Politics and other nightmares

Then vote that way, dammit!

Americans are more than twice as likely to identify themselves as conservative rather than liberal on economic issues, 46% to 20%. The gap is narrower on social issues, but conservatives still outnumber liberals, 38% to 28%.

[. . .]

Probably hard to get it right when your heart just isn't in it:

Howler of the campaign season so far. President Obama, speaking in Dever yesterday disparaging Mitt Romney's oft-touted business experience:

I actually like The Journal Gazette's editorial this morning about City Council's annexation debate. It notes correctly that the actual debate is not about whether to annex 2.3 acres where a dentist wants to build an office complex but about the tax abatement he wants as a condition of the annexation. It even praises Republican Councilmen Tom Smith and Russ Jehl for raising questions on a broader scale:

It isn't "equal pay for equal work" in the military. Serving in combat speeds up your promotions and the accompanying salary boost, and women aren't allowed to serve in combat. A couple of female soldiers are in federal court asking that the ban be lifted:

This sounds about right:

President Obama, in speech after speech, proudly makes the following point: Although we inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression, we have generated net new jobs every month, and while we need to do more, we are going in the right direction.

The gun-control crowd is being predicably opportunistic in seizing on the news that Indiana is now one of 10 states in which gun deaths outpace motor vehicle deaths -- 735 vs. 715, in 2009, the most recent year for which state-by-state information is available. Not that I blame them -- milestones are great pegs on which to hang your messages.

Do not be looking for one of these on either of my cats:

Some of the stuff the Barack Obama campaign is selling to raise money for the re-election effort is pretty unusual.

They would like you to get your pets involved with the campaign by offering doggie sweaters and “I Meow for Michelle” cat collars.

The War on Coal is going very nicely, thank you, and it looks like Indiana will be one of the early  casualties:

Last week the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a shocking drop in power sector coal consumption in the first quarter of 2012. Coal-fired power plants are now generating just 36 percent of U.S. electricity, versus 44.6 percent just one year ago. 

Who says there's nothing good about this lousy economy?

Traffic congestion dropped 30% last year from 2010 in the USA's 100 largest metropolitan areas, driven largely by higher gas prices and a spotty economic recovery, according to a new study by a Washington-state firm that tracks traffic flows.