Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

No I did not watch the GOP debate last night. I wasn't around a TV. And if I was I probably would have been watching the Boston Bruins game instead anyway... Great - just what we need! More signs of the Apocalypse... Saw a pregnant gal yesterday with thigh-high leather boots with 6-inch heels. My immediate thought was "She'll make a great mother"... Seriously - the GOP Presidential field makes the Cleveland Browns QB situation look stable in comparison... Food That Looks Like Dongs would be an awful name for a band (or for an early bird dinner special)... Trump is polling at 38% vs Hillary Clinton. Here's what 38% looks like... Not for nothing but if Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is allowed to participate in the debates against Hillary and Trump (if it comes to that) - then Johnson has a real chance to win the election. Nobody really wants to vote for Hillary or Trump... Heh heh... The GOP's new slogan should be "The Republican Party: Embrace the Suck". Have the bumper stickers been made up yet?... Where have you gone George W.? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you... I'm all for marijuana legalization but I am afraid that legal weed could just be a gateway drug to the Metric system... Heh heh - Hillary says she speaks to God daily, but won't reveal her fee...

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- The difference in cultures

- Sure this is amusing. But what I found interesting is that Whitey Bulger needs to sleep with the lights on because of bad dreams.

- Fruit salad of their lives.

- I still say Tom Brady should file a $200 million hostile workplace suit against Roger Goodell.

- Cool - How We Play Hockey in America

- Great headline

- Are China and Russia on a collision course?

- Awesome! The Setup Wizard (Daily Accounts of a Muggle I.T Guy Working at Hogwarts)

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Think I'm over the Patriots loss on Sunday. I will be avoiding Boston sports talk radio until after the Super Bowl though... Heh heh - best take I've seen on the GOP Iowa debate... Oh and for the Super Bowl - I will be rooting for the Panthers to crush Denver... Vengeance Quakers would be a good name for a band (or for rational Patriots fans rooting for Carolina in the Super Bowl)...  Heh heh... Am I the only one who reads Peter King's columns but hears them in my head in the voice of Fat Bastard from Austin Powers?... The 30 players listed in this article would make very good fantasy baseball targets (many will probably be bargains)... Speaking of fantasy baseball - Schtup With People may be my fantasy team this year... If you've seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens then this is pretty funny... I have always had a problem with the Fleetwood Mac song You Make Loving Fun. as opposed to what? You Make Loving Feel Like Working in a Coal Mine?...WTF?...

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Did not watch the GOP debate last night. I have no plans to watch any debates because it doesn't really matter and I have better things to do with my time... Nicely done LeBron. Nicely done... In the end the GOP candidate will be either Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. I'm OK with either choice... Last night's debate was supposed to be on foreign policy. How come the media so eager to ask the GOP candidates questions on foreign policy are so silent on the failures of the current administration?.... My guess is that either Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina will be the choice for VP. I'm OK with either of those choices too... The sad reality of social media fame. I think you do things like this because you want to and enjoy it not because you want to get rich or famous. For instance I seek neither fame nor fortune via this blog (I make zero from this site). I just like writing down my thoughts to make more room for the voices in my head that are screaming, SCREAMING to be heard... This seems like a very common sense proposal by Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee... Holiday tip - as a joke when you go to a friend's home for a Christmas party replace the can of air freshener in the bathroom with a can of Raid. Your hostess will love you for it... Our allies the Saudis...

Romney Answer I Wish I Heard

If I was Mitt Romney - I would have said the following at some point in tonight's debate:

My two favorite President's of the past 100 years are Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan. Harry Truman had on his desk a plaque that said "The Buck Stops Here". As an aside "the buck" is a poker term and poker should be legal in the United States - its an American game. The saying meant that President Truman would take responsibility for getting things done, for making the hard decisions. President Obama takes a completely opposite approach. He doesn't take responsibility for anything. Take the decision to punt on the Keystone XL pipeline for example. President Reagan had a plaque on his desk that said, "It's amazing how much can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit." This attitude was one of Reagan's secrets to success but it is an attitude that Speaker Gingrich would never be able to embrace because his ego is too big. Almost every other word out of his mouth tonight has been the word "I". His megalomania is his main problem.

Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney

So Jon Huntsman Jr. has decided to drop out of the race. Meanwhile Mitt Romney is quietly running perhaps the most clinically effective campaign in history. Of the 92 Members of Congress who have endorsed any candidate - 63 endorsed Romney. Rick Perry is a distant 2nd with just 13. Romney has extensive state organizations in every state and a very healthy campaign war chest. This guy will have the nomination basically sewed up by February 1st.

I wouldn't be surprised if Jon Huntsman Jr. dropped out yesterday because Romney's people put pressure on Jon Huntsman Sr. to have his son stop his fantasy campaign and face up to the real-world realities that no member of the Huntsman clan would ever be welcome in a Romney administration if he kept it up. Call it quits before the Monday debate and endorse Romney or else. The message clearly got across.

People will keep underestimating the Romney campaign. Right up to and even past the point where he is sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.

Last Night's GOP Debate

I enjoyed last night's GOP Debate but I keep thinking about the exchange between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich regarding Newt calling the Palestinians an "invented people". Here's what I would have said if I were Romney:

I am sure Benjamin Netanyahu was thankful to you Newt because he had to spend so much time addressing your comments instead of working on his own agenda. Did he send you flowers to thank you for that unasked for favor? You say you are a historian and are only speaking the truth but you are running for President. Historians can say inflammatory "truths" in order to help with book sales but Presidents cannot. Let me give you an example that may explain to you the difference. Newt Gingrich is overweight. Medical science says that elderly, sedentary, overweight men are more likely to have a massive heart attack and die. That's the truth but calling you an old fat man isn't courteous or diplomatic. But by your logic you are not allowed to take offense because I was just telling you a truth.

I also don't see Mitt offering Rick Perry the $10,000 wager as hurting Romney as so many seem to be suggesting. The idea of "put up or shut up" is pretty universal across the country. Romney was willing to put his money where his mouth was and when push came to shove Rick Perry was not.

Michael Barone is Wrong on Immigration

Normally I find Michael Barone to be insightful and intelligent in his political writings but I must take issue with his review of last night's GOP Debate.

I freely admit that I haven't studied the immigration issue as much as Barone but that makes me seeing the obvious flaws in his reasoning all the more striking. Barone in his article today has a myopia on immigration.

What infuriates me is that this is a debate over water that has already fallen over the dam. Romney mimicked immigration restrictionists’ arguments that in-state tuition and Selective-Service-type amnesty would be “magnets” for further illegal immigration, There’s a theoretical basis for this claim. But empirically illegal immigration has been dropping toward zero and reverse migration of illegals seems to be taking place: the Census Bureau estimates that the illegal population has declined from 12 million to 11 million, and it probably has declined more since.

A couple of points that Barone doesn't mention so I will.

1. Even if the illegal population has decreased to 10 million (as Barone suggests the trend would lead to) - that is still a very large number. If Obama somehow reduced the deficit from $15 trillion to $14 trillion would Barone suggest that the issue of the deficit is no longer important? Of course not.

2. The population of illegals does not exist in a vacuum. A population of 12 million illegals at a time when the country has a 5% unemployment rate is probably less of a problem than a illegal population of 10 million when the country has a 10% unemployment rate. Barone does not even touch that side of the equation. And please don't try to argue the jobs Americans won't do such as migrant farming angle. It is not the illegals doing tomato picking that has the impact - it is illegals taking carpenter, construction and other jobs that causes illegal immigration to be an important issue. When many in the workforce are facing major under-employment then the jobs as waiters and part-timers at Home Depot become jobs that Americans could really use.

3. At a time when state and local budgets are close to the breaking points - any money being spent on services to illegals is money that could be much better spent (or more importantly not spent) elsewhere.

Troy Davis, Rhino Poachers and the GOP Debate

One thing that surprised me about last night's GOP debate in Orlando was the fact that no question about Troy Davis or the death penalty was raised either by the moderators or by the YouTube video questioners. Troy Davis and his execution set the Twitter world afire just the day before and yet there was no question - not a peep. That surprised me.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to somehow intimate that an innocent man may have been put to death or that the death penalty is barbaric. Or even that these issues deserved to be address by the GOP candidates. In specific I think a jury found Troy Davis guilty of killing a cop, a judge agreed, the appeal court also agreed, the Supreme Court looked at the case and saw no reason to intervene and the Governor of Georgia also saw no reason to stop the execution. I think Eric Erickson did a fine job detailing how justice was indeed served.

In the macro - I don't see what benefit is gained by society or what purpose served by keeping a guy like Charles Manson alive. In my opinion certain crimes deserve the death penalty. You kill a cop, you molest and kill a child, you are found guilty of being a serial killer or you are guilty of betraying your country - death is the punishment you deserve.

What really got me thinking about the death penalty was not the death of Troy Davis - it was this extraordinary article from Outdoor Magazine on Kaziranga National Park in India. The article details how the park rangers have been able to eliminate or minimize poaching of rare one-horned rhinos by instituting a shoot to kill policy in dealing with poachers. Rhinos are rare while bullets are cheap management approach to the problem has been very successful and I was left at the end wondering if there was a fund I could give to to support these park rangers in their efforts.

As chance would have it - I happened to be reading the article about the same time that Troy Davis was being put to death. I couldn't help wondering how many of the people spewing contempt at Clarence Thomas and the Governor of Georgia would react to the story. I couldn't help but picture someone like Alec Baldwin reacting "Good for the park rangers!" You know that's how many of those people would react. Screw due process for the poachers! Bang! No more poachers - no more poaching problem.

The idea of protecting an endangered species would allow a certain mindset to mount a high horse of moral superiority which would allow for extreme measures such as shooting poachers on sight. A man convicted of shooting a cop being executed? Well the coffee klatch thinking says that's just barbaric in this day and age. The moral gymnastics involved in such a person just boggles my mind.

Me? A cop killer gets executed? Not a problem. A poacher gets his head blown off by park rangers? Also good.

At least I'm consistent.