Fun With Pistachio Nuts and Other Assorted Nuts

AP:  DA says to avoid pistachios amid salmonella scare

I did get a peace offering of a jar of pistachio peanut butter from an old high school rival while back, I’m wondering if he had ulterior motives :)

AFP:  US backs reconciliation with non-violent Taliban

That would be like Lynne Cheney wanting Jerry Springer to air only high quality trash.

LiveScience:  Why Chimps Are Stronger Than Humans

Give a million chimps a million typewriters and a million years, and they’ll come up with something more cogent than your typical San Francisco poet.

AP:  Miley Cyrus: No more ‘Hannah Montana’ films

With the loss of HM and the coming loss of High School Musical, American cinema will undergo a big time round of detwitification.

AP:  Man fires at McDonald’s window over breakfast menu

Their breakfast is okay, it’s everything else that blows.

Reuters:  Mexico rules out joint border patrols with U.S.

Why should Mexico guard its own northern border when the ATF is going to do it for them?

CNS:  Joe Biden Gets 100% Pro-Animal Rating

His record with humans is not so good.

CNS:  52 Sex Offenders Live Under Bridge in Miami—ACLU Studying Issue

What the hell, they’re used to staring at metal bars.  And what’s the ACLU gonna do, sue the bridge?

CNS:  Mexico Is Not a Failed State, Kerry Says

But you do have to question the credibility of a state that elects John Kerry to the Senate over and over again.

P-D:  ‘Making the census cool’ in Missouri

One, two, three, four … how can you make that cool?

P-D:  Green Party candidate smoldering after van is destroyed by fire

I would be too if I were a Green — all that fire would drive my carbon footprint way up.

CNS:  Mitt Romney Working Toward Another Presidential Run in 2012

Gee, who predicted that?

CNS:  Q&A with Michael Novak: George Washington Urged American Governors to Imitate Christ

In contrast to many of today’s state governors, who think they’re Christ.

Jihad Watch:  Hillary: Yes, the “war on terror” really is over

It is?  Does that mean we don’t have to suffer arrogant TSA screeners anymore?

PJB:  Is Notre Dame Still Catholic?

There are some male professors that are cellibate, and they occasionally talk about some old dead white guy named “Jesus,” but other than that, I can’t find any evidence that they are still.

Modesto Bee:  Officer, dog square off against Modesto mob of 60

The cop and the dog won, but looking at most of the names of the people in the mob, the cop should have yelled “ICE!!!” and asses would have scattered faster than mice after turning a light on.

AP:  Calif. IRS agent admits cheating on his own taxes

Why the hell not?  Being an agent of the Treasury Department and cheating on your taxes is all the rage these days.

KSDK:  Queen Latifah sued for $1 million

Like the old saying goes, you don’t strike a queen unless you can kill a queen.

KSDK:  Sebelius to call for action now on health care

Well duh, ya think a nominee for the Secretary of Health and Human Services would say anything different?

You Know, I Used to Like Jim Webb

I thought he had real potential to be someone exceptional and be the spearhead of a new populist and nationalist paradigm of American politics that would transcend the left-right banality.

But he’s letting the Beltway culture turn his mind into mush.

In the most recent issue of Parade magazine, Sen. Webb complains about overcrowded prisons, claims that they’re overcrowded because they throw people in prison for possessing weed (which is mostly untrue), cites the growth of Mexican gangs in the U.S., (Webb was for “comprehensive immigration reform” in 2007), and then says that problem can be solved by American ingenuity.

And yet, a sitting United States Senator couldn’t use some of that American ingenuity to come up with a solution other than saying we should use American ingenuity.

Destination Lexington, Kentucky (With No Layover in Storrs, Connecticut)

Yes, John.  Your prayers have been answered to the tune of six and two-thirds million times per year.

Thank your lucky stars you’re going to a basketball-crazed program in a basketball-crazed state.  You know the flack that your analogue at the University of Connecticut in the person of Jim Calhoun is taking for making $1.5 million a year in this rotten economy.  And he, unlike you, has actually won championships (as I bite my tongue really hard while thinking about and typing about the success of Uconn basketball, considering what happened this past Saturday).

Former Missouri Gubernatorial Aide in Today’s Special Election to Succeed Kirsten Gillibrand in the House

Her vacating NY-20 to take HRC’s Senate seat necessitated this election today.  Since it was a special election, the party organizations in the district got to choose their nominee, there were no primaries.

The Democrats chose Scott Murphy, who was once an aide to both Missouri Governors Mel Carnahan and Bob Holden.  The Republicans went with State Assemblyman Jim Tedisco.  Tedisco started out with a big lead in the polls, but Murphy has narrowed it to a virtual dead heat.

Tedisco is seen as an establishment machine sort of politician (which is duh if the party’s establishment chose you), while Murphy is young and more energetic.  For that reason, I think Murphy will win.  This election is supposed to be a referendum on President Obama’s first couple of months in office, but I don’t think it will be no matter who wins.  In other words, a Murphy win doesn’t mean that the GOP can’t make gains in November of next year.

Thank Your Lucky Stars

KTVI-2:

Missouri Demographer Urges High Census Count

JEFFERSON CITY, MO (AP) — – Missouri’s top demographer says the state could keep all of its current congressional seats and secure more federal funding if more people fill out a Census form next year. Several population models have Missouri losing one of nine seats in the U.S. House based on the projected results of the 2010 Census. But State Demographer Matt Hesser says local officials have to convince only about 60,000 extra people to fill out forms to keep that seat.

About $300 billion in federal funds also are apportioned based on Census figures. Hesser spoke Monday to the first meeting of Missouri’s Complete Count Committee, which is charged with publicizing the Census. Census forms will be mailed to houses next March.

Missouri’s population is growing, but not fast enough such that, relative to other states and the U.S. as a whole, the state will keep its nine U.S. House seats.  It barely was able to keep nine after the 2000 Census.

There is a silver lining to this crowd — Missouri might not be growing that quickly, but any state that’s growing quickly enough to keep or gain House seats are growing that quickly for one reason:  H-I-S-P-A-N-I-C.  Outside of southwest Missouri and parts of Kansas City, the state doesn’t have too many Hispanics.

Them That Bank Is Them That Get

Detroit UAW members must be reading my mind:  They, like yours truly, are wondering why the big banks and investment firms got untold tens of billions now running into the hundreds of billions of bailout money grants, almost no questions asked or no preconditions, Chris Dodd explicitly wanted AIG execs to keep their bonuses.  But the Big Three auto companies have to get on their knees and beg and grovel and kiss ass just go get measly tens of billions of dollars of loans, not grants.  That money, of course, just might have the disparate impact of saving the scant few unionized good working middle class manufacturing jobs remaining.

Why the disproportionate treatment?  I have no clue, my only guess is that the American government wants to drive car manufacturing out of the U.S. and into China, using the environment as an excuse.

UPDATE 4/8:   A writer over at Taki mag thinks that the disdain toward the American car industry is a bipartisan matter, both the Republicans’ traditional opposition to the UAW, and the Democrats’ environmentalism.

Don’t Ask

Another ring on the trunk, another notch on the wall, another line on the stone.