Microsoft is developing a new app for their phones. And a lot of people are getting their panties in a wad over it.

The app is still under development, but word of it has leaked out, as has the working title of the app: Avoid The Ghetto.

According to the patent filing, the app is to help a pedestrian avoid “traveling through an unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that is subject to harsh temperatures.” It uses weather data, crime stats, and such to make the determination.

Well, the NAACP is all up in arms over that. Or is going to be:

“I’m going to be up in arms about it if it happens,” said Dallas NAACP President Juanita Wallace.

Wallace spent her afternoon at a rally on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and said she felt safe there, but fears the app may project otherwise.

“Can you imagine me not being able to go to MLK Blvd. because my GPS says that’s a dangerous crime area? I can’t even imagine that,” she said.

The thing she’s missing is that it won’t say that MLK Boulevard is a high crime area unless, well, stats show it’s a high crime area.

You think maybe the problem isn’t that people are pointing out that crime occurs, but that crime occurs? Nah, that’d make too much sense to actually address the real problem, when fake outrage over fake problems is much more fun.

But, you know, maybe Microsoft is on to something. I wonder what other apps they could develop.

• Avoid The Idiots. Using voter registration roles, it could find where Democrats live, and then you could avoid having to deal with idiots.
• Avoid The Tide. Using college records, it could find where Alabama fans live and help you not get someone’s wang thrust in your face.
• Avoid The Crazy Women. Using information from Facebook, dating sites, and news stories, it will help you avoid hooking up with the future Ex-Mrs. Ex-Speaker Of The House. (Boy, could I have used this one, once upon a time!)

There are probably several apps that could be developed that would be of benefit.

Maybe I need to rethink my position on Microsoft being all evil and such.

Newt Gingrich is making some news because he told someone at a campaign event to vote for Obama. Really.

Okay, here’s what happened. At a Gingrich rally in Oskaloosa, Iowa, a gay Democrat Obama supporter got into a “cordial” one-on-one with Gingrich, that ended with Gingrich telling the questioner to support Obama:

Gingrich: “I think those for whom the only issue that really matters is the definition of marriage, I won’t get their support. I accept that as reality. On the other hand, for those to whom it’s not the central issue in their life, if they care about job creation, if they care about national security, if they care about a better future for the country at large, then I think I’ll get their support.”

Q: So what if it is the biggest issue?

Gingrich: Then I won’t get their support.

Q: How do we engage if you’re elected. Then what, what does that mean?

Gingrich: Well then you engage in every topic except that.

Q: Except it’s most important (some crosstalk).

Gingrich: Well, if that’s most important to you then you should be for Obama.

Q: I am, thank you

Now, personally, I’m fine with what Newt said. I’m not talking about my agreeing or disagreeing with his stance on gay marriage. I’m talking about his standing his ground and telling the gay Democrat Obama supporter the same thing he tells his own lesbian sister. That’s unusual for a politician to tell someone “go vote for the other guy.”

But, apparently, that’s not what a candidate is supposed to do. A candidate is supposed to pander to all the little piss-ants and ass-clowns that crash a campaign event and come up to him. The candidate is supposed to say whatever it takes to make them happy — even if the clown is going to vote for the other candidate anyway.

Newt Gingrich isn’t doing that. And I like that about him. But, of course, standing firm and not backing down for what you believe is a bad thing, to hear the media, Democrats (but I repeat myself), and most other Republicans and their supporters talk. Except Ron Paul supporters. They like that their candidate has been consistent for years. They don’t like it when Newt Gingrich is consistent. It shows how much he’s part of the establishment … though all of the Washington establishment has come out against Gingrich.

Wait. We’re looking for someone who the Washington establishment doesn’t like? Yet someone who knows how Washington politics works? And someone who can balance a budget? And someone who, when he makes a mistake, can admit it? Even big mistakes?

I better stop now. I’m finding that I’m liking Gingrich more and more. And I don’t think I’m supposed to.

Who is our enemy? Well, it’s not the Taliban. That’s the word from Joseph R. Biden — or is it Yosef ar Biden?

Air Force Two’s Prime Cargo declared in an interview with Newsweek that the Taliban isn’t our enemy:

There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests.

Naturally, the White House issued a clarification. Oh, it seems they stood by Biden’s statements.

So, the Taliban isn’t our enemy. Then, who is?

Looking at the actions of the Obama administration, here are the likely candidates:

• The Queen of England
• White people that are conservative
• Black people that are conservative
• Brown people that are conservative
• Navy SEALS
• Republicans that support Ron Paul
• Republicans that don’t support Ron Paul
• Libertarians
• Liberaltarians reassessed as not a threat
• Fox News
• A little bit of ABC News
• You, simply for reading this

Be on guard. Report any of these people you see. It’s your duty.

Rosie O’Donnell, the wunder gehirn that says fire can’t melt steel, now suggests that Newt Gingrich read a history book.

I agree.

Gingrich is currently the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president, and, given Obama’s current approval rating, could very well be our next president.

I’ve put together a list of history books Newt Gingrich should read — some history, some historical fiction, but all worthy of consideration.

The last thing we need is an uninformed person trying to play president. It happened before. Remember the 2008 election? We don’t want to go through that again.

What’s the greatest threat facing America today?

Turkey.

Not the country, the bird. And not just the bird, but the dead bird.

The Department of Homeland Security tweeted on Monday how dangerous it can be to fry a turkey.

And, in case you thought that someone left their computer unlocked and somebody tweeted it as a joke, they also put up a blog post about it.

The Department of Homeland Security, that great arm of Big Brother, knows that Islamic terrorists aren’t so much of a threat. Sure, they want to kill us, but that’s our fault. Just ask Ron Paul.

After flirting with the idea that right wingers were a threat — not because of things they’ve done, but because there’s the possibility that some right-winger might do something… Left-wing violence was never an issue. Sure, they’ve been shooting Congresswomen and crashing planes into buildings and raping hippies, but that’s actual violence. The real threat has always been potential violence. Since the left has actual violence, and the right has potential violence, the right must be a bigger threat.

Until now.

As DHS has so kindly informed us, the real threat is dead turkeys. They’re evil. So evil, that after they’re dead and frozen, they’ll still try to burn down your house.

So, as we approach Thanksgiving, be thankful that we have a government department that wants to protect us from turkeys.

Now, if we can only find someone to protect us from the turkeys at DHS.

Have you seen the new ad from the Herman Cain campaign?

[Direct link]

CBS calls it “bizarre” and notes that the ad is, currently, unlisted. Which means you can’t go to the Cain YouTube channel and find it unless you know where to look.

ABC takes the opportunity to run down a list of Cain campaign staff with “interesting” backgrounds.

The Atlantic asks, “For real?”

Rather than go on, let me sum up the reaction: the ad generated a lot of criticism from people who already didn’t like Herman Cain.

I’m not a smoker, so it didn’t particularly appeal to me. But smokers don’t like being criticized, just like everybody else.

Obama smokes, but hides it. Cain’s campaign manager smokes, and posts it on YouTube.

I’m wondering how this is going to play out.

I haven’t followed much of the whole Occupy Wall Street thing for a few reasons. First, unless it’s well-financed by lots of money, it’ll go away soon. Next, it’s up in New York, and that kind of stuff won’t happen around here.

Only, now, there’s an Occupy Atlanta group. Which is a little closer to home.

Now, lots of people confuse Atlanta with Georgia. Atlanta is in Georgia, but Atlanta isn’t Georgia. (Don’t make me spend a bunch of time explaining the difference; it’ll end up with you acknowledging I’m right and a lot of time wasted. Or, you could just accept what I say save yourself a lot of time and aggravation. Agreed? Good.)

The geography involved with protests being in Atlanta makes the whole protest thing suddenly relevant to people who live or work in Georgia.

Nobody really knows what they’re protesting. Maybe the Braves’ end-of-season collapse, I don’t know. Best I can tell, they saw some protests on the television and said, “Hey, we can do that!” And so they are doing that.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has decided that they’re protesting “corporate greed and the war in Afghanistan,” although it couldn’t find anyone to actually say that. They did find a fellow from Copwatch, an anti-police group, who’s not sure why they’re there, either.

Just like a pile of manure attracts flies, the Occupy Atlanta protests have attracted flies like John Lewis.

The whole left likes to make out like he’s some civil rights hero or something. He’s not. He was a media whore then, and he’s a media whore now. And, in case you forgot, he’s the little liar who made false claims that TEA Party protesters hurled racial epithets at him. They didn’t.

So there are the players: a protest group that doesn’t know what they’re protesting about and a long-time left-wing protester who got himself elected to Congress a while back.

Lewis showed up at the Occupy Atlanta the other day, wanting to show his supporte for their protests about … whatever the hell it is they’re protesting. And, he wanted to address the group. They told him “no.”

Who do you root for in this one? John Lewis, who’s way past his 15 minutes? Or Occupy Atlanta, which has camped out in Woodruff Park (where Atlanta’s homeless-away-from-home reside).

I’m sort of amused by all this. Media Whore vs Media Whore. I just wish they were a little further way.

In case you weren’t aware, Barack Obama is teh awesomest person in the whole wide world. Just ask him. Or Nancy Pelosi.

The former Speaker of the House and current Minority Leader who represents Planet San Francisco, told The Weekly Standard that, without Obama’s 2009 Stimulus, we’d be in worse shape than we are now:

“Without the Recovery Act and accompanying federal interventions, whether from the Fed, or Cash for Clunkers, or other initiatives, the unemployment rate last year at the time of the election would have been fourteen and a half percent, not nine and a half percent,” said Minority Leader Pelosi.

You see? You see? The Stimulus was a good thing. Crazy Aunt Nancy said so.

I wonder why she stopped there, though. Because there must have been more that the Obama Stimulus did. Because Obama and the Democrats are so awesome you know.

We did some digging, and found out that, not only did the Obama Stimulus save 8.3 million imaginary jobs, it did a bunch of other things, too.

• It helped Steve Jobs invent the iPad.
• The stimulus kept the asteroid 99942 Apophis from striking the Earth.
• It killed Osama bin Laden.
• The stimulus won Super Bowl XLV.
• It blew up the Death Star.
• The stimulus is what gave the Old Spice Guy his job.
• That thing you thought you lost? The stimulus actually found it and put it there on the table for you.
• It kept the sun from burning out.
• Remember when Global Warming was going to melt all the ice caps by 2011? The stimulus stopped it.
• The stimulus saved Chuck Norris.
• It kept Windows 7 from sucking as bad as Windows Vista.
• The stimulus kept Pluto from leaving the solar system after scientists fired it.

There are so many wonderful things the stimulus has done, we need a new one every month.

ESPN pulled the standard Hank Williams, Jr. opening from Monday Night Football after some comments the singer made on Fox and Friends:

In an interview Monday morning on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” Williams, unprompted, said of Obama’s outing on the links with House Speaker John Boehner: “It’d be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu.”

I, for one, applaude the decision by ESPN.

Comparing the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, to Adolf Hitler was a horrible thing for Williams to do.

Then, comparing Obama to Benjamin Netanyahu? Our Israeli friend deserves better.

Disclosure: I have financially contributed to the Herman Cain campaign.

There’s a minor kerfuffle going on about something that Herman Cain said. It’s widely reported that he said he couldn’t support Rick Perry as the Republican nominee:

[Edited: The previous video no longer allows embedding. So, here is the original excerpt from CNN. The quote begins immediately after the commercial.]

[Direct link]

Yep. That’s what he said. And that bothers me.

You see, I’ve been going on and on about how, no matter who the GOP nominee is, we need to support him. And some of you get your panties all in a wad about that.

“I’m not ever going to support Mitt Romney!”

“I won’t vote for Rick Perry!”

“If Sarah Palin isn’t the nominee, I’m not voting!”

“If Sarah Palin is the nominee, I’m not voting!”

“Ron Paul is nuts!”

Okay, that last one is okay. But still, nuts as he is, he’d a darn sight better than Barack Obama. But some of you are saying you won’t support this guy or that girl. Well, now Herman Cain sounds a lot like some of you people. Maybe he’s pandering to the panties-in-a-wad crowd.

I don’t care for that. I suspect Cain will backtrack, and soon. He’ll come up with some statement that sounds like some crafted statement talking about how we can disagree about important issues, but still have the same overriding goal: defeat Barack Obama and return competence to the White House.

But what should he say? Or, better, what should he have said to Wolf Blitzer’s question, “Could you support Rick Perry if he were the nominee?”

• Against Obama? Of course. Hell, Wolf, I’d support you over Barack Obama.
• I fully support Rick Perry for vice-president.
• I would support Rick Perry if Zombie Reagan turned down the nomination.
• Nine, nine, nine.
• Not if he was the Democrat nominee. Has he switched back to being a Democrat?
• That’s a stupid question, Wolf. What do you think I’m going to say? That I wouldn’t support Rick Perry? Do you think I’m stupid?

What do you think Herman Cain should have said?