* Intrade has Romney back up to about a 75% chance of winning the Florida primary and 80% chance of winning the nomination. It looks like the brief flirtation with Newt has ended as quickly and as quietly as the last time. And it’s not like Newt has done anything specific to lose support (and neither did he last time either), it’s just people sort of sober up and say, “I don’t know if this is a great idea.”

Still, it was nice to imagine for a bit that Romney wasn’t going to be our nominee. We can still hold out hopes for a brokered convention. What’s life without more hopes to see dashed?

* Timothy Geithner says a second term for him is unlikely. He wants to spend more time with his family learning to use Turbo Tax.

Maybe we should give him a going away party. Oh wait, we have no money for that. Instead, we should put him on an ice floe and push him out to sea.

* Only one of the presidential candidates is vowing to conquer space: Newt Gingrich. He has plans for a permanent moon base in eight years, and then we head to Mars. As the years go by, though, it’s become obvious that getting a man on the moon was a one time fluke of competency by the federal government, and we can hardly count on them to repeat that feat — at least not without Soviets breathing down our necks.

Still, we need to get to space. Eventually, abandoning Earth and starting a libertarian colony on Mars will be the last option left to save ourselves.

* Jay Leno is getting sued by Sikhs for showing a picture of one of their holy buildings, the Golden Temple, and claiming it is Mitt Romney’s summer home. Come on. I’m all for pretending to respect other religions, but if you make a giant golden temple, people are going to joke about it being a rich man’s summer home. That’s just reality. Deal with it.

* So Warren Buffet has a secretary who is either paid like a rich executive or just really horrible at doing her taxes. And because of her we’re supposed to take money from people who have demonstrated they know how to be smart with money and give it to people in Washington D.C. who have repeatedly demonstrated they’re complete idiots with money.

I’m getting tired of this stupidity. We just need to start deporting people. I don’t care where. There are just too many idiots and we need them out of the way if we want to get this country on track.

* Wisdom of the Day from Drew Cline:

I don’t mind that Obama uses a TelePrompter. I do mind that he won’t acknowledge it took the job of a union-wage cue card holder.

* How thick is your bubble?

How Thick Is Your Bubble? Guest Score » 11 out of 20  (55% )  Result   On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 9 and 12. In other words, even if you’re part of the new upper class, you’ve had a lot of exposure to the rest of America. Quiz School Take this quiz & get your score

* I’m in the New York Post again!

Yeah, I know I’ve been having a column with them about once a week, but aren’t you amazed each time? Anyway, this one is on why it’s good to have a food stamp president and that government dependency is just a good idea.

Really, who would you rather take care of you? Cold, self-interested individuals or a warm, caring government?

* Obama gave his State of Union speech last night. I did not watch it. I’m paid enough for that. Sounds like it was a basically a rehash of all his previous ideas like they were brand new ideas. It’s like we’ve tried a little of the same and that didn’t work, so Obama’s solution is we need even more of the same. Plus, Obama added some more harping on fairness.

Yes, really; a rich Democrat whining about fairness. How innovative. It really is the party of new ideas.

And isn’t that just what the economy needs: more whining about fairness? No one even pretends taxing the rich will help the economy, but the Democrat can’t get off that because whining is more important to them than success as a nation.

Barack Obama is not a serious person and apparently has no intentions of ever being so. People keep talking about how weak the Republican field is, but our multiple bad choice sure beats the Democrats single horrible choice. We aren’t going to be forced to run a proven failure for president, so advantage us.

* One thing I’ve been wondering. With all the focus on the evil millionaires, is anyone going to point out how Obama is rich. And it really does seems unfair how rich he is considering he has no useful skills and has produced no goods or services his entire life. If Obama really wants to attack our economic system as unfair, shouldn’t he hold himself up as the ultimate example? “You’re working hard every day and barely getting by. I’m completely useless and only had previously held made up jobs like community organizer and yet somehow ended up rich. Obviously, the system is rigged. I won’t rest until we live in a fair country — a place where a useless person like me lives destitute on the street instead of playing golf every other day.” As I’ve said before, we’d take the left more seriously if they held themselves up as the examples of the ills they don’t like, but that would take self-awareness so it’s not going to happen.

* According to his tax returns, Romney gave over 15% of his income to charity in 2010-2011. And what are people upset at? Not more of that was taken by the government to be wasted by idiots in DC.

Looking at Obama back in 2000-2004 before much of a spotlight was on him, Obama gave less than one percent to charity. You know, because he’s a liberal and his charity is to urge the government to seize other people’s money. And before Biden was vice president, he gave an average of $369 dollars a year to charity. Come on! These are the same people complaining about the greedy rich, but they cling to their own money more tightly than anyone else. Where is the press on this extreme hypocrisy? Obviously anytime the left is complaining about greed in others, it’s nothing but projection. And now we know where they get this impulse for taxation — they know how greedy they are and can’t imagine someone giving up money to help others unless it is forcibly taken. And in the end, what’s more greedy than only spending other people’s money to help the needy?

* Wisdom of the Day from Fred Thompson:

Warren Buffett now says his offer to help pay down the natl debt was merely “symbolic.” Ah… sorta like an Obama “stimulus” program.

* Well, I had some doubts about Newt Gingrich, but it’s time to give those up since FRED THOMPSON HAS ENDORSED HIM!

As you may recall, after careful consideration, IMAO decided to endorse Fred Thompson in the 2008 primary.

Fred Thompson Fact: If you have doubts about Newt’s electability, Fred Thompson will punch you in the face so hard your body will explode.

* While Fred Thompson was endorsing Newt last night, there was the 34,567th Republican debate going on — which I assume will be the last since they’re rather pointless now that Fred Thompson has told us who to choose. Romney was on the attack –hitting Newt on his ties to Fannie and Freddie — and actually came off a little desperate. And for some reason they didn’t allow the audience to make any noise, which seemed to hamper Newt who always likes getting the audience riled. Anyway, I only watched part of it; it was boring. And I had a lot of important things to do in Skyrim.

* Romney released his tax returns and he paid $6.2 million in taxes in the last two years. Think of it; that’s millions of dollars that could have been invested in business or given to charity to help people, but instead that money went to Washington to die. It’s very sad.

* Rand Paul was detained by the TSA for not wanting them to touch his junk. The White House was quick to defend the TSA saying, “We’ll touch whoever’s junk we want whenever we feel like it! Your junk is our property!”

Well, there’s another contrast the Republicans can make with Obama for the 2012: The Democrats are the party of junk-touching. I don’t know how big the pervert vote is, but I don’t think it will be enough to ensure Obama a win.

* A memo from Larry Summers has revealed what was the strategy for Obama’s economics plans, and it ends up it was more about advancing a liberal agenda of green nonsense and what not than actually helping the economy. Plus they knew they were heading towards a cliff on debt but decided not to care.

And it’s known that Warren Buffet is going to be a guest for the State of the Union tonight to help Obama push for more taxes on the rich because that will help the economy by…

There is no logical conclusion to that sentence.

As bad as the Republican primary has looked, it’s important to remember that the least serious candidate for president is the incumbent.

* Wisdom of the Day from Basil:

What happens if an unelectable Republican runs against an unreelectable Democrat?

* So, are we really doing this? Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary — and by a large margin. And now polls have him leading in Florida. This seems a little… crazy.

I mean, I know we all don’t like Mitt Romney, and New Gingrich is very good at not being Mitt Romney, but the guy ends up angering us about as much as the left. And the general American population doesn’t like him.

Then again, he’s crazy. Maybe in these weird times, that’s what we need. Plus he has actual accomplishments to run on and was Speaker of the House when we last actually balanced the budget. And he’ll probably go after Obama and go after him hard. Hopefully he’ll get under Obama’s skin more than everyone else will get under his. And he’ll drive the left insane, and the more insane they are, the more that helps us in making them and their candidates unelectable.

Jonah Goldberg has a good article on Newt. The establishment conservatives are freaking out about this “unelectable” candidate, but if these are extraordinary times, nominating an extreme moderate like Romney is tantamount to giving up. And in the long run, that’s the suicidal move.

* BTW, Chuck Norris has endorsed Newt Gingrich. Roundhouse kick!

* So what’s Obama up to? Knowing him, it’s nothing that would be useful to anyone. Oh yeah, he’s preparing for his State of the Union speech Tuesday. I can tell you the State of the Union now: Not very good because we have an awful president. I doubt that’s what Obama will say, though, as this will really be a campaign speech for him.

“You like that last four years and want more of that?” No that’s not going to work…

“Wanna see how many more trillions I can spend?” No, that won’t help either. He’s really going to be a tough sell.

“The Republicans are extremists!” Not great either, but it’s about all he has.

* Words of Wisdom from Jim Geraghty:

When you watch The Phantom Menace in 3-D, the acting is upgraded to two-dimensional.

* Man, I always have trouble with these on Monday as I just don’t pay much attention to the news on the weekends. Plus, all of it right now is “Newt! Newt! Newt!” So what do you all think? The choice is basically Romney or Newt. Or pointlessly hope for a brokered convention. Romney is supposed to be electable… but he’s also kind of pointless. And Newt… well, he’s going to be a challenge. And he might not even be that good as president as he fancies himself an intellectual which I distrust. It’s like Sophie’s Choice if Sophie didn’t really like either of her kids.

* So, Newt surged to be frontrunner a month or so back and then everyone just kind of faded on him because, well, he’s Newt and he’s unstable. But I guess Romney marching to the nomination was just too bitter a pill to swallow as — BOOM! — Newt is surging in popularity again and it’s looking like he’s going to win South Carolina. Are we really going to do this?

Yeah, it’s fun to see Newt yell at moderators and we want to see him do that at Obama too, but the guy says some crazy stuff. And not always crazy conservative stuff. He’s a bomb, and we never know if he’s going to blow up the enemy or explode in our faces.

Then again, Romney is so boring and useless. It’s going to be a big effort to get anything done about the debt and the size of government, and I don’t see moderate Romney making the attempt. I’m almost of the mind that if we’re going to fail, let’s at least fail spectacularly.

So maybe we should stand behind Newt… but far behind. With a bomb shield in between us.

* BTW, here’s video from last night’s debate of Newt belittling the moderator for bringing up Newt’s crazy personal life:

I have to admit, that’s fun to watch. And if you imagine Obama in place of the moderator, that would be awesome. Would it win an election? I don’t know. But it just seems like someone really needs to publicly lecture Obama on how much he sucks.

* BTW, is Rick Santorum still around? Despite winning Iowa and doing well other places, no one seems to talk about him and everyone acts like the race is Romney and Newt. I think he’s just too whiny for people to envision as president. Plus, I’ve still never understood what his qualifications are supposed to be as he served as Senator a little while but I don’t know of anything too important he’s done. Still, he brought the long knives to the debate last night and was the first person to really go after Romney on Romneycare. If only Tim Pawlenty could have done the same.

* Obama went to Disney World. I heard no one was able to wear those Mickey ears hats as Obama was convinced they were making fun of him.

Know what, it just looks right him standing in front of Cinderella’s castle. Maybe he should stay there and be the Disney World president who tourists come to get photos with… you know, and someone more serious could handle the actual presidenting job. Or Newt.

* Wisdom of the Day from Jon G.:

Santorum would make a good town elder in Footloose.

* A monkey thought to be extinct has been rediscovered in the jungles of Borneo. Man, every time I think we’re making progress…

* So it’s looks like Rick Perry is dropping out. He seemed like such a good candidate with his conservative credentials and Texas jobs record, but then in the debates he appeared inebriated, confused, and like he wasn’t completely familiar with the English language. It was just a scary prospect to make him our nominee. Also, him calling most Republicans “heartless” for not wanting to pay for college tuition of illegal aliens indicated that maybe he didn’t have a firm a grasp of conservative principles as we thought.

It seems strange he’d drop out only two days before the South Carolina primary… unless he really wants to see Mitt Romney defeated. Intrade had Gingrich with an 8% chance of winning that primary, but now he’s jumped to 30%. So maybe there is a chance to finally bring down the establishment candidate Romney who is being shoved down our throats and instead elect the insurgent… former Speaker of the House.

What are we trying to do again?

* Iowa said that Santorum actually won their primary caucus by 34 votes… but they can’t certify it cause pigs done ate the votes or something. Why do we let Iowa be the first primary state to vote? If they can’t even get a simple vote together, I’m starting to wonder why we even let them be a state.

* Obama has decided not to approve the Keystone pipeline. It would have provided oil and jobs, but it’s not like we really need any of that right now. What it also would have done is make environmentalists unhappy, and can you really put a price tag on the happiness of environmentalists? If you did, it would apparently be billions of dollars.

* Obama is claiming in new ads that evil billionaires are after him. Oh no, poor millionaire being bullied by billionaires!

Hey, if you ever want a good example of a millionaire who has done nothing useful to society to earn it, you got a great example sitting right there in the White House. What useful thing has Obama ever done that would lead to him being rich? Community organizer? His success does seem like an indictment of capitalism.

* According to a recent poll, 52% of people think Obama has accomplished “not much” or “little or nothing.” So next time someone charges that Obama has ruined the economy, he can point to this poll and say, “No, most people say I’ve hardly done anything at all.”

* Wisdom of the Day from Brian Lehman:

Movies are best enjoyed knowing nothing about guns, computers, science, or human nature.

* I finally figured out what’s bothered me so much about all the anti-SOPA stuff. It’s that a lot of people outraged by it are the same people who are for ignorant politicians regulating everything else in our lives. It’s like they don’t care if we’re free in the real world, but they just want to pretend to be free online. Why can’t they muster this outrage when know-nothing idiots tell us what light bulbs we can buy or people who’ve never even held a gun try to dictate how they should be made?

And really, the government has more of a claim to regulate the internet than other things since it created the internet — or at least Senators Al Gore and Ted Stevens did when they duct taped together a bunch of tubes.

* There was the 840th Republican debate last night. I only caught a bit of it, but apparently it was one of Romney’s worst debates. Of course, it doesn’t really matter as we’re only a few more primaries away from where we stop pretending someone else might be the nominee. The main thing now is to watch Romney talk policy and see if we can now get energized by him to stand with him against Obama.

Not quite feeling it yet. Maybe I need to take another blue pill.

* Huntsman wasn’t a part of the debate as he finally realized the inevitable that he wasn’t going to turn a third place finish in New Hampshire into the presidency. If you’re going to run for the Republican nomination, you have to at least act like you’re not ashamed of Republicans.

Maybe he should have made it more known that he can speak Chinese. That totally should have clinched it for him.

* Obama says he plans to shrink government. Yeah, we totally believe him on that. And it was a great pitch: “I’m going to shrink government smaller than you’ve ever seen in your lifetime. By the way, give me 1.2 trillion more dollars.”

I know Obama is desperate about his reelection chances, but he has to try to make some claims that are at least somewhat plausible. Like instead, he should have said, “I plan to increase government at a slower rate than I did before.” I still wouldn’t believe that — he probably will increase it slower because of more Republicans in Congress, not because it was his “plan” — but it’s more plausible.

* So, have you seen the new Newsweek cover? My first reaction was “I don’t remember writing a satire piece for Newsweek.” Oh, Newsweek claims it’s supposed to be serious. If so, then why did they hire Andrew Sullivan to write it?

Really, that’s the sort of trolling that would be shameful if done on my blog, but for a magazine trying to pretend it’s still respectful? Just remember not to urinate on a copy of Newsweek as it’s wrong to pee on corpses.

* A Canadian doctor is suggesting that patients not be told the sex of their unborn baby so as to stop gender-based abortions. I guess that’s… one way to go about stopping that.

Who would have guessed killing babies could lead to other ethical dilemmas?

* Wisdom of the Day from Derek Hunter:

Same media that wouldn’t show cartoons of Muhammad for fear of enraging the Muslim world runs the urine pictures/video non-stop.

* Much like with evolution, there is a new controversy about teaching about global warming in the classroom. We’re always going to have controversy over what’s taught in school because having the government pick what your kids should learn is just begging for trouble. That’s why public schools are always going to be a round peg shoved into the square hole of our concept of liberty.

Here’s my idea: Just don’t teach science in public school. Most of what I was taught as scientific fact as a kid is outdated now, so what’s the point? I know we have like a dozen years of education to fill and science seems like a good filler, but why don’t instead we just teach kids the scientific method and if they want to know what the current consensus is they can look it up on Wikipedia. The internet is also science.

* Sorry, been a bad week for blogging for me. Good news: I’m making some progress on my next book which I promise to be the funniest book ever and solve all our nation’s problems. It might create new problems for other nations, but that’s not my concern.

* Good news: Conservatives still more popular a political identification than moderate or liberal. Of course, I wonder how many “moderates” are really liberals to chicken to call themselves liberals. And fringe liberals love to think they’re moderate and reasonable. So while we shouldn’t trust liberals, we extra shouldn’t trust moderates as they’re probably just confused liberals.

* Obama wants another $1.2 trillion in tax dollars to… I guess to have something to do. I don’t think he knows anything to do as president other than spend money. Maybe people need to just show him a new activity and that would help slow down the deficit. I bet he would be good at… um… maybe people could just send him to the store to fetch things. Just make sure to tell him he’s really smart whether he succeeds or not.

* What’s up with Haley Barbour? It’s like he was all, “Now that I’m done being governor, I’m going to flood the state with murderers so no one can ever rule it again.” I mean, that’s the only logical explanation I can come up with so far as he hasn’t offered any.

* Apparently, American troops are peeing on dead Taliban. Is Obama cutting troop funding so much that troops don’t even have proper latrines and instead have to rely on dead Taliban for relieving themselves? This is an outrage; someone has to hold Obama accountable.

* Kinda odd for the Daily Show to go after someone using harsh rhetoric against the Tea Party, but here you go. Pretty funny.

It wouldn’t hurt for more people to go after liberal hypocrisy on civility. The right might actually might listen to the left if they said things like, “Here’s example of where we went over the line; try not to be like us.” But they’re never that self-aware.

* If Romney likes firing people, know what he should have been? A religious organization. The Supreme Court has ruled that if someone has any ministry duties, they can be fired for whatever reason and can’t sue for job discrimination. So there’s an actual extra freedom religion has, and it was supported in a 9-0 decision. So we’re always thinking everything is going to hell in a handbasket lately, but there’s some good news here and there. So do you think other businesses are going to become more religious so they can have more control over their own hiring and firing? Wouldn’t be the worst thing ever.

* An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed in a car bomb. But explosions are so common in the Middle East, they consider that a death by natural causes.

So who was responsible? The CIA? Mossad? Teenagers? Yeah, probably punk teenagers. Lou, cancel the prom!

* Warren Buffet said he should be paying more in taxes. So he was told he can just go ahead and write a check and do that. And his response: “No, you do that!” What a little weasel. I mean, he obviously understands giving the government more of his money is basically just tossing it in a black hole and pointless, yet he wants to forcefully confiscate other people’s money for this? I’m starting to think maybe the government should confiscate his money and give it to more responsible, more honest billionaires.

* Hostess has filed for bankruptcy. We all thought Michelle Obama’s healthy eating crusade was funny, but now it’s destroying jobs. Michelle, don’t let your hatred of fat kids destroy the American economy!

* Well, that’s all I have time for today. What did you all find newsworthy today? Hmm. That’s very interesting. Tell me more!

* Going to have to skimp on the post today as it’s been kind of a crazy week. Anyway, you know what’s going on: Romney won New Hampshire, it’s inevitable he’s the nominee so let’s prepare for Romney vs. Obama, blah blah blah.

* Well, one other thing. Feel like I should link to one of the few times Ron Paul makes sense while the other candidates are talking nonsense. The way the other “conservative” candidate have been going after Romney’s business experience is disgusting.

* Also, I have to mention this.

Citing ongoing threats from nuclear proliferation, climate change, and the need to find sustainable and safe sources of energy, scientists moved the “Doomsday Clock” one minute closer to midnight on Tuesday.

You understand this is like saying “Citing how cute and lovable they are, scientists played with My Little Ponies and brushed each others hair.” It may involve “scientists” (though I haven’t seen their credentials), but it has nothing to do with science. Science is not arbitrarily moving hands on a giant toy clock based on predictions the scientific method can’t even begin to make. We really need more distinction between “science” and “things people called scientists are doing and saying” as the latter often isn’t science but simply “idiocy”.

* Well, that’s it. Be honorable, ronin.

* Well, I think I’m done and ready to declare Romney our nominee. There is a lot — a lot — I don’t like about Romney, but when the other Republicans are attacking him for being a capitalist, I’m pretty much done with everyone else and ready to embrace the inevitable. I mean, really, the last minute ploy is to come at Romney from the left? And the last thing this economy needs is people acting all uncomfortable with how the free market works. It’s like everyone is going Huntsman and forgetting they’re running in a Republican primary.

* Romney made a statement about how it’s nice to be able to fire people who give you bad service — like a lot of people can’t do with those who provides their health insurance or any service associated with government — and now political hacks (including, again, some “Republicans” running against him in the primary) are piling on. I notice that when Romney gets hit with dumb attacks, I immediately forget all his faults and go into defense mode. Well, that’s a preview of what the rest of the year is going to be like as liberals learn who their target is and come up with every dumb attack they can. It would be nice to have someone to root for, but we’ll just have to satisfy ourselves knocking down twits.

And wouldn’t it be awesome if Romney became president and did nothing but fire people?

* BTW, there is the New Hampshire primary today. Doesn’t seem to be getting as much attention as Iowa because Romney is expected to run away with it. There’s a little bit of drama on who will get second place as it might be Huntsman’s last and only hurrah. Of course, there is no prize for second place in the primary as a lot of Republican candidates don’t seem to understand.

* So Obama’s chief of staff is resigning. I don’t think he probably shoulders most of the blame for why the president is so unpopular, though. If you want to fire who’s really responsible, we can do that in November. Expect a big jump in the president’s popularity after that.

* In 2009, Obama had a big lavish Alice in Wonderland party, but we never heard of it because the press were nice enough not to mention it since they thought a big lavish party held by the Obama’s would make him look bad with a recession going on. And that leads us to a big advantage to a Republican president: The press will actually hold him accountable.

* Obama has banned mining for uranium around the Grand Canyon. Where are we supposed to get our uranium, then? It’s like Obama hates this country. And is uncomfortable with the thought of us having nuclear weapons.

* Wisdom of the Day from John Podhoretz:

Todd Palin endorses Newt. In other news, my daughter just ate a tomato.

* As we settle in to having Romney as our nominee, we might as well work on some more slogans for him. Here’s a new one I came up with:

“Romney: He just seems like a president”

BTW, Romney campaign, I’m available for consulting work. I’m very expensive… which means I’m very good.

* If we want to get more people to pay attention to the debt crisis, we need to learn from global warming on how to present it.

Think of it: The next time the president tries to raise the debt ceiling and spend our way out of debt, panicked scientists rush to the president and say, “According to our computer models, if you keep adding to a number, it gets bigger.”

He’d probably demand they recheck their data, and they would say, “It’s undeniable: Only subtraction reduces the debt.” And the president would have to listen to them, because they’d be wearing lab coats.

Yes, it’s a new New York Post column by me, Frank J. Fleming. Go read it and have fun.

* So there were two Republican debates over the weekend. I watched the one Saturday but not the one Sunday morning because it was on Sunday morning. Anyway, the Saturday one was awful. They spent 15 minutes talking about whether states should theoretically be able to ban contraception — because that’s the big issue of the day. And the next two questions were on gay marriage because you know how many Republicans there are out there waiting to hear the candidates talk more about gay marriage before they make their decision.

Why do we have moderators of Republican debates who have no idea what Republicans actually care about? This is the heart of media bias: Even if these people tried as hard as they could to be fair to conservatives, they don’t understand them enough to represent their views. Liberals are just ignorant, and that’s fine and dandy except in a Republican primary debate.

* BTW, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee. Before one of you whines (and you should know, conservatives don’t whine) that barely any of the voting has happened yet, I’m just telling you what reality is. With how Romney is doing in the polls and how none of the other candidates have been able to lay a finger on him — and have barely even tried in the recent debates — it’s a done deal. If you don’t want Romney to be the Republican nominee, you better pray for a meteor because that’s what it will take to stop him now. Reality, dudes.

For the rest of us, we can start working on a Romney slogan. “Romney: Clearly not Obama”. Best I can come up with so far.

* So Obama is bypassing the Constitution again to do non-recess recess appointments, and Sunny is on the case:

* Illinois is apparently bouncing checks on lottery winnings. First off, don’t play the lottery — do something useful with your money. Second, don’t play the lottery in Chicago because you can’t trust these people.

Remember, Chicago is where Obama got all his political knowledge. What checks do you think he’s going to start bouncing?

* Wisdom of the Day from Ace of Spades:

protip: the best people to rebut a charge that a candidate has courted Nazis are probably not the Nazis who have been successfully courted.

* Has your main complaint about ants been that their jaws aren’t massive enough? Well, then it’s Science! to the rescue! Yes, Science! is making ant heads bigger because… it can. And if you’re all like, “I don’t like ants with massive heads and jaws!” then you’re anti-science. Stop standing in the way of progress, progress towards… a more powerful ant future, I guess.

So we can make ants with larger heads, but we can’t even get to the moon anymore? Which is too bad because that would be a good place to get away from the massive-jawed ants.

* I will be on Monica Crowley’s radio show this weekend. I’ll be on probably around 2:30pm if you’re in New York, but the show airs at lots of different times on lots of different stations, so check your local listings. Hopefully it will also appear online.

* I was all okay with Romney being a nothing squish taking office and trying not to rock the boat as all moderates do, but then I realized something: No one becomes the president without aiming for greatness when there (except for Coolidge, of course). So what will Mitt Romney do to try and be known as great? If you consider him really a moderate at heart, what would a moderate do that he thinks is significant? It’s kind of a scary question.

* GM is recalling 8,000 Chevy Volts because they catch fire. That’s right: They took the explosive fuel out of the car and somehow made it more flammable. But it’s saving the environment — if you consider the insides of a volcano part of the environment.

The thing is, I don’t think they’ve sold 8,000 Volts. So where are most of them? I hope someone is keeping track of them. I’d hate to think they’re out there, lurking, waiting to burn us all down.

Now I get the Volts’s strategy to save the environment: Kill the humans and burn down their stuff!

* Hey I have a great idea: I don’t agree with someone’s politics, but instead of arguing on that I’ll just go after how they mourned the loss of a child. Some people trade their humanity for their partisanship, and their politics end up less like reasoned stances on issues and more like a mental disease. People like that should be locked up in asylum and injected with stuff. I don’t care with what.

* So who are the biggest religious persecutors in the world? Number one is North Korea, and usually commies have been high on the list, but the rest of the top ten is now all Muslim countries. I don’t know if anyone else has notices this, but do some Muslims seem a little insecure when their religion is challenged?

* Scientists have made chimera monkeys, combining six monkeys into one super monkey. Well, it actually just seems like another regular monkey, yet somehow I know this could lead to apes taking over the world. Shouldn’t it be rule number one when deciding whether an experiment is ethical that scientists ask themselves, “Could this possibly lead to The Planet of the Apes”?

* So Obama is making recess appointments even though Congress isn’t in recess. Well, sometimes you just have to say, “Yeah, the Constitution is important, but it’s not more important than the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”

We can’t always expect Obama to wait for Congressional approval; sometimes, we just need to respect his judgement. And so far he’s shown the sort of judgement that… well, he hasn’t ever accidentally set himself on fire.

* Michelle Bachmann is out of the presidential race. She seemed to flare out the quickest of all the presidential candidates who temporarily were frontrunner. I guess it was the “Gardasil makes you retarded” thing. Republicans are very wary of the nut charge (well, other than Ron Paul supporters… who mainly aren’t Republicans) and that was just a little much. Bachmann has some great enthusiasm and I liked her in a lot of the debates, but you have to control the crazy eyes.

* Rick Perry is staying in the race, though. I guess he’s still hoping there’s time for the anti-Romney vote to rally behind another candidate, but are we going to give Perry a second try? Republicans seem to like candidates who have mastery of at least one language, and Perry’s debate performances did not demonstrate that. How would he do against Obama? Maybe he could just hold up his record in Texas and not speak.

* Hey, remember how in 2008 we temporarily rallied behind Romney as a last ditch effort to stop McCain? So maybe things are a bit better this year since we’re instead trying to find someone to rally behind to stop Romney. Just looking on the bright side of things.

* What’s the one thing in government the Democrats are eager to cut? That’s right: the military. If only we could get them to trade that for cuts in things that actually really really need to be cut.

Probably not under this president.

* A Daily Beast article asks why are the youth rallying behind old man Ron Paul who looks like one of the criminals Scooby Doo would uncover. I say it’s because young people are stupid.

I don’t know what to add to that.

* Georgia is starting a new ad campaign to inform people that fat kids get made fun of. If you want to stop childhood obesity, just put up pictures of a scowling Michelle Obama with the words, “If you’re overweight, she’ll come after you.”

* Poisoned cat meat killed a Chinese tycoon. I don’t want to make fun of other cultures, but, ha! Look at that silly other culture!

* Wisdom of the Day from Fred Thompson:

Carney asked if Obama admin acting like a “monarchy.” Ridiculous. If it were a monarchy, Michelle would at least let us eat cake.

* A Mexican grand warlock has predicted that Obama will be defeated in 2012. So there you go: Mexican warlocks making the predictions American warlocks won’t.

* Well, that was a nice break. A week of no political writing. Which means I’m going to have to ease myself back in here. Anyway, it’s now 2012 — a presidential election year! Exciting! I mean, we read about politics all the time, but this is when it starts becoming everyone’s interest. So, will we be able to get rid of Obama? Stay tuned to IMAO to find out as we’ll be the only one reporting on it!

* BTW, I did post a couple things during my vacation. I had a new column in the New York Post, and got an Axe Cop parody of my book cover. Axe Cop might be a good symbol for the Tea Party. He’d cut government. With an axe.

* So what’s in the news… Oh, Iowa. How exciting. I guess the caucus is today, and then we don’t need to speak of Iowa again for another four years. Of interest will be how well Ron Paul does as that will tell us how easily we can dismiss the whole thing as idiotic. Then it’s on to New Hampshire, and barring meteors or other unforeseen events, Romney will be pretty close to sewing the whole thing up leading I’m quite sure to a national discussion on Mormonism until November.

Hey, we had our chance to bring down Romney, but no one was able to land a blow on him despite him seeming to have a glass jaw with Romneycare. Well, if we couldn’t bring him down, hopefully that means Obama won’t be able to either. Anyway, it’s nice having a candidate we openly despise — that means it will be hard for us to be disappointed. Maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised.

But probably not.

* In other news, Iran is being threatening again. Or is still being threatening. Is someone going to do something about them and the nukes they’re working on? Obama probably won’t, but Israel, you’re right there; why don’t you do something? It’s not like whatever you do will cause the Middle East to like you less. I say go crazy.

* Crowder has a new video on debating liberals about Occupy Wall Street:

I find the best argument to be “Shut up, hippie!” and them punch them in the face. No good retort to that.

* And that’s it for now. Tune in tomorrow for a very important discussion of the Iowa results! 2012 only gets more exciting from here! I like exclamation points!