Bark Bark Woof Woof

Monday, March 19, 2012

A Little Night Music

A taste of 1965...

(How do you lip-sync a trumpet?)

Gas Price Survey

I paid $3.89 at the usual Marathon station on SW 168th Street and Old Cutler Road in Palmetto Bay last week. Then when I went to the Keys, I paid $3.77 at the Race Trac station in Florida City, and saw it for $3.73 in Key Largo (which is a tourist spot on an island and you'd think it would be higher. Go figure). On the road trip to Melbourne this weekend, I saw it for $3.75 at several stations up there. Then this morning on the way to work I saw it for anywhere from $3.73 at a Westar in Coconut Grove to $4.09 in Coral Gables; a 36-cent difference in the space of three miles. What's it like in your town?

The meme is that while gas prices have a thousand reasons to go up even when there's an abundance of supply and we're even exporting it, the blame usually falls on the president... except when he's a Republican. I remember paying $4.15 a gallon in July 2008 and all the Republicans were saying that it wasn't President Bush's fault (but then, nothing ever was). Now that it's President Obama and we're getting close to averaging $4.00 a gallon, it's all his fault and Mitt Romney is passing along the whack-job conspiracy theory that the president wants the prices to go up. That was enough to get even the usually-sycophantic Washington Post to call him out on that howler.

Random Thought

Am I the only person who doesn't get into March Madness?

Popcorn Futures Way Up

This story from the New York Times yesterday should provide endless hours of enjoyment.

For the first time in a generation, Republicans are preparing for the possibility that their presidential nomination could be decided at their national convention rather than on the campaign trail, a prospect that would upend one of the rituals of modern politics.

The race remains Mitt Romney’s to lose, and if he continues to accumulate delegates at a steady clip starting with contests in Puerto Rico on Sunday and Illinois on Tuesday, he can still amass the 1,144 necessary to secure the nomination before the last primary, in Utah on June 26.

But as he struggles to win the hearts of conservative voters and hold off a challenge from Rick Santorum, party leaders, activists and the campaigns are for the first time taking seriously the possibility that neither he nor anyone else will get to that total.

In that case, the nomination would be decided by the more than 2,200 delegates — from obscure local officials and activists to national figures — who will attend the party’s convention in Tampa, Fla., in late August.

They would embark on an unscripted, contentious and televised drama that has not played out in 36 years, a period in which both major party conventions have become slickly produced and highly choreographed pep rallies kicking off the general election campaign.

Unlike previous contests where the also-rans either got out early and then supported the inevitable nominee before the convention or conceded gracefully and stood on the stage with them as the balloons dropped, neither Rick Santorum nor Newt Gingrich will go gently. They've made it pretty clear that they both despise Mitt Romney and their goal has become less about winning the nomination than it is denying it to Mr. Romney.

Even if the numbers come out in Mr. Romney's favor and he goes to Tampa with the number he needs -- and the establishment is working hard at it -- it's going to be hard to see how the party will deny speaking time to the losers. And then we have the makings of another Pat Buchanan culture war speech in 1992 which got on in prime time and scared the crap out of anyone who wasn't a True Believer. They'll be speaking to the base of the party -- the Tea Party, the birthers, the tenthers -- the ones with the determination to take the country back to the white straight Christian dreamworld they thought they grew up in.

Hot fun in the summertime.

The Sky Hasn't Fallen Yet

Paul Krugman notes the second anniversary of the signing of the healthcare reform law -- aka ACA (or Obamacare or ObamaRomneycare).

Can such a system work? It’s already working! Massachusetts enacted a very similar reform six years ago — yes, while Mitt Romney was governor. Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who played a key role in developing both the local and the national reforms (and has published an illustrated guide to reform) has surveyed the results — and finds that Romneycare is working pretty much as advertised. The number of people without insurance has dropped sharply, the quality of care hasn’t suffered, and the program’s cost has been very close to initial projections.

Oh, and the budgetary cost per newly insured resident of Massachusetts was actually lower than the projected cost per American insured by the Affordable Care Act.

Given this evidence, what’s a virulent opponent of reform to do? The answer is, make stuff up.

That's going to become a major part of the campaign -- the making stuff up part -- because a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office shows that the estimates of the cost of healthcare reform will be less than projected. And we can't have the inconvenient facts get in the way of a good campaign, now can we?

The law itself is up for review by the Supreme Court in the next week. Those in the know seem to think that it stands a good chance of remaining intact in the hands of the Roberts court, although that's a lot of tea-leaf reading for now. It will be interesting to see how the Court rules on a law that, for the most part, hasn't taken effect yet.

Back To Work

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

I actually did accomplish some things. I got the book I needed for research on my paper for the scholar's conference: a first edition of My Son is a Splendid Driver, by William Inge. Written in 1971 (two years before his death by suicide), it is Inge's thinly-veiled autobiography of growing up in the early part of the 20th century in rural Kansas. It provides a great deal of insight into his life and his views on family, faith, and how he came to put them into his plays. It's been a huge help in forming the context of my paper, and it's a great read.

I also got in some good relaxation and actually did some housekeeping. I know; you should do it every six months whether it needs it or not. I also reconnected with some friends, went to a couple of car shows, and actually enjoyed waking up, rolling over, and going back to sleep. You should try it some time.

And with that, we're back on our regular schedule, such as it is, just in time for more fun with the candidates, the bean-brains of the Orcosphere, the vernal equinox, my brother's birthday, and whatever other nonsense we can stir up.

So, what'd I miss?

Short Takes

An American was killed in Yemen; probable al-Qaida link noted.

Syria is still in turmoil; a bomb went off in Aleppo, and clashes between the government forces and protestors continue.

Cuba has detained 70 people in advance of the Pope's visit.

Mitt Romney won the Puerto Rico primary. Lo siento, Rick.

Rick Santorum says he'll enforce obscenity laws. That will definitely create jobs.

Sorry, Dolphins -- Matt Flynn went to Seattle.

Spring training -- The Tigers are still winning, beating the Nats Sunday 11-7. By the way, the Tigers have the best record in the Grapefruit League: 12-1. Not that it matters...

Sunday, March 18, 2012

A Little Night Music

Spring break ends tomorrow, but spring itself is just around the corner.

Road Trip - Update

As promised, here's some pictures from the show yesterday in Melbourne, Florida, at the AACA National Winter Meet sponsored by the Cape Canaveral Region.

1967 Chevrolet Corvette

1954 Ford Country Sedan

1953 Nash

1953 Pontiac

1932 Chevrolet

1937 Alvis

1934 Plymouth hood ornament

1925 Hispano-Suiza limousine

1925 Hispano-Suiza hood ornament

1909 Ford Model T
These were just some of the beauties; there were over 200 cars from all over the world, including some makes and models I'd never heard of.

I checked the gas mileage on my 2007 Mustang yesterday. It was over 400 miles, and the calculation came to 26 mpg. Not bad for a V-6 averaging between 60 to 75 mph.... I was just keeping up with the traffic on I-95.

Sunday Reading

Race to the Bottom -- Charles Blow of the New York Times looks at the case of Trayvon Martin, a young black man shot and killed by an Hispanic security guard in Sanford, Florida, and the echoes of history and reality for race relations in America.

As the father of two black teenage boys, this case hits close to home. This is the fear that seizes me whenever my boys are out in the world: that a man with a gun and an itchy finger will find them “suspicious.” That passions may run hot and blood run cold. That it might all end with a hole in their chest and hole in my heart. That the law might prove insufficient to salve my loss.

That is the burden of black boys in America and the people that love them: running the risk of being descended upon in the dark and caught in the cross-hairs of someone who crosses the line.

The racial sensitivity of this case is heavy. Trayvon’s parents have said their son was murdered. Crump, the family’s lawyer, told me, “You know, if Trayvon would have been the triggerman, it’s nothing Trayvon Martin could have said to keep police from arresting him Day 1, Hour 1.” Even the police chief recognizes this reality, even while disputing claims of racial bias in the investigation: “Our investigation is color blind and based on the facts and circumstances, not color. I know I can say that until I am blue in the face, but, as a white man in a uniform, I know it doesn’t mean anything to anybody.”

Zimmerman has not released a statement, but his father delivered a one-page letter to The Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. According to the newspaper, the statement said that Zimmerman is “Hispanic and grew up in a multiracial family.” The paper quotes the letter as reading, “He would be the last to discriminate for any reason whatsoever” and continues, “The media portrayal of George as a racist could not be further from the truth.” And disclosures made since the shooting complicate people’s perception of fairness in the case.

[...]

Although we must wait to get the results from all the investigations into Trayvon’s killing, it is clear that it is a tragedy. If no wrongdoing of any sort is ascribed to the incident, it will be an even greater tragedy.

One of the witnesses was a 13-year-old black boy who recorded a video for The Orlando Sentinel recounting what he saw. The boy is wearing a striped polo shirt, holding a microphone, speaking low and deliberately and has the heavy look of worry and sadness in his eyes. He describes hearing screaming, seeing someone on the ground and hearing gunshots. The video ends with the boy saying, “I just think that sometimes people get stereotyped, and I fit into the stereotype as the person who got shot.”

And that is the burden of black boys, and this case can either ease or exacerbate it.

Bonus: Leonard Pitts writes about the Martin case.

Pushing Daiseys -- James Fallows on the scandal of the fictionalized story by Mike Daisey about Apple in China that led This American Life to retract the January 6, 2012 episode of the series.

If he had even once said that he was presenting a polemic, a metaphor, a dramatization, an "inspired by real events" monologue rather than real "facts," no one could ever have complained. Do we care whether Harriet Beecher Stowe ever saw runaway slaves jumping on ice floes as they fled across a river? (Stowe described Uncle Tom's Cabin as a "series of sketches" conveying the cruelty of slavery.) Do we care whether Upton Sinclair had actually seen the packinghouse cruelties he described in The Jungle? Whether any family exactly like the Joads was known to John Steinbeck -- or exactly like George Bailey's or Mr. Potter to Frank Capra for It's a Wonderful Life? Charles Dickens and Oliver Twist? You get the point. Mike Daisey could have had 98% of the intellectual/social impact of his monologue, and zero % of the dishonesty and now disgrace, if he had described it as an attempt to convey the truth of a situation through imagined details.

Long Distance Driving -- 200,000 miles on an odometer is no longer unusual.

In the 1960s and ’70s, when odometers typically registered no more than 99,999 miles before returning to all zeros, the idea of keeping a car for more than 100,000 miles was the automotive equivalent of driving on thin ice. You could try it, but you’d better be prepared to swim.

But today, as more owners drive their vehicles farther, some are learning that the imagined limits of vehicular endurance may not be real limits at all. Several factors have aligned to make pushing a car farther much more realistic.

Cars that have survived for a million miles or more have been widely documented, of course, but those tend to be exceptional cases. What’s different, and far more common, today are the online classified ads offering secondhand Hondas, Toyotas and Volvos with 150,000 or 200,000 miles — or more — not as parts donors but as vehicles with some useful life left.

One driver who has firsthand experience with this new paradigm of durability is Mark Webber, a 57-year-old Porsche salesman.

Mr. Webber has a full grasp of powerful new sports cars — in January he was in Southern California for sales training and track time with the 2013 Porsche 911 — but for his 35-mile commute to Herb Chambers Porsche in Boston, from Scituate, Mass., he drives a 1990 Volvo 740 with over 300,000 miles.

“I just can’t see the point of spending a lot of money driving a newer, racier car every day in city traffic when my old Volvo just wants to keep on going,” Mr. Webber said. “I guess you could say I’m just a New England tightwad.”

In Mr. Webber’s case, the enabler of his thrift may be global competition — and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Customer satisfaction surveys show cars having fewer and fewer problems with each passing year. Much of this improvement is a result of intense global competition — a carmaker simply can’t allow its products to leak oil, break down or wear out prematurely.

But another, less obvious factor has been the government-mandated push for lower emissions.

“The California Air Resources Board and the E.P.A. have been very focused on making sure that catalytic converters perform within 96 percent of their original capability at 100,000 miles,” said Jagadish Sorab, technical leader for engine design at Ford Motor. “Because of this, we needed to reduce the amount of oil being used by the engine to reduce the oil reaching the catalysts.

“Fifteen years ago, piston rings would show perhaps 50 microns of wear over the useful life of a vehicle,” Mr. Sorab said, referring to the engine part responsible for sealing combustion in the cylinder. “Today, it is less than 10 microns. As a benchmark, a human hair is 200 microns thick.

[Photo of the odometer on my 1988 Pontiac in January 2009.]

Doonesbury -- With or without prejudice.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

A Little Night Music

Candide, music by Leonard Bernstein, based on the satire by Voltaire; musical, opera, or operetta? Who cares; it's wonderful.

Road Trip

It's hard to believe, but I've owned my 2007 Mustang for almost three years and never taken it on a long road trip. That changes this morning when Bob and I head up to Melbourne (Florida; Australia would be a really long trip) for a national antique auto show being hosted by the good folks in the Cape Canaveral region.

I'll have pictures and a mileage report later on.

The Week in Review

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Happy St. Patrick's Day

If you're Irish and it means something to you, then best wishes on St. Patrick's Day. Here in America it's another excuse to party, drink way too much, and contribute more to the stereotypes that the Irish all sound like Barry Fitzgerald ("Faith 'n' begorah, Father O'Malley!").

According to my sources, St. Patrick's Day is a much bigger deal here than it is in Ireland, and they treat it the same way we do when the French go nuts over Jerry Lewis; it's an inexplicable cultural phenomenon more than the celebration of a saint. But if it's all fun and games and no one gets hurt, hey, have fun.

Friday, March 16, 2012

A Little Night Music

Okay, kids, when was the last time you danced the cha-cha?

This isn't the typical Cuban cha-cha dance rhythm, but it would have been perfect in 1963 for learning the ballroom version at Mrs. Brown's dancing school.

The Next Big Thing -- Ctd.

The other night Bob and I were driving to a meeting and discussing the GOP primaries and wondering, now that they've gone after immigrants, birth control, and women in general, what would be the next item up for bids on The Vice Is Right?

Porn, of course. Via Doghouse Riley, the Santorums are all over it.

The Obama Administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws. While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum Administration.

I proudly support the efforts of the War on Illegal Pornography Coalition that has tirelessly fought to get federal obscenity laws enforced. That coalition is composed of 120 national, state, and local groups, including Morality in Media, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, American Family Association, Cornerstone Family Council of New Hampshire, Pennsylvania Family Institute, Concerned Women for America, The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and a host of other groups. Together we will prevail.

I am not the only one, I hope, that finds it ironic that the candidate who proudly proclaims his righteousness as embedded in the teachings of the Catholic Church as the one to be against child molestation.

And I think that pitch is going to be a hard sell (no pun intended) in a state that Mr. Santorum just won in a primary, as Wonkette notes.

Mississippi is a book by William Faulkner that somehow turned into a dumb reality show called Haley Barbour and Other Comical Racist White Villains With Dumb Accents vs. Poor Black People Forever. And ever since the nation’s poorest, most obese and reliably Republican-voting state got Internet access last year, the main thing the people of Mississippi have been looking for, on the ‘puter, is “free gay porn” and “God.” In that order.

Florida, as you can see and as can be expected, surpassed Mississippi in overall searches-by-state for Free Gay Porn, but failed to top Haley Barbour’s state in the essential “post-jacking off” search for God. (In Florida, that secondary search is “Kill Castro.”)

This website called Calamities of Nature produced a wonderful chart that everybody should hang up on the wall in Mississippi, based on Google search data.

(Click to embiggen.)
Yes, that's Florida that came out on top, so to speak, in the search for Free Gay Porn. So not only do we have a lot of closet cases here in my adopted state, we're also cheap.

HT to Balloon Juice.

Friday Catblogging

It's springtime.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

15,000

I didn't notice it at the time, but this post on Monday, March 12, was post number 15,000 here at Bark Bark Woof Woof.

Doing a little quick math, that's 15,000 posts in 8 years, 4 months, and 4 days, or 4.92 posts per day. That's a lot of writing. I'd like to think that most of it has been good, but you be the judge. No matter; I have no plans to stop any time soon.

A Little Night Music

It's the Ides of March, and so we're stuck in the middle of the month.

Quote of the Day

From the in-progress magnum opus Bobby Cramer, attorney Lewis Alton explains the facts of life to Bobby:

He didn’t ask if you were gay. He asked if you were homosexual. There's a difference. Being gay means you like men. Being homosexual means you like men but you’re up to no good.

Control Freaks

There have been a lot of stories -- and comic strips* -- recently about birth control and contraception and the attempt by the Republicans and conservatives to make it an issue in the presidential campaign. But this story from Arizona strikes me as the capper.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6-2 Monday to endorse a controversial bill that would allow Arizona employers the right to deny health insurance coverage for contraceptives based on religious objections.

Arizona House Bill 2625, authored by Majority Whip Debbie Lesko, R-Glendale, would permit employers to ask their employees for proof of medical prescription if they seek contraceptives for non-reproductive purposes, such as hormone control or acne treatment.

“I believe we live in America. We don’t live in the Soviet Union,” Lesko said. “So, government should not be telling the organizations or mom and pop employers to do something against their moral beliefs.”

Lesko said this bill responds to a contraceptive mandate in the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law March 2010.

“My whole legislation is about our First Amendment rights and freedom of religion,” Lesko said. “All my bill does is that an employer can opt out of the mandate if they have any religious objections.”

Glendale resident Liza Love said the bill would impose on women’s rights to keep their medical records private.

Love spoke to the committee about her struggle with polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis, conditions requiring her to use birth control.

“I wouldn’t mind showing my employer my medical records,” Love said. “But there are 10 women behind me that would be ashamed to do so.”

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that none of this has anything whatsoever to do with religious freedom, moral objections, or the rights of an employer to pay or not pay for certain kinds of insurance, mandated or otherwise. (I especially like the part about not living in the Soviet Union as justification for an employer to have dictatorial oversight to an employee's medical history. When it's the state doing it, it's Communism, but when it's a company, it's the free market capitalism at its finest. Irony is lost on this person.) None of it -- not the invasive sonograms, the 24-hour waiting periods, the parental notifications -- is based on medical concerns or the right of a patient to know about a procedure. It is simply that the people who are writing and passing these laws are control freaks who are obsessed with the private lives and morals of everyone else.

(As history has proved time and time again, they are flaming hypocrites when it comes to their own personal lives. How many more stories are we going to read about a straight happily-married evangelical Christian legislator who sponsors anti-gay bills while he has a Gay.com app on his smartphone that says "looking for discrete NSA fun; can't host"? Or how many more lectures will we endure about the sanctity of marriage from a presidential candidate who follows his divorce attorney on Twitter, or a senator who has a record of paying for sex? It's been a part of the repertoire since Aristophanes. As one wag noted, "A happily-married man has to have something on the side. Otherwise he wouldn't be so happy.")

It comes down to their pathological desire to rule, not govern. But they can't come out and say it, because if they do, they'd have to acknowledge that that is all they want. It has nothing to do with the sanctity of life or "values." This is why they're "pro-life" to the point that they destroy any reasonable argument for protecting the developing fetus. Reasonable people can -- and have -- made good points about why abortion should be limited to the first trimester except in cases of threats to the life and health of the mother. But enshrining a fetus with the same rights as a person goes not just against legal logic (the Constitution does not grant citizenship to a person unless they are born or naturalized in the United States) but it makes the argument for their side so ridiculous that even the voters in Mississippi -- a state not known for secular liberalism -- rejected a law that granted "personhood" to a clump of cells.

The spate of laws that require invasive procedures prior to a woman getting an abortion are for the sole purpose of shaming a woman into not going through with the operation. They are couched in the Orwellian niceties of "ensuring that the patient is fully informed," but what they're really saying is that they -- the white straight male proponents of "smaller government and more freedom" -- know what's best for a woman and her doctor. If you're an unmarried woman using birth control, your morals are suspect and you have no expectation of privacy because you're just a whore. And you, the guy with no wedding ring and a rainbow flag bumper sticker: why are you buying condoms, hmm?

These people may say it's about religious freedom -- as long as it's their religion. They may say it's about traditional marriage -- as long as they get to define both "traditional" and "marriage." But hiding behind all this sanctimony of religious claptrap or "traditional values" is just a cover-up for that fact they crave the power to control others...as long as no one controls them.

--------------------------------

*The Miami Herald, in its infinite cowardice, did not run today's Doonesbury strip. So for those of you whose paper came censored today, go read it here.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

A Little Night Music

Hey, Brian, this is for you.

HT to Bob.

Jon Stewart -- Culture of Victimhood

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The Channel Swim

I TiVo most of my TV shows to the point that I hardly know what day, time, or network they're really on; they just show up in my Favorites and I watch them. But seeing as how it's pilot season and some of the new shows that premiered last fall are either doomed or renewed, the time is now to speak up for the shows you want to keep. Via the Toledo Blade, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is offering you the chance.

While producers of existing shows attempt to read between the lines of networks' machinations, fans of these shows have little opportunity for input. Sure, you can write a letter, but the odds are it will be ignored.

Another way to make your voice heard: Vote in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's annual "Keep or Cancel?" poll, which allows viewers to register their compliments and complaints about prime-time television. The voting booth is now open at post-gazette.com/tv.

The 2011-12 TV season has had few breakout hits, especially among scripted shows. NBC's The Voice is a reality hit, but with only a few scripted exceptions -- Fox's New Girl, ABC's Suburgatory, CBS's 2 Broke Girls -- success stories have been few. This means there are a lot of shows that are "on the bubble," in TV parlance. Viewer support in a poll might not turn the tide, but at least you will feel better having cast a ballot for a favorite.

One vote per computer will be accepted. Series receiving an inordinate, unbelievable number of votes will be disqualified. Votes will be tallied through April 22, and shortly thereafter the results will be published in a column. We will send the results to each broadcast network president before the week of May 13, when the networks announce their new fall schedules.

Hey, it's worked before; that's how they got the the original Star Trek back on the air in 1967. But somehow I don't think there's a huge groundswell for Harry's Law, despite the fact that Kathy Bates is great in it. It's a Cincinnati-based version of Boston Legal, and that was a niche show, too. It's too late for the new iteration of Prime Suspect (dammit), and most of the shows I like are on cable (In Plain Sight, Southland, Rizzoli & Isles, and Covert Affairs).

But go ahead and knock yourself out. But please spam Two and a Half Men. It's still crap.

The South Goes Santorum

Rick Santorum got a two-fer down south last night.

Rick Santorum captured twin victories in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries on Tuesday, overcoming the financial advantages of Mitt Romney and the Southern allegiances to Newt Gingrich on a night that amplified his argument that the Republican nominating fight is becoming a two-man race with Mr. Romney.

The triumphs by Mr. Santorum elevated and strengthened his candidacy as the Republican campaign rolls ahead into a state-by-state battle for delegates. An aggressive push by Mr. Romney to try and capitalize on the divided conservative electorate failed to take hold, and he finished third in both states.

“We did it again,” Mr. Santorum said, addressing jubilant supporters in Louisiana, which holds its Republican primary next week. “The time is now for conservatives to pull together.”

A week after Super Tuesday cemented the status of Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum as the leading Republican candidates, the outcome of the Alabama and Mississippi primaries strengthened Mr. Santorum’s argument that he should emerge as the final competitor to Mr. Romney. But Mr. Gingrich, who finished a close second in both states, noted that he earned about as many delegates as his rivals. He pledged to take his candidacy to the Republican convention in August.

This has the makings of a real donnybrook all the way to Tampa in September. Unless Mr. Romney can win every delegate from now on out or pull off some deals behind the scenes ("How does Secretary of State Newt Gingrich sound?"), he does not have a lock on the nomination, and the fight will go on. I still think Mr. Romney will somehow pull it off because the fates are not that friendly to me to grant my wish that they pick someone other than the Great Inevitable. If they were, I'd be buying a carload of lottery tickets and booking a room for the Pulitzer Prize ceremony.

It's not that Barack Obama has a landslide in the making if the Republicans pick someone other than Mitt Romney, but if the Establishment Republicans can't get their guy over the finish line at the end of the race to Tampa, how will they pull it together to win the general election? And even if it is eventually Mr. Romney, the enthusiasm gap is big enough -- and neither the Gingrich or Santorum campaigns are going to give up easily -- it's going to be pretty hard for the GOP to catch up.

But they do have an ace in the hole. It's been something that they've been cultivating for a very long time: hatred. It's a vast commodity in the GOP. They hate gays, they hate Muslims, they hate immigrants, and recently, it's been revealed that they really hate women even more than we thought. They've got it down to fine art; they know how to channel it, they know how to dog-whistle it, and they know how to manipulate it so that when they're called out on it, they're the ones that are the victims. And as much as the candidates hate each other on the campaign trail, they'll pirouette like the acrobats in Cirque de Soleil and turn it full force on Barack Obama. Because if there's one thing they hate more than anything else in the world, it's that uppity you-know-what in the White House.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Primary Notes

The Republican primaries tonight are in Alabama and Mississippi, so tomorrow we will find out which of the three surviving candidates will have done the most pandering to the ignorant bigots and homophobes that make up the majority of the GOP in those two states. Which is saying something.

My cohorts over at The Reaction are live-blogging it so I don't have to. I salute them; they are braver than I am.

A Little Night Music

Heard this driving back from the Keys today ... with the top down and my Ray-Bans on.

Terrifying Canadians

Here's another entry in the Not From The Onion files:

TORONTO — Former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney has cancelled an April appearance in Toronto citing concerns Canada is too dangerous.

“He felt that in Canada the risk of violent protest was simply too high,” said Ryan Ruppert, president of promotions company Spectre Live Corp., which had booked Mr. Cheney for an April 24 appearance at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

“They specifically referenced what happened in Vancouver,” Mr, Ruppert added.

In September, Mr. Cheney was speaking at a private club in Vancouver when protesters massed outside the front door harassing ticket holders and in one instance, choking a security guard.

The former vice-president was reportedly held inside the building for more than seven hours as Vancouver Police in riot gear dispersed the demonstrators.

Cheney, who along with former President George W. Bush remains unpopular in Canada, had been slated to talk about his time in office and the current U.S. political landscape.

“God forbid there was ever an emergency,” said Ruppert, noting Cheney’s history of heart problems.

Yeah, some hoser might sneak up on him and yell "Boo!"

Do I really have to defend our friends in the True North? I know it's a stereotype that the Canadian people are the nicest people on the planet, but that's because it's basically true. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that while they are a strong and free people with a national pride second to none -- and a lot to be proud of -- they don't go around like a big bully presuming to know best how to run everyone else's business.

The only reason Mr. Cheney is afraid to go to Toronto is that he won't be treated with the sycophantic slobbering that he's used to from his toadies here in the U.S.

Breakfast In the Keys

They make great pancakes at this little place in Islamorada. I think I'll put the top down and go get some.

Old Seven Mile Bridge, Marathon.

Jon Stewart -- Southern Strategy

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