Preventing Truth Decay

And then there is P. J. O'Rourke, who doesn't seem to believe in pulling punches, even with a President with an apparently thin skin. "Black doesn't crack, does it?"

Welcome To Spring Training

The Twins practice baseball in Fort Myers in the spring. My brother Russ and I went down there from our Sarasota lair in the house of George Loessig late this morning without tickets. An elderly couple kindly provided us with 1/2 price tickets in the shade, which are the seats near the back.

The only problem was the uncomfortable metal seats probably the right size for 6 year old butts. And the fact that 18 people were trying to squeeze into the space for 16. And the fact that the yahoo announcer had to ham up every announcement made as in most minor league parks. Oh, wait a minute this is a minor league park.

This was a good-sized crowd of about 10,000. We could only stand the seat for 5 innings. Saw a number of home runs by the Twins. And a fair number of Minnesota folks come south to live out their days. I'm pretty sure this Fort Myers area must look and feel like Paradise to them. It was 27 deg in the Twin Cities.

The mascot from the Twin Cities apparently came down to scare kids up close. From a distance this critter is fairly appealing but up close he scares them.

There were at least two other games going on in the surrounding fields. Apparently the lower minor league players belonging to the Twins and the Tampa Bay Rays.

They looked to be playing some exciting baseball, what other kind is there, though some goofy errors showed up too.

From Planet Moron.

Avoid This House If Burglary Is Your Game

We felt fairly safe staying here with George in a nice residential area of Sarasota. Those are some magazines on the coffee table in the living room to the left.

Of course he carries a weapon. And it is loaded. Those are decals on the entrance to the kitchen to the right.

He does teach in a middle school in a tough urban neighborhood. What other kind of urban neighborhood is there?

A National Treasure

Not surprisingly, the Wall Street Journal periodically publishes some controversial stuff. By "controversial" I mean stuff that people not interested in the truth might find offensive.

Shelby Steele has a short essay in last Monday's op-ed pages. His last book opined that Senator Obama could not win the Presidency so his track record is a little sullied for some but in my view Steele's problem with predicting elections just makes him a little more credible. In other words politics for him is more than just winning elections.

I must read some other stuff he has written as he seemed to touch on matters in the essay that have been puzzling me for a long time, ever since I took a long sabbatical during the 60s to learn how to be a doctor.

Post-modern Political Science 101

I found this startling picture mixed in with the usual large number of adorable Obama and family pictures at one of our local book stores. I haven't read a Newsweek article for a long time, probably because I used one of them in writing a term paper without attribution of course. That was back in the late 50s. I'm sorry.

The author, a Mr Frum, says he is a conservative and a Republican. I gather he is one of those political advisors that only offer advice on how to win elections, not the putting forth of political practices that would be best for the country. Because it is necessary to win elections for many reasons and because Mr Limbaugh scares away the people that the Republicans should be actively inveigling to vote like our friends on the Left in order to win elections, Mr Frum says that Mr Limbaugh should keep his mouth shut.

Hence the cover picture. This sounds very much like the fox advising the chickens on security measures. I wonder if the publisher of this magazine should worry about truth in advertising and change the name to Newsweak? Or is this just part of the continuing campaign of the Democrats to keep Mr Obama as President for Life?

The Obama & Minions Rosetta Stone

While fooling around on the Wall Street Journal website I came across this.

An Alternate Universe

From Creative Minority Report:

CMR is here to rescue you from the annual humiliation and ridicule of your office NCAA pool by offering an alternative that CMR readers can sink their teeth into. Look, you're not the one with satellite television watching every single college basketball game and watching for the weaknesses in Oklahoma State's point guard. And you don't even care that Morehead State's Center has a bad knee.

But CMR is offering you some brackets that you know a thing or two about. As a CMR reader you've had a front row seat to the spiral of Western civilization into an apathetic, politically correct, death-fetish culture. From abortion to euthanasia to just plain bad taste, let's find out who's responsible for destroying our culture.

With this in mind, the CMR think tank after months of study is now announcing the "March to Madness" brackets. Monday through Thursday of this week, the competitors will battle it out until we reach the Final Four. And on Monday the battle to crown the winner of the most destructive person in our culture will end.

Join CMR and "March to Madness" by choosing your winners in the combox because you can influence the judging by lobbying to see certain people to advance or fall.

In the end, there can be only one. Vote early. Vote often.

A Softie Sunday Afternoon

Softie's on the corner of 24th and Broadwater opened sometime in March, maybe this past weekend, can't be sure. As usual, it was very busy, you'd think they would open another place to take care of the crowds. Opening of Softie's is a sure sign of Spring here in Billings, MT. That and the kids starting to play baseball outside.

As you can see in the picture to the right this is good stuff. The only problem was that at least on this Sunday afternoon they only had one guy working. It took me about 35 minutes to get an ordinary Softie with a chocolate dip.

J Peterman Catalog Makes A Comeback

I thought these folks had gone out of business, despite the continued plugs on the Seinfeld re-runs.

For unknown reasons we are back on their mailing list.

I guess Elaine is still working for them judging from the flowery descriptions.
See right and left.