* STRAW POLL!!! — two words that together mean excitement!

So Michelle Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll and spent her victory speech staring at everyone with her crazy eyes. And Ron Paul was a close second and stared at everyone with his even crazier eyes!

What is this stupid thing anyway? You have to pay to vote for your candidate or something? And it’s obviously barely any better than an internet poll if Ron Paul did really well in it.

Still, despite its apparent pointlessness, I guess it means something to some people because Tim Pawlenty came in third and has decided to drop out. That’s too bad, because he really was a serious candidate with a lot to… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

* Rick Perry jumped in the race Saturday. What we know about him is that Texas is leading in job growth, his state had a credit upgrade while he was governor, and while walking his dog he shot a coyote with a concealed handgun. Also, quite important for the primary, he’s not Romney. Being not Romney isn’t a deal breaker with Republicans, but it is helpful.

BTW, I really like Perry’s line: “I promise to make Washington inconsequential in your lives.” That’s about the best promise I’ve ever heard from a politician. He better not break it! ::shakes fist::

Intrade already has Perry as the front runner for the Republican primary, so you can expect the attacks from liberals to really begin in earnest against Perry. He has a Texan drawl, so they’ll probably call him stupid. And they’ll probably find some legislative idea that they can characterize as evil. So they’ll be screaming how he’s stupid and evil in no time. The only thing they won’t be able to do is make any sort of coherent argument against Perry being a much better president than Obama.

* Speaking of Obama, what’s that scamp up to? Oh he’s trying to create more jobs — this time for real! And he’s figured out what his problem is: He needed a new department. A Department of Jobs. What a genius! Why didn’t anyone else figure this out? All we needed to get jobs is some new government department. And the new department will totally depart stuff until there are jobs everywhere.

Here’s a good question for the next Obama press conference: “What’s a job?” I’m guessing Obama can’t even define the word.

* So are people impressed with Obama’s new flailing around to try and make jobs? No. His approval rating has now dropped below 40%. Who are the 39% who approve of Obama? Maybe they’re people who don’t like working. Or terrorists who want to see the country destroyed. Or they didn’t understand the question.

Anyway, apparently no president other than Harry Truman has had an approval rating this low this late in his presidency and been reelected. So the obvious next move for Obama: Nuke someone.

* Herman Cain has apparently been quoting the Pokemon movie in campaign speeches. Personally, I think that’s pretty cool. Maybe he should color more of his speeches with Pokemon quotes:

“Peace, liberty, justice… gotta catch ’em all!”

* So there is some sort of movement to get Bert and Ernie gay married. Anyone ever think about what this sort of stuff has done for homophobia? I mean, the message is that if you see any two men interact closely, then you’re supposed to assume they’re gay. Even if they’re puppets. And they want to throw kids in the middle of all this? I guess some will say they’re trying to prepare kids for the real world, but if that’s true, when does the Count get treated for OCD?

* Chicago is expanding a program to give people more places to dump their newborn babies without legal consequences. Well, it’s better than abortion, at least. Still, do these cities like Chicago ever wonder if their liberal ideas are somewhat to blame for the state they wind up in? I mean, they all have these big ideas to end poverty for good, but poverty only gets worse and we end up with, “So here’s where you can dump your baby.” So maybe liberal ideas are a bit to blame? No? Well, maybe you can admit they never give you the results you want? No? It’s because other people are to blame? Oh, it’s the Tea Party’s fault. That makes sense.

* Wisdom of the Day: “Hipsters prefer the ‘previously unreleased’ Kraken.” –Alex Baze

* Apparently Glenn Reynolds had his tenth blogiversary for Instapundit and I missed it. Well, a belated congratulations. I still remember his advice to me when I first asked about becoming a blogger. He said, “Just put the puppy inside, close the lid tight, hit ‘liquefy’, and then drink up the contents and the dark power of Satan will run through you, allowing you blogging success.” It was nice of him to give me advice when he was already so busy that day. The police never did find out what happened to those hobos.

* So, how about that Republican debate. If the point was to prove FOX News isn’t in the tank for Republicans, mission accomplished because that was bloody. Sample questions from the debate:

“Why do you suck so bad and are stupid and ugly?”

“So exactly how incompetent are you?”

“I hate you.”

And those were just the questions for Newt Gingrich. Tough but fair.

And they also got Tim Pawlenty energized for like the first time ever, but it was about attacking Michelle Bachmann. And they just went at each other while Romney stood off to the side smiling and fixing his hair.

And for some reason they spent a bunch of time rebutting Ron Paul’s “I have no problem with a nuclear Iran” nonsense; it was like they were arguing against a strawman Obama. We get it: Ron Paul is to the left of Democrats on foreign policy. That’s why it’s not really useful for anyone to debate the sideshow.

Anyway, winner was Romney who came out relatively unscathed and was the only one who came off as presidential. Runner up would be Herman Cain just because I like his non-politiciany-ness (loved his “America needs to learn to take a joke” line). Anyway, looking like starting this Saturday it’s going to be Romney vs. Perry race. Pick your side!

* I was noticing how liberals are in the vague hate mode with Rick Perry right now since they know he could be a threat to Obama which mean they must hate him, but they don’t have anything solid to cling to yet. I remember this same thing happening when Palin first emerged. For about a week or so, liberals were threatened by her and thus really hated her, but didn’t have any solid reasons to cling to until the disastrous Couric interview. It was really weird and creepy.

Anyway, it’s just useful to understand that liberal hate is pure partisan silliness and has nothing to do with any coherent ideology. All they have to do is know someone is on the “other side” and the hate starts and they’ll try and justify it with a reason later. That’s why I was wondering with all those polls they do of Obama versus a generic Republican if they then followed that up with a poll of liberals on whether they hate the generic Republican who will run against Obama and think he’s the worst person ever. My theory is most liberals will answer “Yes”.

* Quote Obama: “There are some in Congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than see America win.” Well, he’s in full projection mode. Like about all of Obama’s policies lately have been his attempt at political gamesmanship to help him in 2012… it’s just he really sucks at it. I guess that give him cover to this charge. “If all about getting myself reelected, then how come I’ve been tanking myself in the polls?” The obvious answer is, of course, “Because you’re stupid.” You say it to his face, though, you’re going to get called racist.

* On the subject of Obama and his arrogance, Allahpundit linked this on teh Twitters: “Narcissists rise to the top because people mistake their confidence and authority for leadership qualities”. Yeah, can’t really sum up the 44th president’s rise to power better than that.

* We have an Amber Alert on a hypersonic jet. It was last seen at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Los Angeles. So if you see a jet looking lost and confused and moving faster than sound, please contact the Department of Defense.

* Illinois can no longer afford to bury dead poor people. They’ll just have to be left in the morgue now until they end up in Potter’s Field. If Chicago keeps treating the dead this way, they’re going to stop voting Democrat.

* New study says Earth may not need the moon. Well, if we don’t need it, I have an idea for it…

* While beating hookers to death with a bat in Grand Theft Auto, have you ever thought to yourself, “This would be a great way to explore the issues behind the Iranian hostage crisis.”? Well, a game developer is way ahead of you, as the director of the Grand Theft Auto series is working on a game called 1979. It will be cool if you can play some alternate scenarios — like what if Reagan was already president. And what if the person leading the rescue mission was General Patton. It would be the bloodiest game ever!

BTW, if you see FormerHostage in the game, don’t beat him to death with a bat like a common hooker.

* Today’s Word’s of Wisdom: “According to the imdb page on Twin Peaks, John Huntsman did not kill Laura Palmer.” –Greg Gutfeld

* New Crowder video:

While things have been bad in this country, it’s been relatively bad. Overall, we’re still quite blessed here. Certainly things aren’t bad enough to justify whining.

And man, the story at the center of that video hit a little too close to home as a new father; that’s about the worst fear I can think of. I used to be a rock and stories like that would just roll off my back, but having a daughter has made me a sissy.

* “The economy is collapsing, millions are unemployed, and the country’s credit rating has just been downgraded. What are you going to do next, Obama?”

“I’m going to Martha’s Vineyard!”

Yay, the president has decided that after all of his hard work of… I dunno… ineffectual nagging to raise taxes, he’s going on vacation to Martha’s Vineyard, favorite hang out of effete, rich liberals. It’s the perfect way to tell the American people, “Not only do I not understand the problems you’re going through, I could not care less.”

I look beyond the optics, though, and see it as more time Obama will be spending golfing. Things have been pretty rough for the economy over the past week, and maybe knowing Obama will be busy on a golf course and thus not meddling with things elsewhere will help give people time to recover. And if Obama just never gives a speech again ever, maybe we can really turn things around. I say we turn his vacation at Martha’s Vineyard into an exile.

* So the riots have been going on in London for days now, and the Prime Minister has raised the possibility of using water cannons. Water cannons? The people rioting aren’t the aliens from Signs. How about actual cannons — you know, like you’d use against pirates. Get a militia together of concerned citizens and have them load and fire live cannons at the rioters, and if you participate, you get all the grog you can drink. That’s taking a hard line on criminals… which they should have done the first day.

The puppy blender put up this poster:

I think it’s from the 1940s, because people having guns and exercising their basic human rights is kind of against the law in London now. Of course, enforcing laws isn’t London’s strong suit for the moment.

* Sarah Palin will be doing a bus tour in Iowa this week. Is she still thinking of running? Who knows. She’s a crazy woman; you probably can’t predict her actions using rational thought. And what happens if both her and Perry jump in the race? Then we probably have Palin, Perry, and Bachmann splitting up the conservative vote while Romney runs away with all the “meh” vote. Man, I’d rather not have Romney as our candidate. Palin, please do whatever best reduces the chance of us getting stuck with Romney.

No, Palin, I didn’t mean the moose gun! Put down the moose gun! You’re crazy!

* The Huntsman campaign finally has what it needs to take off: The endorsement of Jeb Bush… Jr. Jeb Bush was the successful governor of Florida, and Jeb Bush Jr. is… the son of that guy.

Anyway, there’s a Republican debate tonight which is Huntsman’s last chance to make an impression among people other than the sons of somewhat relevant politicians. It’s also probably Pawlenty’s last chance to… :yawn: …Man, I’m so sleepy.

* So there’s actually a project to build helmets for our soldiers that allow them to talk to each other telepathically. This is what I’m talking about! We need telepathic soldiers riding dinosaurs and backed by space lasers to take on… ignorant terrorists armed with old Russian surplus AK-47s hiding in caves. Man, we need a better enemy. I think China is about the only one around who could start a real world war. China, you up for a world war? We want to try out our telepathy; it’ll be cool.

* According to a poll, Casey Anthony is the most hated person in America. But she was found not guilty!

I hate it when some people think the legal principle of “innocent until proven guilty” is how we’re personally supposed to behave. Like if you yourself saw someone gun people down, you couldn’t call the guy a murder until he was convicted in a court of law. No, we’re able to act rationally based on more common sense standard of evidence, which is why I wouldn’t expect Casey Anthony to be embraced by society any time soon. She’ll be shunned as much as a member of Congress.

* To get a special variant cover on a Marvel comic book, comic retailers will have to rip off the covers of 50 current DC comics and send them to Marvel. Is this really the time for cut throat business like that? While comic book characters are as popular as ever in movies and TV, haven’t comic book shops been dying? Comic books are kind of a niche market where you have to go to a weird store run by a fat guy with a ponytail who’s overly bitter and sarcastic to buy them. Plus, they’re like $3 or $4 each for about 5-minutes of reading time; not economical. It seems like the main hope of comic books are tablet PCs where now anyone can easily buy comics without getting weirded out (and avoid the comic clutter), but the problem is they’re still trying to charge print prices there. Why pay $4 for a couple minutes of reading when you get hours of game play from Angry Birds for about the same price. If comic books are to survive, they need to reduce their prices and expand their market. And bring back a regular Aquaman series.

* Wisdom of the Day: “London, the progressive dream: shopkeepers of every race and creed, looted by thieves of every race and creed.” –David Burge

* Fun link I found from Krankor on Twitter: Kim Jong Il Looking at Things

* So the unions keep trying to prove they’re not irrelevant in Wisconsin. They think everyone is still out there using their rotary phones, reading their daily newspapers, and fearing the force that are unions, but I kinda think times have changed a bit. Still, the unions put $30 million into trying to recall five Republicans in the Wisconsin state senate as they only needed three to change the balance of power there. And they successfully replaced two — at $15 million per. For the state senate. And now some recall elections for Democrat senators are coming up.

Yes, we could laugh at the unions and their irrelevancy… so let’s do that.

BWA HA HA HA HA HA!

You know, that $30 million was the union members’ dues. If they all wanted cheaper health care or something, couldn’t that have gone towards it? Yeah, I know, flushing money down the toilet is a perfectly legitimate use of union money with a long history, but I’m just suggesting they should consider a new paradigm. But what do I know; I’m not an irrelevancy from yesteryear.

* For those confused about Wisconsin, new MSNBC anchor Al Sharpton explains:

You know, we make fun of Obama’s ability to read a teleprompter, but it’s not as easy as it looks.

* So Obama actually said in his speech the other day, “Not much further we can cut.”

"I'm mainly muscle!"

Yes, when we look at that giant, bloated government that spends trillions more than we take in, the first thing we always think is, “Wow, is that streamlined.” So if you had any illusions the downgrade would cause Obama to finally wake up and take on the out of control spending, just put that with Obama’s promises of unicorns.

* Don’t worry, though: Cuts are on the way! That’s why we’re forming a super committee! And the Democrats have announced that their appointing to it the partisan, extreme left-wing dimwits John Kerry and Patty Murray. So yay! Nothing will significant will happen cuts wise! Oh, the Democrats are also appointing Max Baucus who is from a red state and might be movable. So the strategy will be to give Kerry and Murray some tinfoil and string to play with while we try to convince Baucus to do what’s needed to actually save the Republic.

Remind me why we set up a system of government that gave these idiots any power in the first place?

* For the first time ever, most Americans don’t think their own representative deserves to be reelected. This is great news, because now maybe we can pitch to everyone some sort of “dump all the bums” measure where we just kick everyone out of Congress and start over. I know there might be a person or two we like in Congress, but if we could just ever actually get an opportunity to throw everyone out, it’s too awesome a deal to pass up. I say we amend the Constitution to allow a vote every couple years or so to kick everyone out of Congress. I know, then some of you are thinking, “Won’t angry voters just toss everyone every two years?” Maybe, but I’m not seeing the downside.

* There’s been a lot of talk about the Bachman Newsweek cover:

But did I warn you that Bachmann has crazy eyes? I did! And you just know left-wing hacks were going to make an issue of it. Just think of how devastating this would be if it appeared not just on a weekly news magazine but in a media people actually paid attention to.

You know what Newsweek should do? Have a whole issue on the importance of unions — really just wallow in irrelevancy.

* Yesterday, Apple was briefly valued higher than Exxon, the U.S.’s biggest company. Does that mean instead of always fretting over “Big Oil”, we’ll soon hear whining over “Big Shiny, Rounded-Edge Consumer Devices”? For some reason, I don’t think the liberal status seekers will immediately start shouting “No war for tablet computers!” They’ll be more like, “Well, how big a war, and if we win, how many new features will this tablet have? …Really? Twice the resolution! Kill those for’ners!”

* Wisdom of the Day: “Gentlemen, we of the Home team put a good scare into Away! They will remember this at their championship parade next week!” –Josh Trevino on the unions’ performance in Wisconsin.

* Wow, big stock market drop yesterday. That’s a few days in a row now, and combined with the credit downgrade, financially the U.S. is not doing… well… smurfy.

But don’t worry: Obama decided to give another speech yesterday! Here’s a partial transcript:

“Let me be clear: I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. I’m much more scared and confused by all of this than any of you. The reason I keep giving these speeches is because I just want other people to be around so I don’t feel so frightened and alone. I don’t know why bad things are happening, I just wish it would stop and that people would stop yelling at me. And does anyone know what an economy is and how to fix it? I asked Geithner that, but the only thing he seems to know how to do is steal boxes of pens.”

After Obama’s speech, the market dropped 634 points, but Obama said it would have dropped 2,000 points, so he saved or created a whole 1,366 points for the Dow with his intense talking action.

You’re welcome!

* Seriously, though, why does Obama keep giving these speeches? He has absolutely nothing useful to say, so the only purpose of the speeches seem to be to confirm his uselessness. We got it by now, Obama: You’re useless. Stop talking.

* Rick Perry is supposed to finally announce his intentions to run for president on Saturday. This will give us a stark contrast because we’ll have Rick Perry who oversaw the creation of jobs and got his state’s credit rating upgraded versus Barack Obama who is black.

…Well, that’s how they’re going to play it, people. What exactly do they have left to argue for Obama’s election other than accusations of racism? What exactly has Obama done that people would like another four years of? It’s going to be an extra ugly election because liberals will feel like it’s their dying last gasp.

If only it was.

* So there are riots in London. About what, no one seems to know for sure. Maybe it was over soggy crumpets… or are crumpets supposed to be soggy? No one but the British know what a crumpet is. Anyway, so “youths” are rioting and burning and stealing stuff and texting — kids loves texting… and looting — to keep ahead of the police, and it’s total chaos. And it’s looking really bad for London who is hosting the Olympics in 2012, because the Olympic committee specifically told them, “If you’re going to host the Olympics, make sure your city isn’t on fire. We don’t like fire. Also, make sure you don’t have total anarchy. Total anarchy with broken windows and overturned cars really distracts from the festivities. And finally: Please bribe us.”

Londoners need to toughen up and just round up all those rioting youths and send them to their prison colony in Australia… but not the good part of Australia where they cook you steak and bloomin’ onions, but instead the bad part with the alligators and poisonous snakes. Crikey!

* They joke that the lottery is supposed to be a tax on people bad at math, but this one woman who has won four multi-million dollar lotteries has been revealed to have a PhD in statistics. Know what I’m thinking? That’s right: We’ve found our new Treasury Secretary.

* New tapes reveal that Jackie O believed that LBJ and a cabal of Texas tycoons were behind her husband’s death. Before you dismiss that as conspiracy silliness, watch the video again of JFK’s death. It really doesn’t look like he died of natural causes.

* Often as I’ve played videogames, I’ve wondered if scientists would tell me why I like playing videogames. Well, Science! to the rescue! Quoth the scientist: “The attraction to playing videogames and what makes them fun is that it gives people the chance to think about a role they would ideally like to take and then get a chance to play that role.” So the reason you play Tetris is because you always wanted to be a block made of four segments. And I can see why, because those blocks all fit together. But in real life, you never seem to fit in. That’s why you want to be like those blocks. But remember, when those blocks all fit together, they disappear. The only way they remain is when they don’t fit — when there is a hole in them. See, that’s what you are: You’re that hole that we can’t fill that keeps us all from disappearing. So feel good about yourself. And play some Angry Birds for a change.

* Wisdom of the Day: “Remember the good old days when George W. Bush was the worst president ever?” –James Taranto

* Okay, kids; the word of the day is “failure”.

So the United States of America just got its credit rating downgraded by the S&P. It seems bad, but this is something lots of presidents have had to deal with… Oh, wait, no — just the one. Just the useless failure. And they’re trying to blame this on Republicans and the Tea Party, but the fact is we got downgraded for not seriously taking on our debt, and what Obama originally wanted was the debt limit raised without any cuts. The only people who had a serious plan to avoid this was the Tea Party. But hey, you can do something to fix the problem or you can try and demagogue to gain advantage.

Obama chose poorly.

But no, it’s the Republicans fault. If only at some point did the Democrats hold the White House and both the House and Senate with enough votes to pass whatever they wanted — then surely Democrats would have used their economic genius then to fix everything. Oh, they did have that? And they used that power to spend more, create more government programs, and then failed to pass a budget?

So I guess that means that all the Democrats are useless idiots who should in no one way have any power in government? I mean, there’s no legitimate argument against that now, right? They should all just be tossed out of power — along with maybe half the Republicans — and then finally we can work on some solutions. Everyone is agreed on that, right? Even liberals have to bow to that simple logic, correct?

Oh, no; you’re just going to continue to scream nonsense, liberals? Okay; I guess we’ll just work around you.

* I just wanted to note that because of Rick Perry’s budget, Texas recently got its credit status upgraded — in case for some reason you wanted to compare Rick Perry and Barack Obama.

* So you’re probably wondering what the credit downgrade of the U.S. means for us in the near future. Well so am I. If someone could google the answer and put it in the comments, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.

* Here’s something Michelle Malkin noticed — from our government, it’s the new Department of Innovation logo:

So, to represent innovation from government, we have the metaphor of three interlocked cogs that are unable to move. Of course, we only wish the government was a bunch of cogs grinding to a halt. It’s more like cogs that steal all our money, uselessly waste it, and then act like we’re the ones who are all stupid.

I’m not good with metaphors.

* Study shows that pundits are less than useless. A scientist has been following pundits and their predictions for years and years and years. He comes up with three possibilities for the future, has the pundit pick one, and then waits to see what happens to evaluate. And the pundits got the right answer less than 33% of the time, i.e., they were less accurate than a chimp throwing darts.

So, should we replace all the talking heads on TV with dart throwing chimps. NO! You might think it’s a great idea to improve the accuracy of political predictions, but CHIMPS WILL BITE YOU! In fact, they may THROW THE DARTS AT YOU and then BITE YOU! Do not trust chimps! Well, trust them on their political predictions, BUT NOT ON ANYTHING ELSE!

You’re probably wondering how accurate I’ve been as a political pundit. Well, to check my accuracy, you’d actually have to nuke the moon or put rocket launchers on dinosaurs. So, safe to say, I’M THE ONLY PUNDIT WHO HAS NEVER BEEN PROVEN WRONG! Also, I’m good at darts.

* Hollywood is going to do a movie about the killing of bin Laden. Finally, we’ll have a movie that makes the military look good… because it might also make Obama look good and will open in October of 2012. I’m guessing there will be a dramatic scene where an aide comes to Obama and says, “We know where bin Laden is; we just need your okay to get him.” And then Obama will think a moment while choosing his golf clubs and then finally shrug and say, “Yeah, okay. I guess you should do that.”

So is that what Obama is going to run on? Forget the domestic situation; he’s the waterboarding, terrorist-killing president who took Bush’s torch and gladly ran with it!

Good luck to him with that.

* Talking about the real heroes, thirty-one U.S. troops and seven Afghan soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash due to a Taliban RPG. Among those killed were members of SEAL Team 6. Nothing funny to say; pray for their families, and thank God our country has such brave people — the true foundation of what we are as a nation.

* Wisdom of the Day: “Liberals deny spending is killing us, then blame Bush for killing us thru war spending. Then they insist on spending again to save us.” –David Limbaugh

* In case you missed it, I had a column up over the weekend at Pajamas Media about how we should make future generation pay all our debt because they’re a bunch of jerks. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it before, but I’m quite clever and funny.

* Obama turned 50 years old yesterday, and the market celebrated by dropping ten points for each year Obama has been alive (and a few extra for good luck). It doesn’t seem like getting Obama to let up on the gas a little as he races towards a cliff was enough to convince the markets things are going to be peachy.

But, man, 50 years old — that’s a long time not to pay much attention. I mean I look at him with his fifty years of experience of… whatever exactly it is he did with his life, and then I see what a foolish president he is and it’s like he’s barely learned anything worthwhile in his life. How do you do that for fifty years? How do you keep yourself at such a distance from reality so as not to learn anything about it? I mean, I won’t be fifty for another eighteen years, and over that time I expect to learn so much that at a half a century I’ll be unstoppable. Literally unstoppable. Nations and armies will try to stop me, but they won’t be able to.

Because I’ll be so knowledgeable.

* BTW, Obama has said he’s going to “pivot to jobs”. He’s said that a number of times before, but this time he totally means it. Unfortunately, Jay Carney undermined him a bit when he said the unfortunate truth “The White House doesn’t create jobs.” Really, if you’re waiting on Obama to create jobs, you’re an idiot. The man has never held a real job in his life — much of his cabinet hasn’t either; why in the world would anyone think he has the slightest idea how jobs are created. He doesn’t even know what a job looks like. It’s like waiting on a caveman to build you an airplane.

* I spoke too soon! Obama’s pivot on jobs worked! Unemployment has shot down by 0.1% Of course, these numbers always get adjusted later, and it’s always the other way. Also, a lot of the drop in unemployment is from people giving up on looking for work. Actually, there’s a doable strategy for Obama to eliminate unemployment: Make it so bleak and depressing that everyone just gives up. Finally, an economic idea that Obama would actually have some skills at.

* Congress’s disapproval is at a record 82%. I don’t see why. Congress isn’t doing much, and they’re taking a long time to do it. What else would you want?

* Sarah Palin responded to Biden calling Tea Party members terrorists with this:

“Yeah, right. Independent patriotic Americans who desire fiscal sanity in our beloved nation being called terrorists, heck, Sean, if we were real domestic terrorists, shoot, President Obama would be wanting to pal around with us, wouldn’t he?”

I’m just surprised someone hasn’t reported this yet as “Palin Says ‘Shoot President Obama'”.

* The Communist Party has already endorsed President Obama for the 2012 election. Seems a little premature when they don’t even know who the Republicans are nominating, but guess it’s just hard for them to imagine a better candidate for Communist to vote for than Obama. I’d have trouble imagining a better one, but I’ll try…

No, anytime I try to use my imagination, all I can ever think of are dinosaurs fighting giant robots.

* When speaking to Keith Olbermann, Al Gore said… Okay, I can’t even pretend to care. Let’s just move on.

* When I brought up RiffTrax in the last Nuke the News, a few people said they like MST3K better, but I disagree. I’ve been watching some of those too, but the riffing seems slower back then. I think they’ve really refined their skills since the TV show and the humor is much punchier. Also, I get more of the references; some of MST3K — especially with Joel — could be pretty obscure. Furthermore, the ScfFi channel seasons were actually my favorite, and RiffTrax has the same three from then (Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett). Plus, it’s pretty cool to finally see them take on blockbusters instead of just bad movies we’ve never seen before.

Though I do agree I miss the silhouettes.

* In the area of this being my blog and I’ll talk about what I want, I would like to reminisce about video games. One of my all time favorite video game experiences was the game Riven, the sequel to Myst. I got that game while home on Christmas vacation from college and thus had lots of time to sit down and play it uninterrupted. And the way you start out in a big confusing world where nothing makes sense and then, through lots of exploration and trial and error, it all eventually comes together and makes sense was just beautiful. I still remember the glory of finally realizing *SPOILER* they were using a base five numbering system, which finally put a bunch of confusing things into place. It reminds me a lot of reverse engineering and debugging someone else’s code, how you have to slowly follow the logic and piece it together.

I know hardcore gamers scoff at the Myst series, but that was one of my all time favorite game experiences. I say favorite experience versus favorite game, because you can’t really ever go back and play it again and it be anywhere near like the first time.

* Liberals seemed to have settled on one description of people who want the government to spend less than it takes in: Terrorists. Perhaps Obama has a special speech ready for the 10th anniversary of 9/11: “While what happened ten years ago wasn’t… well… optimal, we have to remember that the real terrorists are people who impose the rules of basic math on the rest of us.”

How did we let something of such basic common sense — that one’s budget should add up — become such a radical, progressive notion? And it’s so basic, it’s hard to explain to liberals why it’s important because it’s such a truism. Do we have to explain to liberals why rape is wrong (oh yeah, Roman Polanski) or why murder is wrong (oh yeah, Ted Kennedy)? I don’t even know where to start with a liberal who doesn’t think we should spend less than we take in; I guess you start with explaining why negative numbers are bad.

ME: “See, you now have negative three apples. That means when you finally get three more apples, I’ll also take those away.”

LIBERAL: “Terrorist!”

ME: “Now I’ll give you positive three punches to the face. Count them out loud.”

* I hate hearing people in the government — especially Obama — say they have a solution for creating jobs. If they knew how to create jobs, they’d be in the private sector and not in government. Here’s my jobs plan for the government: We hand Obama an iPad loaded with Angry Birds and say, “You’re not to do anything else until you get three stars on every level.” That’ll keep him out of our hair for a while. If the country is to recover, we need to get Obama to stick to the golf course.

* So it looks like the U.S. gets to keep its AAA debt rating a while longer. Moody’s was all worried with our out of control spending and slow growth, but now that we have still out of control spending but slightly less than before, everything is good for now. I almost kind of want us to lose our rating, though; that will give us something to work for. Balance the budget, and then we can get to AAA again. As we’ve learned, Democrats only respond to al Qaeda-like terrorist threats such as “You no longer get a blank checkbook.”

* Self-identification of conservatives is at an all time high, with more people saying they are conservative than say they are moderate and almost twice as many people saying they are conservative than saying they are liberals. I know liberals are hoping this whole “we have to control spending” thing is just some terrorist fad, but it’s starting to look like it has the makings of a permanent movement, which is probably why we’re seeing the people whose time has passed lashing out so hysterically. There’s already a new status quo on the raising the debt ceiling, and we should expect the next time it comes up — whether with a Democrat or Republican president — to be an interesting time. The only thing is making the hard cuts in entitlements. That will be painful thing, but it would help if the liberals act so hysterical and condescending that hatred of them trumps the short term pain. I think they can manage it. Thanks, guys, we couldn’t get anywhere without you.

* Looks like the FBI has figured out who D.B. Cooper is from that unsolved plane hijacking from 1971. So for those saying the country is making no progress, there you go.

* When I posted about the countries that like America most yesterday, I didn’t realize this but a commenter pointed it out: The country that likes us the most is the one we once nuked. So that’s a lesson for you: If you stand up to a country, they’ll eventually respect you for it.

Hey, we’re pretty unpopular in the Middle East; what could we do to turn that around?

Hey! I’m kidding!

Maybe.

* It’s looking like the days of $50-$60 video games are coming to an end. It seems like video games have always cost $50 new all the way back to NES, but in the recent PS3 and XBox 360 generation that’s gone up to $60 (and sometimes with the PC release too). I’ve yet to pay that for a video game because that just seems insane to me (and I rarely pay the $50 — I’m old; I can wait for a price drop). But now that’s all competing with the iPhone and iPad, where a game has to be pretty special to ask for more than $5. So the new strategy may be to have a small price up front (or be free) and then slow bleed you on extra content ($5 here and $3 there until you get to real money). That’s capitalism; always changing stuff. Do you know of any other economic system that results in cheaper video games? No, because all the others are evil.

* Here’s a number of clips from RiffTrax celebrating their five year anniversary:

I love RiffTrax, and if you don’t, I hate you.

* Wisdom of the Day: “So we’re terrorists for ‘holding the country hostage’? Okay, then: For what you’re doing to future generations, you are pedophiles. Own it.” –Jim Treacher

* I’m back! Yay! Praise the Great Landlord!

* So I guess there’s been some sort of debt deal. There’s dispute over whether it could possibly lead to more taxes or will just be spending cuts, but the important thing is that liberals seem outraged. Obama wanted to spend more money, and everyone was supposed to be like, “We’ll just get out of your way and let you spend as much money as you want.” Instead, everyone was like, “You insane idiots, stop spending so much money!” Such basic common sense confused and enraged liberals. Yeah, we’re not going to get much in the way of real cuts and our debt is just going to keep going up, but how much were we going to achieve while Obama is president? The important thing is getting things moving in the right direction. Let’s see what happens next time the debt ceiling comes up… especially if we have a Republican president.

* This whole thing just further emphasized how useless Obama is, but once again I need to point out there was no reason to think he’d be anything but. In his previous job — mediocre legislator — he literally did nothing you couldn’t train a dog to do. Just voted yes or no on stuff, and that was it — nothing else of note. And before you say, “He gave speeches; a dog couldn’t do that,” I would mention that you could have a dog stand in front of a teleprompter and bark for ten minutes, and it would say just as much of substance as any speech Obama has ever given.

Anyway, the point is let’s have some better standards for the president in the future. Let’s make sure he was at least assistant to the manager at a real company or something.

* The movie Cowboys and Aliens was number one over the weekend, and it also seems like a good description of the two sides in this country now. You have cowboys — independent people who don’t need a giant government — and aliens — people who don’t live on this world and think you can spend and spend forever without consequence. If only we could defeat them by throwing water on them like those stupid aliens in Signs.

* SarahK and I have been following that Dave Ramsey plan to get our finances in order. Basically, you first attack your debt, then get an emergency fund, and then handle retirement, college savings, and paying off the house. While the latter part probably doesn’t apply to government, the first few steps do seem like what we should be working towards for the country. We need to get aggressive about our debt, first trimming down the government as much as possible so we’re spending less than we take in and can finally hit that long term debt. When the debt is handled, we save up a couple trillion in an emergency fund — that way we could have a new war or something and not go back into debt. When we have no debt and a emergency fund saved up, then the federal government can just refund any left over money. Of course, the plan only works well if you can really cut your budget down and keep it down. Might have to exile liberals to Antarctica to insure that — which is yet another expense. I guess you could consider it an investment.

* There was a survey done of which countries like the U.S. the most, and Japan and Kenya both have a higher favorable rating of America than Americans do. I guess it’s because they don’t have hippies to deal with. Interesting, France loves America only a little less than Americans do even though we all like hate France. World’s gone topsy turvy, people.

* A survey says that people who use Internet Explorer have below average IQs. Makes sense; I can’t think of any reason you’d use IE other than that you’re too dumb to know how to install another browser. When we got a new computer to connect to our TV as an entertainment center, I tried using IE briefly, but after five seconds with it I got so frustrated that I went to download Chrome. If you like big, bloated pieces of software that are really slow, Microsoft has you covered, but smart people don’t like that.

* I got the 3DS back when it first came out even though there weren’t really any games for it. Months later… there still aren’t really very many worthwhile games for it. And now Nintendo has announced a $80 (32%) price reduction already. Doesn’t sound like this systems is printing money like the Wii or the previous DS. What I get for being the sucker who bought early, though, is the title “ambassador” (like John Bolton!) and 10 free NES and 10 GameBoy Advanced game downloads for it. Of course, the whole handheld game paradigm is changing, as why pay $40 for a game on the 3DS when you can get Angry Birds for iPad for $5 (or Sid Meier’s Pirates for $4 — Awesome!). Nintendo just needs to slap together some game of Mario being thrown out of a slingshot at goombas and be done with it.

* I had mentioned before I’m reading The Hunger Games at SarahK’s urging and someone asked what I thought of it. Well, I finished it, and though I have a few minor quibbles, it was overall very engrossing. Definitely will read the rest of the series. Technically, it’s a young adult book, but it sure has a lot of violence and killing for young adults. Then again, maybe kids these days aren’t learning enough gory violence from games like Angry Birds.

* My congressman Raul Labrador was on Meet the Press on Sunday and everyone thinks he did pretty awesome representing the Tea Party side of things. His opponent tried to do racist attacks on him in the 2010 election, implying since Labrador was Hispanic he’d let illegal immigrant crack dealers into our state, but the Democrat incumbent still lost handily because he had one big problem: He was a Democrat. In Idaho. In 2010.

Bad idea.

* Wisdom of the Day: “The tea party didn’t hold America hostage, it gave DC an intervention.” –Jeremy

* I always forget to plan these things for the blog, but I’m going to be on vacation until Tuesday next week. I guess those days I’m gone you’ll have to go somewhere else to find out what’s happening in the world… or just assume nothing interesting is going on. Probably more arguments about the debt ceiling. Just wait until I get back to find out what happened.

* By the way, still no debt limit deal. I’m kind getting tired of this story. I wish we could talk about something else in politics. But don’t worry, as Obama has found a way to solve this issue: Give yet another speech! Yes, he spoke during prime time last night; I’m not sure what was said, though. I wasn’t going to watch it, so I thought I’d just read the commentary of some pundit who did watch it, but I can’t find anyone who did. I looked, and there is no evidence anyone watched it. I don’t think even the most faithful Obama supporters can pretend there’s anything to gain from listening to him talk; in fact, they probably find it easier to delude themselves that Obama’s competent if they don’t ever listen to him speak.

* Don’t worry, though: Harry Reid has a budget plan to save the day. It’s $2.7 trillion in cuts — though $1 trillion of that is from the military winding down in the Middle East, which was already planned anyway. Plus, he included nothing on entitlement reform, so 50% of the budget is untouched. So basically it’s another one of those things where he pretends something is getting done while preserving the status quo. Still, it has no tax hikes in it, so Republicans at least got that concession not to further destroy the economy.

How much, though, do we really expect to solve the debt crisis while a Democrat is still in the presidency? I mean, his sine qua non is spending other people’s money. This isn’t like pushing Bill Clinton into welfare reform; if Republicans get Obama to really hunker down and cut the budget, they will have destroyed everything he loves and his whole purpose of being. If it actually happened, Obama would probably just stay in his bathrobe all day and smoke cigarettes and watch Captain Kangaroo until his presidency was over. Wow, I almost described a utopia.

* While Obama is struggling to avoid making any significant cuts, the American people have their own idea to reduce spending: Repeal Obamacare. Recent Rasmussen poll has 57% in favor of repealing the law. Why is it so unpopular? I guess after it was passed, people found out what was in it.

* People are acting like it’s shocking that Obama said he’d like to “bypass Congress and change the laws on my own.” Don’t all liberals mainly find democracy to be an inconvenience? That’s why they’re always trying to find ways around it, such as getting things changed through activist judges. They just can’t understand why people would think they actually have to convince middle America and those crazy right wingers their ideas are good instead of just imposing them on everyone since they think themselves so gosh darn smart (but, of course, not smart enough to convince anyone their ideas aren’t moronic). In a way, they’re like Saddam Hussein, who would have his sham election — feeling the need to at least pretend democracy is a good idea — and then just go ahead and do whatever he wanted.

Okay; I went a little too far there. It’s not like liberals would idolize someone named “Hussein”.

* The wealth gap between whites and minorities is at its highest level in a quarter century. The average white household net worth is twenty times that of the average black household. This whole thing of having Obama as the first black president was supposed to be a big boon for minorities, but in practical terms, not so much. And it has to be psychologically a problem too. I mean, what if when they had the first black baseball player in the major leagues, instead of Jackie Robinson, they had someone who really sucked at the game? How would that help race relations? Well, hopefully no one blames Obama’s horribleness on his race and instead on his desire to emulate useless white liberals.

* Democrat Representative David Wu, best known for being pictured dressed in a weird tiger suit, has been accused of an unwanted sexual encounter with the teenage daughter of a donor. Pelosi has already asked for an ethics investigation, and combined with Weiner being pushed into resigning, the Democrats are getting a better record on this sort of thing. I mean, you shouldn’t need to praise people for what would usually be considered holding standards of basic decency, but remember that these people are all sociopaths. So baby steps.

* People seem pretty certain Rick Perry is going to enter the presidential race. Even though he hasn’t announced yet, Intrade already has him as the front runner. And it’s hard to see why he wouldn’t get the nomination. He’s the type of conservative the base loves, he’s governor of a state that’s actually creating jobs in this economy, and he’s not Romney. I mean, I could get behind Romney if I needed to, but like so many other Republicans, I really really don’t want to. Oh, and another plus for Perry is he really defuses Obama’s “I inherited this mess from Bush” argument. Perry is in the same economy and inherited the state of Texas directly from Bush, yet he’s not sucking it up. I know there has to be some problem with him, but I don’t know of any offhand. He likes cutting spending, right?

* As I found out from one of those interminable birther e-mails I got, there is now going to be a birther summit. Yay, a big gathering of people all saying stuff like:

“Wow! Obama’s birth certificate sure is faked!”

“Not only that, but there is evidence it is EXTRA DOUBLE FAKED!”

“I did a PDF analysis of the birth certificate, and determined it was a PDF, WHICH CAN BE FAKED!”

Can you even comprehend the stunning innovations that will come out of this meeting of the minds?

In a way, though, I envy these people. Think of living in a world where your concerns weren’t the economy tanking and the country drowning debt, but instead the biggest threat facing the nation were what artifacts you could find in a PDF image. What a calmer, simpler world.

* Community is my favorite comedy on the air right now, and I was quite amused by this photo from their first day of shooting for season three.

* So no deal on the debt ceiling yet. During the negotiations, Obama walked. Or maybe the Republicans walked away. Or maybe they both walked away. But they’ll need to make a deal soon because society itself will collapse if the government is unable to create more debt.

Wish we the taxpayers could walk away. I have drinking water and beef jerky; I say we default. Not everyone will be able to survive — I expect all the politicians to die off during winter — but then things should settle pretty nicely after that.

* The Huffington Post reports that a new “Super Congress” is being planned by the Republicans and Democrats. This could just be paranoid ramblings, but let’s assume it’s true and get upset. The last thing we need is a “Super Congress”; if anything, Congress needs less power. Instead, we need a new like “Kiddie Congress” where they can only pass resolutions and don’t have power to do anything or spend anything. You can’t help balance the budget, you go to Kiddie Congress.

Kiddie Congress is in Antarctica.

* Here’s an article from the Los Angeles Times on the Norway murders: “Muslims feel sting of initial blame”. Subtitle: “Non-Muslims feel bullets, shrapnel.” Really, who would think of writing an article like this? It’s as if there’s a plot to portray Muslims as either savage terrorists or whiny losers indifferent to Islamic terrorism. Yeah, why in the world would people see bombs and random murder and think “Muslims”? Where in the world would we get that crazy idea from? If Muslims are angry at anything other than the people in their own religion murdering people, they’re doing it wrong.

* Ron Paul is polling neck and neck with Obama, 41% versus Obama’s 42% in the latest Rasmussen poll. So either Ron Paul has become more popular, or that’s just how unpopular Obama is. I guess we need to see how Obama polls versus a turnip to decide.

RON PAUL!

* With the end of the shuttle, 1,600 have been laid off in Florida. Obama really racking up those jobs. Really, though, people getting off government jobs would be a good thing if there were private sector space jobs to go to. Lately in America, though, it seems like we’ve been trying too hard to skimp by to actually innovate. Is the private sector going to genetically resurrect dinosaurs and put rocket launchers on them any time soon? Probably not — partially because of oppressive regulations on rocket launchers.

* Red states have better schools than blue. You don’t need higher taxes to succeed, apparently; you just need standards and to break up those teachers unions. I mean what are teachers unions but an organization devoted to making sure your kids get the least amount of education for the most amount of money… plus they tend to be in bed with the Democrats who run the blue states. No amount of poor education will ever make liberals believe they’re not smarter than everyone else, though.

* Cern scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (not the Medium Hadron Collider or the Fun-Size Hadron Collider) think they may have caught a glimpse of the Higgs Boson particle. If you don’t know what a Higgs Boson particle is — and who does — I think it’s like the missing link between matter and energy. Anyway, I already know the twist ending to this: *SPOILER ALERT* The Cern scientists were Higgs Boson particles all along!

* New Crowder video! And it makes fun of Bill Maher which always seems both cruel and necessary:

* Also, if you want more video fun… RIFFTRAX IS NOW AVAILABLE ON HULU!!!!

Sorry, but I love RiffTrax. If you want to watch them make fun of a modern movie (though the movie is a few years old, they just released a riff for X-Men: The Last Stand which was hilarious) you’ll still have to sync that up yourself, but now you can watch on Hulu them riff old educational shorts and movies that no one has the rights too (which surprisingly includes Night of the Living Dead). Anyway, here is the educational short Drawing for Beginners: The Rectangle.

* Friday, I asked you all for a three-part plan to clean up the government. A lot of your plans involved murder. Come on; you can solve anything with murder. We need to be more creative than that.

Anyway, winner of HIGH PRAISE is Yosoff with:

1) 49 states secede from the union leaving only California in the USA and holding the bag for all of the debt.
2) Form a new United States with the same constitution plus a balanced budget amendment and an amendment banning purse-dogs.
3) Anyone who suggests raising taxes gets catapulted over the wall & alligator filled moat into California.

Yosoff, it is such an honor to me that you read my blog.

* Still no debt deal, and at this point I’m like, “Fine. Let’s just default.” How are we going to get them to stop spending unless we just take away the option to spend more? Sure it’s going to be scary and painful, but that’s just what real change is. It’s either this painful process or continue to hobble along as we ignore the problem and get worse and worse and worse.

Oh, everyone’s voting “hobble along.”

* Harry Reid has called Cut, Cap, and Balance the “perhaps some of the worst legislation in the history of this country.” Worse than laws allowing slavery? Of course it’s worse since those laws weren’t a personal affront to him making sure doddering fools spouting gibberish have less money and power. Again, I ask, what is this guy doing having any sway over the country and its prosperity? If he so loves power, can’t we put him charge of the activities committee at a nursing home or something?

* Obama prayed for a solution to the debt crisis. So basically he’s just taunting God now to smite him. I don’t think God will do it, though; He doesn’t want to get accused of racism.

* Obama lost $1.3 billion in bailing out Chrysler, and all I can think is that, compared to his other colossal blunders, that’s not that much. It’s way on the lower end of colossal. Might even instead be on the upper end of huge blunders. Makes you wonder what it would be like to have a president who only made huge blunders instead of colossal ones. What an impossible dream.

* Here’s the CEO of Home Depot answering a question about what he would say if he could sit down with Obama and talk about job creation:

I’m not sure Obama would understand anything that I’d say, because he’s never really worked a day outside the political or legal area. He doesn’t know how to make a payroll, he doesn’t understand the problems businesses face. I would try to explain that the plight of the businessman is very reactive to Washington. As Washington piles on regulations and mandates, the impact is tremendous. I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I just think he has no knowledge of this.

This is a theme we’re really going to have to hit in 2012: Obama is a complete know-nothing to everything important to this nation right now. If the biggest problem facing the country right now was people needed help on using teleprompters, President Obama would be right there to save the day. But with the actual problems we’re dealing with, the guy is less than useless. The best he could do is stay out of the way… which is asking far too much of him.

* Best of the Web has a pretty good take down of a Deepak Chopra opinion piece. I don’t know much about Chopra other than a) He has a ridiculous name. b) His political writing are the absolute dumbest I’ve ever seen in a major publications. Just complete utter garbage where he’s super right about everything and anyone who disagrees with him is evil and mean. Literally, a four-year-old could write with more nuance. Apparently his day job though is “New Age media personality”. I hope that means someone who sits in a booth and people pay to throw pies at him. If this guy actually hands out advice or something… wow, watch out for that.

* The Pentagon says it’s now ready to let gays openly serve in the military. I can’t help but wonder how this will go over in the Middle East. Already, our military is not supposed to have Christian symbols so as not to offend people and they ask women soldiers to cover their hair. So are gays going to get the instructions, “So as not to offend people in the Middle East, try not to be quite so openly gay.”? You know, they execute people for that there. Maybe this will get the ire of the gay lesbian activists (there are gay lesbians now?) and we’ll finally do what we should have done a long time ago: Tell people in the Middle East their culture is stupid and we’re not going to respect it. Of course, the gay lesbian activist only ever seem interested in pestering people who think gay marriage is silly and missing the point. As for Muslims who want to kill homosexuals, not so much their concern.

* John Hawkins has a follow up post on how independent, conservative blogs are doomed — DOOMED! Maybe I need to help IMAO by focusing more on a niche. I could be the go to political blogger for when the subject is astronomy or nuclear weapons. Or maybe I just need to join a bigger blog. Any bigger blog want to hire me? I’m very expensive… but you get free HIGH PRAISE for taking me on.

* Wisdom of the Day: “Makes you wonder what the national job situation would be without governors like Walker, Perry, Christie, etc., doesn’t it?” –Nathan Wurtzel

* Instead of just complaining, I thought I’d come up with some solutions, so here’s my three part plan to clean up the government:

1) Send all the politicians in DC to prison.
2) Make whining no longer a protected form of speech and punishable by deportation.
3) Fire.

Nice and simple. Maybe I should run on it. What’s your three part plan to clean up the government? I don’t want any four part plans as that’s too many parts. If your plan has only two parts, you’re only fooling yourself if you think that’s enough parts to clean up government. Best three part plan wins… HIGH PRAISE… and possibly saves the nation.

* If you were afraid these debt ceiling negotiations might come to an end, Obama is open to a very short term deal so they can keep them going on and on and on past the August 2nd deadline. So we’ll get more of Obama demanding higher taxes and refusing meaningful cuts; in fact, maybe that could just be the rest of his presidency. Then, in January 2013, we’ll get a new guy to negotiate with who will cut spending, and Obama will be exiled to Antarctica, as is our custom… or will be.

Do you think Obama is going to keep trying to get on TV after we kick him out of the presidency? That’s an awful thought; I’m glad I got rid of cable. Well, maybe he’ll just stick full-time to golfing… in Antarctica. Watch out for penguins, though; they’re filled with bloodlust.

* Senator Tom Harkin has referred to the people who don’t want to raise the debt ceiling as a “cult fringe”. You know, that cult fringe who don’t think you should just keep spending money you don’t have, a.k.a., people with jobs, a.k.a., a majority of Americans. Are you starting to think there is a disconnect between regular Americans and useless nitwits who spend of billions of dollars of other people’s money with no accountability? Maybe we should all have an ice cream social together to get to know each other better. Or maybe to find out even more, we should have the politicians all waterboarded and interrogated in Gitmo. Because we care.

* Romney is now polling neck and neck with Obama, the only Republican candidate so far to do so. I know we all hate Romney, but he does have this primary strategy where he wears us out and we eventually learn to tolerate him. And now he has this argument that he can win, and he’ll be like, “Well, who do you hate more? Me or Obama?” And we’ll all grudgingly say, “Obama.” And then Romney will say, “So what are your opinions again so I can say that’s what I always believed?” And then we’ll write down our beliefs for Romney so he doesn’t forget them.

Romney 2012: When you’ve given up on greatness and just want something better.

* Five Democrat representatives are calling on Allen West to apologize for what he said about Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, calling it “sexist.” That’s stupid. What West said was the opposite of sexist. He said Wasserman-Schultz was not a lady. That means he accepts her the same as his male colleagues. What a progressive.

* The bones of Adolph Hitler’s deputy, Rudolph Hess, were dug up and burned. That’s what we’re reduced to since we don’t have new Nazis to kill; we have to go rekill old ones and to make sure they don’t become zombies. I guess we could kill Commies instead, but even they’re getting hard to find (though Obama did appoint one to his cabinet). I guess we can just stick to killing terrorists, but they’re just never going to be as threatening as Nazis. When is America going to get a good enemy again?

* According to a scientific study, exposure to the American flag makes people lean Republican. Yet another advantage of Republicans being the party that sorta kinda likes this country. I don’t know if there is a symbol that causes people to vote Democrat, though. Maybe they could do a scientific study on people’s voting habits when you casually leave a hammer and sickle lying around.

* The Shuttle Atlantis has returned, so now that’s it: America is done with space. We’ve pretty much explored all of space anyway. Like we went in orbit around earth and… well, I think that was about it. I’ve heard talk that man once went to the moon back in the late sixties, but that sounds like an urban legend. If we can’t get to the moon now with our iPhones and internet, how could they do that way back with sixties technology while having to fend off hippies? Yeah, I just checked Snopes; that was made up.

* CERN has found that cosmic rays are a big factor in cloud formation. They don’t want anyone to talk about this since clouds are a big factor in the planet’s temperature and that would mean something beyond human control is a major contributor to global climate warming change. I don’t know why some people cling so bitterly to man-made climate change; if they really push themselves, they can get out of their rut and come up with some new looming, unprovable disaster to blame on people’s behavior. My suggestions: The activities of man are causing squirrels to become slightly larger over time. It doesn’t seem like much, but as squirrels become larger they’ll eat more, and eventually squirrel largeness will damage our food supply and cause mass starvation. OUT: Man-made climate change. IN: Man-made squirrel enlargement.

* In a new survey, a plurality said that spending cuts in government will increase jobs. And long term they’re right, but basically this is just people showing common sense and knowing that unchecked spending is very very bad. Plus, it’s a complete devastation of the Democrats’ argument. Let’s celebrate by digging up Keynes’s bones and burning them.

* Lots of good answers on what it sounds like a “Wasserman-Schultz” is, but only one can get HIGH PRAISE and it’s DamnCat with:

The orneriest, laziest, stupidest breed of mule there is.

DamnCat, you brighten all our days with your wit.

* This is just funny:

* So suddenly out of nowhere, we have this Gang of Six plan. When it looks like something might get accomplished, we always get a nice compromise plan to move deck chairs around and look busy while pretty much keeping the status quo. Obama sounds like he’s grudgingly for the plan, so you can rest assured it accomplishes nothing.

Cut, Cap, and Balance passed the House, though it’s not expected to pass the Senate. It’s an all spending cuts plan, though not nearly enough to get our budget back on track, but also goes way too far for Democrats to accept it.

This system just ain’t working, people; we have to change it. Might need a new Constitution with a lot more laws about Congress. Like more mentions of prison. If you mess up the economy this bad, prison. “Hey, all of you in Congress, time’s up — you’re going to prison. And you don’t get out until the $14 trillion in debt is paid off; we did confiscate all of your wealth to help pay it down, but that didn’t quite cover it. Now make room for the new guys coming in to replace you. Oh, and new guys, make sure the first item on your budget is MORE PRISONS FOR POLITICIANS.”

* If you wonder why Obama hasn’t had any plan, that’s because, as Jay Carney explained, “Leadership is not proposing a plan.” So when Obama is lying on the couch eating Cheetos and watching QVC, that’s called “leading”. And if we throw Obama out of office in 2012, he’ll be able to lead all day long.

* So like half our budget now is Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare — things that didn’t used to be the government’s business at all are now most of what it does. The main function of the federal government is going to be to hand out checks in the form of entitlements — checks it can’t afford. Can’t we find a way to ease out of this? I know a lot of people are now dependent on the government and will revolt if they’re cut, but can’t we go ahead and announce to a certain age group that you’re not going to receive any of these benefits, so be prepared? Just make sure it’s an age group that won’t get all worked up about it. “As your president, I have some bad news to deliver to our nation’s five-year-olds: You will not receive any Social Security and can’t expect Medicare to be there for you.” There’s going to be a lot of anger in our nation’s kindergartens, but think of how much smaller government will be sixty years from now.

* So Rupert Murdoch was hit with a pie, but then his 43-year-old wife jumped in with a flying kick that EXPLODED THE GUY’S HEAD!

Many liberals think Rupert Murdoch deserved a pie to the face because they don’t like him and they don’t know how to hate in degrees, because their minds are like those of children. If they decide you are on the other side, that means you must stand for absolutely everything they hate. And that means you deserve anything bad that happens. But remember any liberals who seem to approve of the pie throwing, because that means they’re fair game for a pie. And while we’re at it, we can throw shoes at their heads.

* Apparently Michelle Bachmann suffers CRIPPLING MIGRAINES. Numerous times a day, she’ll be talking normally and then suddenly start screaming and gripping her head. Sometimes the heads of other people around her are exploded. In fact, she spends 75% of the day curled up in a ball sobbing… so way less time than Barack Obama.

* The police conducted a nationwide raid, arresting sixteen members of the “Anonymous” hacking group. But they don’t have any pictures yet! I want to see what the hackers look like! Which Pokemon do they have on their t-shirts? What’s their combined weight total? How many of them still live with their parents? Anytime we arrest a bunch of anonymous hackers, it should be a national day of mockery.

* EA Sports is expanding in Austin, creating 300 more jobs there, and Governor Rick Perry spoke at the announcement, promoting video games. I keep hearing about Perry entering the presidential race, and it sure would be nice to have a president who is pro-video games. Me, if I were president, I would probably do nothing but play video games. Everyone would say, “Mr. President! We’re all scared about the economy and want you to make a bunch of new social programs and spend a lot of money!” And I’d be like, “Nope. Too busy playing video games.” I’d be like Coolidge… but with a lot more three stars on Angry Birds levels.

* Wisdom of the Day: “After the Son of Sam murders, NY TV ran a whole series of ‘Don’t Do Things Your Dog Tells You To Do’ ads.” –Michael Kupperman

* Allen West wrote an e-mail calling Debbie Wasserman-Schultz “vile, unprofessional, and despicable”. I don’t think anyone will dispute that. He also wrote that she is not a lady. That’s easy to see, too. If someone told me, “I have Wasserman-Schultz”, my first thought would not be, “That means you have… a lady.” Instead I would think you were referring to industrial equipment that assembles car doors or a maybe a genetic skin disease. What does a “Wasserman-Schultz” sound like to you? Best answer wins… wait for it… HIGH PRAISE!

* Obama has threatened to veto the Republicans’ “cut, cap, and balance” bill. He said, “I’m okay with balancing the budget and I’d like to avoid default, which could destroy our nation, but not if that involves any spending cuts. If anything, I want to spend even more money, and I can’t comprehend any reason I shouldn’t get what I want. So there’s nothing I will let be cut… except maybe some defense. Like I’ve been seeing this bill lately for drone strikes in Libya; anyone even have any idea what that’s about? If we cut that, though, then I’d just want the money in more social programs. People love those… and if they don’t, I’m sure they will eventually if I force them on people. Now excuse me, I have tee time.”

I’m starting to think we’re not going to get anything meaningful done with the budget while Obama is president.

* Harry Reid says the Senate will meet every day until the debt limit increase is passed. That’s Harry Reid, always doddering to action to get things done. Of course, they could have gotten this budget mess all sorted out way back when Democrats had majorities in the House and Senate, but now Reid is finally determined to get it done. What did America do to deserve such dynamic leadership? I’m guessing slavery.

* Wonder where all that tax money Obama and the Democrats won’t cut is going? Well, $900,000 is going for studying the size of gay men’s penises. You ask a regular person, “Hey, want to spot me $900,000 to study gay men’s penis sizes?” and the person would say, “That’s a huge sum of money and an idiotic thing to spend it on!” You ask the government, which only spends other people’s money, though, and they’re like, “Wow! What a bargain on finding out the sizes of gay men’s penises!” I’m starting to wonder if this system of giving nitwits in DC billions of our dollars to spend and the ability to confiscate more of our money when they feel like it is such a great idea. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about that just doesn’t seem well thought out.

* MSNBC is thinking of adding Al Sharpton to their lineup. I guess MSNBC finally decided to diversify their staff of red-faced white guys like Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz shouting incoherently and add a race-baiting bottom feeder. It really goes with their new slogan: “MSNBC: You’re now dumber for having watched us.”

* Speaking of dumber for having watched MSNBC, Rachel Maddow was trying to scare people on the voter ID law — which is rather hard, because having someone show a valid photo ID before voting just reeks so much of basic common sense — and she claimed that people with concealed carry permits are exempted from the law. A CONCEALED CARRY PERMIT IS A VALID PHOTO ID, IDIOT! People always talk about guns’ ability to kill, but their biggest power seems to be to cause certain people’s IQ to drop 60 points by the mere mention of them.

Also, since you can get a free photo ID, who exactly is going to be disenfranchised by this law other than the extremely lazy? And weren’t they already disenfranchised, since voting requires you to get up and do stuff? Is there really any argument against showing your ID to vote other than that you think voter fraud will help your party?

* John Hawkins of Right Wing News says the independent, conservative blogosphere — of which IMAO is a member — is dying. Traffic for IMAO actually peaked way back during the 2004 election. There wasn’t much of an increase for the 2008 election, and it’s been down for a while. Still, I’m hoping for some big things in 2012 (plus it will be IMAO’s tenth blogiversary), but I do wonder if there will be much traffic to keep going after that and I’ll have to join some bigger establishment blog to keep going. BTW, tell everyone to read IMAO — its news roundup is great!

* Wisdom of the Day: “What Obama says: ‘I can fix it!’ What he means: ‘Buy gold!'” –J.P. Freire

* Yesterday, I asked you what could be done to make soccer more interesting, and I really think the answer is nothing. Everything just seems lame when you add soccer to the mix. Like I thought of adding dinosaurs to soccer (the T-Rex has tiny, useless hands, so he seems like a good fit), but then I imagined dinosaurs playing soccer, and now I hate dinosaurs. Still, I said I’d give out HIGH PRAISE and KingJamesTheCapitalist wrote this:

I would make soccer more interesting by tying all the players to metal poles that allow them to hang above the arena just high enough to where their feet don’t touch the ground. Then you inter-space them appropriately for an even mach up put the ball in the middle and get a group of drunk college students to move the poles around so the players can hit the ball into the opposing teams goal.

That does sound kind of fun, so HIGH PRAISE for KingJamesTheCapitalist.

KingJamesTheCapitalist, we all aspire to have your wisdom.