Although I am far too young to have heard this live, Jack Benny, who milked his skinflint persona for all its comic worth, gave us a classic on the radio:

Gun-brandishing Robber: Your money or your life!

Benny:

Robber: Well? I don't have all day!

Benny: I'm thinking! I'm thinking!

The modern Media and Government Establishments, with their endless prevarications, have forgotten a truth Mr. Benny could convey with humor: sometimes, there is only one reasonable choice, and practical considerations don't enter into it.

especially to the ticket-holders. Out in the free areas of the Mall, even in the closer-in sections, we needed the Jumbotrons to see what was transpiring, but there was no problem with access. We were permitted to bring backpacks, chairs, blankets etc. etc., although that fact wasn't well-publicised (I found this out reading the Washington Post blog on the 19th). So it wasn't bad, in terms of comfort, although, it was crowded, and cold.

I'm certain all these reactionary sophists will cleave irrevocably to their ironclad principles of "if the President does it; it must be legal" and "we must always agree 100% with the Commander in Chief" once Obama takes the oath of office. I'm certain. Especially when he starts the process of closing Gitmo, reverses "don't ask; don't tell," removes the Gag order, and puts funding for stem cell research and fighting global warming in the budget. They'll just be springing to his defense.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com

and

http://www.electoral-vote.com

are both calling for a pick-up of 7, to a 58 seat majority. 538 (the best site for electoral polling/modelling out there) shows Minnesota and Mississippi in the tilts/leans GOP categories, which, if they both go, would give us 60 (with Lieberman). One more (Kentucky, Georgia, which was tied as of today, or Texas), and it's all Dems plus Bernie Sanders.

One-a-Day. Much, much cheaper (someone already mentioned the vitamin D fortified milk) and they keep through the long winters. But, Our Lady of the Caribou belongs to the party that thinks government is just an excuse to funnel money to those who already have the most. So, why should we be surprised?

There's really nothing I can add to this trenchant analysis, Sir. I hope the precision with which you have diagnosed the failure of the Bush-Cheney doctrine of preemptive warfare becomes required reading for political scientists and foreign policy experts everywhere.

It's schoolyard logic, really, which I argued futilely in the run-up to the invasion (let's be honest, here, it was never a war) back in Fall 2002 - Spring 2003. The biggest bully on his block will always call forth his own takedown, either at the hand of another big kid who gets brave, or because all the small ones gang up to take him down.

America, our time is coming, and Dumyah will be safe in the armed Bush compound in Paraguay while the rest of us suffer. But, it isn't like we weren't warned.

Door #1 (George Grant's door):

The goal of Christian political action is not to usher in a theocracy but to acknowledge the theocracy that already exists (Proverbs 3:6) ...

Christian political action is supposed to place politics openly and publicly under God, in the same way that Christian action in every other area of life does. Civil government is not uniquely immune from the rule of God. Nothing is immune from the rule of God.

Door #2 (Thomas Jefferson's door):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I'll take Door #2, thank you. Anybody with me?

My problem with a Mormon as president, not with Romney in specific, but with any generic Mormon, has nothing to do with the doctrine of the LDS church, and everything to do with the political activities of the LDS church (and not in the way most people think). Utah Mormonism (full disclosure, my father is a member of the REORGANIZED Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, based in Independence, MO) is an organization under tight, top-down control. Whatever the Council of Elders decides, by and large, the Utah Mormons do. Case in point: the Mormon Church's support for the woman suffrage and the passage of the 19th amendment to the Constitution (see the first link below for a discussion of the same). Why did the Elders decide they wanted this? Not because they considered women capable of independent thought (they still don't believe this), but because they knew they could, in a stroke, double the number of votes under their control in the state of Utah.

That discrimination against blacks? While it may go away when speaking to outsiders, it'll always be a part of the the Mormon faith. Why? Because of the Book of Mormon itself. When Joe Smith authored it, he wrote that the portion of the Jews who had escaped to the New World during the second sea voyage out of the besieged land of Israel (yeah, it's that convoluted) and who fell away from worshiping Jehovah had their skins turned dark as a sign of their cursed state (see the second and third links below). Now, this became an mechanism for equal-opportunity discrimination, because it was originally used against the Native Americans, and only secondarily against blacks. It'll probably be just as handy against Hispanics, should that become necessary.

[1] http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/statehood_and_the_progressive_era/womenssuffrageinutah.html

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamanite

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacks_and_Mormonism