Hallelujah -- farm subsudies may be up for grabs:
The Senate is expected to begin debate this week on a five-year farm and food aid bill that would save $9.3 billion by ending direct payments to farmers and replacing them with subsidized insurance programs for when the weather turns bad or prices go south.
Racism (or at least its cousin ethnic prejudice) rears its ugly head in the presidential campaign:
President Obama's top political strategist told Univision television that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would be making an "insult" to Hispanics if he picked Sen. Marco Rubio as his running mate in order to try to boost his showing with Hispanics.
Memo to Mitt Romney: If President Obama wishes you were more like John McCain, just keep on plugging way, because you're obviously doing something right:
Faced with deteriorating economic conditions and an unexpectedly aggressive Republican opponent, President Obama and his aides are expressing nostalgia for Sen. John McCain, the Republican opponent Obama defeated handily in the 2008 election.
Man, wished I could have been there:
Eric Holder, Barack Obama's attorney general and David Axelrod, his top political adviser had to be separated after squaring up during a furious row over attempts to impose White House operatives in the justice department.
Today's reading assignment is a two-parter on the Constitution. 1. Our "imbecilic" Constitution is the problem:
Even those of us who shudder at the thought of how close John Edwards got to the White House can admire him a little for his straightforward nonflinching self-assessment that almost amounted to an apology:
All those who have said I stink -- if I live long enough, you may turn out to have been right:
The distinctive "old person smell" you may have picked up on when visiting your grandparents most likely wasn't your imagination, a new study indicates.
The climate-change debate is one of those issues we've tossed into the great polarizing kettle. Either climate change is a catastrophe just around the corner requiring massive government intervention, or it's a lot of noise about nothing, perhaps even a hoax.
Can't make this stuff up. Apaprently, there is a "time-wasting gap" -- poor kids are spending more time than well-off children using their televisions and gadgets. Government actually spent millions to cause this problem, so now the government wants to spend millions to "fix" it:
Silly lower classes! Don't they realize this wonderful new technology is for self-improvement, not for pleasure? Something must be done.
Here's today's trivia question, which you may use to win a bar bet while you're fidgeting and waiting to run outside for a smoke. What's the largest Indiana city now left without a smoking ban affecting diners? The answer:
A new smoking ban takes effect Friday in Indianapolis, leaving South Bend as the largest among a dwindling number of Indiana cities that still allow restaurant and bar patrons to light up during a meal or a drink.
Indianapolis' most notorious liberal, the Star's Dan Carpenter, laments the deterioration of Wisconsin to a point where it is, alas, more like Indiana, that is, less civil, more divisive, less neighborly and more controlled by those nasty outside rightwing nut millionaires. Less liberal, in other words:
If we were to pick the one person most likely to push nanny statism absolutely as far as it can go, I'd probably nominate the mayor of New York:
Learning from Richard Lugar's mistakes -- who says politicians aren't educable?
Bob Kerrey has purchased a home in Nebraska.
The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate who registered to vote in Nebraska a day before he filed for office said Wednesday that he purchased a home in central Omaha at 415 N. 61st St. It's not far from the Dundee-Memorial Park-area home he had when last he lived in Nebraska.
Check out "A Month of No Nagging," fascinatingly instructive for any men who have had to put up with female nagging (that would be all of us) and any women who have been frustrated to the point of hysteria by their need to nag men (that would be all of them). Call it sexist if you will, but that is the way it breaks down:
Inch by inch, we reach the point of no return:
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, 49.1% of the US population lives in a household where at least one member is receiving government benefits:
The 49.1% of the population in a household that gets benefits is up from 30% in the early 1980s and 44.4% as recently as the third quarter of 2008.
New York Times exclusive -- Obama personally overseeing U.S. Intel's al Qaida "kill list" -- and the story wasnn't even the result of a leak:
"The little things that count" department:
Scientists say giving a stranger a small smile or even just making eye contact as you pass can have a huge impact on their feelings. To find out how tiny gestures affected people, researchers at Purdue University conducted tests on hundreds of students and found even the smallest amount of eye contact made them feel connected to others.
Apologizing (I think) for the Cubs:
CHICAGO | Theo Epstein expected some rough stretches. He just didn't envision anything like this.
A few hours after addressing his team's skid, the Chicago Cubs broke one of the longest losing streaks in franchise history, beating the San Diego Padres 11-7 on Monday.
Damn. Doc Watson, one of my favorite musicians, has died. Some have called his music "folk" or "roots" or "Americana." I'd probably call it "mountain music," but the labels don't matter. His virtuoso guitar playing and honest, authentic singing combined to make him a unique grand master of American music. I've worn out and replaced a couple of his albums (you remember the limited life of beloved vinyl).
