Whatever Works

Laughing out loud: Maru is back in tip top form

Moe — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:30:31 +0000

Watch it – you know you want to! Maru is one determined cat, who lives in so clean and uncluttered a house that it makes me wonder if he is really a visitor from the future - where they’ve somehow conquered dust and dirt and grease?

I’m m-e-e-l-l-t-i-i-n-n-g . . .

Moe — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:20:00 +0000

Imagine the pudgy face of the serial-adulterer and debater-in- chief in place of Margaret Hamilton’s iconic visage here.

Polls not looking good for Mr. “I will be the candidate”.

. . . after several days in which Romney has hammered Gingrich over his consulting work for mortgage giant Freddie Mac, the former Massachusetts governor leads the former House speaker, 40 percent to 32 percent.

The Friday night oldie that gets posted on Friday instead of Thursday

Moe — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:19:40 +0000

The one, the only, Patsy Cline. (Listening, I sorta picture Newt doing this about 11pm last night. The ‘you’ he’s searching for, of course, would be himself.)

From my paper this morning

Moe — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:24:24 +0000

Republican candidates proclaim Obama’ an economic failure, mistaking slow growth for no growth or contraction. Or they’re just lying. Here are seven headlines from the front page of the Business section of my paper this morning:

Spending more, laying off fewer
Hiring and investment show companies plan to grow (National story). [boxed quote accompanying that story: "With big ticket spending rising and the labor market firming, the economy is a lot better than some central bankers think."]
Delayed a year, recovery is inevitable says Florida economist (Local story)
Lakewood Ranch makes sales list: ranked number 9 on national list with 301 new home sales in 2011 (Local story)
Survey of architects shows growth likely (Local story)
Another call center is moving to Bay area (Local story)
Caterpillar profit climbs 60 percent (National story)

Aren’t the candidates here in Florida? Maybe they should read the papers.

Newt’s gonna lose it after all

Moe — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:58:58 +0000

Andrew Sullivan surfed the interwebs tonight so we didn’t have to and gathered this damning round-up of conservative post-debate commentary. Not seeing anything but good news for Romney here:

Rod Dreher thought Romney wiped the floor with Gingrich:

Romney won this debate, and probably Florida, and so the nomination. Newt collapsed, as bullies and blowhards often do when somebody fights back. Santorum auditioned for Romney’s VP, and greatly enhanced his chances. Ron Paul shines on, that crazy diamond [great line].

Will Wilkinson seconds him:

Romney started strong, completely obliterating Newt on immigration and questions about his finances, and then stayed strong. Santorum again turned in an admirably dogged performance, but so what? Romney won the debate and the nomination.

Larison likewise expects a Romney win in Florida:

Romney held off Gingrich, and Gingrich was flailing most of the night. Unless something strange happens in the next few days, Romney should hold his lead in Florida. Santorum may have gained a little, but nowhere near enough to challenge for second place. Paul did a decent job tonight, but Florida is not a good state for him and he’s already looking to the caucus events in February.

There’s much, much more at the link. All of it worth a read if you’re interested in the Florida vote on ~~Monday~~ Tuesday.

Or just read the rest here after the jump.

Jonah Goldberg gives Gingrich low marks:

I would have bet before the debate that Newt was going to re-energize the race tonight and win the Florida primary. Now, I kind of doubt it.

W. James Antle III agrees:

Gingrich seemed tired, unprepared, and off his game tonight — bad timing for the former House speaker. Romney had some clunkers — he got caught redhanded on the anti-Newt attack ad, the line about not making his own investments could come back to haunt him, and he denied being politically involved during a time period that included a Senate campaign — but he had the better showing overall. I’m seeing many people argue that Gingrich has sharpened Romney as a candidate.

PM Carpenter was amazed by the fight in Romney:

I’m as stunned by Romney’s vitality and aggressiveness as Gingrich is. I thought Romney would coast tonight as best he could, given his upward movement — i.e., Gingrich’s downward movement — in Florida polls. But Romney clearly believes he is now fighting for his political life, and that Florida might be his firewall after all.

E.D. Kain’s verdict:

Fundamentally, Romney was much better than we’ve seen him in some time. He started out a little sketchy, but rallied early on and got plenty of kidney punches in at Newt. Both Ron Paul and Rick Santorum sounded more sincere than either Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney. Of course I find most of the things Santorum actually says fairly repulsive, while I find Ron Paul to be a continued breath of fresh air and sanity. Yes, I find most of what Paul says thousands of times saner than what his GOP rivals say. And Paul says a lot of crazy things.

Kain notes that InTrade is betting overwhelmingly on a Romney win in Florida. Dave Weigel ponders Santorum’s attack on Romneycare:

Santorum is completely right that Romney can’t oppose the idea of a health care mandate (a conservative idea until 2009, etc, etc) in a debate with Barack Obama. I’m just not sure of the calculus here: Which votes does Romney lose in a general election because he’s critical of the national health care law but not defends state mandates?

Fallows focuses on the same exchange:

I am not a Republican strategist, but if I were, I would wonder about the problem of the “strongest” candidate making a flat-out ridiculous and disprovable claim about the issue his party says is the most objectionable part of the current president’s program.

Matt Welch liked the audience reaction:

Debates are so much better with a raucous audience. The spectacle of an establishment media dinosaur like Blitzer trying to keep the conversation on trivialities, and getting booed by a bunch of voters, give me hope for this country.

Henry Olsen felt Romney did well, aside from one mistake:

One bad point for Mitt: He didn’t know it was his own radio ad that attacked Gingrich for allegedly calling Spanish the language of the ghetto. Newt picked up on this at one point, and if a man whose primary rationale for running is his ability to run his company, the fact he seemed not to know what his company was doing might undermine his credibility.

Jennifer Rubin celebrates Gingrich’s collapse:

I’d be surprised if the Romney camp had a hand in every statement and article that criticized [Gingrich] over the last week or so. (They aren’t that good.) Conservatives have had enough of him, and have come forward out of fear he might actually get the nomination. After tonight they have less to fear. Not only did Romney have the best debate of the primary season, but Santorum’s strong showing should bleed votes away from Gingrich as well.

And Andrew Sprung, like most of the blogosphere, thinks Newt is finished:

The ready-made attack ads for Democrats may be over; they will have to make their own case against Romney.

https://seg.sharethis.com/getSegment.php?purl=https%3A%2F%2Fmaureenholland.wordpress.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D12358%26action%3Dedit&jsref=&rnd=1327762064603

Gingrich joins cast of The Office

Moe — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:50:28 +0000

(I should really get off my current obsession with Gingrich, but dear Elvis, there’s just so much out there!)

Ever seen that eternal TV sitcom The Office? Of course you have. And you are therefore familiar with the loathsome character Dwight Schrute, played by the definitely not loathsome Rainn Wilson, who tweets.

Here are his most recent gravatars on Twitter. Do you see it? Do you see it?

As he himself would say, “Bob Dole knows. Bob Dole remembers.”

Moe — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:47:03 +0000

National Review Online is going after Newt. There’s a devastating statement by former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole - and here (on the left) is the poll on their homepage. Bill Buckley, the late NR publisher, conservative deity and very definition of the elite Ivy League northeasterner of whom Newt is so contemptuous (actually I think he’s really jealous), would likely approve.

The piling on is getting serious now. Newt could yet win in Florida, but his time in the sun is running out.

From Dole’s statement:

. . . it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself.

. . . Gingrich [as] nominee could result in a landslide victory for Obama and a crushing defeat for Republicans from the courthouse to the White House.

It wasn’t us (updated below. Drat.)

Moe — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:21:17 +0000

There are dozens of excellent sources and charts available from very credible sources that reinforce the truth of the debt. Reagan and Bush II did the dirty. Clinton and Obama were left to clean up the ‘messes’.

This chart has been graphically sexed up, but the data is right out the US Treasury Dept. (h/t friend Ed)

UPDATE: Okay, this hurts. Links in the comment thread for this post, challenge this chart. The links are to Politifact and WaPo and taken together are persuasive that this info is not entirely honest. I think it is still very fair to say Reagan and Dubya were the worst offenders . . . while the challengers both put Obama at the top based on an assumption that the growth over the next five years will stay at the same rate as the last three. That assumption is, I think, preposterous and somewhat sullies their conclusions.

Nevertheless, I am eating a bit of crow here. And as much as it hurts, I’ve acknowledged as much in the comment thread to the man who provided the links – Alan Scott. How ’bout that.

Friday oldie

Moe — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:08:26 +0000

(UPDATE: I have just been informed it is Thursday. Wanna make something of it?)

American TV defined this as Rock & Roll (because of the backbeat?). I loved The Platters and fell in love regularly under the spell of their songs.

Climate zones, they are a’ changin’. I think it’s Al Gore’s fault

Moe — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:52:45 +0000

For a long time, the US Department of Agriculture has designated different planting ‘zones’ throughout the country as a guide for growers. Their ratings are based on ‘extreme minimum temperature’. Garden books and seed packets usually say in what zone a plant can flourish and in what zones it can’t. But it’s the agricultural industry itself, the largest consumer of such data, that must pay the closest attention to these ratings to assure successful crop yields.

So with this change, the USDA now joins the Pentagon and NASA in acknowledging that global warming is real and must be part of all strategic planning. (I don’t mention any international science organizations or UN agencies because our conservative brethren know them all to be anti-American.)

My area of SW Florida has always been 9(b) – but now it’s officially a 10(a) zone. The temperature variation is not large (we go from a 5 to 10 degree variation to a 10-15 degree variation), but the USDA sees it as permanent.

. . . entire states, such as Ohio, Nebraska and Texas, are now in warmer zones . . . it reflects the new reality.

They’ve moved 18 key cities from Fairbanks to Honolulu into warmer zones.

It’s great that the Federal government is catching up with what the plants themselves have known for years now, that the globe is warming” . . . said [a] Stanford University biologist.

This is unlikely to be the last time they will have to adjust the zones. What’s most shocking to me is the speed of the temperature change – the data they used was collected from 1976-2005. That’s stunning.

(Also, here in zone 10a, we’ve been in drought for four of the last ten years. )