding his taxes and the company with which he was formerly associated, Bain Capital, doing banking business in the Cayman Islands.
     On taxes: There is a word for his handling of the issue. The word is ... STUPID! A child could/should have expected that a rich man would be confronted with a demand to reveal his tax returns, and been prepared to do so. Immediately.
     Unless he has something to hide, it courts such suspicion when he equivocates. There is nothing wrong with Romney or Bain doing banking business in the Cayman Islands or anywhere else as long taxes are not being illegally evaded. Neither he nor the company wrote U.S. tax laws; if they followed them, no one has grounds for complaint.
     The oft-quoted late federal judge Learned Hand enunciated it clearly: "Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands."
     The second factor was utterly predictable. When ABC-TV decided to run the allegations of his second wife that Newt wanted an "open marriage", it was guaranteed that the response from conservatives would be fury at ABC-TV that could be satisfied only by a pro-Newt vote because conservatives detest the liberal media.

- - - - -

Mark Steyn in National Review gets to the crux of Romney's problem ...
"The nature of this peculiar primary season — the reason it seems at odds with both the 2009–2010 political narrative and the seriousness of the times — was determined by Mitt Romney. Even if you don’t mind Romneycare, or the abortion flip-flop, or any of the rest, there’s a more basic problem: He’s not a natural campaigner, and on the stump he instinctively recoils from any personal connection with the voters. So, in compensation, he’s bought himself a bunch of A-list advisers and a lavish campaign."
-- (more at National Review Online) --

Advice to Mitt from the Boys in the Backroom: Grow a couple.

- - - - -

There is a question about the heated reaction to the ABC-TV story that will make Newt supporters uncomfortable but must be considered. Did ABC-TV achieve its goal by the unsubstantiated revelations?
Every major poll shows that Romney would be more likely to defeat Obama. If decision-makers at ABC-TV's news operation have an agenda to help re-elect Obama, would they not believe that cause would be best supported by promoting Gingrich? And how better to push his candidacy than by an attack that would provoke a predictable response by South Carolina conservatives?
If the real ultimate goal is to defeat Obama, from ABC-TV's perspective the hidden message to conservatives may well the encapsulated in the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it."

- - - - -

The Democrat-supporting American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) apparently shares the liberal belief that Gingrich would be more easily defeated. According to Federal Election Commission records, that union has spent $1 million on an ad accusing Romney of greed.

- - - - -

Veteran ABC broadcaster Jim Eason speaks from experience about media bias ...
     "My first job in commercial broadcasting in San Francisco was with ABC Television during the 1964 political campaign between Johnson and Goldwater...ancient history. I know a little bit about commercial broadcasting, mostly radio but some television, and what I know isn't all good.
      "Both before and after that summer, I reallized how far to the left our mass media had become, and I didn't like it. In the decade since I retired I see the leftward slant is worse, much worse, than it was. I have nearly stopped relying on the major news sources, but when I do check them out, I see the situation is terrible.
      "The hit-piece by ABC news against a major candidate for President is disgusting. While I do believe the private life of a public figure - especially in government - IS, in fact, our business - I also believe there should be a line that won't be crossed.
      "If the media had thoroughly investigated Barack Hussein Obama as seriously as they should have...he would have never set foot in the oval office.
     "Shame on ABC News, shame on ABC - my alma mater."

And mine.

- - - - -

Gingrich will now likely get the financial support necessary to carry the fight to the convention, but it nevertheless seems likely that the next primary, Florida, will be a major -- perhaps conclusive -- turning point. To win the White House, Republicans have to win that state. So more than any other, the Sunshine State may be decisive in choosing the nominee -- and the president.
With several sizable media markets, Florida is an expensive state in which to campaign.

- - - - -

I believe we can all agree on this. Any supporter of Newt should retroactively swallow any critical words ever uttered about Bill Clinton's sexual ... peccadilloes.

- - - - -

The importance of defeating an anti-American president became even more obvious when Obama, bowing again to his left-wing constituency, repeated his determination that a pipeline to bring Canadian petroleum across the border not be built. His action, if sustained, simply means that instead of from importing product from a friendly neighboring country, we will be further dependent upon long-haul shipments from nations that are hostile to us.
Canada, obviously and properly putting its own economic interests first, has expressed frustration with the White House buffoon and plans to build a pipeline instead to its own west coat in order to ship to an eager market in China.
Sheer idiocy on Obama's part. Unless, of course, his goal is that long suspected by many: an ever-weaker U.S.

- - - - -

How stupid does even a Democrat have to be not to recognize that (A) gasoline prices have doubled since Obama took office and (B) the fool turned down the opportunity to increase supplies by rejecting the pipeline from Canada.

- - - - -

Then comes word from Brazil, where Obama's been eager to extend financial aid to develop that nation's offshore oil resources, even as he denies exploitation of our own similarly-situated petroleum. Word that, instead of exporting that oil to the U.S., Brazil has signed contracts to ship it to -- where else? -- China.

- - - - -

Obama's pro-Muslim proclivities are surely further gratified by the election results in Egypt, where the final count shows that Islamist parties won nearly three-quarters of the seats in that nation's parliament.
Our domestic liberals are doubtless also thrilled at the prospect of an emerging Egypt controlled by people whose goal is clear and oft-stated: Undermine the western world, destroy democracy and prepared the way for ultimate world domination by a repressive medieval theocracy.
And Jimmy Carter, previous holder of the title "Worst President in History", is happy.

- - - - -

An immigrant thug from Haiti named Kesler Dufrene was convicted of a felony for the second time in 2006. He was ordered deported. The Obama administration stopped the deportation. So he stayed. And murdered three people in North Miami, Florida.

- - - - -

Thomas Sowell addresses the envy-based class warfare Obama is promoting ...
"Whole totalitarian governments have risen to dictatorial power on the wings of envy and resentment ideologies. Intellectuals have all too often promoted these envy and resentment ideologies. There are both psychic and material rewards for the intelligentsia in doing so, even when the supposed beneficiaries of these ideologies end up worse off. When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
"Both politicians and intellectuals have made their choice."

- - - - -

In one of the stupidest PR moves in business history, Carnival Cruise Lines, which owns Costa Cruises, is offering to survivors of that sunken ship refunds -- and a 30% discount ON A FUTURE CRUISE! It's an effort to allay lawsuits. The futility of this little exercise is magnified by the fact that an internet search often yields discounts of 50% and upward on cruises.
The industry is already hurting with excess capacity. This Costa debacle may hasten the demise of some lines.

- - - - -

As usual, mistakes decided the NFC and AFC championship games. The Niners' defense was outstanding, but flubs by their punt returner handed victory to the Giants. And little need be said about the missed short field goal attempt by Baltimore's kicker which could have sent their lost game to the Patriots into overtime.
In the long and often-embarrassing history of performance of the National Anthem at sports events, Steven Tyler's butchering of "The Star Spangled Banner" at New England is a contender for the title Worst Ever. Only the utterly tone-deaf could have failed to shudder. My ears are still bleeding. And to think: this guy judges the talent of OTHER people on TV!

- - - - -

Jim Eason also caught this latest exercise in media illiteracy as Fox News announced the death of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno ...
"Joe Paterno, the most winningest coach in college football..."
MOST WINNINGEST??

- - - - -

A wretch is a vile, miserable or despicable person. To retch is to throw up.
And two words that are useful in print but should never be used orally are RAISE and RAZE. The potential for confusion is obvious.

- - - - -

Thanks to Mike and the several others who noted the sinking of the Costa liner by recalling the dark humor attributed to Winston Churchill.
After his retirement he allegedly was cruising the Mediterranean on an Italian ship and some Italian journalists asked why an ex British Prime Minister should choose an Italian ship.
“There are three things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship,” said Churchill. “First, their cuisine is unsurpassed. Second, their service is superb. And then, in case of an emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first."

- - - - -

Peter reminds us of a another timeless quote by Winston Churchill ...
"The biggest argument against democracy is a 5-minute conversation with the average voter . . ."

- - - - -

Crime does not pay ...
In Oregon a high-speed police pursuit ended with the fleeing criminal crashing his car ... into another car driven by a criminal who had also just fled from the police.

- - - - -

"It's oh, so nice to go trav'ling but it's so much nicer ... yes, it's so much nicer to come home." -- Sammy Cahn/Jimmy Van Heusen.
We who are fortunate enough to live where we like and like where we live know that satisfaction. After a few days' sabbatical to recharge the batteries, it was very nice to return to our little town in Arizona to sunshine and a perfect 72-degree day. The Arid Zone never looked better.

- - - - -

It costs nothing to forward this column -- or link -- to any number of people. Remember -- and act accordingly.

- - - - -

Craig Ferguson --
"The first couple of episodes of "American Idol" are usually the highest rated of the season. Because there is something magical about watching people with dreams beyond their talent going on national TV and having those dreams crushed."

- - - - -

Jimmy Fallon --
"Obama’s a big environmentalist. In fact, for the election he plans to recycle the same promises he made four years ago."

OBAMA'S "STATE" SPEECH: HO, HUM ... A FLORIDA PREVIEW
... HANSON ON CALIFORNIA SCREAMIN'

I may watch the State of the Union speech, but like most people, I don't really need to do so because we already know our national situation after three years of the Obamination. Wretched.
We're really supposed to listen to a speech on economics from a man who's never run so much as a sidewalk lemonade stand? Really? I don't think so ...
One daily or weekly reminder comes with every visit to the gasoline pump. Remember what you were paying three years ago, before the Great Imposter moved into the White House?

- - - - -

It's old news, discussed here months ago, but it's good to note that Bloomberg biznews again points out that a big winner in Obama's refusal to okay the Keystone pipeline project is his pet George Soros lookalike (i.e., rich socialist), Warren Buffett. Mr. Buffet's Burlington Northern railroad will profit hugely by transporting oil from western Canada that would otherwise be diverted -- and moved much less expensively -- via the pipeline.

- - - - -

It is widely accepted that Mitt Romney is viewed by many conservatives as untrustworthy; a flip-flopper. I also subscribe to that view.
     Today's recommended viewing is on the Drudge Report website and it may cause some to wonder about Newt Gingrich's reliability, as well.
     Barry Goldwater, the late and longtime Senator from Arizona, is widely regarded as the father of the rebirth of conservatism. His adversary, representing the eastern so-called "moderate" wing of the Republican party, was New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
     They were opponents in the 1964 Republican race for the presidential nomination.
     Last night at the Florida debate, Gingrich said he supported Goldwater in that race. Two dozen years ago, he said the opposite. Video of both statements are side-by-side on the Drudge site.

Because long experience and extensive up-close contact with many high-level politicians in my longtime role in major-market media has led me to a healthy attitude of skepticism -- indeed, cynicism -- about the breed, I have developed a certain disdain for my fellow citizens who eagerly swallow the words they want to hear from aspirants to office. Thus my oft-stated refrain, "Never fall in love with a politician. They'll break your heart every time."

Again, I feel it necessary to re-state my position on the current race: I don't have a very high regard for Gingrich ... or Romney ... or Santorum. Nevertheless, they are the choices offered, like it or not. And I will (unenthusiastically) vote for whichever is nominated because I have a deep-seated fear of the consequences of re-electing a man whose deeds -- and words -- make it clear that he is hostile toward everything this nation is built upon and stands for.

- - - - -

The crucial Florida primary takes place a week from now. As a one-time resident (Coral Gables), I humbly offer a brief primer on the political environment of the Sunshine State.
     First, South Florida, dominated by the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale metroplex, is culturally northern with a large transplant population from New York, New Jersey and other northeastern liberal hell-holes ... the exception being the Cuban and Cuban-descended population, which has had more personal experience with the extreme version of liberalism, i.e., communism.
     Conversely, from mid-state northward, starting around Orlando, North Florida is southern, akin to neighboring Georgia.
     Thus, it is reasonable to expect that Gingrich will garner his votes primarily from the northern geographical part of the state, with Romney doing better among the fewer hardy Republicans who've survived the liberal domination of the southern region.
     Who'll win? No idea, other than the polls that have had Romney with a big lead -- like Rasmussen -- seem to be swinging to Gingrich, bigtime. I would not, at this point, advise a wager either way that involves the title to your house, your car or your first-born child.

- - - - -

Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal expresses the pessimistic fear nibbling at some of us ...
     "Let's just say right now what voters will be saying in November, once Barack Obama has been re-elected: Republicans deserve to lose.
     "It doesn't matter that Mr. Obama can't get the economy out of second gear. It doesn't matter that he cynically betrayed his core promise as a candidate to be a unifying president. It doesn't matter that he keeps blaming Bush. ... It doesn't matter that Tim Geithner remains secretary of Treasury. It doesn't matter that the result of his "reset" with Russia is Moscow selling fighter jets to Damascus.
... It doesn't matter that the Evel Knievel theory of fiscal stimulus isn't going to make it over the Snake River Canyon of debt.
     "Above all, it doesn't matter that Americans are generally eager to send Mr. Obama packing. All they need is to be reasonably sure that the alternative won't be another fiasco. But they can't be reasonably sure, so it's going to be four more years of the disappointment you already know."

Tremble in fear.

- - - - -

As of today, it has been 1,000 days since the Democrat-run Senate has passed a budget bill. This violates the law of the land, which requires an annual budget. Do you think those Democrats care?
-- (Thanks, John Hinderaker) --

- - - - -

Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court is absolutely correct. If you don't like negative political advertising, the first and obvious solution is ... turn off your TV. Most of what's on it is junk, anyway. But forget exercising any holier-than-thou protest over the tactics used by politicians. They do negative ads about opponents for one reason. THEY WORK.
It is naive in the extreme to expect candidates for high office (or even low office) to shun the opportunity to savage opponents in a close race. The ego that impels them to run is unwilling to settle for less than victory at almost any cost.
Negative advertising works because many voters -- and I'm one of them -- more often are really voting AGAINST a candidate rather than FOR the opponent because experience has taught us that placing unrealistic hopes in any office-seeker is likely to end in disappointment. Just making an effort to keep the worst aspirants out of positions of political power is noble, in itself. And most of the time, it's the best we can do, anyway.

- - - - -

Victor Davis Hanson considers where a generation of liberal madness has taken his home state ...
     "... the veneer of civilization is proving pretty thin in California. Hospitals no longer have the money to offer sophisticated long-term medical care to the indigent. Cities no longer have the funds to self-insure themselves from the accustomed barrage of monthly lawsuits. When thieves rip copper wire out of street lights, the streets stay dark. Most state residents would rather go to the dentist these days than queue up and take a number at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Hospital emergency rooms neither have room nor act as if there’s much of an emergency.
     "Traffic flows no better on most of the state’s freeways than it did 40 years ago — and often much worse, given the crumbling infrastructure and increased traffic. Once-excellent K–12 public schools now score near the bottom in nationwide tests. The California state-university system keeps adding administrators to the point where they have almost matched the number of faculty, though half of the students who enter CSU need remedial reading and math. Despite millions of dollars in tutoring, half the students still don’t graduate. The taxpayer is blamed in constant harangues for not ponying up more money, rather than administrators being faulted for a lack of reform.
     "The average Californian ... forgot that civilization is fragile. Its continuance requires respect for the law, tough-minded education, collective thrift, private investment, individual self-reliance, and common codes of behavior and civility — and exempts no one from those rules. Such knowledge and patterns of civilized behavior, slowly accrued over centuries, can be lost in a single generation."

- - - - -

For what it's worth ... Judicial Watch’s Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians for 2011

    Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
    Former Senator John Ensign (R-NV)
    Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
    Attorney General Eric Holder (D)
    Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
    President Barack Hussein Obama (D)
    Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
    Rep. David Rivera (R-FL)
    Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
    Rep. Don Young (R-AK)

Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:

    Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC)
    Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
    Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)
    Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano (D)
    Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
    Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
    Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY)
    Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius (D)
     -- thanks, Rick --

- - - - -

I long ago got fed-up with the pointless hassling by the airport Gestapo, A/K/A the Transportation Security Administration. Some are nice about their necessarily intrusive jobs; others are seething with arrogance and rudeness. They have made travel even more annoying than our pathetic, mismanaged airlines.
So I hope Senator Rand Paul's encounter with the "security" people inspires some soul-searching by the idiotic Janet Napolitano, who runs the Department of Homeland Security and has oversight power over the TSA.
It may have escaped my notice, but have the TSA airport maulers ever caught a confirmed, for-real terrorist? Or do they simply fill their hours by annoying handicapped grandmothers and small children? And what are the hiring standards for this bogus operation?

- - - - -

Thomas Sowell in Investors Business Daily unburdens himself re the plauge of rampant outspoken ignorance ...
     "This may be the golden age of presumptuous ignorance. The most recent demonstrations of that are the Occupy Wall Street mobs. It is doubtful how many of these semiliterate sloganizers could tell the difference between a stock and a bond.
     "Yet there they are, mouthing off about Wall Street on television, cheered on by politicians and the media. If this is not a golden age of presumptuous ignorance, perhaps it should be called a brass age.
     "One of the reasons for so much presumptuous ignorance flourishing in our time may be the emphasis on "self-esteem" in our schools and colleges. Children not yet a decade old have been encouraged, or even required, to write letters to public figures, sounding off on issues ranging from taxes to nuclear missiles.
     "Our schools begin promoting presumptuous ignorance early on. It is apparently one of the few things they teach well."

- - - - -

A contributor who writes under the name Dumbplumber (he's anything but) offers this ...
"Thanks to a pandemic of short term memory loss shared by the ‘Moderate’ Right and the Left, the tentacles of the socialist hydra are simply multiplying and creeping into every nook and cranny of our government.
"And what do we get as a result? The ‘Have-Nots’ rallying for more of the pie supplied by the ‘Haves’; more rights for the minorities than the majority; more taxpayer cash going to bought-and-paid-for "allies"; more drip-drip-drip of eco-regulations chipping away at our productivity; more bureaucrats sucking the freedoms out of our lives; more vote-pandering by entrenched politicians at the expense of the nation."

- - - - -

London Dave corresponds from across the Atlantic and submits this quote by THE great man of the 20th century, Winston Churchill, who evaluated the plague of socialism thusly ...
"Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state. It will prescribe for every one where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say. Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance."

Now, remind me: what was that Obama announced goal about a civilian police force equal in power to our military? Does such a prospect call to mind a fun bunch created by Mr. Hitler and his National SOCIALIST Party? As I recall, it was called -- oh, yes! The Gestapo!

(By the way, the photo of Winston and his tommy-gun sent by London Dave from the Churchill museum in London occupies a place of honor on my office wall.)

- - - - -

Automotive News reports that Chevy dealers are refusing their GM-mandated quotas of the Chevy Volt for the very good reason that the electric junkers don't sell. Government Motors, of course, operates on the old Soviet principle that products should be forced upon customers, whether they want them or not.

- - - - -

You should be aware of this. I received an e-mail from a "Peace" group wanting petition-signers opposed to taking aggressive action against a threatening Iran. I responded with, "We should have bombed the murderous bastards on 9/12, 2001."
In return I got a virus-laden response, which my computer's anti-virus program fortunately blocked.
Be aware that some of the "peace" pursuers are vicious criminals.

- - - - -

From Founders Quote Daily --
"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." --James Madison, speech in the Virginia constitutional convention, 1829

- - - - -

Jay Leno --
"A hiker who was lost in a blizzard said he stayed alive by digging a snow tunnel and burning dollar bills for warmth. Today he was offered a job as President Obama's economic adviser."

OBAMA TRIES TO "SEAL" THE DEAL ... WHO REALLY SHARES WEALTH
... THE OUTDATED "RACISM" ARGUMENT

Obama touts "his" accomplishment in the rescue of hostages from Somalian pirates by ... Navy Seals.
He boasts of "his" achievement in the killing of Osama bin Laden ... by Navy Seals. And this is the same anti-military blowhard who is plotting drastic cuts in our defenses. The hypocrisy is staggering.

- - - - -

Since the government's own figures show the number of Americans living in poverty is now higher than in many decades, one wonders why the Big Media aren't recycling their headlines of many years, inserting the name "Obama" in the stories that used to lament the plight of poor folk in "Reagan's America" or "Bush's America".
Ah, but we already know the reason, don't we?

- - - - -

Mitt Romney finally got around to emphasizing the obvious regarding illegal immigrants and made the point that many of us have enunciated for years.
     Contrary to all the liberal bullfeathers bemoaning the "impossibility" of rounding up millions of illegals and sending them home, all that has ever been necessary to drastically thin their ranks is enforcement of EXISTING employment laws and putting a stop to the granting of free or subsidized benefits.
     In short, remove the bait that attracts illegal immigrants, whether they come here to work or freeload, and the problem is solved.
     Now ... that wasn't hard -- was it?

- - - - -

Anyone bother to compare, both in percentages and real-dollar terms, the money paid in both taxes and charitable donations by Romney (30%-plus) vs. Obama, Clinton, et al? And if Warren Buffett's secretary is actually "paying more in taxes than Mr. Buffett," as Democrat demagogues endlessly repeat, either she or her accountant is guaranteed the title of Stupidest Person on the Planet.
If Democrats don't like the capital gains tax law that they helped write, they should try to increase the taxes, then take the blame as investment in businesses that actually employ people diminishes even further. As it presently stands, our capital gains taxes are the most burdensome in the developed world; a major reason why more and more businesses relocate to other nations. And it happens even as union bosses whine and bellow for higher taxes, even as that policy drives away jobs.

- - - - -

Today's must-reading: Victor Davis Hanson's dissection of the many and manifest failures of Obama's fantasyland foreign policy. It's at National Review Online.

- - - - -

Common sense to the contrary notwithstanding, it's guaranteed that Obama's campaign will rely heavily on the allegation that racism is behind all his difficulties and motivates opposition to his failed presidency. This is already evident in statements by his supporters and quotes from his wife. Only the willfully stupid would fail to recognize that it was millions of white voters who put this fraud in the White House. Perhaps a loudly -- and often -- repeated reminder that black Americans now trail Latinos as a percentage of the population; they're no longer the largest minority and the gap vis a vis those of Latin heritage is widening.
While the nation may never shed itself of the racial tinge appearing somehow in discussion of virtually every issue that claims public attention, the plain fact is ... the nation elected a black president ... and he failed. Just as have many white presidents. Jimmy Carter comes first to mind. And the only possible cure -- and it's not always successful -- is replacement.

- - - - -

The enviro-nuts' argument against the Keystone pipeline is ridiculous, yet the wimpy "leadership" of the Republican party continues to fail to counter it. "Environmental threat?" Then why are there already pipelines, many in place for years, crossing the disputed territory?
This is yet another example in a long history of such failures by Republicans; failure to use factual, clear-cut arguments to demolish the myths perpetuated by the lunatic left. It's as if most Republican politicians have a mental disorder that causes them to shrink in fear from challenging such silliness. Pathetic.

- - - - -

If further evidence of Obama's stupidity in blocking the pipeline is needed, here it is: Crazy Al Gore supports his decision.

- - - - -

Jonah Goldberg dissects Obama's opposition to the vital Keystone pipeline ...
     "(Obama) administration officials have a rare form of Keynesian Tourette's syndrome whereby they blurt out phrases like "Infrastructure!" ... "Spending multiplier!" ... "Shovel ready!" ... "Nation-building at home!" ... "Investment!" almost as often as they draw breath."
     "Just last week he announced that he wants to streamline government to cut red tape and make both government and the economy more efficient.
     "It's all a farrago of lies.
     "Now, maybe they believe all of this stuff, but that doesn't disprove they're lying; it just proves they're lying to themselves, too.
     "Opponents say it would threaten the groundwater in Nebraska, where some 21,000 miles of pipeline already exist. But, as the American Enterprise Institute's Kenneth Green notes, any spilled oil would have to flow uphill to reach the Ogallala Aquifer.
     "He's an ideologue who, like his environmental base, just doesn't like oil."

- - - - -

If you have access (via internet or newspaper) to a transcript of last night's State of the Union speech, Arlys forwards a translation of the of the terms used by President Obama ...
     "Investment" – Spending taxpayer money on Obama re-election constituencies such as government employee unions.
     "Energy" – Something that flows from good intentions, government programs, "stimulus" spending but not pipelines.
     "Sacrifice" – Tax hikes.
     "Fair" or "Fair Share" – Tax hikes.
     "Balanced" – Tax hikes.
     "Special interests" – Taxpayers who do not wish to give their money to my friends.
     "Regulations" – The governmental leash attached to the choke collar around the neck of the economy.
     "Infrastructure" OR "Roads and Bridges" – Spending taxpayer money on those states voting Democrat in '08.
     "Obstructionists" – House Republican lawmakers who have actually passed a budget -- NOT the Senate Democrats who have refused to pass a budget for 1,000 days.
     "Wall Street" – 1. Where your IRA and 401(k) live. 2. A bauble to distract you from noticing my bailout of Fannie and Freddie.
     "Profit" – Money without which jobs would never be created.
     "I" or "Me" – Center of the known universe.

- - - - -

A serious person might well wonder when -- or if -- the American public really becomes aware of the catastrophic future the current crop of politicians is creating for them ... there will be a major outcry for more serious punishment than a few congressional hearings that yield nothing. The kind of retribution that might have them shivering in cells, wondering what their own future holds -- if they have one.

- - - - -

Burt Prelutsky defenestrates a recurring Ron Paul theme ...
"If Timothy McVeigh hadn’t existed, Ron Paul would have had to invent him. I mean, has there ever been an occasion when sane people have been discussing the existential danger of Islamic extremists when Rep. Paul hasn’t felt it necessary to climb aboard his portable soap box and remind us all that native-born terrorist McVeigh was not a Muslim? Apparently at some time in the distant past, someone told the congressman that he had come up with an excellent reason not to take the fight to Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Iranian mullahs, but someone should tell Mr. Paul that it’s not quite the argument clincher he seems to think it is."

- - - - -

The hill Gingrich has to climb ...
     In national polls, his unfavorable votes far outweigh the favorables. In the Fox News-sponsored poll, for example, 27% of people surveyed hold a favorable view of the former Speaker of the House, while 56% have an unfavorable opinion of him.
     ... and Romney's persistent problem ...
     Republicans with Tea Party inclinations, up to here with eastern-establishment types (which, in fact, both Bushes were, despite giving a Texas home address) still see Moderate Mitt as a hollow shell with no deeply-held conservative principles.

- - - - -

Richard Rahn in the Washington Times attempts to lift the veil of ignorance that blinds far too many ...
     "Last week, ABC News ran a story that led with the statement, “Mitt Romney has millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven.” What the reporters failed to mention was that ABC, a unit of the Disney Corp., also has millions of dollars in Cayman-registered funds. Probably most employees at ABC, including the reporters who wrote the story, have some of their money in Cayman-registered funds, as probably do many of you reading this column, even though you don’t know it.
     "This is how the real world works. Most large- and midsize companies, unions, universities and other nonprofit organizations, including environmental organizations and state and local governments, have pension plans for their employees.
     "The fund administrators properly diversify the risk of the pension monies and maximize the return by allocating portions of the funds to the various types of fund managers. Mr. Romney’s Bain Capital is an example of the type of firm that specializes in new companies and troubled companies."

It might be added that intelligent investors have long since figured out that there are offshore banks -- and some domestic banks -- doing business in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, etc., that are far more stable than many of our own worrisome home-based institutions.

- - - - -

A dude's gotta try ...
Russel Gentile of Melbourne, Florida, told the IRS he was not subject to mortal man’s laws but “resided in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Amazingly, the IRS was not sympathetic to his argument.

- - - - -

The sensitive Arthur offers this ...
A Sunday school teacher was telling her class the story of the Good Samaritan. She asked the class, "If you saw a person lying on the roadside, all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?" A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence,
"I think I'd throw up."

NEWT NEWS ... BUFFETT'S PITIFUL SECRETARY ... EDUCATORS?

As of this morning, the latest Florida Republican primary polls show Gingrich's suddenly-developed (post-South Carolina) lead just as suddenly shrinking. Gallup has Gingrich up by 3. Insider Advantage, the latest polling available as of this pre-dawn writing, has Romney up by 8. The Florida Chamber of Commerce's poll finds Gingrich and Romney in a dead-heat at 33% each. Quinnipiac has Romney back on top by two points, 36-34%.

- - - - -

Newt Gingrich now cloaks himself in the mantle of the Republican party's icon, Ronald Reagan and emphasizes his alleged role in the policies and events that have elevated the late president's stature.
     This is from Newt in 1986: “Measured against the scale and momentum of the Soviet empire’s challenge, the Reagan administration has failed, is failing, and without a dramatic change in strategy will continue to fail ... President Reagan is clearly failing, due to his administration’s weak policies, which are inadequate and will ultimately fail ... The burden of this failure frankly must be placed first on President Reagan.”
     He called Reagan's summit meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev, “The most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich.”
     All President Reagan did, of course, was bring down the Soviet Union.

- - - - -

From Obama's tepid, re-run State of the Union speech: "This nation is great because we built it together." Who's "WE", bucko?
Not that any of the Republican candidates will have the guts -- or sense -- to use this nonsensical boilerplate mendacity against him.

- - - - -

Forbes, the business magazine, was curious about the salary of Warren Buffett's secretary, Debbie Bosanek, since she was used as a prop at Obama's State of the Union speech and is held up as an example of "unfairness" because she allegedly pays more in taxes (actually in percentages, not real dollars) than her employer; his income is largely from long-term capital gains, taxed at 15%. (Anyone who's ever sold a house at a profit after holding it for more than a year has benefited from the same rate.)
It seems that, in order to exceed her boss's rate, Ms. Bosanek is being paid between $200,000 and $500,000 a year, the next bracket upward of 15%. Not bad for Omaha, so a pity-party may be premature.
The Smoking Gun website also finds that she owns a four-bedroom second home in a suburb of Phoenix.

- - - - -

Did the hideous left-wing propagandist Andrea Mitchell of NBC really say that Mitt Romney's parents were illegal aliens? And she still has a job?!

- - - - -

When Obama talks about "more support for education," this is what he really means: "I want more borrowed money or tax dollars to give to the teachers' union and the education establishment because I know that those people have bought into a socialist agenda and are among my biggest supporters. They're mostly leftists -- just like me."

- - - - -

What are you getting for your tax dollar spent on education? Prof. Walter Williams of George Mason University offers ...
     " ... some sample test questions for you to answer. Question 1: Which of the following is equal to a quarter-million? a) 40,000, b) 250,000, c) 2,500,000, d) 1/4,000,000 or e) 4/1,000,000. Question 2: Martin Luther King Jr. (insert the correct choice) for the poor of all races. a) spoke out passionately, b) spoke out passionate, c) did spoke out passionately, d) has spoke out passionately or e) had spoken out passionate. Question 3: What would you do if (someone) sprained an ankle? a) Put a Band-Aid on it, b) Ice it or c) Rinse it with water.
     Guess whether these questions were on a sixth-grade, ninth-grade or 12th-grade test. I bet the average reader would guess that it's a sixth-grade test. Wrong. How about ninth-grade? Wrong again. 12th-grade test questions? Still wrong.
      According to a Heartland Institute-published School Reform News article titled "Who Tells Teachers They Can Teach?", those test questions came from prospective teacher tests. The first two questions are samples from the Praxis I test for teachers, and the third is from the 1999 teacher certification test in Illinois. According to the Chicago Sun-Times (9/6/01), 5,243 Illinois teachers failed their teacher certification tests."
              -- (Townhall.com) --

- - - - -

If the Big Zero really wants everyone to "pay their fair share," he should start with the 47% of Americans who pay no income taxes at all, and explain how THAT is fair. What's the word? Oh, yes: Freeloaders.

- - - - -

Democrat #2 in the House, Cong. Steny Hoyer, must have a short memory as he insists that no president in thirty years has shown Obama's "willingness to compromise." It was only two dozen years ago that Bush Sr. compromised himself right out of the White House by caving in to the Democrats and violating his "no new taxes" pledge.

- - - - -

The public is tired of the same old hollow promises from The Great Imposter. According to the Nielsen ratings, the audience for Tuesday night's re-hash was down 21% from his first State of the Union speech ... and down 12% from last year's harangue. This decline despite the fact that no fewer than fourteen networks, on-air and cable, carried his speech.

- - - - -

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels seems like a level-headed fellow. Making it all the more a pity that he didn't have the ... whatever it takes ... to run for the Republican nomination, himself.

- - - - -

Definition: AFFORDABLE, as used by liberals. A subsidy, using taxpayer money to provides goods and/or services to selected beneficiaries of a politician's largesse in exchange for votes.

- - - - -

Erick Erickson in the RedState morning briefing ...
"Mitt Romney will find it very hard to beat Barack Obama because of what Barack Obama will do to him. Newt Gingrich will find it very hard to beat Barack Obama because of what Newt Gingrich will do to himself.

- - - - -

Why am I concerned about the possible, even likely, outcome of November's presidential election? For all the bungling by the incompetent racist and socialist, Obama, I cannot help but recall the Winston Churchill quote used a few days ago in this space. The great man of the 20th century said, "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
Years of media work involving volumes of feedback from the public long ago convinced me that a frightening portion of the population consists of mindless two-legged cattle. Combined with the likelihood of a seriously-flawed opponent, I regard the threat of an Obama re-election seriously.

Footnote: As Republican candidates savage each other, the Rasmussen continuing poll shows that the disapproval margin of public opinion re Obama is slowly but steadily shrinking.

- - - - -

My often-stated view is that this nation has not had a real president since Reagan. Is Newt Gingrich the man to succeed to that mantle? When every credible poll shows that he'd lose to Obama by a big margin (Reuters News Service poll finds the margin 53-38%), one wonders if the cheering throngs in the debate halls are eager to take off on a kamikaze mission.
This is not a Romney endorsement; simply a recognition of presently-perceived reality.

- - - - -

Now wonder so many dolts ... products of the American public education system ... delude themselves that Obama is a "great orator". The non-partisan Flesch-Kincaid readability test, applied to his State of the Union speech, finds that it was written at the eighth-grade level.

- - - - -

Investors Business Daily summarizes another Obama foreign/economic policy disaster ...
     "President Obama last year hailed a new era of energy cooperation with Brazil, vowing to make America Brazil's best customer. Brazil's response? To sell its oil to China.
     "We want to help you with the technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely, and when you're ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers," Obama told Brazil.
     "Ten months later, what does Obama have to show for this? A Brazil that has dismissed the U.S. as a lightweight and opted to sell its oil to China instead."

- - - - -

Reader Lewis takes note of this explication of capitalism by Daniel Hannan, a member of Britain's parliament ...
     "There’s nothing selfish about capitalism. Like every economic model, it is a matrix within which individual actors can behave morally or immorally. But here’s the thing: no one has yet come up with a system that rewards decent behavior to the same extent.
     "In an open market based on property rights and free contract, you become wealthy by offering an honest service to others. I am typing these words on a machine developed by the late Steve Jobs. He gained from the exchange (adding fractionally to his net wealth) and so did I (adding to my convenience).
     "Under the various forms of corporatism tried by fascist and socialist regimes, by contrast, someone else – generally a state official – gets to allocate the goodies, guaranteeing favoritism and corruption."

- - - - -

A reason to be proud of being an Arizonan: Governor Jan Brewer chewing out Obama on his arrival in Phoenix yesterday. Seems the Big Nothing was annoyed by her book, "Scorpions for Breakfast," which discusses her signing of the state law cracking down on illegal immigration -- something the Marxist president doesn't want done.

- - - - -

Dan Sorkin passes along some timeless quotes ...
     We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. ~Aesop
If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these acceptance speeches there wouldn't be any inducement to go to heaven. ~Will Rogers
     Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~Plato
      When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it. ~Clarence Darrow
      Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other. ~Oscar Ameringer
      A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country. ~Texas Guinan
      There ought to be one day - just one - when there is open season on senators. ~Will Rogers

- - - - -

A dying dynasty ...
Former listeners to my joint radio alma mater, KGO/KSFO, may be interested in the latest San Francisco ratings. The two former powerhouses continue to sink into insignificance. KGO is now in 12th place with a 2.8% share of the audience ... KSFO has dropped to 20th place with a 2.2% share.
Sic transit gloria.

- - - - -

The Washington Times carries word that ...
     ... a new report from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies titled "Global Temperature in 2011, Trends, and Prospects". It says, "Global temperature in 2011 was lower than in 1998."
     "The truth is this: There is no such thing as an "average" global temperature. The history of our planet is a history of wildly fluctuating temperatures, locally and globally, from season to season, century to century, epoch to epoch.
     "Only a generation as narcissistic as the baby boomers would assume that the temperature they were accustomed to as they came of age in the mid-20th century is the "correct" or "average" global temperature, which must be maintained in perpetuity no matter the costs."

- - - - -

Crime news...
In Chicago, a building was stolen. A developer had put up the steel superstructure for a new commercial building ... and it disappeared.
Scrap-metal thieves apparently dismantled the construction and hauled it away.

- - - - -

And the winner is--!
     A wild moose was no match for an 85-year-old woman.
     Dorothea Murphy of Anchorage, Alaska, who saw a moose attack her 82-year-old husband. The 97-pound woman grabbed a shovel, charged the moose and whacked it over the head. The moose quickly vacated the premises.
     An adult moose can weigh as much as 1500 pounds, recalling the ancient wisdom that states, "It's not the size of the dog in the fight that matters ... it's the size of the fight of the fight in the dog."

- - - - -

More mangled language ...
RUNG is a step on a ladder. WRUNG is the past and past participle of WRING; to squeeze out liquid or, colloquially, to pressure information or action from a person.

- - - - -

The Sky-Guy says ...
All parents are proud of overachieving children. Yesterday while driving downtown I saw a bumper sticker on a car reading "My Kid Made Your License Plate".

MORE BLOWN BUX ON ELECTRIC CARS ... MITT MAULS NEWT
... BARNEY-READY NUPTIALS

Congratulations appear to be in order. Retiring Congressman Barney Frank, 71, is engaged to be married to Jim Ready, 42. Cong. Frank told interviewer Charlie Rose, “I’m in love for the first time in my life.”
The happy couple will be married in Massachusetts. No indication which, if either, will wear white.
We're attempting to ascertain whether Barney and Jim are registered at Walmart or Victoria's Secret.

- - - - -

Here we ago again, with another expensive (to the taxpayers) flop by the enviro-nuts and their Maximum Leader in the White House.
The Ener 1 Company, which got a $118,500,000 "stimulus" grant from the Energy Department to develop batteries for electric cars, has filed for bankruptcy.

- - - - -

Scott Rasmussen of the Rasmussen Reports poll was a longtime on-air regular during my lengthy broadcasting career and I have a high regard for the accuracy of his organization. (I often told him, "You're at the top of my list of pollsters. Of course, if you're wrong on a big one or two, I'll drop you like a bad habit." He took it in good humor.)
     This is simply to preface his latest Florida polling of likely Republican voters, which at this writing has Romney over Gingrich, 39%-31%.
     Of course, given the volatility of the race, along with polling that shows a third of those Republicans would like to have another entrant, current polls could be outdated by sunset.
     There's a growing consensus, however, that Newt is getting sunburned in the Sunshine State and that Romney got the better of last night's debate and Gingrich faltered -- again.

- - - - -

The Rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll, which measures those likely voters who strongly approve of Obama's performance against those who strongly disapprove, not long ago had the "disapprove" rating running upward of 20% over the approvals. As of yesterday, it's down to a 13% spread on the negative side. And still slipping as the Republicans continue to macerate each other.

- - - - -

At times I have worked in TV and radio operations that used call-in audience polls (the same thing done now via internet, Twitter, etc.) as fodder for on-air discussion.
I always made it a point -- sometimes to the dismay of management -- to clearly state that since the participants in such a poll were self-selecting, it was in no way scientific or representative of the general public and was therefore unreliable. Fox News Channel polls today are a current example of such bogus "polling".
All this comes to mind because of Gingrich's demand for airing of audience reaction at the "debates". It is a tactic familiar to comedians, Elmer Gantry-type evangelists, et al. It's been a common tactic used throughout history to get momentum from a crowd. To choose another example from history, ol' Adolf wowed 'em at Nuremberg. Really got 'em fired up!

- - - - -

Public figures, even in this age of massive data storage, seem to forget that their words can come back to haunt them. Reader Rick exhumed this Quote of the Decade:
"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies.
"Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

Who said it? The man who has increased the national debt by more than all previous presidents combined.
Senator Barack Hussein Obama, speaking in March, 2006.

- - - - -

Economics Professor Walter Williams of George Mason University summarizes Obamanomics ...
"Last week, President Barack Obama, at a Capital Hilton fundraising event, told the crowd, 'We can't go back to this brand of you're-on-your-own economics.' Throughout my professional career as an economist, I've never come across the theory of 'you're-on-your-own economics.' I'm guessing what the president means by -- and finds offensive in -- 'you're-on-your-own economics' is that it's a system in which people are held responsible for their actions, that they take risks and must live with the results, that people can't force others to pay for their mistakes, and that they can't live at the expense of other people."

- - - - -

Liberals threaten it when a Republican is elected; some conservatives actually do it when a socialist is elected president. Bail out, that is.
The numbers are relatively small, but the fact is that the number of Americans renouncing their citizenship to live elsewhere has drastically increased since the election that put Obama in office. Approximately 4,000 people gave up their citizenship from fiscal year 2005 to FY 2010. Renunciations increased sharply within the past three years, from 146 in FY 2008 to 1,534 in FY 2010. And during the first two quarters of FY 2011 alone, 1,024 Americans ditched their citizenship.

- - - - -

John Crudele (NY Post) takes a shot at Ben-the-boob at the Fed ...
"Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Federal Reserve bigwigs met Wednesday and said they would continue to keep interest rates low, probably through 2014. And Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the biggest wig of all, is still seeing those green shoots in the economy.
"March, in case you’ve forgotten, will be the third anniversary of Bernanke first spotting those shoots that never seem to sprout into a full plant, despite being watered by historically low interest rates over an abnormally long period of time."

Addendum: Little Timmy Geithner, our tax-evading Secretary of the Treasury, has announced he won't be back if there's a second Obama term. Perhaps even someone as dumb as Timmy has figured out he's in line to be thrown under the bus as part of Obama's excuse-a-thon for his administration's economic failures.

- - - - -

Reader Tom poses a pertinent question ...
“If liberals think that a SUSTAINABLE ecology is a good idea, and we all need to live SUSTAINABLE lifestyles, relying on SUSTAINABLE sources of energy, how come they don’t believe in a SUSTAINABLE economy?”
“Or, do liberals think that borrowing forty cents of every dollar spent by the government every year as far as the eye can see is a SUSTAINABLE fiscal program?”

- - - - -

The Los Angeles Times reports that Robert Hegyes, an actor whose Jewish-Puerto Rican character Juan Epstein was one of the Sweathogs on the 1970s TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, died Thursday of a heart attack in New Jersey. He was 60.

- - - - -

Mr. Sorkin reminds us of a time-tested Milton Friedman quote. The great economist said, "I’m in favor of freedom, and freedom is not fairness.
     Fairness means somebody has to decide what’s fair.
     The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither.
     The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.

- - - - -

It happened in Florida. A woman was stabbed in the chest by her fiance's ex-girlfriend. The victim was saved by a recently-acquired boob-job. The silicon implants protected her, stopping the knife from deeper penetration.

- - - - -

So Pat Sajak 'fesses-up to taping some episodes of "Wheel of Fortune" while he was drunk. Of course, his job didn't exactly present great intellectual challenges.

- - - - -

More media mangling of the language ...
To DEFUSE is to remove the fuse from an explosive, or in common usage, to minimize friction or disagreement. To DIFFUSE is to scatter something thinly.

- - - - -

Sam proudly (?) presents Socially Unacceptable Humor ...
      I saw a poor old lady fall over today on the ice. At least I presume she was poor. She only had $1.20 in her purse.
     A wife says to her husband, “You're always pushing me around and talking behind my back.” He says, “What do you expect? You're in a wheel chair.”

Sam, go to your room! You're grounded for a month!

MILITARY MIGHT VS. UNEMPLOYMENT ... JAN VS. THE O-MAN
... DEMS & NEWT VS. SUCCESS

For your consideration ...
     The Obama administration is about to make massive cuts in our military personnel.
     We have a huge unemployment problem.
      Among the people having the most difficulty finding jobs are returning veterans; nobody's hiring.
      Therefore ...
Does it not make more sense to retain these people about to be cut out of the military to maintain them in the armed services, where they may be important to the defense of the nation, than to have them being paid unemployment compensation in a dead job market?

- - - - -

At what point will Mitt Romney realize that the biggest burden he bears is his Massachusetts health plan and simply admit that he made a mistake? Prospective Republican voters are far more likely to forgive a mea culpa than his ongoing attempts to explain and excuse it. If he continues to cling to his rationalizations, the Democrats will use it against him -- and probably with great effectiveness.
There lingers the possibility that Santorum may supplant Gingrich as the anti-Romney candidate. He had a good night in the Thursday debate and there's always the chance the volatile Newt might yet implode.

- - - - -

Despite the layers of male bovine excrement being spread by the Big Media, the basic facts about the Obama-Brewer airport contretemps are simple. Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizonans who elected her and who live on the most-crossed (illegally) border in the nation want our immigration laws enforced. Barack Obama doesn't want them enforced, and doesn't want to listen to anyone, even a governor, who disagrees. (see following item.)
Governor Brewer has released her handwritten letter to the president. There is absolutely nothing offensive in it. She does, however, repeat her invitation to join her on a visit to the border. Given Obama's avowed concern for the environment as just one facet of the dispute over law enforcement, we who live near the border (in my case, thirty minutes) have no doubt that anyone concerned about environmental issues would be dismayed at the destruction wrought by the illegal alien traffic.

- - - - -

Al Cardenas in the Washington Times expands on Obama's blatant disregard of immigration law ...
"President Obama’s State of the Union address - coupled with recent troubling decisions by his administration to expand a pattern of de facto amnesty for illegal immigrants - cemented the unfortunate reality that this president continues intentionally to abdicate a responsibility to advance serious immigration reform. Empty rhetoric, repetitive platitudes and continued support for the already-rejected Dream Act do not make up a comprehensive proposal to this complex policy issue.
"These remarks follow the administration’s decision to ease certain regulations on the visa program and move to release some deportation cases by focusing solely on whether a person poses “a national security threat,” only the latest addition to a list of blatant unilateral White House orders intended to curry favor with Hispanics."

- - - - -

What Obama left out of his State of the Union speech ...
     Amount of government handouts to individuals ... up 32% in the three years of his administration.
     Number of Americans on food stamps ... up 45% in three years.
        (figures from the government's own Census Bureau)

- - - - -

Mark Steyn offers a corrected version of Obama's State of the Union speech ...
"Had I been asked to deliver the State of the Union address, it would not have delayed your dinner plans: "The State of our Union is broke, heading for bankrupt, and total collapse shortly thereafter. Thank you and good night! You've been a terrific crowd!"
"I gather that Americans prefer something more upbeat, so one would not begrudge a speechwriter fluffing it up by holding out at least the possibility of some change of fortune, however remote. Instead, President Obama assured us at great length that nothing is going to change, not now, not never. Indeed the Union's state — its unprecedented world-record brokeness — was not even mentioned. (Investors Business Daily)

- - - - -

Capital gains, a profit made on investments that create businesses and jobs, are taxed lower than regular income to encourage such investment. American business investment is hampered because our rates are still higher than those of countries competing with us. Criticism of money thus earned within the bounds of our tax laws shows either (A) no understanding of how an economy works, or (B) blatant demagoguery.
BTW, when Obama talks about how Warren Buffett's secretary pays "more in taxes than does her boss," he is -- how can I put this subtly -- a blatant liar.

- - - - -

Consider the hypocrisy. Now that Mitt Romney is a possible -- or even likely -- Republican presidential nominee, the Democrats and their media whores are exercised about his wealth. Let's see ... Roosevelt was rich ... Kennedy was rich ... LBJ was rich ... Clinton has gotten rich off his years in the White House. But now, wealth is despicable. Candidate John Kerry was rich, largely because of his wife's money. But now, wealth is somehow ... evil.
Hmmm ...
And Newt Gingrich, who's hardly a poverty case, joins the chorus.

- - - - -

Andrew McCarthy exposes the liberal fantasies about the now one-year-old "Arab spring" ...
    "The most important fact in the Arab world — as well as in Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other neighboring non-Arab territories — is Islam. It is not poverty, illiteracy, or the lack of modern democratic institutions.
     "The second fact is that Islam constitutes a distinct civilization. It is not merely an exotic splash on the gorgeous global mosaic with a few embarrassing cultural eccentricities; it is an entirely different way of looking at the world. Enthralled by diversity for its own sake, we have lost the capacity to comprehend a civilization whose idea of diversity is coercing diverse peoples into obedience to its evolution-resistant norms.
     "We consequently pretend that Muslims who accurately invoke Islamic scripture in the course of forcibly imposing the dictates of classical sharia — the Islamic legal and political system — are engaged in “anti-Islamic activity,”
     "In places where Islam is the central fact of life, even Muslims who privately dismiss sharia take pains to honor it publicly.
     "If you understand this, you understand why Western beliefs about the Arab Spring — and the Western conceit that the death of one tyranny must herald the birth of liberty — have always been a delusion."

- - - - -

Mr. RWS (he's shy) wants to broaden our foundation of knowledge with a few obscure facts ...
     Look at your zipper. See the initials YKK? It stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushibibaisha, the world's largest zipper manufacturer. (Men: don't check in public!)
     On the average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily. (So that kid DOESN'T really look like you?)
     Chocolate kills dogs! True, chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system. A few ounces is enough to kill a small sized dog. (So I'll take Fido's share.)
     Leonardo DA Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time. (And never had trouble handling the remote.)
     Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to slow a film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.
     Mosquito repellents don't repel... They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
     Marilyn Monroe had six toes on one foot. (Vital info for foot-freaks.)
     Adolf Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor.
     The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
     To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, prick your fingers into its eyeballs. It will let you go instantly. (Always worked for me!)
     The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
     A cockroach can live for 10 days without a head. (A good foundation for a political career.)
     The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910. (Horny little devils ... )
     A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
     An average person uses the bathroom 6 times per day.
     Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his Lifetime. (If we all did it, Gillette would go broke.)
     More than 40,000 parasites and 250 types of bacteria are exchanged during a French kiss. (But well worth it!)
     The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
     It is impossible to lick your elbow. (Too bad. I understand it's an erogenous zone.)

Don't say you didn't learn anything today!

- - - - -

"Showdown at Generation Gap," produced by the Sky-Guy ...
      Our 10 year old grandson was looking through some of my old pictures when he noticed me in my Army class "A" dress uniform.
     "What kind of costume is that?" he asked.
     "That's not a costume, I said. "Men have died for this uniform."
      "Our grandson looked up at me and said, "So you stole it, then?"

CALLING ALL SPACE CADETS ... WHY SO MANY DEBATES?
... ONE WEEK 'TIL THE DARK AGES BEGIN

Dear Newt,
Please explain how a country that is already, in real terms, bankrupt is supposed to finance the building of a colony on the moon within the next nine years.
Such a proposal reeks of desperation.

- - - - -

The latest poll sponsored by Reuters news service (British) has Romney up by eleven points over Gingrich in Florida.

- - - - -

Some are complaining that there are too many debates, with the Republican candidates basically saying the same things over and over. Consider the reasons for the debates and why the candidates agree to participate.
If a big media outlet informs the candidates that it's making time available for one of these verbal jousts, each candidate will choose to appear because he knows his opponents will be there.
What purpose is served for the Big Media networks? Since, with the exception of Fox, they are universally anti-Republican, how better could they promote their liberal cause than giving Republican candidates time to eviscerate each other on TV -- over and over?

- - - - -

The redoubtable Thomas Sowell sounds a warning ...
     "The Republican candidates’ circular firing squad now seems to be using machine guns. Whoever the eventual “last man standing” turns out to be, he may not be standing very tall or very steadily on his feet — and he may be a pushover for Barack Obama in the general election, thanks to fellow Republicans.
     "Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent, this is a very serious and historically crucial time for the United States of America. What Mitt Romney did or did not do when he was with Bain Capital, or what Newt Gingrich did or did not say to his ex-wife, are things that should be left for the tabloids."
     -- (National Review Online) --

And somewhere, Barack Obama is smiling ...

- - - - -

Ron Ross in The American Spectator has more hopeful words ...
"In the 2008 election Obama had virtually every imaginable factor in his favor. The mainstream media gave him a free ride, as they will again in November. There was no due diligence, no vetting. Even with every imaginable advantage, 47 percent of the electorate voted against him. It's reasonable to assume that virtually none of those who voted against him then will vote for him this time.
"Now consider the 53 percent who voted for him. That 53 percent comprised a number of sub-populations -- young people, minorities, Jews, labor union members, progressives, independents, for example. Now on an almost daily basis we see polls showing how he is hemorrhaging support from one or another of these groups. In a wide variety of ways he has managed to alienate many of his supporters."

- - - - -

Pass along to those seething with envy ...
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
-- Thomas Jefferson, regarded as a founding father of the Democratic party -- who probably wouldn't recognize its leftist offspring today.

- - - - -

Another one bites the dust ...
The Las Vegas Sun reports that Amonix, Inc., a manufacturer of solar panels that received $5.9 million from the taxpayers as part of Obama's vaunted "green energy" scam, will cut two-thirds of its workforce, about 200 employees, only seven months after opening a factory in Nevada. That's the third "green energy" outfit to pull a floperoo just in the past week. But Obama and his fraudulent friends never learn -- or at least they hope the taxpayers don't.

- - - - -

From the liberal Washington Post ...
     "Two Harvard researchers looked at the factors that actually improve student achievement and those that don’t."
     Among their conclusions:
     "We find that traditionally collected input measures — class size, per pupil expenditure, the fraction of teachers with no certification, and the fraction of teachers with an advanced degree — are not correlated with school effectiveness."

Distressing news for the teachers' unions, which are forever demanding smaller classes, i.e., more dues-paying members, despite the lack of any evidence that those increased payrolls produce educational results.

- - - - -

Fellow football fans, we must prepare ourselves. Eight days from now, post-Super Bowl, we must prepare for the long, dark night of hibernation, sans football. Yes, the terror awaits us. Seven long months without violent, well-paid gladiators abusing each other for our entertainment.
Meantime, I'm picking the Giants. As always, if this forecast comes to fruition, I shall gloat endlessly. If not, please have the decency never to mention it again.

I have been invited by friends to a Super Bowl party. I don't go to Super Bowl parties. I like the hosts and other guests, but I won't be there. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool fan (not of a particular team, but the game itself) and I want to see every play and concentrate on the action on the field without the distraction of gossip, munchies, etc. And I want no part of a discussion of (A) the commercials or (B) the half-time show, since it's virtually guaranteed to be awful. It almost always is. Now, if they'll just not butcher the pre-game performance of the national
anthem ...

- - - - -

A word columnist Burt Prelutsky detests ...
"As I have stated in other articles, I hate the over-use of the word “alleged.” I understand that those in the media are compelled to use it, for fear of lawsuits, when referring to people who have been indicted but not convicted, lest the jury neglects to find the person guilty.
"I suppose that carried to its extreme, Obama’s biographer will one day write that he was allegedly born in Hawaii, allegedly received good grades in college and was allegedly heterosexual, even though no woman, in spite of the fame and fortune awaiting her, has ever come forward to say that she dated him prior to his marrying Michelle when he was 31."

- - - - -

We see and hear it often: So-and-so "would OF done this..." or "should OF done that ..."
Apparently the contractions "would've" and "should've" have gotten mistranslated. As a contribution to the betterment of humankind, harangue your children and grandchildren to say "would HAVE" or "should HAVE."
The preceding has been a public service message.

- - - - -

Reader Zan offers the ultimate ethnic joke -- a true groaner ...
An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Latvian, a Turk, a German, an Indian, several Americans (including a southerner, a New Englander, and a Californian), an Argentinean, a Dane, an Australian, a Slovakian, an Egyptian, a Japanese, a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a New Zealander, a Spaniard, a Russian, a Guatemalan, a Colombian, a Pakistani, a Malaysian, a Croatian, a Uzbek, a Cypriot, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Chinese, a Sri Lankan, a Lebanese, a Cayman Islander, a Ugandan, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Uruguayan, a Czech, an Icelander, a Mexican, a Finn, a Honduran, a Panamanian, an Andorran, an Israeli, a Venezuelan, a Fijian, a Peruvian, an Estonian, a Brazilian, a Portuguese, a Liechtensteiner, a Mongolian, a Hungarian, a Canadian, a Moldovan, a Haitian, a Norfolk Islander, a Macedonian, a Bolivian, a Cook Islander, a Tajikistani, a Samoan, an Armenian, an Aruban, an Albanian, a Greenlander, a Micronesian, a Virgin Islander, a Georgian, a Bahaman, a Belarusian, a Cuban, a Tongan, a Cambodian, a Qatari, an Azerbaijani, a Romanian, a Chilean, a Kyrgyzstani, a Jamaican, a Filipino, a Ukrainian, a Dutchman, a Ecuadorian, a Costa Rican, a Swede, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Swiss, a Greek, a Belgian, a Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian and 47 Africans walk into a fine restaurant . . .

"I'm sorry," says the maître d', scrutinizing the group one by one and barring their entrance, "you can't come in here without a ... Thai."

- - - - -

From a disturbed friend ...
"I may be schizophrenic, but at least I have each other."

THE POLL-ISH CAMPAIGN ... WOMEN GOING DOWN FOR NEWT
... GLOBAL WARMING NO LONGER COOL

As of this pre-dawn writing, the Rasmussen Reports poll has Romney up by 16 points over Gingrich in Florida, 44%-28%.
   Also of significance ... Romney's 44% is greater than Gingrich (28%) and Santorum (12%) combined.
    Rasmussen has Obama and Romney in a statistical tie, with Obama up by two points, while Obama beats Gingrich by 13 points.
    The RealClearPolitics average of six major polls now stands at Romney 41.0% ... Gingrich at 29.7%.
    The Gallup poll of swing-state voters -- i.e., the likely decisive states -- has Romney leading Obama, 48-47%. None of the remaining Republican candidates comes close to leading.

- - - - -

A big part of Gingrich's problem: Republican women voters. While some say they've "forgiven" the much-talked-about personal baggage, more haven't. And that shows up in Romney's 20-plus point lead in the Florida polls. While doubts about Romney's ... flexible ... policies persist, there's no concern about bimbo eruptions, to borrow a term common in the Clinton era.

- - - - -

The epicenter of the global warming fraud now admits it was wrong, as the London Daily Mail reports ...
"The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century. Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
"Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food."

To make it clear ... the "climate research" outfit that had the major role in promoting the "science" of global warming now admits the reality that there's no such thing, and in fact, temperatures are going the other way.

Crazy Al, shut up, go to your room -- and stay there.

- - - - -

How our mad dash to socialism under Obama looks from Britain, where it's already been tried. Janet Daley in the London Telegraph newspaper ...
     "In a television interview, Mr Obama described his programme of using higher taxes on the wealthy to bankroll new government spending as “a recipe for a fair, sound approach to deficit reduction and rebuilding this country”. To which we who come from the future can only shout, 'No-o-o, go back! Don’t come down this road!'
     "There is, it turns out, a huge difference between being provided with a livelihood and feeling that you have earned it. The assumption that all the wealth that individuals create belongs, by moral right, to the state, to spend on benefits or phoney job creation schemes (sorry, public infrastructure projects), is proving phenomenally difficult to expunge in Britain, so ineradicably has it embedded itself in the public consciousness."
     "The United States is a country that was invented to allow people to be free of domination or persecution by the state. Its constitution and political institutions are specifically designed to prevent the federal government from oppressing the rights, or undermining the sense of responsibility, of the individual citizen. If it ceases to stand by that principle, then it will suffer a catastrophic loss of purpose and identity – as well as making a quite remarkably stupid and unnecessary mistake."

- - - - -

The Obama administration has gone out of its way to offend Catholics who follow the tenets of their religion. The Department of Health & Human Services has said virtually all employers will be required to provide health insurance that includes coverage for contraception and abortificants.
As Michael Daugherty points out in Business Insider, this is akin to the government mandating that all delis, even Kosher delis, serve pork products and then justifying it by saying that protein is healthy.

- - - - -

RealClearPolitics addresses the pointless kerfuffle over Arizona Governor Jan Brewer pointing a finger at Obama during their heated conversation of Arizona's effort to enforce immigration laws, a task Obama is obviously unwilling to undertake ...
"Last week it was all the outrage that Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer pointed her finger at President Obama. Some pundits ... said this incident was unprecedented. It turns out, that is not true. In an August 2006 interview of then President George W. Bush the anchor of NBC's 'Nightly News' Brian Williams pointed his finger in the former Commander in Chief's face several times. Williams seemed doubtful of Bush's reading habits, which at the time included a book about a French philosopher and another book about the battle of New Orleans."

Of course, the Big Media whores and Obama butt-kissers aren't interested in truth.

- - - - -

Candor in journalism --
"Just to keep the record straight, it was the famous Whistler's Mother, not Hitler's Mother, that was exhibited in the recent meeting of the Pleasantville Methodists. There is nothing to be gained in trying to explain how the error occurred."
--The Titusville (PA) Herald

- - - - -

Burt Prelutsky revisits some basic truths ...
     "In all the squabbling between Republican presidential contenders, I have yet to hear anyone utter the unfortunate truth about Arabs and Muslims. For all the joyous blather that greeted the so-called Arab spring, the world has had no reason to rejoice over the results in Egypt, Libya or Syria. For their part, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, continue to be the same cesspools they were before America sacrificed blood and treasure in the hope of protecting one group of medieval terrorists from another.
     "In Saudi Arabia, one of our alleged allies in that part of the world, school textbooks continue to promote the official Islamic bilge that women are 'weak and irresponsible,' that homosexuals 'should be killed,' and that 'the hour of judgment will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.'”
     "Until we get a president who is willing to acknowledge that we are at war with Islamic fundamentalists; that Muslims played absolutely no role in the creation of the United States; that they are dedicated to a worldwide caliphate, whose primary goal would be the extermination of Jews and Christians; and that in any war waged between one Muslim sect and another, our place should be on the sidelines, cheering them on; we will continue being drawn into one bloody and ultimately futile enterprise after another."

- - - - -

From reader Dick ...
     In a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle pink section published January 29th on conservative talk radio, Stephen K. of San Francisco describes the overall makeup of the Bay Area as follows:
     “Local print, TV and cultural agencies are dominated by intolerant, politically correct left wing, bourgeois bohemians who have never grown up.”

     Concise. And precise.

- - - - -

Already feeling the onset of football withdrawal, which begins next week, I forced myself to watch about five minutes of the Pro Bowl, played before thousands of empty seats in Honolulu, and concluded that this silly game should be abolished. Does the NFL seriously believe there's a viewership for top-notch pros playing touch football? And joking with each other as they do it? I've seen more violence watching my grandmother do her housework.

- - - - -

Mad Mike forwards the contenders for this year's Stella Awards, named for 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued a McDonald's. Among this year's trophy winners ...
     Kathleen Robertson of Austin , Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
     Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles , California , won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
     Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt-bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.
     Another idiot jury awarded Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, #113,500 from a Philadelphia restaurant after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
     Kara Walton, of Claymont , Delaware , sued the owner of a nightclub because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms.Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000 ..... plus dental expenses.

- - - - -

Sam proudly (?) presents: Socially Unacceptable Humor ...
A buddy of mine has just told me he's getting it on with his girlfriend and her twin. I said, "How can you tell them apart?" He said, "Her brother has a mustache."

IRAN & OUR ELECTION ... MITT & OBAMACARE
... OCCUPIERS' ANTI-SEMITISM

A longtime friend with a substantial history as a reporter has a well-placed connection who says preparations are being made for a possible U.S. military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
October surprise, anyone?

- - - - -

Unless Gingrich gets an upset win, or at least a closer finish than the polls indicate, Florida's election today may realistically be the end of the road for his campaign. He may, as he says, continue his effort until the convention, but he risks becoming irrelevant. Or worse, a tool to help Obama get re-elected.
If he thinks the Romney campaign has been tough and/or unfair, what would he expect if he did run against Obama? Three media-run debates, however effective, would be unlikely to halt a well-financed incumbent's campaign. Especially given Newt's very high negatives.
Now he's saying he wouldn't debate Obama in a format with reporters asking questions. The likely Obama response: "Fine. We won't debate." Thus taking away Newt's best weapon.

- - - - -

Romney's formulation of the Massachusetts health-care plan, which was clearly a model for Obamacare, is one of the heavier burdens he must bear. It seems Gingrich may also have a similar problem.
Business Insider carries a transcript of a May 2009 conference call hosted by Siemens Healthcare, in which Gingrich comes out unequivocally in support of the individual mandate, the most hotly-contested provision of Obamacare, which requires every American to buy health insurance.
"We believe…that everyone must have health-insurance," Gingrich says. "Or if you are an absolute libertarian, we would allow you to post a bond, but we would not allow people to be free-riders, failing to insure themselves and then show up at the emergency room with no means of payment." And he goes on to praise Obama's healthcare reform legislation, which he says is a "model we will be advocating."

- - - - -

However much -- or little -- Newt and Pat Buchanan may have in common, the former Reagan administration insider -- Pat -- told television's McLaughlin Group, "In the Reagan White House, Newt Gingrich was considered quite frankly by a lot of folks to be something of a political opportunist and who was not trusted and who had played no role whatsoever.”
Buchanan, of course, is not a supporter of Romney or any other Republican of the "moderate" ilk.

- - - - -

Sarah Palin says, "Annoy a liberal. Vote for Newt."
Considering that Obama & Co. clearly believe -- substantiated by every poll -- Newt would be more easily defeated than Romney, one must wonder just how annoyed they'd actually be.

- - - - -

In case you missed it ... the quote of the week/month ... maybe year ...
"This is a battlefield that we must stand upon and we need to let president Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and my dear friend, the chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain't on the table. Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, and take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America."
-- Congressman Alan West (R-FL)

- - - - -

Then, from the scum of the "occupy movement" ...
     “I pledge allegiance to a flag of the imperialistic, capitalistic dictatorship. And to the plutocracy for which it stands, depravity owned central bank, under the Jews. With inequality and injustice for the 99”.
     Then they burned an American flag as they pillaged Oakland's City Hall.
     And these are the people with whom Obama, Reid and Pelosi have aligned themselves.

- - - - -

I wonder if the liberals who talk of "people of color" as one large mass with common interests ever consider the undeniable fact that the most frequent outbreaks of violence in prisons involve groups of blacks battling gangs of Latinos.

- - - - -

Deadline Hollywood reports that Paula Abdul is one of several key figures being blown out of "The X Factor" TV show, which hasn't exactly caught fire in the ratings.
One wondered how long the amateur-hour fad could last. What it's had going for it has been a format cheap to run, built on a miniscule talent budget for a few good -- but mostly bad -- performers and the electric bill for a lot of flashing lights.

- - - - -

Personal pique, please ...
     The continuing shrinkage of the over-the-air TV networks' ratings might be slowed if they spent less audio and video time telling us what wonderful things they're going to do later ... or tomorrow ... or next week ... and stopped cluttering their product with the endless hype and focused more on what they're presenting NOW.
     It's especially annoying to have as much as an eighth of the screen (usually one of the lower corners) showing a superimposed promotional announcement unrelated to the programming being currently aired..
     Of course television, like radio, the airlines and various other industries, is largely run by some of the dumbest people on the planet. They apparently never learned that the best promotion for your product is the product, itself.

- - - - -

Jerry Stiller, who still gets great showbiz jobs ("Seinfeld", "King of Queens") quoted by Cindy Adams, NY Post ...
“So how long will this continue? Who knows? I’m 85, and I’m suddenly getting discovered. At this age, where my only ongoing relationships are with doctors and upgrades for my pacemaker, I’m getting discovered."

- - - - -

Jim Eason passes along kudos to the Cleveland police department ...
     "I get irritated when people come down on our police officers, saying that they don't care about or respect others. Well, here is a story that clearly shows not all cops in Cleveland are in that category.
     "This story involves the police department in the small hilly area called Murray Hill who reported finding a man's body last Saturday in the early evening in the Canal near the Art Museum bridge. The dead man's name would not be released until his family had been notified.
     "The victim apparently drowned due to excessive beer consumption while visiting "someone" at the Nido-Italia restaurant. He was wearing black fishnet stockings, 10 inch spiked heels, a red garter belt, a pink G-string, purple lipstick, dazzle dust on his eye lids, 2 1/2 inch false eyelashes and an Obama T-shirt.
     "The Cleveland police removed the Obama T-shirt to spare his family any unnecessary embarrassment."

"...and now, if you'll excuse me..."

radiorodgers1@yahoo.com