quick hits from this week: part 2

-I've been listening to both right-wing and left wing talk radio a lot this week. I find it amusing that the lefties devote a great deal of time bashing Hillary Clinton, and the righties have done nothing except bash John McCain. Am I living in bizzarro-world? It doesn't seem to be doing much good on either side. Now granted the right has (as it usually is on most issues) been much more forceful. The moment of the week for me was Sean Hannity pleading with Zogby and Rasmussin to say something other than the obvious: that John McCain leads Romney by a wide margin and fares much better against either Democrat in November.
-Note to the Romney people: If he can't beat the "liberal" John McCain in a Republican primary, how can you expect him to have a chance in the general election?
-Here's a fun game: get a piece of paper and a pen and see how many U.S. Senators you can name from memory. I scored 52. (Bob, I wouldn't be surprised if you scored a 100 on this.) Ah, the things I do to cure insomnia.
-Make him spend it all, Mac!
-Am I the only one who finds this "scientific", "computerised" (whatever the hell that means) survey that came out this week saying Barack Obama was the most liberal Senator to be an absolute joke? No Russ Feingold? No Bernie Sanders?( a self-described Socialist) I mean come on. They also had Joe Biden ranked number 3 most liberal. Another example why anything put out by a "conservative think-tank" should be viewed with suspicion.
-Can Barack and Hillary strike a balance in a debate? It's either the Jerry Springer show or a love fest. I half-expected them to start making out on Thursday.
-The Iraq strategy of both Clinton and Obama seem like the worst of both worlds to me. Okay, so we reduce the number of troops to the point where they can do nothing to keep the country from spiraling out of control, but we leave a smaller force there that will be less able to defend itself so we keep having American casualties? How is this a good idea? I've said it before and I'll say it again; I want there to be a large number or none at all. I believe this war was a mistake from day one, but a half-ass solution is worse to me than choosing between what we have now and a complete withdrawal.
-I for one am glad people like Ann Coulter are not endorsing Senator McCain. If she had one less synapse firing in her brain, she'd be in a coma.
-I'm really into the Dropkick Murphys these days.
-I'm considering spending my economic stimulus package money on a tattoo for my chest. The ideas I have are a) some type of flaming skull b)Old Glory c) the words "No Control" or d) the words "Liberty or Death". I am open to suggestions.
-I think the worst thing to happen for Mike Huckabee's campaign was when he increasingly transitioned from being seen as "former governor" to "former minister". I don't know if this is something done by the campaign or by the media, but I think this was, along with that stuff about changing the constitution and sodomizing people with flag poles the undoing of his campaign.
-Larry King used to do a stream-of-thought column in usa today (much like the one I'm doing right now, only with shorter sentences) in which he would impart such deep wisdom as "I have no tolerance for people who commit rape". Some deep thought right there.
-Al Qaeda (how the hell do you spell that anyway?) is now using women with Downe's Syndrome as human bombs. I'm not shocked by the fact that these are evil bastards, but this caught even me off guard. Do you think they just sat around going "what's the most evil thing we could possibly do today? Oh, I know. We'll use mentally handicapped people to blow up a pet-market full of schoolboys who have the day off! When I hear stuff like this it makes me hope that a) There is a literally burning hell and b) that God grades on a curve.
-If you've still got the piece of paper you were using for the Senators quiz, go to www.cnn.com (or www.foxnews.com if you prefer), look at all of the stories they have links to on their front page. Now count how many are actual news and how many are simply sensationalistic headlines. Usually stories like "celebrity x reportedly nailing celebrity y" or "dildo sales up 20%" or "cute child reunited with cute puppy" outnumber stories like "Are Pakistan's nukes secure?" or "Skyrocketing price of rice endangers world's poor" by a ridiculous margin. Is it safe to say the word "news" is false advertisement at this point?