Free cell phones as a gov't bennie - Gov't stroking the sweet spot

Got a thing in the mail yesterday from a place called Safelink which is a service of Lifeline which is actually something to do with the Federal Government.  Note the key words here - Safelink, Lifeline, Federal Government.  Apparently and I've heard about this but if you're poor enough, if you're under a certain predetermined income level and already partake of certain government programs like food stamps and SSI you're ELIGIBLE, entitled to a free cell phone with 250 free minutes!!!  Text your heart out.  So of course they have some kind of positive blurb at the bottom of the letter from some older disabled woman saying the cell phone practically saved her life butcha just know most folks are just gonna be gabbing and blabbing and yakking on the things.  Bishop Sheen warned about this way back in the day, they're gonna try to make you dependent on the federal government.  Free cells and having your job be forced to cover your birth control, it's all of a thread.  Maybe they should call it Flukelink (pronunciation fluck).  The Obama Motto - don't let your boss decide if you can have bc or not.  To me that's irrelevant, your boss has nothing to do with your personal life.  During my last job interview it never dawned on me to ask in closing are you gonna cover my sex'chal needs?  The ONLY thing that matters is getting paid for services rendered, that's it!  You know it's become kind of gauche to point this out lately but these are the type of people who voted for Obama and yes he won the election fair and square but when his second term is up that's when we have to have The Great Rollback, the massive scaling back of liberalism and at the top of my list will be the free cell phone.  Conservative post-election analysis greatly missed the point.  Generally speaking Mitt Romney really did nothing wrong, the country's changed is all.  BTW BB's probably entitled to a free cell:)

Obama's very liberal 2nd Inaugural Address

The Leftward Tsunami is coming, conservatives better head for the hills.  Obama riding the back of Leviathan, there's a Dali painting in there somewhere and at long last his speech finally dispelled the myth of his centrism.  The NY Times proudly used the term "liberal" on its front page and it's pretty clear he's gonna do what he wants in his second term and why not? the American people gave it to him.  The msm will have his back of course, well maybe not Jake Tapper but he's gone rogue.  Obama has this very annoying but shrewd polemical habit I've noted, if you don't agree with him or otherwise want to work with him you're an extremist, an absolutist, bad for the Republic and in this way he casts himself as the reasoned and civil moderate when in reality what people are really against is his liberalism.  This is defining the terms of the debate from the getgo (what debate?) and in psychological terms is called invalidation ("you're irrational").  There've been a few liberal invalidating comments posted of late on this very blogpage.  For instance if you don't agree with me you're incapable of processing my opinion i.e. reason.  It's clear Obama doesn't want to work with conservatives, he is divisive and polarizing as usual and he'll never change.  The speech covered the usual liberal gamut from gay rights to gun control, immigration reform and entitlements to climate change and it's clear LI Rep. Peter King was starstruck by the Beyonce/Jay-Z couple as he eagerly whipped out his picture phone like any stalkerazzi approaching deadline.  OK OK so perhaps BB and Saty can explain to me AND the Ole Gray Lady why his very well-received second inaugural address wasn't liberal:)

Advanced Obamanomics - the payroll tax

We just got a memo from Human Resources, the federal payroll tax holiday is expiring and they just went up 2%.  To use an example someone pulling in $300/wk. would have six extra dollars taken out.  Of course I'm not a member of the evil 2% and I know Obama is looking out for my middle-class interests.  Then there's the new health-care tax:)

Here's hoping that 2013 sucks less than 2012

The Fiscal Cliff - what I want to know is why did everyone wait until the last minute to resolve the Crisis?  The only explanation I can get out of it is like the teen who deliberately masturbates right before his parents come home from food shopping.  The metal gate's clanging, oh here we go...must be the excitement of it all, some just like to look over the precipice.
Hillary has a blood clot near the brain - and no she didn't fake it to get out of Benghazi.
Can we go a whole year without a mass shooting?  I don't know, is that asking too much? maybe it is.  We just got these new uniforms at work, nice new black aprons with a big red bullseye-type dot with the company logo smack dab in the middle and the produce guy and I both agreed, with all the violence in society our new dress code is making us somewhat uncomfortable.
Which celebrities will be arrested in 2013? the same ones or some new surprises?  Why is Jessica Simpson famous?  Judge Judy annoys me.
50 Shades of Grey the Movie - at least Hunger Games had something to say, a point.  So the movie will come out and eventually the DVD version with 10 minutes or so of extra uncensored director's cut footage and you go out to the nearest FYE store and buy it 'cause you think someone's gonna be trussed up like a turkey with an apple in the mouth or someone goes to the bathroom in a litter box.  I mean you don't have to be psychic.
How many days out of the new year am I not going to get any? (get the marker out).  While we're on the subject Jefferson Valley Mall in Yorktown Hgts. has these new massage chairs with a whole anal routine.  Bad day at the office, hit the mall.  I'm just sayin'
Subway pushers - the new normal.  A-Train's a-comin'
A whole entire new year of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh complaining about Barack Obama, God help us!

How do you keep the weight off around the holidays?

Wouldn't you know it everyone gave me snacks.  Oh yeah that Greek drink Ouzo 12, slept like a baby and dreamed all night and didn't want to get out of bed this morning to go to work.  I think the pitfall of many a diet is the holidays.  You have to partake, to not partake is depressing and not very social but the way I maintain is to go on a nice long walk on the morning of the holiday itself, don't eat much if anything before the main meal later on in the day and then when that's all digested do a brisk exercise routine in my room.  Won't knock off any pounds but hopefully you won't gain any.  So now the trick is is I gotta ration out the rest of my snacks in such a way so even if I don't lose I don't put it back on either.  Got a little Ouzo left, yeah baby!

The Newtown Speech - Obama and Faith

The President's address last night at the interfaith prayer vigil in Newtown CT was by turns excellent, moving, inspiring, powerful, poignant and even theologically advanced.  As a conservative at odds with the president most of the time it seems these days it was still possible to have a certain amount of pride yesterday evening.  The flourishing of faith in small towns like Newtown is heartening to see even in the wake of such an unspeakable tragedy and only the most secular liberal would have been uncomfortable last night.  Folks there aren't damning God to the heavens or asking the immemorial question where was He?  I've never been to the quaint bucolic town of Newtown myself but have visited quite often the surrounding communities many times on day trips.  New Milford up Super-7 where they recently redid some of the main drag and there's their berry farm in the springtime, Stew Leonard's at Danbury a really great food experience, the Danbury Mall of course off 84 and Dick's Sporting Goods a new addition, New Fairfield and Candlewood Lake/Squantz Pond, the winding roads of Sherman......it's become one of my favorite places to spend the better part of a day and there's just something about the name Aunt Hack Road a side road off of 6 in Danbury.  When you like a certain geographical area you develop almost a mystical connection to it speaking of which every now and then I'd go to the Marian Shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes just off of Rte. 202 downaways on 25 which actually right here at this main intersection you see signs there directing you to Newtown.  This shrine is a beautiful little place to go with a nice grotto with candles and religious statues and of course the Stations of the Cross on a gentle hill with a large dark wooden cross of Christ at the apex and then lo and behold you're almost in somebody's backyard.  All of this section of upper Connecticut is quite country with the exception of Main Street in the City of Danbury which even though there's a definite touch of squalor here there's something nice about it too and then there's the nearby town of Bethel with a quite large literal supermarket of wine and spirits.  I guess I'm one of the few conservatives who liked Obama's speech last night judging by what Hannity was saying just now on my drive over to the library.  I watched a good part of the memorial with a couple fellow conservatives and even they seemed to be softening and they're no fans of the administration.  I'm saving alot more for the Comments Section but I really think it was a defining moment on the eve of his second term. 

Obama Priorities - the Rich but what about the prevalence of guns in society?

It was one of those nonissues during the campaign and Romney didn't have much to say on the matter either.  I'm talking of course about guns and not the well-to-do on which there were plenty of thoughts.  I'm kinda more concerned lately with the threat posed by guns in society and not so much on those individuals/families/entities making more than $250,000/yr. not paying their fair share.  There was lately a shootup in some mall in Portland, OR.  Before that there was of course the Batman/Movie Theater Massacre in Aurora CO.  There was most recently some weird guy who shot and killed three Brooklyn shopkeepers and he said the CIA put him up to it and then just the other day the brazen Midtown Hitman attack in broad daylight in NYC this in probably one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the world today.  Just today at about 9:30 in the morning a 20-yr. old gunman opened fire on a couple of first-grade classrooms in an elementary school in bucolic Newtown CT killing 26 people including 20 children.  The gunman is now deceased but he was armed with three firearms and wore a bulletproof vest.  Historically it ranks as the second deadliest massacre after VA Tech and Newtown is quite close to the Danbury Mall so there are alot of open questions about the gunman's motivations/psychology here and why he chose a helpless group of first-graders instead of the usual throng of Christmas shoppers. 

My position on guns and gun control is rather complex and I've enough to say on the matter to piss off both sides.  I'm not against all gun control measures, would probably support many of them but also recognize their limited effectiveness.  Liberals talk as if this is the magical solution, would that this were so.  Put simply only honest law-abiding people obey laws, criminals don't that's why they're known as criminals in the first place.  Pass all the gun control measures you want and criminals will still get ahold of guns and continue to maim and kill, that's basic existential reality.  I could fill a whole blogpage with my thoughts on the subject and they ramble in all political directions at times but bottom line is Obama seems to care more about the wealthy these days and the apparent threat they pose to the country.  I wish he were just as concerned about the prevalence of guns in our society but we can't have that discussion right now because of the Fiscal Cliff.  Obama if he were a more mature and reasoned leader, not still running a campaign could have helped put all that behind us and on to more pressing matters like, say Guns in Our Society and I'd like to hear President Obama's response on the tragedy in Newtown CT and also what his mouthpiece Jay Carney has to say I mean if they have the time since the wealthy are taking up so much of their attention lately.  There will be the usual obligatory pro-forma statements of course but you would think they would at least question some of their own political obsessions/fixations of late, sober up.  The poor will always be with us and so will the wealthy and there will always be time for those discussions but the dead remain the dead.

Your thoughts? (and don't be surprised if I might agree with you at times).

Generic political commentary - the msm framing the narrative on the fiscal cliff

The disappointing commentary of Mark Shields -- he's the liberal commentator on the weekly roundup on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer with neoconservative David Brooks allegedly providing some type of counterpoint and this happens every Friday evening.  Leaving aside the fact that I'm not clubbing, a sure sign of age I do quite often get their takes on the week's political news and events.  So usually what happens is I'm sitting there and I'm slowly getting depressed and agitated, vaguely restless, irritated and I haven't even sipped from my nightly goblet yet.  It's not that the commentary is creepy or off-center and one of the few other options is the Filth known as 2 1/2 Men so I stick with it.  It's your standard fare, quite mainstream, safe even and Shields looks all serious with his folksy jowls but I'm like when's it gonna happen? it's gonna happen if not this week then the next but it's gotta happen.  No not when is Shields gonna drop the word "dick", Vampire Diaries already does that but WHEN is Shields gonna criticize President Obama even a mild anti-?  Now I know he's a liberal but he has gotten marks in the past for being a more honest and centrist kind of lib but take the current hot topic of the fiscal cliff.  Actually there is no other topic (Sandy, been there/done that).  Now I get it that one way to look at it is that Republicans according to most opinion polls will take the heavy blame if we fall off by insisting that the top 2% can't be taxed any higher than they already are and so taxes go up on the rest of us in the vast middle class -- ooooooh populism and pitchforks!  OK I get that, I'm not stupid but what Shields should be saying (also) is WHY is Obama still pursuing this class-warfare game??? the campaign's over, Romney was defeated and then taken out to lunch and so then what also happens is Brooks more often than not kinda goes along with Shields because he always has his acute neocon antennae attuned to the prevailing political zeitgeist.  Not too long ago Brooks was the one who first made the helpful suggestion that Repubs be willing to close loopholes and deductions instead of raising marginal rates on the wealthy and everyone kinda thought that was the way to go but Obama would have none of it.  Obama is now almost overtly Marxist but Shields will never be accused of saying anything ballsy or radical or even mildly controversial.  It's always safe plain yogurt, ya gotta go underground for the unpasteurized Stilton.  It's the old familiar framework, actually the media are in a rut but the story goes the Dems are somehow wiser and more right and the Repubs are wrong.  Tax Cuts along with Obesity is now the New Evil.  In the cosmology of the msm Grover Norquist is the Devil, at least Beelzebub never mind that Obama and the Dems have no intention whatsoever of cutting or reforming entitlements, of giving Boehner and his side a few crumbs and scraps off the table.  Obama is somehow getting tagged with the populist label but is ginning up hatred for the rich part of the definition of populism? not as I understand it.  The new jobs #'s are out and 146,000 new jobs were added for November and the unemployment rate dipped to 7.7% the lowest it's been since Dec. '08.  Of course alot of this has to do with lots of jobless folks still dropping out of the marketplace permanently and I think Obama kind of actually encourages a kind of semipermanent dependent circle-jerking culture/malaised social class but don't count on Shields to point any of this out or even his sidekick.  My #1 Rule for Blogging -- my commentary is my own.  The day it becomes generic I'm retiring:)

The dilution of Christmas

I say it has been diluted.  Take Business XYZ, let's say it's a major food/convenience chain that has been closed for Christmas since they've been in business.  In fact it's the only day out of the entire calendar year that they're closed but let's say they just made the announcement that going forward they're gonna be open most of the day and some will have to work.  OK leaving aside the corporate rudeness of the act, folks have probably already made some type of plans can't it wait a year? it is explained in the clearest pc terms though that the reason we're doing this is there are also Jewish people out there, Muslims etc. as if we weren't aware of that most basic of societal facts.  I say it's been diluted.  Were Jews and Muslims out complaining why is Business XYZ closed on Christmas? probably not, let's be honest.  Government offices are still closed for this day, post offices don't deliver mail and try going to the bank.  Of course public libraries are closed and often they're closed early on the day before and maybe even closed the day after.  Now bear in mind these are all pretty secular institutions and they're all closed and nobody beats the American Library Association for sheer pc'ness.  Oh about "Happy Holidays" which some around here are probably gonna bring up, I'm not against it myself per se and say it to customers out of personal habit but there's a difference between that and having to say it.  I HATE pc for the mere reason that it's pc and its main reason for existence seems to be that some folks might be potentially offended by this or that.  Often they're not offended, I'm not offended by Chanukah but getting back to Business XYZ are they gonna make such a ringing profit on being open that day that it justifies itself? probably not as most folks just wanna lay back that day.  I think Christmas has become a generic enough holiday where only the Scroogiest of people are offended.  It makes us think about charity and our fellow man and we give, it cuts across all political boundaries and spectrums and what is wrong with a little rest now and then by getting off the corporate gerbil wheel for a day and reflecting?  It's time we take Christmas back and I don't even think Moussa would be offended.

How does Jay Carney do it day in and day out?

I know he used to be a member of the media and probably swings liberal himself but still.  There's been other presidential spokesmen who have quit for reasons known only to them but is he really that into this gig?  I mean Hillary doesn't look like she's having any fun, she looks bored and tired half the time and she's trekking the globe and she's leaving.  It's like at work when you have a bad manager and we've all had them but there's always one who's his right-hand man who gets offended at the slightest critique>>>"oh no no no he knows what he's doing" and the two really dig each other but to everyone else it makes no sense.  The BS Spokesman, a job I could never do.

Will Obama wreck the U.S. economy just to prove a point?

The fiscal cliff, he's still in campaign mode.  The issue on the table: should tax rates be raised on the rich?  Now while I disagree with that position I would also say it's not an invalid position to take but should Obama dig in and pursue it at all costs even if it means the country heading into another recession?  That's the definition of an ideologue, maybe even a socialist.  My point: take your point as far as it will go, put it away for now if you have to and revisit it another day.  Obama is framing the solving our debt/deficit narrative as the public vs. the wealthy, raising taxes on those making over $250,000/yr. in order to spare the middle-class.  He says his reelection was a public mandate to do just this and maybe he's right but I daresay most presidents would vastly prefer to compromise a little on their own principles instead of throwing the country into an economic tailspin.  Why such intransigence?  Even if you're a liberal how can you not be frightened by this? and then let's say come Jan. 1 the nation falls right over the fiscal cliff and then Obama will ultimately blame the rich and pursue the class-warfare right through his second term.  My take, he's not so much a leader as somebody with some issues.  Mr. Obama, a professional angry person. 

A kind of an afterthought on the Petraeus scandal

It kind of bothers me that the FBI spent so much time on this.  Yeah that FBI the one that is supposed to fight crime and domestic terror.  It'd be like Batman going after the Mayor's mistress instead of doing battle with the Joker.  Some women simply like men in uniform, think Cop Sex.   I think the interesting thing with Obama is that his right-wing enemies and they are legion can't even seem to approach the merest whiff of an aroma of a sex scandal and don't think they haven't been trying.  I think Obama has deliberately lived his life according to those porn disclaimers re safe sex - "we highly recommend the Surgeon General's accepted guidelines of monogamy and/or abstinence or at a minimum..."  Bill Clinton being warm-blooded got caught up in Monicagate but I think Obama being so intellectual is beyond even this and knows well the practical importance of living a chaste life the better to push through liberalism without the usual distractions.  Since time immemorial women have destroyed powerful men and all their medals and honors and accolades go out the window.  Oh I know I wasn't gonna do a Petraeus blog but I somehow feel less safe with the FBI devoting such massive amounts of manpower to basically a noncrime, I mean was a law broken? but then again it's something J. Edgar Hoover would have done:)

The GOP & the Susan Rice Affair, a funny way to go after Obama's demographics

Ninety-seven GOP House members have sent a letter to the White House basically saying UN Ambassador Susan Rice shouldn't even be considered for the Sec'y of State slot now that Hillary is leaving.  This is only a symbolic vote of course as the real action takes place in the Senate but it does carry some weight.  Now conservatives in general are opposed to Obama who happens to be black.  They're not opposed to him because he's black but because he is an unreconstructed liberal but the perception still floats out there.  Now they seem just as opposed to Susan Rice's nomination and she happens to be an African-American.  This is......awkward.  Senators John McCain from AZ and Lindsey Graham of SC are leading the charge against her in the Senate.  Saw Graham recently on Meet the Press and I didn't like the way he came across.  Ya got the Southern twang going and he's against another high-ranking black, I'm just sayin' (mental image of Graham humping Ned Beatty, McCain on the banjo).  You know when you're the passenger in a car with someone, you're not even driving but you feel your whole body tense up and become stiff throughout the whole ride?  I'm finding myself cringing here and as a practical matter it might be smart to drop the whole Susan Rice thing.  Yeah I know she repeated those Benghazi talking points on all the Sunday morning talk shows but she was obviously speaking on behalf of the President and I kinda agree here to be honest that they need to take it up with him instead if there's a problem and there is.  They don't like Eric Holder either and he's of color and I think they have a strong case with Fast and Furious and some other business but the Stupid Party really needs to start thinking of the racial scorecard here.  Go all out on Susan Rice and see how it comes back to haunt you come 2016 - happy demograpics.  Benghazi is already beclouding Obama's second term here, the sequel ain't going well but I'm just wonderin' what the strategy wonks in the GOP are thinking. 

Chris Christie in 2016 - that's so not gonna happen

Word on the street is many Republican activists were not happy with NJ Governor Chris Christie's bromance with President Obama in the wake of Sandy.  He lavished praise on Obama and seemed to forget who he was campaigning for and I think the storm and the media coverage definitely gave Obama the edge, to frighten you into the loving arms of government, Obama is better on climate change, what have you.  Now Christie's taken Romney to task for some post-election comments of his having to do with maybe Obama having won the election by promising gifts to certain groups of people.  That's really not that far off the mark and it really won't help the GOP in the long run by becoming so politically correct, might piss off the base but for Christie it wasn't an inclusive and loving enough message, not broad-based enough and Christie seems to be validating Obama's ad-claims about Romney during the campaign.  With friends like this...It's clear the GOP has been shaken and wants to refurbish its image and message as being more inclusive, tolerant and broad and I think here is the faintest whiff of Christie wants to make a run.  Look he can give a gay man an anal massage on national TV and he'll still lose and then the collective conservative introspection will begin all over again.  In fact the bulk of conservative post-election analysis when they lose is perfectly worthless and the endless cycle of angst/analysis becomes annoying after awhile.  Meanwhile Obamanomics continues to crunch out the crappy numbers......

Kind of a thought

Radio host Alex Jones has called on Ron Paul to head a new secessionist movement in America.  Has Florida decided its 29 electoral votes yet?  What's up with this rogue peninsula?  I'd rather them go than Texas.  Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says there's no right to secede, dunno why it's right there in the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence.  Of course if states start seceding Obama could probably just as easily pick up a few new ones like Puerto Rico, Cuba eventually after Fidel croaks?  Also to consider if your newly seceded state gets walloped by a major storm there will be no FEMA around or maybe that's a good thing.  Does all this have something to do with organic beeswax? 

Obamanomics - increasing the underemployed

This from Drudge - Denny's to charge a 5% surcharge to their customers and to cut worker hours to cover the increased cost-of-doing-business under Obamacare which come 2014 will be fully implemented.  Other companies are probably gonna follow suit and I hope BB considers this the next time he sits down to enjoy his Egg McMuffin and hash brown and morning paper.   Part-timers, the new norm.  Maybe Burger King can offer giant John Roberts soda cups as a thank you.

Conservative post-election analysis

Now we get into the sheer entertainment spectacle of conservative cannibalism and zombie apocalypse, now they're working on Romney's leg.  The problem was outsourcing as if Made in Indonesia just happened yesterday, no but maybe Romney should have been from the Midwest instead of the Northeast.  Romney didn't reach across the cultural aisle to shake hands with Hispanics the fastest growing demographic in the country but if memory serves they were on prominent display at the RNC along with many prominent Republican women.  Other conservatives want Republicans to start killing fetuses and joyfully pass out Rear Entry silicon-based lubes to gay couples and maybe smoke a couple of doobies too while they're at it you unhip out-of-touch crowd.  Here's a thought though, what if Romney did nothing wrong? what if the country is simply more liberal or wishy-washy or whatever?  What if some people are simply stuck in some form of economic masochism, you know some young guy out of a job for quite some time now but who has simply gotten used to the Routine of sleeping in every day and then circle-jerking to the Price Is Right models and he can go out and buy at least the cheaper gas station porn with his government handout when the old stuff isn't fresh anymore?  HOW do you appeal to a populace in constant moral/social flux anyway who know more about the Kardashians than the national debt and deficit or Benghazi?  I think Mitt Romney was a strong candidate, strong enough in a bad economy to win and certainly stronger than McCain was so in 2016 what'll happen is maybe they'll throw up a Marco Rubio or a Chris Christie or put them in tandem somehow and when they lose too the conservative post-election analysis/post-mortem will begin all over again with ever fresh and creative deconstruction.  Obama got a strong storm bounce of that there is no doubt and I think Chris Matthews (free speech again) hit upon the truth here.  You know it's funny about Obama he seems to court every possible voting bloc except the white male vote and I totally agree with Bob Woodward who said on the last episode of Meet the Press that Obama has to start having a much broader message beyond his core constituencies.  You want Romney to go out and escort a woman to the nearest abortion clinic or offer his and Ann's bed for a gay romp while they go out shopping at Target? well if you think it'll help but I have to laugh over here in Westchester County practically every Democrat candidate for every conceivable office including dogcatcher touted I AM PRO-CHOICE and my brother goes most people don't care about that at least not right now, where are the JOBS?  One last thought, if the conservative pundits know what's best why don't they run?

I wonder what Glenn Beck would say about this

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to put some displaced victims of Tropical Storm Sandy in jail.  To me it's creepy and I haven't even read any conspiratorial material about the storm yet.  President Obama will visit NYC sometime next Thursday to see how relief efforts are coming along (why not Monday, Tuesday at the latest?).  Bloomberg you'll remember suddenly endorsed him very late in the game because he feels he can somehow apparently avert hurricanes and heal the Planet.  Nor have I read any religious/apocalyptic interpretations, theological offerings of these latest extreme weather events.  Where is the Rev. Pat Robertson when you need him?  Elected officials like to blame the utility companies but it's high past time the public held elected officials accountable Cuomo in particular.  To those of you with an overconfident faith in Big Government and you know who you are consider some of these massive gas lines almost two weeks after the storm.  I was saddened but not surprised to hear that newly minted President Obama is still railing against the Rich (defined as those individuals/family entities making over $250,000/yr.) and wants to stick it to them so we don't go over the fastly approaching fiscal cliff and if you don't agree with him you're not a compromiser.  You'd think a reelection that you may not have fully deserved or earned would be a humbling experience and you would have learned a few things along the way and maybe decide to change course a little over the next term.  I was pondering this thought the other day -- which is worse over the long haul catastrophic damage from the latest weird weather event from Mother Nature or our long-range debt/deficit? now that the msm has amply covered the former how 'bout the latter?  Have at it as you will:)

Rocky Mountain High

The State of Colorado went ahead and legalized recreational use of marijuana.  Not medicinal just across-the-board.  Might increase ski tourism among the OWS set but what are your thoughts?

The new norm

Conservatives sound positively suicidal.  Listening to Rush on the way home after Election Day and he said it doesn't jibe.  Ann Coulter said if we can't win with Romney in a bad economy we've reached a tipping point.  Conservatives in general have the ominous foreboding they're somehow outnumbered but Z-man has spotted a political trend of late and it goes both ways.  Bill Clinton was a two-termer, so was George W. Bush and now Obama.  I think the populace at large now sticks with the same leader for reasons of political and social stability, at least we know who he is.  This also helps on the foreign stage, doesn't confuse world leaders and a foreign policy gets a chance to work itself out and while I didn't agree with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on everything I'd much prefer him over the socialist Hollande.  So basically I think the new norm may be Americans want a president to finish the job whatever that job is and if he doesn't put a positive end to it all he'll get his just and deserved blot in History.  Kinda tolerant and fuzzy but I ain't that way.  If the economy doesn't improve however those hordes who voted for Obama have no right to complain and  I like to reserve that right and so I voted for Romney/Ryan of course.  It wasn't a good day for the GOP in general and for those of you who like to say the GOP needs to become more moderate on the social issues in order to win I have one thing to say: Linda McMahon.  Fiscally conservative and socially moderate as they say she looked good on paper and put together some very professional ads for the Senate slot in CT against Chris Murphy.  In fact if you didn't know any better you'd think she was the incumbent and she also spent a hell of alot of money or so I heard.  Wasn't even close and I don't think professional wrestling had anything to do with it.  Did it ruin my day? no, I just went off to work and did my usual, didn't get into the whole Rush/Coulter mindset.  There was alot of talk among the pundits on Tuesday night and the day after about the country's changing demographics and how they helped Obama and the Democrats, more Latinos and less whites say although if I were a Democrat and heard some chucklehead at one of the media roundtables say the less religious are somehow more inclined to vote Democratic I'd be offended.  You talk about your Tea Party and OWS movements but be on the lookout for perhaps the next big trend/movement, the movement to get rid of the Electoral College.  Where do I sign up?  Oh I know the framers put it there and I think the original rationale may have been to provide some kind of counterbalance to the natural stupidity of the American public but I was never a fan of the EC even when I was a kid and this movement can definitely be bipartisan, after all the case can be made that Al Gore should at least have been a one-term president.  I mean why not just let the six battleground states so-called vote for the President and the rest of us can just take the night off?  First president to win re-election with a jobless rate over 7.2%, the new normal:)

The 3rd & Final Debate, foreign and domestic repairs

It took but half an hour or twenty minutes or so before businessman Romney veered off into more comfortable domestic terrain, done on purpose and killed a small block of time and Obama happily took the bait (geez Dad can we rap about birth control again?  I see an opening!).  Not exactly two Kissingers squaring off against each other and sure enough Obama obliquely got his pills in (I'm beginning to think he takes bc pills himself) when he said Romney has social policies more from the '50s, a Mormon cross between Robert Young and Leave It To Beaver but onto to Syria and some other more pressing matters.  Bashar al-Assad to date has killed about 30,000 of his own citizens, brings to mind Stalin's old quip that one death is a tragedy 30,000 is a statistic to paraphrase.  Obama kept talking sanctions up the kazoo whereas Romney agreed but said while there would be no military involvement under his administration we really need to arm the rebels the right ones anyway.  I pretty much watched the whole thing with a quick sidetrip for a whizz and a refill and in my notes there's everything.  Obama took out Osama bin Laden which in a foreign policy debate is perfectly fair to point out and also somehow took out Khadafy.  The evening started out with Mideast terror/Benghazi of course and perhaps the best line of the evening was when Romney said we can't kill ourselves out of this terror situation but really need to engage the Muslim world to reject extremism (hey Sat the real War Against Women can best be capsulized in the pic of little Malala recuperating in her British hospital room, just thought I'd get that in).  So how'd that reset go with Putin Mr. Obama?  Romney sees Putin more as a geopolitical foe, I see him as nostalgic for the Cold War and not wanting to move on but Obama somehow sees him in less menacing terms, dunno.  Iraq, status of forces agreements, the Red Line with Iran, future talks between the U.S. and Iran not being true, tensions with Israel which even many Dems are concerned about, Obama's global apology tour.  Geez this blogpost is beginning to resemble an updated version of We Didn't Start the Fire.  Rom's feeling is that the world's worst leaders saw weakness in Obama and this made events in the world worse and yeah China was ripe for discussion (we'll save that for the comments section).  Leaving Afghanistan in '014 (we hope) and Romney was quite straight about Pakistan being an ally after all they have about 100 nuclear warheads and if Pakistan somehow became a failed state we wouldn't want them getting into the wrong hands.  DRONES, education, a strong economy and the overwhelming need for a strong military which in my view Obama seemed particularly weak on, kind of stammered.  I finally figured out the media's formula for determining the winner in these things, if Obama didn't do horribly then he won.  Of the three debates this was the most pivotal imo.  Of course when I go to my e-mail later and find out who's trending today on Yahoo I may revise that.  Oh yeah Bob Schieffer a class act:) 

The 2nd Debate not quite the debacle of the first

I watched a good chunk of it the town hall affair of undecideds at Hofstra but wasn't familiar with the Crowley CNN woman as mod.  Obama was better but lately I've become distracted by Romney's hair, get a Wahl guide comb out please!  There must have been some polling done on the whole BC thing as Obama seems to feel very comfortable bringing it up, go social.  I was tired from work and all but Obama seemed to bring it up apropos of nothing really but it's predictable by now, when Obama feels a lack of confidence arguing the economy it's like he holds out his hand, opens it and says "look I have a contraceptive pill, I'm for it."  He brings up PP as if it's some kind of charity run by the Dalai Lama and a cross with Big Bird and you have to be evil to even think of defunding it.  Let me flesh something out here as there was the vaguest hint of a future ad-hominem by one of my more liberal commenters.  Um if I might parse something here I never said Sex is not necessary only that it's not medically necessary.  An orgiast and a monk can both live to be 102 and it's a philosophical thing to judge who is the happier but their bodies function just the same although the monk has his abbey ale to dull the pain.  Now BB and I are both pro-drinking and pro-pipesmoking but that doesn't make them medically necessary so there's a hell of a lot that Life has to offer but that doesn't make them critical from a purely medical the barest minimum to continue life POV (for the life of me I don't know why this is such a controversial point).  I think what it is is that Sex is such an integral part of human life that many of us feel that medical insurance needs to cover at least certain aspects of it and if it's not covered then by golly there needs to be a Law.  Look soap could pay for twenty free lap dances for me with a special visit to the VIP Room thrown in and my position would still be the same and I'd blog the same comments.  Logic doesn't change but for many folks we get into Icky Territory in a hurry when folks like Sandra Fluke want some aspect of picking up the tab for their sex'chal needs.  All of a sudden you have images of pumping buttocks and slapping scrotums whereas before you were quite tolerant because folks paid for their own lifestyle choices.  I myself would never think of billing my insurance company for some Trojans or making an issue of it with the Catholic Church.  Look if I worked as an usher in a church somewhere I wouldn't expect the local Bishop to reimburse me, wouldn't even cross my mind but that's because I'm not ideological and Obama and his supporters are.  Ideologues always have to ramp it up a notch and get you in line with their way of thinking and if Romney had any cojones he would have simply said on national TV pay for your own shit.  Anyway getting back to the debate Romney was strong as usual and had a good command of the, yes facts as when he pointed out Obama cut permits and licenses for drilling and energy exploration on federal lands.  Now Obama said no I didn't but if he were honest he'd simply say yes I care for the snail darter and Al Gore so it's like you always get sucked into your opponent's points instead of standing your own ground but at any rate it was a good show.  Obama's sexual socio/economic message -- when the economy sucks it's always PP+BC+RC which somehow you might be out of a job but I got ya covered, I'll hook you up:)

Faith & Politics

OR leave your Bible at home.  Been wondering though are liberal politicians ever motivated by their faith? and if so is this invalid too as when us Christian fundiecons do it and why is it never pointed out?  Gay marriage, equal pay for equal work, social justice, reproductive rights, low-income housing (desegregation), immigration reform, health care and the liberal list goes on but can laws or legislation to pass these things have a religious underpinning and do liberal politicians ever get motivated by their very own personal liberal understanding of faith to take action politically on these and other important matters?  So far nobody's sayin'  Sure there's politics in the Catholic Church but is Nancy Pelosi ever inspired in her House actions by her Catholic faith?  Certainly Martin Luther King Jr. was openly motivated by his faith and talked about it in marching for civil rights so that was a good thing but if a pro-lifer......well you get the picture.  Bibles, Korans, Torahs I don't care put it on the table and while we're on the subject does that old fragment of a papyrus paper show Jesus had a wife perhaps Mary Magdalene? and oh btw why do atheists use God's name in vain from time to time say when they're stuck in traffic?  Some new pro-Islam ads just went up in the NYC subways in some cases right next to the controversial ones about Support Israel and be against the savage.  This is the RIGHT way to handle speech you don't like - GET IN THERE!  I'm kinda tired of Tim Tebow wearing his celibacy on his sleeve, you can brag about your sluttery or your chastity and it's all the same to me and some woman's gonna seduce him and my other thing is if he's only the backup QB for the Jets why is he getting far more presstime than Mark Sanchez?  These and other matters feel free, coffee's perkin':) 

Maybe he had a fight with his wife

Cramps? or maybe Obama's strategy last night at the First Debate in Colorado was to keep his head down to make Romney look like he's picking on the black guy.  By universal acclamation Romney won the debate and even Chris Matthews said he was excellent.  Jeff Greenfield said Obama seemed clueless about the most basic political points and many feel Obama should have went after Romney on his 47% comments and Bain Capital.  Oh I know what it was he was depressed about that Samuel Jackson video.  The economy, taxes, job creation and education and Jim Lehrer as moderator, get the nachos out.  I don't get why Savage keeps calling Lehrer a baggy-eyed Bolshevik and other conservatives like Michelle Malkin hate the guy but at any rate Rom was up-tempo, controlled the direction of the debate and was aggressive this according to the Today Show which I popped on this morning because truth be told I deliberately surfed right past the debate on most channels but even here some new Chinese digital station was covering it from Beijing so I got some snippets in English.  OK so Romney didn't exactly speak as an arch-conservative and won't exactly win the hearts of the Ron Paulians, not even sure who they're voting for.  He denied Obama's $5 trillion in tax cuts assertion and said there's a place for government in health care, that's not exactly hardcore libertarianism.  Axelrod said Romney's was a strong performance but still a performance so that's one of them half-compliments.  Look Obama has very strong base support whereas Rom is going for the 7% swing, he's a swinger and Obama's a baseman.  O's weak performance won't affect his base of course, it was more embarrassment than abandonment.  Clearly though when Chris Matthews no longer gets The Tingle in his left nut something's wrong:)

Samuel Jackson should just STFU!

Rumor has it that if Obama loses he'll become the head of the European Union and when you stop to think about it it makes sense although Bill Clinton at one point was supposed to become the head of the UN.  Slash 'n' burn capitalism, Romneyism vs. Obamanomics.  All things considered I kinda prefer the free markets although not in a total Randian sense.  Hey did you hear about the October Surprise?  According to Alex Jones there's military intel out there that something is gonna happen next month to help Obama win the election.  I was talking to my friend about this yesterday and said I doubt this as things are not going well for him in the Middle East right now and I doubt Jones ever wakes up in the morning and has a normal day of thinking.  Don't believe the media and all the polls out there, alot of folks are saying don't be swayed and just Vote for Romney.  I'm wondering if soapie is a prepper for when the World Economy totally collapses like in the not too distant future.  I don't know if you've ever talked to a prepper or those who at least are considering prepping but they're pretty annoying.  You know folks who stock up on the canned goods and jugs of Poland Spring and go to Eastern Mountain Sports for those wonderful packages of freeze-dried beef stroganoff and lasagna.  Gotta build a cabin in the woods right now and take the family there even if they don't wanna go and think I'm nutz and while we're at it let's get some of those water purification tablets too.  Anyone watch The Hunger Games yet? didn't think so but if I could articulate a principle here it is that the more a government grows the less benevolent it becomes, think about that Mr. Miller, BB.  I think the nub of Liberalism can be defined as you can kill a fetus but can't have a Big Gulp, pro-choice in one narrow sexual zone or band and fascism spraying off in all the other directions.  There are 50 States in the Union so why does every election apparently hinge on what Ohioans want?  Look the rest of us won't vote we'll just let the State of Ohio decide things.  Obama as head of the EU, you heard it here first:) 

The Hunger Games

I bought the DVD at a FYE store yesterday and wasn't sure I'd even like the movie due to its overly dark and disturbing material, kind of reminds me of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery and then there was the matter of protagonist Katniss Everdeen, how can you make a heroine out of someone who participates in the madness and kills other people?  Once I started watching The Hunger Games though my views slowly changed.  It became obvious that those teens Katniss killed were at the root evil to begin with and she had to defend herself.  The Hunger Games based on the first book in a trilogy by American YA writer Suzanne Collins is a kind of prophetic hybrid of Lord of the Flies and 1984 with a healthy dose of Serling.  I've often thought of why don't we have literary classics anymore but with the themes here that hearken back to elements in those earlier works I can see the potential for a classic itself here, a future item on a high-schooler's reading list.  So what is the interpretation?  First off I agree with Beth who blogged about this once and I hope she takes time out to join the discussion here and so I do see it as a kind of cautionary tale against Big Government and in the comments section I'll delve more into that.  Yes of course it's a kind of satire of the reality TV craze and all.  When things in the 74th annual Hunger Games get a little boring for the viewers at home the staff at the central control panels first add a blazing forest fire to get Katniss closer to her adversaries and later on noontime eerily turns into nightfall and three large black and frightening attack dogs that look like a cross between a pitbull and a panther are added to the mix, so much for playing fair.  The president of Panem played by Donald Sutherland says to one of the younger bosses, not sure what his role is exactly and they all look weird but he says to him early on to watch this Katniss character as she represents hope and hope is stronger than fear and it may be a spark now but to contain it.  The Hunger Games as well can be Glenn Beck's worst nightmares come to fruition.  There is also the theme of the star-crossed lovers Katniss and Peeta the other teen chosen from her District 12 and the two are willing to die at the end by eating the poisonous nightberries until a Voice comes from the sky telling them to stop the Games are over and they're the victors.  Then there's the central enigma of the movie, WHY do the 24 teens chosen HAVE TO kill each other?  Did the Powers-That-Be mandate this?  I didn't catch that.  Of course they could have all just teemed together to survive so there's some powerful philosophical and theological observations going on here about human nature itself, about the nature of Good and Evil and you could say maybe it was all just one big vast social experiment besides being a form of perverse entertainment.  I have to say this is really a great and thought-provoking movie well-suited for the action/adventure format and there's so many political angles to this thing so let's get started...... 

Will Obama release the Blind Sheik?

This is really a question to all the Daves and BBs out there, the Satys and Shaws, those 47%ers who are never gonna vote for Romney but is there at least a tipping point where you'll no longer be in Obama's corner? where he crossed the Rubicon, went too far, where a defense is no longer tenable or even logical?  Does the President write our material for us and does he even masturbate from time to time the various anti-Obama conspiracy theorists out there ("let's see if I release the Blind Sheik I'll solidify my rep as a closet Muslim who won the Oval Office").  Have to say this though, that guy the other night on Univision the Spanish station saying to Obama "with all due respect you didn't keep your promise" that there Latin guy should be hosting the NBC Nightly News and not Brian Williams:)

The Conservative Establishment & Mr. Romney

By which I mean Peggy Noonan and David Brooks and Bill Kristol and the usual bunch.  What I don't get is this, conservatives critiqueing and in many cases negatively a fellow conservative while his campaign is still in progress, a kind of daily review.  That's just dumb and you don't see liberals doing this and that's why we have this term "conservative elite" (oh and you thought only liberals could be elites).  Yeah after the dust has cleared you can say your piece but with friends like these...I'm talking of course about the Mother Jones video and do I base my vote on off-the-cuff remarks? not really, I mean we're all human and what would be the point without living room chatter but if you feel they're that important then let's have The Collected Off-The-Cuff Remarks of Barack Obama.  Need I reprise the quote about the hardcore 47% who will vote for Obama no matter what? you can google it.  Now while it's an oversimplification and not in keeping with Emily Post I do believe Romney hit on a core of truth here and that's why everyone is so upset.  Sandra Fluke's biggest turn-on is government and I'd say she is emblematic of what Romney was referring to.  I've said myself that with the economy the way it is I'm amazed the race is still this close and how else do you explain it and keep staying politically correct? but again I'm not getting why certain conservatives are so upset with Romney's race, after all he is starting to say some very conservative things, things they've been saying for years now.  Well if they know how to do it why don't Peggy Noonan or David Brooks or Bill Kristol run some day?  but it's like those movie critics, they know all the finer points except to show us how it's really done:)

Liberals and the religion of peace

US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three embassy staff were killed in an attack on the Benghazi Consulate in Libya by Islamist gunmen and a safe house was also attacked.  There was another attack on our embassy in Cairo and the Muslim mobs were outraged by some amateurish movie they feel insulted the Prophet Mohammed.  They're blaming America for the film which makes Mohammed into a philandering fool and religious phony not apparently understanding or caring to understand that our free speech system comes with the disclaimer these are the views of others but that's over the heads of these Fred Flintstone religionists.  We now have Islamists in power in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia the fruits of the so-called Arab Spring.  So what happened when Christians had their beliefs and Savior insulted when artist Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" came out and when another artiste Chris Ofili disparaged the Blessed Virgin Mary by putting elephant dung on her?  Well...NOTHING but who do liberals see as the bigger threat to freedom though? not the Islamists of course, the Christians.  Romney is blaming Obama's mixed signals in the Middle East for the latest tragic events and that's valid and is this the way they repay Obama's past outreach to the Muslim world?  Seems too Obama's little post-convention bounce is gone, the sugar-high, the little orgasm and now it's back to business.  Our domestic economy to put the most positive spin on it is making a glacial recovery and the world is getting more dangerous by the day, can Obama ride the tide? 

Hope and change has turned into King Lear

He wanted the job.  Well the new numbers are out: 96,000 new jobs for August which is less than expected and a jobless rate at 8.1%.  Some economists think 2% growth is on trend for a very slow recovery but for all their festivities at their abortion and car show the Democrats must have known this was just around the corner.  Folks' income is not going up either and well if I were running the Romney campaign I'd strongly advise against getting personal and attacking the President.  The economic situation is Romney's best hope, going full-bore negative might turn off those crucial independent swing voters who as some pundit on Gwen Ifill's show last night said hate the neverending conflict and incivility in Washington.  Put in the more street vernacular a guy's down you don't kick him in the nuts.  Obama's latest campaign slogan seems to be patience which as George Will noted ain't a strong suit of the American people.  The Messiah has turned into Job with a hairshirt, the Speech was probably the weakest of his career.  The shelf life of It's Bush's Fault, they keep redating that thing.   He needs to get down on his knees and supplicate the Earth Goddess (Oprah) but enough, I've probably overdone it myself.  The #'s speak for themselves.  Going forward:)

When socialists can't find true love they fall for Obama

This is what I find fascinating.  Saty a self-avowed and proud socialist prefers the Dems and Obama over Romney and the Repubs.  That's to each his or her own individual choice of course but you would think a socialist would only prefer other socialists.  Socialist-minded folks in general seem to vastly prefer the Dems and Obama however over Romney and the Republicans.  Now if Obama is not a socialist and for the purposes of this piece let's say that he's not AND if the Democrats are not socialist as a party either then why do they the socialists actually prefer them?  It would seem to me the Dems and Obama are actually closer to socialism even if they're not actual socialists themselves else why would socialists like them so much?  Moving on......

Fire up the abortion machinery

So far for my money David Brooks of PBS' Newshour is giving the best commentary.  Cecile Richards daughter of the late TX Governor Ann Richards is now the president of Planned Parenthood and gave a brief speech and there was alot of talk all night about reproductive rights and gay marriage and Brooks asked San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro whether something weird was going on after all this was supposed to be economy night in an economy election and later said the Dems seem weirdly abstracted from the historical moment which is to say we're still in some kind of economic morass and they were quite deliberately focusing on those reproductive rights and gay marriage all evening.  Sandra Fluke of course spoke after 10 and hers was brief too, I'll at least give them credit for getting to the point and they seem to be more aware than the Republicans that the attention span of the average American is rather short.  Obama seems to have a strong socioeconomic message for the country-at-large and it is this: you may not have a job or a home but at least you can still get an abortion and get hitched to whomever.  Must be some weird vibe in the ether, first Clint Eastwood and now this.  The barn is burning and Farmer Joe is having sex with the cow.

So getting back to my original question if Obama is so not a socialist why would......

All things DNC - a running blog

I have to say I very lightly sampled the first night of the whole affair.  Honestly I hit the hay before Michelle Obama's big speech not because I hate her but I had to be at work by 7 to set up by myself and if they really wanted folks to watch it she would have been on at the top of the hour.  Look things aren't going well for them but the DNC is like a defense attorney, you have to say something.  I get that, it doesn't bother me and you can't expect them to be all walking around dispiritedly with placards saying WE SUCK.  Actually they did seem rather dispirited the whole night.  One guy was particularly pathetic and got into the whole class warfare thing (is that a winning formula?) and strongly implied Romney didn't pay all his taxes.  Nita Lowey is actually one of the richest members of Congress, did you know that?  There was alot of talk about women and heavy on the Goya.  Masturbating the base, dead fetuses and gay marriage but no real talk of the public debt which David Brooks of the Newshour said is what those independent swing voters care so much about that and economic growth.  Caught Harry Reid early on and in his speech I heard the phrase "some Tea Party ideologue" or was that my imagination? ho-hum and changed the station.  Kathleen Sebelius and health care, I think I switched over to Globetrekker.  Actually the whole night seemed rather boring and I was heavy on the channel-surfing.  I could have gotten more out of my evening by meditating on the grease spot on the ceiling, I mean Clint Eastwood may have been weird but he got people talking.  I was wrong though, I thought the Dems would hold more of a moderate convention but it doesn't appear to be so far.

Wage discrimination addressed

A conservative POV to explain the so-called pay gap between men and women:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-13/don-t-blame-discrimination-for-gender-wage-gap.html

You don't even have to agree, in fact you're not expected to but we've been accused lately of not addressing certain things around here.  So grab a cup of java sit down and let's hash 'er out.

Thoughts on the RNC Convention so far

I'm a heavy channel-surfer not one of those political nerds like Hannity who can name all the various Congresspeople on Jeopardy so what you're gonna get is my take on various snippets more to my liking like KY Senator Rand Paul's speech which was a good one even if he did milk Obama's "you didn't build that" remarks a little too much.  Condi Rice I thought was excellent, superb even especially in her comments on our entitlement and grievance culture and I saw John McCain on the floor telling the PBS interviewer that yeah there needs to be more of a discussion on Obama's foreign policy here.  I'm mainly sampling PBS' Newshour coverage beginning around 7 with Mark Shields and David Brooks and their generic political commentary and various guests like Newt and Rick Santorum and pollster Andy Kohut who said in his research some of the negative words folks used to describe Paul Ryan were "extremist" and "scary."  Funny but I tend to agree with soapster here, Ryan ain't no real constitutionalist radical he merely wants to give the federal budget a haircut, wants to streamline Medicare and Medicaid not get rid of them entirely.  He's not exactly gonna slay Leviathan but I like him more than soapster does what can I say?  Let's see what else?  Santorum talked movingly about his disabled daughter Bella probably offensive only to a pro-choicer and yeah the RNC paid homage to none other than Ron Paul but once they started showing that film about Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. I reflexively changed the remote to Sanford and Son.  I don't know how you can watch this stuff gavel-to-gavel, I guess you have to if you wanna churn out some nerdy blog.  They keep saying Romney has to open up to the country more as a person, discuss his Mormonism a little and Ann has already laid the groundwork with her charm offensive but that's the wisdom anyway.  The upcoming DNC Convention in September? that's gonna take a cast-iron stomach to sit through but if I'm to be taken seriously as a blogger than I have to sample at least.  My guess is that Obama is not gonna be talking alot about Bashar al-Assad even though his militias are killing women and children on an almost daily basis now.  That's not what they mean by a War on Women and it's gonna be kinda weird to see Dolan give the blessing at that thing:)

Speaking of vice presidents

Seems to me Romney is beginning to conduct a serious, professional and highly polished campaign in his choosing Wisconsin Congressman and budget hawk Paul Ryan.  On the other side we have the walking gaffathon Joe Biden and Obama happily defended his latest put y'all back in chains remark what was that last week? not getting the whole Wall Street/Racism angle but I was thinking if I were a high-ranking key advisor to the President first thing I'd do is say you gotta dump the guy.  It's like getting a fresh pair of sneakers or a spanking new car with that new car smell or even when you clean your room and buy new clothes, you just feel different.  Biden is like the friend who's always a snot's throw away from embarrassing you but you hang with him anyway.  Obama is clean and articulate (where did I hear that before?), Biden is like your uncle on Scotch and for the life of me I don't get why Obama sticks with him unless he wants to lose.  Biden is Yogi Berra without the charm and, OMG they have vice-presidential debates don't they!! 

The Closing Ceremonies were a little weird

Maybe it was the influence of the Christian Bros. but the whole thing reminded me of a cross between Madonna's Bedtime Story music video and Shock the Monkey.  Even Duran Duran wore long pointy hats, whirling dervishes to West End Girls and then there were peformers dancing around with garbage pails on their feet and then giant supermodel posters came by paraded by dark figures and then Annie Lennox without Dave Stewart sang out something on a float and there was some kind of tribute to David Bowie thrown in the middle but again I was over the hump at that point.  Ah the Brits, just a sliver of acid, get those dark Gothic creative juices flowing.  I only watched the Games sporadically heavy channel-surfer that I am.  There was the inspirational Oscar Pistorius story of course with its sci-fi edge, Gaby Douglas the first black American gymnast to get the gold and Phelps who's retiring.  Now he can go home and smoke his bong.  There was the high-diver Tom Daley from Great Britain who splashed too much during one critical dive and didn't go in at the right angle only to make beautiful comebacks right after that.  I was always afraid of them hitting their heads on the board.  There was the Mo guy who won the 1000M and 500M races and speaking of which I think I only saw one white runner.  I remember many years ago some really fast black runner I forget the name and one interviewer asked him how come he's so fast and he said when he was growing up he was used to running away from the cops.  Actually I don't think you can say that today, Bob Costas would be fired.  American swimmers Missy Franklin, Ryan Lochte...tried the butterfly as a kid in Tibbetts Pool in the big YO and that there's a stroke that completely goes against the grain and human nature, dunno the purpose.  Not into the beach volleyball at all, that's when I channel-surf.  Likewise women boxing each other's brains out and don't care to watch cycling indoors around some track, more into the diving/swimming and track & field events as I said.  Of course they never had that Munich moment-of-silence marking in 1972 when terrorism and international sports mixed but what did you expect exactly?  It's like the Olympics is being run by the UN.  Kudos to Jewish-American gymnast Aly Raisman for even bringing up the topic. Next stop in cuatro anos Rio de Janeiro, expect a decadent undervibe.  Mark my words someday chicken-spitting will become an Olympic event.  Why the hell not? everything else is:)

50 Shades of Crap

It's kind of a slow blogging cycle at least for me, nothing I could latch onto of late.  I mean yeah Sandra Fluke introduced Obama at some political function, he still seems to be milking that one and I was reading in my Catholic New York that he and Romney are gonna speak at the annual Al Smith Dinner in NY and...but hey wait a minute didn't his HHS Dept. and Sebelius just cause endless grief for the RC Church and other religious institutions? yeah a few lame jokes will smooth that over.  Maybe he'll even tell a birth-control joke or two, who knows?  Then I see the guy I'm actually gonna vote for, Romney, is actually a murderer according to some Super-PAC and this is just the longest hottest most horrible miserable summer for me in a while.  Getting attacked by mosquitoes practically on a daily basis even in my sleep and then there's the Fishbowl of Work to deal with.  Look folks are bored at work, I get it and maybe you have a temporary health issue or whatever and it makes for fodder and no it's not your paranoid vibe at work again, they really are talking about you and everybody else for that matter.  If I were in charge I'd make sure everybody has enough work to do.  New manager has a habit of sometimes leaving old food in the showcase like pulled pork so I talked about it with a co-worker and his attitude was give the guy a chance (the fruit of liberalism?), didn't seem to get my point like I was being a meanie.  Now I'm all for giving people chances, God knows I wouldn't be perfect in that role either and I'm not a prick but at what point is giving somebody a chance a lowering of standards, defining deviancy down?  I see Costco won't carry Joan Rivers' new book so she chained herself to a shopping cart and bellowed into a bullhorn.  Kristen Stewart/Rob Pattinson...you see the material I got to work with? but I'll be honest I kinda follow this stuff and I'm definitely on his side.  There was a new massacre at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, they're not Muslims but they look like them and their faith system is very googleable.  I checked my e-mail just now and see I got like a hundred fresh comments, dunno what everyone is talkin' about I gotta go see.  Time for a fresh post, carry it on over here if you like.  I'll put the coffee on and get the crullers rockin'.  Had a couple of Jamaican beef patties last night, they're good and all but left a kind of slight aftereffect.  It's definitely time to plan the next vacation:)

Another drummed up controversy - Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-A, maybe I need to get out more and stop reading my field guides but I never heard of the place.  Don't recall them around these parts and sorry I spent so long on the gun post 'cause I didn't have anything else but this is kinda right up the alley.  Chick-fil-A, 1,608 chicken restaurants across the country whose president is Dan Cathy some Christian guy opposed to gay marriage.  All told his chain rakes in more than $4 billion a year and they say they run their business on Christian principles and teach their employees to do the same.  Not sure what this means exactly, are their workers forbidden to gossip and use cuss words but to each his own.  So a new report from the LGBT group Equality Matters says Chick-fil-A gave more than $3 million to Christian groups opposing the gay agenda and the timeframe here is from 2003-09.  In 2010 according to the report the company gave about a cool $2 mil to such causes.

SO??????

Did Dan come in with his boyfriend and did they refuse to serve them?  You know the thought occured that indeed Dan can come in with his boyfriend and they could order a nice chicken-lickin' sandwich or two and take it home later and incorporate it into a sex act.  UMMM the boycott thing is cool and if it bothers you that much SO DON'T EAT THERE!  Kraft not that long ago posted a photo of a new Oreo cookie with a nice rainbow filling inside, didn't know that, I looked it up.  JC Penney recently hired Ellen DeGeneris as its spokesperson before dehiring her so it cuts both ways and I'm like I don't care if DeGeneris is JC's spokeswoman and it's fine that the chicken company supports the traditional family but the Oreo thing I don't think is good for your diet.  Look no laws were broken in any of these cases and I'm labeling this under the gay agenda, yes the gay agenda.  As far as I'm concerned everyone can have a POV on the ole Hershey Highway, you can't force me to drive on it just like I can't tell you not to take that route.  Seems the LGBTers want you right there in the room with Ranger Rick getting right on up in there and anything short of clapping and applause will get you in trouble with the Nanny State.  That last point is a metaphorical one of course but look folks are entitled to each their own ickiness.  All I knows is that when you're driving along and you pass a Kennedy Fried Chicken you're in the ghetto:)

The Politics of Tragedy

I hadn't actually planned on blogging about it today.  I had woken up early, got the percolator going, fed the cats and about 10 after 7 turned on the Today Show and Matt Lauer and saw the Breaking News.  We now know about the suspect, 24-year old James Holmes allegedly shot and killed 12 theatergoers and injured more than 50 others at the midnight showing in the town of Aurora, Colorado of the new Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises.  Holmes had no criminal history up to that point.  OK stunning and sad and tragic news to be sure but my blogpost could wait awhile, there'll be the usual suspects calling for more gun control about which more in a minute but that gestational post could give birth tomorrow or the day after at the latest.  So I'm googling this and I'm googling that so I finally say let me go to Drudge to catch the latest and see what we learned, any link to terrorism? and after a few seconds I find this:

ABCNews Already Linking 'Tea Party'? Backtracks...
Breitbart: Shooter May Be Registered Democrat

and I'm thinking what in hell does Politics have to do with any of this???  Now I realize Breitbart (not the ghost of Breitbart but now the generic Breitbart Spirit I guess) was trying to counter the Brian Ross/George Stephanopoulos thesis but C'mon!!!  Interesting though that ABC went with this so early, it's like a kind of Rohrshach or Word Association Test - Charlie Sheen/drugs, Mayor Bloomberg/soda, latest tragic shooting massacre somewhere in the country/Tea Party but it's all very disgusting.

Now gun control:  I'm not against all gun-control measures, pass them if you like but criminals are not apt to obey them in the first place since criminals by nature don't obey the law.  It'd be like saying because money-laundering and extortion are against the law the Mob won't launder money and extort it.  I never got this.  Gun control at most is only moderately positive, a modest step in the right direction but the way the libs get all worked up over it.  Yeah and banning the Big Gulp will makes us a nation of the svelte. 

Turns out this James Holmes character was enrolled in the University of Colorado-Denver and just dropped out of some PhD neuroscience program.  What's with these eggheads gone psycho? think Ted Kaczynski.  These tragedies seem sadly cyclic nowadays, also cyclic is the expected labeling system: Tea Party/gun control/fell through the cracks of the mental health-care system, the usual.  I had to use my own label "journalism" to categorize parts of my post here but I use the term loosely, looser than what my cat did on my cedar chest the other night:)

With Obama's reelection looming is this the best time to have a conservative crackup?

Re conservatives, conservative bloggers who won't vote for Romney, not getting the overall theory here.  Liberals must love our little internal debates it can only help their guy time and again.  I say pragmatism before idealism -- defeat Obama first then talk about purifying the Party.  Now the case is being made that we should reelect a president with unemployment still over 8%, it's a weak case to be sure, it's unusual in terms of how Americans typically vote on the overall economy in presidential elections but it is being made nonetheless by BB, Dave Miller and liberals in general.  The difference between us and them, deep down they must know that Obama leaves much to be desired, his first term has to be disappointing for them but in general you don't hear this being expressed by most liberals (I know you're gonna highlight and link to some of the dissidents, go right on ahead).  What are they gonna say the first African-American president kinda sucks?  In short they're all on the same page and have to make the most of it, the Mission is more important.  I'm sure they think the same way about us, it's far more important to get Obama reelected and work out the kinks later than to let a Republican win.  There's always a conservative crackup perking underneath the surface but never a liberal crackup it seems and I don't really count the liberal idiosyncratics club with members like Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan.  A wise for his years young manager of mine a few years back once said you have to choose your battles by which he means you can't go with everything that agitates you, there be some things that are more important at least for the time being.  What I see some conservatives doing here is a kind of messy multitasking and they're doing it out loud.  They're all over the map, they want Obama the Marxist defeated of course but they also hate their own party and are complaining about it and that doesn't help the first cause...it's just such a muddled approach.  There are those for example who want Obama defeated and at the same time want to end the Federal Reserve today, one is definitely doable the other is a pipe dream for now.  I think though y'all should be invited to Obama's second Inaugural Ball, Michael Fumento will drive:)  

I kinda admire Romney at the NAACP convention in Houston

I didn't think he had it in him but he took it up the ass, ripped into ObamaCare and said how his policies are especially bad for African-Americans.  Of course everyone hooted and hollered like he just insulted Mother Teresa.  President Obama is so taking the black vote for granted and why shouldn't he that he sent Biden down there instead.  That'd be funny though if he said something stupid.  So when is it acceptable to criticize a black president?  I say when the jobless rate is still over 8% it's fair game and when a president is this weak liberals using the Race Card just looks plain stupid.  I'm not quite sure how Conservatism got linked up with the whole racism charge in the first place, didn't Charlton Heston once march with the Rev. Martin Luther King?  I read somewhere recently that Bill Maher has accused Matt Drudge of racism for constantly going after Obama.  I think with Maher it's not so much humor anymore, he's way past the Mort Sahl stage.  It's not funny or entertaining and now he's just venting a distorted anger, some chronic mental masturbator.  Put another way I'll take a Seinfeld or even a Jon Stewart.  Chris Brown and Drake fighting over a girl, I'm no fan of Chris Brown but it wasn't right what Drake did.  Now it comes out that Rihanna is into S&M and so maybe Chris Brown was confused when he hit her.  Fat uninsured folk, I think liberals are guilty of hate here.  Again kudos to Romney and he kept on rappin' too, I love it.  IF Romney does make Condi Rice the VP that's a heavy 2-fer, she's black and she's a woman.  Look sometimes you gotta counteract these things, it's not like somebody's gonna call her a house nigger -

right?

The real problem with Higher Education

Sometimes conservatives overly misdiagnose the Problem.  For instance you'd think there was a veritable epidemic of bad teachers in the NYC public schools system and for this reason teacher ratings and evaluations need to be made public not tomorrow but NOW.  Conservatives love this particular bandwagon but I say it's the kids, home-training.  With Higher Education, colleges and universities conservatives say the problem is liberal bias.  Well yeah there's some of that, having two years of college under my belt you could sense it from time to time but I really don't care, whatever floats your boat.  You have a political leaning well if the students know where you're coming from I don't see the problem but the real problem in a nutshell is that colleges and universities make you take courses you're never gonna use in Life.  Went to that Catholic institution for two years and they made us take an advanced math class so this older white-haired priest is writing calculus equations on the board, really breezing along with his chalk and I'm like what in hell? I'm never gonna use this in my day-to-day.  Then we had to go to the college bookstore on the corner of course and buy our own textbooks which cost a small fortune and I remember thinking back then in high school the class that just made it to the next grade just passed their books down to the next generation of students gratis.  What a racket!  One of my younger male managers going back a few years said after high school he just wanted to dive right into the workforce, make money and so he went with chefing and avoided the whole higher education experience.  Practical skills you learn by actually doing, how to make money, interacting with people and customers and learning new trades on the spot.  Better for the economy.  I'm glad to see a few conservatives like Maggie Gallagher more or less put down the whole college experience as a serious waste of time, you're gonna spend years paying back that student loan and what exactly are you gonna do with that advanced art or history degree anyway?  Education is one of the most controversial issues in this country, everyone has an opinion.  I say kids don't need to be taught how to masturbate just how to make the dinars:)

I think the election of the first African-American president was a great historical moment

Too bad he sucks.  Is this a racist statement? I don't think so because I honestly think the election of the first black president was a great historical moment but it's like Tiger Woods the first in his game too, he let us down and deep down it always pains us.  IMO liberals' great great unabated love for Obama goes beyond simply that he's a good liberal Democrat in the best progressive mold, they're still nostalgic for the sheer historicity of that moment so I get it, like Tiger they want to see him make that comeback.  The historical importance of that moment, put it this way unemployment could jump to 20 or even 30% and he could pardon Sandusky and you'd still have the same folks defending him (be honest).  Jimmy Carter isn't black so it's easy for everyone across-the-political-board to render the historical verdict that he sucked whereas in Obama's case I sense some reluctance to do so.  Political Psychoanalysis, I think in this case most of it hinges on Race which is why Cindy Sheehan could protest the Obama White House and the msm won't cover it which is why I learned it from BB in a reply to the Dude, it sure as hell wasn't Brian Williams.  Frank Robinson became the first black Major League Baseball manager, not that long after he was fired.  So yes it's important to make History, I'm kind of a progressive conservative in this regard but it's also important just as or more so to make an objecive analysis, an impartial and fair evaluation after a time and in this regard he suffers.  FDR was handicapped although at the time it was kinda downplayed, been there done that so now I say let's elect the first woman president, then the first gay president (they can be one and the same) but here's a minor sticking point for me, can they at least be good?  Don't just make History, give us a good historical product.   

Thuganomics and the psychology of organized crime

With the passing at 69 of mob turncoat Henry Hill there have been some positive things to say about the fellow from people who should know better.  His main claim to fame/celebrityhood is that he was the main inspiration for the mob classic Goodfellas and the Ray Liotta character yada yada and the eulogies go on.  Hill was a drug trafficker among other things and was involved in the infamous Lufthansa heist at JFK.  You know the rest and I think it's a fair social comment to make that we've romanticized, glorified the life of the gangster and this probably goes back to Mario Puzo and The Godfather book and movie.  By all accounts The Godfather (Parts I and II, forget the 3rd) is a superb film from a cinematic standpoint but my friend had a rather oblique take when he said how many lives taken is the movie responsible for? by which he meant how many joined the Club because the life portrayed in the movie inspired them to?  Actually this may not be that far off the mark as a key member of the now defunct young gangsters known as the Tanglewood Boys in Yonkers admitted to the late NY Daily News columnist Mike McAlary that they watched Goodfellas a number of times and it was sort of their inspiration.  Here's the deal for me though, take any level gangster or thug and let's say he led an independent life of crime, killings, robberies, general mayhem Society would level at him that he's a bad dude, a psycho, a criminal, a mutant, a deviant and needs to be taken off the streets pronto and go to the Big House for a long long time BUT take the same psycho and have him working as part of a GROUP operating in concert for some unified ends, a hierarchy, a criminal bureaucracy so to speak and it's somehow respectable, even glamorous.  Read two cases in the paper recently of a Mafia member putting out a hit on an average non-criminal man for the sole reason of going out with or marrying the mobster's ex-wife, this was two separate situations and let's say he wasn't a member of Cosa Nostra and did the same thing he'd be universally condemned as an obsessed psycho, a stalker yada yada but because he's a member of organized crime there really isn't the usual social and reportorial commentary you'd expect in such a case because hey that's what gangsters do.  Organized psychos is another way of putting it and the usual psycho/anti-social labels are dropped because it's an organization, a group, a conspiracy, a secret society and so it's somehow rational, none of the member's self-esteem will suffer because we're in this thing together and hey we're selective, we ain't bumping off old ladies crossing the street.  Serial killers and rapists bad, gangsters good, that's our social mindset/collective moral philosophy and we simply don't know Right from Wrong anymore, never really did.  The media wants to keep the theme going though with more books from former mob wives down the pike and some new tv shows with mob themes even though it's a passe genre by now, bloodsuckers is where it's at.  We love the desperado but hate the psycho even though they may be one and the same:)

While Obama can certainly win there are Problems

Not the least of which are Syria and those nat'l security leaks.  There's a reason many are accusing the White House itself of taking a leak, all the leaks are positive in Obama's favor and help burnish his image.  Who knew he was engaging in cyberattacks against Iran and every Tuesday shuffles a deck of terrorist playing cards and decides who's gonna get droned that day? but I don't hear the liberals complaining because hey it was quick and they weren't waterboarded like under Bush.  The atrocities continue in Syria on an almost daily basis.  Bashar al-Assad needs to go, everyone on the Planet except Russia and China seem to agree but Syria is fast becoming Obama's Rwanda.  Then there's Barbara Walters who helped get Assad's former press aide and political adviser/spinmeister into Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs because young 22-year old and Playboy material Sheherazad Jaafari helped land her the big interview with Assad, that's not Obama's fault of course but Walters has always annoyed me.  I thought she had a View to do but whatever.  Apparently Putin's Russia is sending the former ophthalmologist and current psycho leader of Syria attack helicopters and we're learning all about Assad's militia the Shabiha, a pack of low-IQ killers on steroids doing his really dirty work like massacreing women and children in the villages.  So who's supplying the 'roids?  The leaks, Assad and the Economy not necessarily in that order but ya just know some highbrow moderator at one of the first prestigious presidential debates is gonna ask him about fat kids and soda:)

Last Tuesday's recall vote in Wisconsin

I didn't blog about it at the time the goings on in Wisconsin when Republican Governor Scott Walker was ripping public-sector unions a new one, I like to go my own way when I blog but as you all know by now Walker won last Tuesday's recall vote 53% to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's 46% this despite practically every major union in the country making an all-out effort there to mete out justice and if you read the fine print about 1/3 of Walker's support came from union households.  His sins? he pretty much put the kabosh on collective-bargaining and public-employee workers now have to chip in more towards their pensions and health care and no more automatic deductions for union dues.  Before all this the recall of the GOP-controlled Senate also failed as did the effort to get rid of a conservative State Supreme Court justice and that was just a warmup for the Walker treatment.  So does this spell the death knell for unions? if there's enough Governors out there like Walker probably but I don't think the country is in as much of a union state of mind as back in the day.  For some reason when I think of unions I think of Jimmy Hoffa.

Over the past several years I worked with at least two young managers both men and it was quite obvious from their remarks they hated unions this despite our jobs in the food industry being heavily unionized.  So what was their #1 complaint?  I know when you talk about labor and politics the subject gets complicated but it was no more complex than when you have a union you can't FIRE somebody and let's face it in most workplaces there are definitely at least a couple of people who need to be shown the door at least this is the way the free market is supposed to work, better for everyone.  I can come up with at least two names myself right off the bat and so this is the #1 complaint even over and above fiscal concerns.  Good God have you been reading about the sexual goings-on between some HS teachers and their students in NYC? that's not even the point, sexuality has always been somewhat warped to begin with but it's existentially difficult to fire the tenured ones because...it gets complicated here.  There's a section on it in Glenn Beck's book Arguing with Idiots and ya gotta collect and collate your evidence first, get your witnesses and present your charges of course to this board or body or that and then all that has to finally go to an arbitrator at least some point down the road into the not-so-foreseeable future and even then the arbitrator for some strange reason often has a soft spot for the more pervy ones.  NYC Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott would like the sole power to fire the truly bad ones but he has to lobby Albany first, that takes time and you know how that goes and the United Federation of Teachers likes the system the way it is after all they fought for it.  I don't recall this going on when I went to school as a young'en but then again we had nuns who'd crack a ruler over a student's knuckles so unless you were seriously into some S&M or a little clothespin action......

Pretty much in my place the only straight up reason you can fire somebody is if they steal something:)

The little irony of Obama's birth control mandate

Birth control or the oral contraceptive is not without its complications:

Does ObamaCare cover this?  Something tells me no and if not why not but if it did how is this saving $$$$$$?  A little feminist conundrum if you will, enjoy.

What this election is NOT about

- Osama bin Laden
- Women's lack of access to birth control
- Mormonism
- gay marriage
- Romney giving a gay kid a haircut
- Trayvon Martin/hoodies
- Stop 'n' Frisk
- Bain Capital

"Throw another log on the fire Cory"

What does OWS & ice-fishing have in common?

Not much.  I lost alot of respect for them when they stopped protesting throughout the winter months.  Sure some judge told them they can't camp out in Zuccotti Park anymore but what was it? by late December or early January they weren't even in the news anymore probably replaced by some Kardashian crap and the latest political scandal.  Lost alot of steam imo by hibernating like this, even the 'possum risks ice-frost every now and then to get a bite to eat.  The brave May Day protests to shut down work, schools and banks, expect more brave protests throughout the summer months, probably into the fall as well.  This blogpost is not about whether you agree or disagree with them, you probably don't and will comment as you see fit but real protesters protest in whatever kind of weather.  12 degress in the middle of January, you're out there with your frozen snot and a chapped ass, a rumbling belly because you're body expelled all that fine OWS cuisine and you have to use the Port-o-San at least 10X because you had a couple cups 'o' joe when you woke up in the morning, now that's Democracy in action and I can respect that politics be damned!  They really need to watch reels of those old-time black civil-rights protesters from the 60's getting pushed back by fire hoses and bitten by German Sheperds these hippy/yuppie hybrid malcontents.  Bunch 'o' pussies, meteorological cowards.  They don't make protesters like they used to:)

Obama's OBL playing card

I didn't think he'd do it, I mean even though I'm not surprised.  I'm talking of course about the ad on the one-year anniversary of whatever happened to Osama bin Laden and would Mitt Romney have done the same thing when he's on the record as saying we shouldn't spend billions of dollars and move heaven and earth to find one man.  Yeah that ad touting the fact that President Obama gave the go-ahead to take bin Laden out.  For me that'd be on a par with (dated allusion follows) "I did Marilyn Monroe."*  Sure you're proud of it but true class dictates you don't talk about it, no need to it's on the record and folks can weigh it accordingly and the second thing is for Obama to even play the OBL card means to me his accomplishments during his first term are so weak and/or controversial that he has to fall back on this but again I would have thought ultimately he'd listen to conventional political wisdom which simply dictates Don't Go There.  You know I still have people come up to me saying they don't think bin Laden's really dead and my Dad who served in the Navy during WWII says you don't give the world's most wanted terrorist who was responsible for the loss of almost 3,000 American lives a dignified and solemn burial-at-sea so even his greatest historical accomplishment somehow didn't follow the correct script.

* I wanted to update my point with a more modern celebrity but it's tough, Lindsay Lohan or Lady Gaga?  MM is legendary so the writer has to go with this.  Kardashian?

Beavers making a comeback in Westchester County NY

As I blogged about in the past there used to be a healthy beaver population behind the old UPS plant in Elmsford NY, that'd be part of the Saw Mill River but don't really know their current status since it's been awhile since my Dad took us as kids to see them busy at work.  Googling the subject recently there was one spotted a few years back in the Bronx River downaways possibly looking for a mate, got a writeup in the Times and I did watch a YouTube video of one in one of the lakes in the Blue Mountain Reservation in Peekskill which I hike alot.  Anyway today is my day off and it's a beautiful one, sunshiny and cool and nippy with a good breeze so parked along a stretch of the North County Trail in Yorktown Heights in upper Westchester County, it's right there on 35 just past the Amawalk Reservoir before you enter town.  I was walking in aways and noticed part of the paved bike path quite flooded in spots and there were about five sandbags down.  I noticed this about a week ago too and it was unusual in that we've been having a drought of late, reservoirs at no more than 90% capacity but today I saw that someone, probably the DEP put up a sign saying "Caution - Do Not Walk on Beaver Dam" and there it was in all its glory, at least two beaver dams made of various size twigs and branches and mud and that's what's been causing the stream to flood and slowly turn into a small pond.  The users of the trail which is quite popular here don't seem to mind and everyone seems to be accomodating to the beavers though I've yet to see one here.  It's a slice of heaven in these parts, a real tonic for your nerves and every now and then you need a magical moment like this.  BTW went home yesterday early afternoon and just got out of my car when a fancy maroon sedan with a chauffeur pulled up, the back door opened and a fine British gentleman in a suit asked me a set of three questions - "where is (a certain local address nearby)?", "where is the nearest cemetery?" (I gave him an answer but kinda muffed it, there was a closer one nearby but I'm lousy with spontaneous directions) and finally "where do you go to register a birth?"  I can understand the first question but the three in toto were oddballs especially going from birth to death and if anything it stimulates the mind on an otherwise boring day when you're getting ready to go in late for work.  Should I get all conspiratorial about it?