Rhymes

Please, Obama, get our chillenz edumacated
Bring back jobs to get our economy stimulated
Color code that food Michelle to make our bodies emaciated
Fuck shit up around the world to make our foes ingratiated

Stupid Sheeple. Baaaaaaaaaahhhh.

They lined up on Saturday begging to be sheared.

Presumably, they want the team to sign him to the long-rumored deal in the neighborhood of 10 for 300.  Of course, if they do that, then these same sheeple will be sheared again when parking, tickets and concessions double in price, and sheared yet again when the team is circa-.500 for the next ten years because $30 million a year will be tied up in a man whose best ten years are behind him not ahead of him, as Kevin Slaten so aptly points out, and the team has no money after that, the $17 million a year for Matt Holliday and the $10 million a year for Kyle LOLhse to build a real ballclub.  Gonna be staring up at the Reds in the standings for quite a long time.

If there’s anyone’s (real) birth certificate I want to see before Barack Obama’s, it’s Albert Pujols’s.  Whitey Herzog swears up and down that Pujols is at least several years older than his “official” BC claims.  Of course, when it comes to BCs from the DR, the only time they tell the truth is when the young man is exactly 16 years old — Before then, they’re overestimating his age, after then, they’re underestimating.  So Pujols is “31″ on paper, so let’s say he’s really 34.  This means he’s only got three more really good seasons before he starts declining, assuming he’s not on the juice, which you’ve got to wonder about at times.

So these sheeple want to give someone who is probably at least 34 a ten-year contract for what will only be three more good seasons.  If there’s no drastic change in the CBA, then this contract would be guaranteed — All Pujols has to do is show up, and he gets paid, even when his stats start their inevitable decline.  I wonder how these sheeple are going to like their team paying a 43-year old man $30 million in the 2020 season for hitting barely .200, barely 10 HRs and barely 50 RBIs.

Personally, I think this little demonstration was all astroturf.  I can easily see Pujols’s agent hiring a PR firm which started the Facebook page where this “rally” was organized.

If I were the Cards GM, five for 125 would be my final offer.

One more thing — Pujols says he doesn’t want to negotiate after spring training starts here in a few weeks, and if there’s no deal done by then, he’ll become a free agent after the end of the 2011 season.  Pray tell, Albert, why can’t you negotiate during spring training and the regular season?  What is so hard about it that you can’t do it and play games at the same time?  After all, his defense isn’t as good as he would like us to think it is, his baserunning his lazy, and by all accounts, he’s kinda rotten in the clubhouse, so it’s not like he has to work hard outside of his three to five at-bats a game.  As far as Spring Training, it’s not as if Pujols is fighting for a spot on the team, so he doesn’t have to hustle his ass down in Jupiter.  Besides, it’s not Pujols doing the negotiating, it’s his agent.  That’s why I think Kevin Slaten is right, in that this bullshit about “won’t negotiate after ST starts” is all a grand propaganda workup between Pujols and the team to a deal being struck at the 11th hour, so that “we’re all so grateful” that we won’t mind the doubling of ticket, parking and concession prices.

In the next few weeks, you will probably hear the phrase “five and ten guy” a lot in the local media, if you haven’t heard it already.  What it means is that an MLB player with at least ten seasons under his belt AND the previous five all being with the same team can’t be traded without the permission of the player in question.  Pujols became a 5-and-10er after the conclusion of this last season.  Personally, I would have shopped him during the season last year before I would give him 10 for 300.

Sixteen and Homeless

You can probably guess why:

Brown is not only a former walk-on at Central Michigan; the guy who has given the offense a jolt during the past month was homeless for a couple of months as a 16-year-old.

“I’ve been fighting for my life before and sleeping in cars and trying to find a place to lay my head,” Brown said. “I’ve had situations where I’ve had nowhere to go. This is the easy part. I overcame life.”

Brown, who has turned in two of the biggest catches of the postseason, arguably has come further than anyone who will suit up for Sunday’s game.

He grew up in a rough section of Miami, and, while he was in high school, his mother married. Brown didn’t get along with his stepfather.

“There came a point where my mom had to make a decision, and it was best for me to go,” Brown said. “I wanted her to be happy, and as a young man I had to spread my wings and fly myself.”

In other words, mama’s new boo had her throw her near-adult son out of what was now his house, just as male lions that take over a pride of females eject adolescent males to eliminate competition for leadership then kill the young cubs sired by the previous pride leader to rid the existing females of a distraction.  Lucky for Mr. Brown that he was 16 years old and not six months old at the time when his mother got re-married.

Related:  Fourteen and Homeless

Super Duper Sunday’s Cheesy Deezy Wrap-Up

*  Richard Daley is on his way out.  If you happen to be inclined to mourn over his retirement, because “it could be worse,” (by Chicago standards), then read this, and read it carefully.

*  Chicago’s probable next Mayor wants a tax on “luxury” gyms.  I wonder how they’re going to define a “luxury” gym.  I’m guessing that the standard will be whether the locker rooms are carpeted or not, whether the towels in the gym’s towel service have a certain thread count, or whether the treadmills have a built-in web browser or you just have to make do with just a TV tuner.

*  ATF Scandal.  The official excuse is that they were kinda sorta drinking deuterium water.  However, I think the real reason is that they’re deliberately trying to inflate the relatively low statistic of “American” guns used in Mexican crimes, on orders from Obama.

*  Cry me a Mississippi River, cry me a river…

*  While Ann Coulter is still appointment reading, I have to admit sadly that she has lost a lot of her snarky edge.  On top of that, she must be temporarily sitting on her brains, because she’s on the Chris Christie bandwagon.

*  It took me five minutes after the fact to come to this conclusion.  Yet, they keep saying that our diversity is our strength.

*  Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

*  H/T Diane Meyer.  This Chicagoland politician is probably introducing this bill at the behest of the IEA/NEA, so what I’m about to say is probably not germane to the debate here.  But I can think of one reason and one reason ONLY to support such a bill — In a few districts, mainly centered in the state of Texas, and largely black or Hispanic districts, the school district administrators are concealing the high school dropout rate behind “home schooling,” i.e. claiming that dropouts are being home schooled, when most are not.  Legislation like this that does no more than this and where the NEA is nowhere near the enforcement mechanisms could unmask this kind of statistical perfidy.

*  If I’m AQ, I’m really shaking in my boots over the prospects of fighting a salad-fueled soldier whose grub is color-coded.

*  “Fought white flight.”  But not segregation.  Delmar Boulevard might as well be a Berlin Wall in U-City.

*  If this turns out the way I want, then it will be great for two reasons:  (1) The Mets will suck for decades, and (2) Ergo, Bruce Jacobs will bitch a fit for decades.

*  A nickel’s worth of free advice, Mr. Gatewood:  Cherish the brief time you have left with your shirts.  Because if you’re going to get into the Old Spice hustle, you better get used to a life without them.

*  Whaddaya know.  I move back to St. Louis, and just like magic, it becomes the worst city for men in the country.  It’s almost as if I’m dragging down the curve.

*  You’d think that recessionary times would be fairly good ones for “inferior” (in economic terms, not in moral judgment terms) retailers like Wal*Mart.  Alas, no — Its current management seems to be reading everything Sam Walton did then doing just the opposite.

*  Why Britain is running a big deficit, even bigger than ours in terms of relation to government spending and the national GDP — Spending tens of thousands of £s over someone using the term “jungle drums.”

 

 

And some headlines.

 

Ben Maller:  Tiger Woods scared away ex-wife’s new boyfriend

He’s about the last man on Earth scared of Tiger Woods.  None on the PGA tour are scared of him anymore.

Knoxville News-Sentinel:  Ready, aim, file! Accountant gives refund gift cards to use at gun shop

Now, if someone buys a gun with such a gift card, and comes at you asking for your tax deduction or your life, the irony will be duly noted in this space.

Daily Mail:  You don’t have to be a genius to become a scientist: Professor Brian Cox backs The Big Bang career path

A bright enough parrot that can say “global warming” over and over again can serve that role.

Daily Mail:  Adult only flights: Airlines urged to spare passengers from noisy children

If you ask me, the apple falleth not far from the tree.  Would you want to be a flight attendant on a flight whose only passengers are the kind of obnoxious self-absorbed narcissist know-it-all so-called “adults” who raise noisy brats?

Politico:  Donna Karan: Look beyond what Michelle Obama wears

That probably means she’s not wearing DKNY.

NYP:  Minnesota fishermen catch scuba diver

Thereby bringing truth in advertising to being fishermen — Fishing for men.

Daily Mail:  ‘Mexico doesn’t have an Olympic team… because anyone who can run, jump or swim is already across the border’: Clarkson hits out AGAIN

Seen the weather lately?  They’ll also have to start skiing across the border, thereby ruining Mexico’s chances of fielding a cross-country ski team for the 2014 games in Sochi.

P-D:  Report: Some KC police officers shun seatbelts

You knew this particular element of natural selection would present itself in Kansas City.  Kansas City, tee hee.

Daily Mail:  Nantucket: Quaint US East Coast island is magnet for rich and famous

Not to mention the inspiration for every vagina joke around.

Daily Mail:  Seven-year-old charged after bringing toy ‘Nerf’ gun to [NJ] school

He’s in big trouble.  You’ve gotta be at least 18 to have a toy nerf gun in New Jersey.  Mature audiences only.

P-D:  Analysis: Mo. wrestles with federal school money

Who won?  I bet the money got DQed for not trimming its fingernails.

Daily Mail:  Rikers inmate ‘ran credit card scam behind bars to buy more than $1million in iPads and Apple computers’

Just call it Rikers iLand.

I Knew It, I Knew It, I Knew It…

I figured all along Marc Mezvinsky must be blind.  Who else would want to marry Uglier than Ugly Betty?

Turns out that all he wanted was to get into Bill Clinton’s wallet.  Mr. Wonderful quit his banking industry job not long after Bill and Hillary paid off the last bill from the $5 million of wedding expenses, in order to be a ski bum.

Chelsea Clinton might be putridly ugly, but she’s not dumb.  She apparently wants an annulment.

You may not believe this, but I used to think that Chelsea Clinton was a bit cute.  But that was only for about the first year Bill Clinton was in office.  I guess what happened then is that my eyesight got better.

Just One Hitch…

A black city alderman from the Los Angeles County municipality of Carson City, a Southern California Catholic Bishop and other community and civic leaders want teenagers and young adults in Long Beach not to sag their pants, in honor of black history month and the recently observed birthday of Martin Luther King.

Huh?

As far as I know, Long Beach is full of Asians and Hispanics, so therefore the population of teenage boys and young adult men are probably even more Asian and Hispanic than the adult population.  The days of Long Beach being “Iowa by the Sea” are long gone.  Either way, LB was never a home for many blacks.

What this all means is that black politicians are leaning on the white news media to tell Hispanic and Asian teenagers not to sag their pants in honor of a black civil rights leader and black history month.

Come back to me at the end of the month and tell me how that works out for you.

As an aside, both versions of this story use the same generic image of a young black man on the right and a topless young black woman on the left sagging their pants.  Meaning that transvestitism is now en vogue among young black women.

End Game

There are a lot of people worried that the Muslim Brotherhood really won’t give up on terrorism even though they’ll have to make such a deal in order to be part of any post-Mubarak Egyptian government.

Why should the MB bother with terrorism when they’re going to have actual power?  Don’t forget, to Islamists, terrorism is a means to an end, not the actual end itself.  For them, the end game is the imposition of Sha’ria Law.  It doesn’t matter how they get it, only that they do.  Whether they have to blow up skyscrapers, blow up airliners, win an election or await a court decision, they’ll do what they have to do.  In fact, they’ll give up on a tactic like macroterrorism or microterrorism if they interpret it to be counterproductive to the ultimate goal.  This is why I doubt any AQ/OBL/MB types will commit spectacular acts of macroterrorism ever again, because it’s not working that well to cower the West into submitting to Sha’ria.  Their new tactic is to infiltrate the political systems of the West, whine about equality and fairness and racism and Islamophobia, and watch the gelding politicians, judges, business leaders and cultural titans fold like a cheap deck of cards, and give them their Sha’ria Law that way.  At first, it will only be valid among themselves (see: Canada), but that’s only the camel’s nose in the tent.

If Egypt does fall to the MB/AQ types and they start a war with Israel, Jimmy Carter’s only positive accomplishment as President is shot to hell.

Fun With Headlines Brought To You by the Letter “F”

P-D:  Illinois prof again nominates George Ryan for Nobel Peace Prize

Ryan would be the second Nobel Peace Prize winner currently behind bars.

CNS:  Lesbian Students Enter to Cheers at Minnesota School

I’d cheer too — The chances of seeing some hot girl-on-girl action at that school just went way up.

CNS:  Duncan, Lee Urge More Black Men to Become Teachers

“But before that, pull your pants up.”

AFP:  Man claims Glaxo drug made him ‘gay sex addict’

No surprise that the “F” in AFP stands for France.  That’s why I’m thinking the drug was just a coincidence.

Daily Mail:  The lost tribe staring extinction in the face: Extraordinary new pictures of life in the depths of the Amazon jungle

They’re not going to try to convince them that their diversity is their strength.  Oh no.

MSNBC:  “PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD: THE BILL CLINTON PHENOMENON” – CHRIS MATTHEWS DISCUSSES PRESIDENT CLINTON’S POST-PRESIDENTIAL LIFE AND LEGACY

Only in this case, the leg tingley feeling is all Bill’s.

Wednesday’s Stuff

*  Won’t those Bushes ever go away?

To wit:

Evoking the “America first” policies that predated World War II, Bush said he fears that isolationism, nativism, and protectionism are creeping back into American life.

I’d like to know where, so I can go sign up.

*  To his credit, the Democrat AG of Missouri, Chris Koster, is suing a black Democrat member of the State House from Kansas City for some $19,000 in fines stemming from ethics violations.  As it is, the legislooter in question, one Leonard “Jonas” Hughes IV, can’t take office until he pays off.  Then again, since there are so few Democrats left in the General Assembly, I don’t think much of anyone misses him.

*  You can tell with just one glance that nothing will ever become him in life like the leaving of it.  And NOT by looking at his face.

*  It is estimated that by the midpoint of this century, the United States will have the world’s largest Spanish-speaking population.  While some are making the obvious immigration point, there are a few who are lauding this as indicative of the growing influence of the Spanish language.

Trouble is, nobody in Germany or Poland or Russia or China is lining up to learn Spanish.  The only place where Spanish as a foreign language is a prominent feature of the education system is the United States, and that’s entirely due to social concern.  And as Steve Sailer has predicted, most American Hispanics of 2050 will probably speak English as their native tongue.  Like I have said, language is a red herring issue.  Many people, especially intellectuals, in the middle ages, knew how to speak and write in Latin.  But they were by no means living in the Roman Empire.

*  Theory:  Your NFL team in your city wins the Super Bowl.  Everyone in that city gets excited.  Nine months later, baby boom, and many of the newborn boys are given first names of the men who won the Super Bowl nine months before.

Here’s why I doubt it — There should be a glut of boys in the St. Louis area with names like Kurt, Marshall, Isaac and Torry who celebrated their 10th Birthdays around this past November 1.  But it doesn’t seem to me that there were.

And I Thought It Would Be Awhile Before I Mentioned South Dakota

Back in October and November, I characterized the South Dakota Governor’s race as Norway versus Denmark, aka Republican (and eventual winner) Dennis Daugaard vs Democrat Scott Heidepreim.  Turns out that Daugaard is also a Danish name, so this was really Denmark vs Denmark.  But I digress.

As a poke in the eye to the “individual mandate” of ObamaCare, several SD legislators are introducing a bill that would mandate every state resident who is both at least 21 and qualified to own firearms to own a firearm sufficient for self-defense.  Obviously, the bill is a joke, (HINT:  Its text does not specify a punishment for not complying), but I don’t think the analogy is perfect, for two reasons:  First, South Dakota is a state, and it has tenth amendment rights, so this is within their constitutional purview, unless there’s some way the Federal courts can dig up something, thinking out loud here, involving interstate commerce plus the incorporation doctrine, to make such state laws unconstitutional.  Second, as it turns out, thanks to Article 1 Section 8 Clause 16 of the Federal Constitution, requiring qualified people to own firearms might actually be a power that the Federal government has, one of the only things it can force people to buy.  In fact, between 1792 and 1903, most able-bodied free men within a certain age range had to do just that, thanks to Federal legislation.

Now, that got my mind to thinking — Michelle Obama is running around the country promoting her physical fitness initiatives using military service as a bromide.  (BTW, why no outrage from the kook left about that yet?)  So this administration is not beyond being two faced double-talkers to get what it wants — Barack Obama can bash the military and dismiss its importance when he wanted votes from kook lefists versus HRC, but Michelle Obama can say that all these kids have to trim down so they can be good soldiers when they’re grown up.

I think I know how the White House will defend the individual mandate in ObamaCare going forward — They’ll use Art 1 Sec 8 Clause 16 — They’ll say that everyone has to have health insurance because they have to have health care, and they have to have health care in case we need them to be soldiers.  After all, we wouldn’t want unhealthy soldiers, now would we?

All the while, Napolitano and Holder continue their crusade against “right wing extremists.”  Speaking of which, I have a Hutaree update dateline today.

But back to health care.  A few days ago, a trial level Federal judge in Florida found all of ObamaCare to be unconstitutional.  I rarely mention the names of judges in this medium, and when I feel the need to blockquote a story, I asterisk out the name of (the) judge(s) who are named within the story and at the same time not provide a link to the story.  One of the reasons I do that relates to what is happening to this judge in Florida — The kook left is firing at him with all four barrels (figuratively speaking, for now.)  They’re digging up sordid and private details about his past which are none of our business, things I’m sure even he would have liked to have forgotten.

And there’s a reason why they’re doing it — This judge’s written opinion was so cogent, so well researched and so detailed that it makes moot the fact that there have been just as many Federal judges rule for the individual mandate as against, 2-2 is the current score.  However, that’s a deceptive 2-2, because that’s like saying a football team goes 2-2 in its first four games, while winning the two by 40 point margins and losing the other two by 3-point margins.  This judge’s opinion is Supreme Court quality.  It might be sufficient enough that if ObamaCare makes it to SCOTUS, that a majority of the court finds against it without comment, yielding to this judge’s legal reasoning.

What’s not surprising to me is that the judge found the whole shebang unconstitutional even though the individual mandate was the only question on the table.  The legal reason is that ObamaCare didn’t have a severability clause (Hint:  The last time you heard that phrase was with AZ SB 1070, which does have one, and which was the reason why a lot of it was able to survive the first round of the injunctive phase).  The social reason is that the IM is the keystone to ObamaCare — Take it away, and ObamaCare crumbles.  And the reason for that is twofold:  The pseudo-economic rationalization is that you can’t prohibit denying insurance to those with pre-existing conditions without requiring everyone to have health insurance, otherwise you’d be collapsing the private insurance industry.  The real reason is Karen Ignagni.  Rush’s theory that the reason Congressional Democrats didn’t insert a severability clause, even though they considered it, was because they needed the entire bill intact so that the Congressional Budget Office could score it under one terabuck for the next decade, as a propaganda ploy vis-a-vis what we have spent in Iraq.

Even if there were a severability clause in ObamaCare, it would have been moot — the judge finding the IM unconstitutional still would have toppled the whole house of cards anyway.  As it is, the judiciary assumes that legislation is severable even if it doesn’t have a severability clause — IOW, AZ SB 1070 didn’t really need to have a severability clause for its individual parts to survive review by Federal judges.  It’s just that AZ legislators put one in because they knew it would wind up in court, and they wanted to make an impression on Federal judges.  I read SB 1070, and anyone with a brain could figure out that the various clauses really weren’t intertwined.   The judge in this matter only found all of ObamaCare unconstitutional because he noted, and the pro-ObamaCare forces actually argued, that the IM is the keystone of ObamaCare.  When the judiciary considers the constitutionality of a clause, they examine how its nullification would affect other pieces of legislation, just as a surgeon knows that removing your appendix makes no difference in your vitality, removing a leg means that you’ll still live but move around in a wheelchair or with a prosthesis, while removing your heart kills you.  The defendants (for ObamaCare) in this case argued that the IM was the heart, therefore finding the IM unconstitutional would be tantamount to killing ObamaCare.  Fine, said the judge, but that doesn’t make a difference to Constitutional governance, because the IM is still unconstitutional, so I’ve got no choice to find all of ObamaCare unconstitutional.

While I’m being scatterbrained, I want to say a few things about this Bloomberg “sting” at an Arizona gun show.  There is no “gun show loophole.”  While private sales aren’t theoretically subject to background checks, the sale still must be within the bounds of the law, i.e. qualified sellers selling legal pieces to qualified buyers.  Bloomberg’s sting involved “buyers” telling the sellers that they would not have been able to pass the background check.  Therefore, the only thing this sting reveals is a private seller the ATF can go after.  As it is, if you do engage in a private sale, you still eventually have to file certain paperwork.  It’s the same as income — Just because you earn income under the table and it’s not subject to withholding right away doesn’t mean you don’t have to report it on April 15.  And then there’s the more fundamental question:  What skin is it off Bloomberg’s back?  I highly doubt that many if any of the guns used in his city to commit violent crimes have their genesis in private sales.  And I have an even more pressing question:  Why is Bloomberg, the archon of the “No Labels” movement, labelling firearms?  Why should what’s good for the goose of human politics be good for the gander of metal contraptions?  And a more pressing question still:  Why Arizona?  Seems to me he’s picking on AZ for a particular reason.

As it is, Sheriff Joe Arpaio has already suggested that he’s going to conduct stings of illegal aliens in New York City.

UPDATE 3 PM: I read the judge’s opinion again, and here is the LOL moment of his ruling:

One of the amicus curiae briefs illustrates how using the Necessary and Proper Clause in the manner as suggested by the defendants would vitiate the enumerated powers principle (doc. 119).  It points out that the defendants are essentially admitting that the Act will have serious negative consequences, e.g., encouraging people to forego health insurance until medical services are needed, increasing premiums and costs for everyone, and thereby bankrupting the health insurance industry — unless the individual mandate is imposed.  Thus, rather than being used to implement or facilitate enforcement of the Act’s insurance industry reforms, the individual mandate is actually being used as the means to avoid the adverse consequences of the Act itself.  Such an application of the Necessary and Proper Clause would have the perverse effect of enabling Congress to pass ill-conceived, or economically disruptive statutes, secure in the knowledge that the more dysfunctional the results of the statute are, the more essential or necessary the statutory fix would be.  Under such a rationale, the more harm the statute does, the more power Congress could assume for itself under the Necessary and Proper Clause. This result would, of course, expand the Necessary and Proper Clause far beyond its original meaning, and allow Congress to exceed the powers specifically enumerated in Article I.  Surely this is not what the Founders anticipated, nor how that Clause should operate.

Translation:  Democrat Congresses want to fuck shit up so we can beg them to fuck shit up even worse.

Two Inches. Wow.

On top of a quarter inch of ice, in my back yard.

The local media went wall-to-wall for THIS?

Yeah, I know, I should be in Warrenton.  And I will say that if I still had my previous jobs, my usual business trips to Mid-Missouri would have been impossible yesterday and today.  It was the first time ever that MoDOT had to close I-70 for snow.

What I found most amusing is that 97.1′s local traffic reports yesterday morning featured accidents on US Highway 63 south of Rolla and on Interstate 44 near Joplin.  WTF?  KFTK’s broadcasting range doesn’t go that far, and I doubt there are many people listening online on their smartphones to justify traffic accident reports in Rolla and Joplin.  As far as that goes, there was a big wreck in Colorado they missed.

DNC Charlatans

DNC 2012 to Charlotte.

Meaning NOT St. Louis.

In spite of her crying in her cheerios, it seems like Claire McCaskill didn’t want DNC 2012 in St. Louis.  Some have speculated that she fears Tea Party protesters, but the types that usually protest at the RNC and DNC national conventions are far-left anarchist types.  So I don’t think that’s a good explanation.  I think the better explanation relates to a word she is alleged to have used in her alleged communication with the White House — “fundraising.”  DNC 2012 would be not much more than two months before the general election, and she’s not only up for re-election, but is, at this juncture, thought to be in for a tough race.  I think she thinks that a DNC in STL would act as an oxygen sucking machine, in that it would distract Democrat-oriented fund raising away from her.  Major national party conventions aren’t cheap productions, and if it were held in St. Louis, a dollar that various local labor unions give to help put it on is not a dollar that goes into McCaskill’s war chest.  AFAIK, the only big name NC Democrat up in 2012 is Governor Beverly Perdue, and she won in 2008 without much help from Charlotte because the Republican against her was Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory.  So raising shekels from Charlotte might not be one of her big worries.

While we’re on that subject, the union scene, both locally and nationally, are steamed that non-union Charlotte got the DNC over union St. Louis.

Honestly, to find out why Charlotte got it and St. Louis didn’t, look back at the 2008 electoral college map.  MO was red even in spite of the blue wave, and NC somehow “miraculously” turned blue.  If MO couldn’t vote Obama in an Obama-mania year, then you know it won’t vote Obama in 2012, which is figured to be a tougher row for him to hoe.  But that means that he still has a marginal chance in North Carolina.  Too, NC is a southern state, and various Democrat hacks, reeling over last November’s red wave that was especially deep red in the South, want to trick southern white voters back to the Democrat column somehow.

Another reason is that St. Louis isn’t the important business and commerce and industrial city that it used to be.  In the past decade, Mac sold out to Boeing, Purina to Nestle and A-B to InBev.  And a tad before that, Boatmen’s sold out to Nations Bank, and it, ironically, was based in Charlotte.  Several years later, Nations and San Francisco-based Bank of America merged, with the new company keeping the latter name but moving its HQ to the former’s home city.  Charlotte is an important banking center.