At the risk of again infuriating Catholics (let 'er rip, CED), I must comment on the poll of Catholics released in conjunction with the pope's visit to America. This caught my eye:
Yet, few parishioners overall said they go to confession, and most believed they could be good Roman Catholics without going to Mass.
Everybody knows politics are getting mean this season -- haven't we all been saying it? Still, this seems a little over the top:
MUNCIE -- A Republican voter registration deputy jailed Wednesday for attacking a newspaper reporter and hitting the Democratic 6th District congressional candidate could be back to work as early as today.
Evan Bayh, speaking of Hillary Clinton in the campaign ad for her running in Indiana: "She's got a spine of steel." That sounds good, but doesn't everyone who gets to this level of politics have a similar anatomy? You don't get to be a major-party presidential candidate by being a shrinking violet.
Oh, and Barack Obama, speaking of Bayh's early decision to endorse Clinton:
I finally caught "The Illusionist" on cable, and I was very disappointed in it, for the same reason I was disappointed in "The Sixth Sense." The only reason for each to exist is the stunning shocker of an ending -- in the one case, finding out somebody is dead you thought was alive, and in the other, finding out someone you thought was dead is really alive. If you know the ending or suspect it, it pretty much spoils the movie for you.
If you want to know what a politician really means, listen to the politician's spouse:
Obama, like her husband a Harvard-trained lawyer, listened and then spoke off the cuff.
Most Americans, she said, don't want much.
"They don't want the whole pie," she told the women. "There are some who do, but most Americans feel blessed just being able to thrive a little bit. But that is becoming even more out of reach."
[. . .]
I can sympathize with these people:
WESTFIELD, Ind. -- Christine Dedon is tired of seeing cars blast down neighborhood streets at more than 20 mph over the speed limit.
The mother of three lives in Village Farms subdivision, where a city traffic study spotted cars traveling 60 mph on Greyhound Pass, which has a posted speed limit of 25 mph.
{. . .]
Competition -- gotta love it:
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — In a bid to reinvigorate lackluster U.S. traffic, Starbucks (SBUX) on Tuesday will introduce an everyday brew called Pike Place Roast and for 30 minutes will hand out free 8-ounce samples.
Of all the ostentatious consumers out there -- "Look at the car I'm driving and the clothes I'm wearing, you pitiful, no-taste slobs!" -- wine snobs are the most annoying. So make a note of this to use as ammunition the test time some pretentious, cheese-nibbling, Cabernet-sipping buffoon starts prattling on:
I just had to go through O'Hare on my recent trip to Texas, and all I can is "Amen!"
Chicago's O'Hare International, the most frequented airport for passengers leaving Indianapolis International Airport, is also the nation's most stressful. That's according to a survey conducted by U.S. News and World Report, which placed O'Hare at the top of its "Airport Misery Index."
It should come as no great shock that people are starting to talk about the breakup of the GOP-libertarian coalition:
