A poll because I am genuinely curious

Which topic do you find most difficult to talk about? Vote here.

Lunch Break - I wish I was I rish....

Why is March the best month?
MARCH MADNESS!! Of course. I am going with Louisville, Memphis, Oklahoma State, and Villanova as the Final Four and - Louisville to win it all.

Baseball is almost here.


In the olden times (5 years ago) the Oscars were in March, also in the olden times I actually cared about them...

Yours truly was born in March -I'm sure you know the story... In 1832 - On a blustery, cold night there was no room at the Pub, so my father took my mother to a private poker game out back in a barn, which was, weirdly, inside a log cabin. And there after losing his shirt and my mother's too - The Great Kate, South ofMelrose, went into labor and gave birth to me on a pile of hay and empty whiskey bottles before three wisenheimer men: Larry, Moe and Shemp. Curly having passed out in the manger. Sadly, my COLB is lost - but later I'll be printing out computer abstracts, which you are welcome to call birth certificates over and over again and hope no one notices.

Speaking of printing - does anyone need any long green? I think other central banks have done it already around the world but basically what it amounts to is money printing


Speaking of Green: Did you know? According to legend, on the day of Judgement, while Christ judges all other nations, St Patrick will be the judge of the Irish.

I generally love the Irish more than most peoples and I have no idea why....there is not an ounce of Irish blood in my veins. Something about irrational affection for and attraction to happy drunks, pretty redheads, sexy ruffians with sexy accents, and good story telling....I also lean strongly to the Catholic end of my Anglicanism... ('cept the Catholic no women priests thing...that ain't right. At my church, I've seen Catholic women cry upon receiving communion from a female priest for the first time. Message to the Vatican: wake up!)

Who pays?

Of course Obi made a good speech on Tuesday. He almost always gives good speech. This is not new or remarkable. This is his strong suit as a politician. His "strong speeches" should be expected. The downside is that his passion on the podium does not match reality on the ground.

The weirdest part of his rhetoric last Tuesday was the gulf between the man who forced the unread stimulus/debt bill two weeks ago on us was, with a glint in his eye and a grim look on his mug, now telling us we must cut the deficit. Cognitive dissonance, thy name is Obama.

But, doubling back, he then he forcefully moved on to a laundry list of plans. All of which, one presumes, are not free. All the while telling us he does not like Big Government. It makes the head spin.

How and why should we trust this man? He's broken a slew of promises - but continues to glide on to the next speech, the next event, the next airing of the Obama show, unscathed and clearly not troubled.

My theory is that Obama is closer in personality to Hugo Chavez than Ronald Reagan. Psychologically, there is a need to be present at all times. A need to be adored. The inauguration was followed by a campaign style push for the stimulus, rallies and all included, followed by a prime time presser, followed this week by a prime time speech in the easiest major venue on earth. In between was a one day summit on Monday. As if some thing could get done in one day, other than a group reach around of THE ONE.

Will Obama continue this way? Making himself present at all times - invading the prime time airwaves every week? Chavez does in Venezuela.

(Noquarter notes an obvious indicator of his narcissism here. He never mentioned his own cabinet, the Supreme Court, or you and me. This is a small , but telling, detail. We matter to the degree that we adore him. Pods know this instinctively. It is why they attack so viciously. As for me, I simply can not trust a man who is never humble. Funny how much Lincoln gets thrown around by Obama since they share only a home state. Lincoln's fuel as a leader was his humility. Obama's is his narcissism.)

But Obama is not an empty suit. Not at all. He intends to rework the landscape of the U.S., as Chavez has in Venezuela. Barry and Michelle do have an idea of the way things should be. They just rarely come totally clean on what those plans are. By default, he is less mysterious than he was a month ago. But not by much. He really is W's better, smarter, off spring. Doublethink with style.

This is not your father's Orwell.

Think I am wrong? Fine. I certainly could be. But ask one simple question. Who pays? I make no apologies for my old school liberalism. I want the Federal government to do more than the average conservative. LBJ and FDR never neglected the simple question: Who pays? The answer was - we do and the rich pay more. Many did not like that answer, but it was an answer. Social Security, Head Start, the TVA, Nixon's EPA, Eisenhower's interstate highways - all Big Government. All good.

So who pays? We are sitting around a table at an expensive restaurant. The head of the table has just ordered a lovely, expensive meal. Here's our secret: No one at the table brought their wallets. No one has a dime in their pocket. Including the man who just ordered.

Regardless of the calls for sacrifice, he's banking on something for nothing. Why shouldn't he? It has worked so far.

History, as it always does, has other plans for Obama. At best, he'll be our Gorbachev. Scrambling to rewrite the rules of a system that has become untenable. As I've said before, I do not think we can or should "get through this." This is what brought us to the brink.

Fee Fi Faux

Never believe your own hype.

Is that what has happened to Obama?

Have the unending adulation of the press and the 70,000 pod rallies convinced him that he can do no wrong? That he can do anything and they'll follow along?

That raising more money than anyone else affirmed his greatness?

That running a dirty, yet effective, primary campaign would translate into a sure win in the general?

Has W's hubris been transfused into Obama?

He won't debate McCain in front of a military audience, even thought they've said they would work around his schedule. Somehow, no matter what the date, he's busy. He wants to be commander in chief but has no time to answer questions from a bunch of soldiers. Let him eat his waffle.

The money is drying up. When the pods accused us of being Republicans you have to wonder how much of the millions he raised to fight Clinton was from Republicans. We don't know because he won't release his records.

He should be up by 15 points. Instead his numbers keep dropping. Poor, poor Donna Brazille. She's shaking her head trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Sure, she told us that she didn't want us in the party, that we were not needed. She must be grinding her teeth at night freaked out about the Puma movement that she helped create.

Are his triple axles on FISA, Iraq, the death penalty, the second amendment, Israel, public financing timed to get them out of the way now? So that once the campaign is in full swing people will have "gotten over it"?

Even with our collective A.D.D. things sink in. For Bush it wasn't Katrina, it was getting on a plane in the middle of the night to sign legislation for Terry Schiavo that sunk him. I don't know if Obama can be sunk, but if he can it was the moment he sat behind his faux Presidential seal.

Because he is a faux candidate. Faux sure.