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"On Second Thought" for Sept. 3, 2012

8/28/2012

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The Republican National Convention got off to a rocky start when delegates drew lots to see who would break it to Ron Paul that he was not the nominee.
It suddenly dawned on Paul's supporters that this is why they hadn't heard his name in the media in several months.
As the convention approved a rule requiring delegates to support the candidate who won their state's preference poll or primary, Ron Paul supporters vowed to stay home rather than vote for Mitt Romney. No word yet on whether they will join the Democrats, a party that would never nominate Romney.
Paul Ryan, the Republican candidate for vice president, voted in favor of the TARP bailout at the start of the recession. Somewhere, former Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is still looking for the license plate number of the truck that hit him in 2010.
The makers of "World of Warcraft" say players from Iran are being blocked out because of U.S. sanctions. I thought it was because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was starting to take the game too seriously.
More than 400 earthquakes have been reported in Imperial County, California since Aug. 25. In the city of Brawley, the only people walking a straight line are the drunks.
Ronald Reagan had it wrong, the most terrifying words in the English language really are, "I'm from Hollywood and I'm here to help with your acceptance speech."
Note to future Republican presidential nominee: Beware of any movie star who says, "What your family friendly campaign needs is for me to get on stage and pretend the president is saying vulgar and obscene things."
As an opening act Thursday night, Clint Eastwood did for the Republican Party what Michael Jordan did for baseball, or what Greece has done to austerity.
At least it gave new meaning to the term, "Yielding to the chair."

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"On Second Thought" for Aug. 27, 2012

8/20/2012

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Last week, Mitt Romney denied his campaign would like to gut Medicare. President Barack Obama then denied charges his campaign would gut welfare reform. That’s the problem with candidates today: No guts.
Augusta National Golf Club made huge strides this week. The previously all-male club decided to admit any woman, so long as she either has been a U.S. secretary of state or is a prominent financier.
The restriction is understandable. You can’t let just anybody hit a little white ball with a stick.
Intel has hired a team of computer hackers to protect modern automobiles from computer viruses. So far, the team recommends that if your car starts acting funny, you should stop, turn off the engine, get out, get back in and turn it on again.
Do we really want Internet cars? Won’t it be frustrating to have your dashboard tell you to pull to curb while it downloads an important update that will require you to restart?
And what if it decides what it really needs is to update the driver?
Unfortunately for Rep. Todd Akin, when a politician is about to say something really stupid, the body doesn’t have a way to shut the whole thing down.
Akin, who caused a storm of criticism over uninformed comments about rape and pregnancy, needs to learn that whenever your doctor tells you something, it’s best to get a second opinion.
Otherwise, you could end up in the gaffe doghouse, with no one to talk to but Joe Biden.
A hurricane is bearing down on Tampa, Fla., as the GOP Convention prepares to convene. This could be a problem. As some members of Congress apparently demonstrated recently in the Sea of Galilee, they don’t do too well in water.
And speaking of hot water, Mitt Romney took flak last week for joking that “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate.” He could deflect all this by arguing that he really was taking a dig at Rocky Anderson, that other candidate of uncertain origins.
Speaking of Rocky, the former Salt Lake Mayor took it on the chin last week when he was beaten out of a spot on the California presidential ballot by Rosanne Barr. It’s kind of hard to know what to compare this to. The only thing that comes to mind is that it’s kind of like losing a national-anthem singing contest to, well, Rosanne Barr.

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'On Second Thought' for Aug. 20, 2012

8/13/2012

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OK, everyone save the notes you took on diving, archery and water polo so you can pick up where you left off in four years.
While many of us thought Kim Jong-Un and the North Koreans had the corner on the nutty dictatorship market, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus was waiting in the wings. Last week he went nuts because some Swedes parachuted Teddy Bears into his country complete with human rights messages.
Lukashenko has summoned the Swedes back to his country to face charges, and he took two Belarusians hostage as bait. No word on the fate of the teddy bears.
You've gotta love a leader who wants to protect his nation from invading stuffed animals.
But Lukashenko is no dummy. He knows: today it's a teddy bear, tomorrow it could be Buzz Lightyear.
Five Mormon siblings got married on the same day recently in Arizona. That means there are at least five guys with no excuse for ever forgetting an anniversary.
In the spirit of the Olympics, I suppose it’s only right to stage synchronized weddings. But if all five couples eventually have a baby on the same day, that would be going a bit too far.
Vice President Joe Biden in Virginia this week: "Where is it written that we cannot lead the world in the 20th century in making automobiles?" Good question. For that matter, let's set a goal to lead the world in automobiles in the 19th century, too.
Then he told the folks in Virginia, "with you, we can win North Carolina!" Was he talking about basketball? Can the vice president please have an interpreter?
Muhammed Rahim — a former translator for Osama bin Laden and a current inmate at Guantánamo Bay — sent a letter to his attorney recently saying he feels Lebron James should apologize to the city of Cleveland for the way he left to play basketball for the Miami Heat. Well, of course. As every good terrorist knows, there are some lines that can't be crossed.
Killing innocent people is one thing, but we're talking about NBA loyalty here.
One thing is for sure, Rahim has put the good people of Cleveland in a difficult spot, somewhere between Lebron and a hard place.
The Canyons School District this year will be encouraging good behavior by handing out "bus bucks," redeemable for prizes, to kids who act civilly on school buses. Hey — maybe they've hit on a cure for negative political campaigns.
If President Obama knew it would cost him that bicycle he wants, maybe he would tell his people to quit accusing Mitt Romney of felonies.

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On Second Thought for Aug. 13, 2012

8/6/2012

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A recent USDA employee newsletter suggested going meatless on Mondays to help the environment. Apparently, this wasn’t good for the environment of the USDA.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association issued a strongly worded denunciation and Rep. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, started tweeting about all the meat he was eating. That got the folks at PETA going, launching attacks of its own on the attackers. Ah yes, the USDA employee newsletter — it's required reading for people in the know.

Grassley, who perhaps is considering changing his name to Meatley, said he would increase his meat intake on Mondays. Then he started tweeting about every piece of meat he was eating. For his sake, we’re just glad the USDA didn’t advocate going without alcohol.

Don’t try to tell us how to improve the health of USDA workers. If we want them fat and heart-attack prone, by gum that’s our right.

NASA successfully landed a spacecraft called "Curiosity" on Mars last week. If they find intelligent life, they will quickly ship it to Washington so it can figure out how to keep funding NASA.
Unfortunately, Washington is a hostile environment for intelligent life.

Some contributions from Twitter:

@jayevensen Somewhere on #mars, there's a microbe staggering out of a bar and screaming, "ALIENS!" #curiosity
— James Hofheins (@jwhof) August 6, 2012

@jayevensen Last night there was a tweet from #mars: "Did y'all just see a UFO landing, or was that just me?" #Curiosity @nasa
— James Hofheins (@jwhof) August 6, 2012

@jayevensen Good thing Mars isn't following #slc ordinance to get junkers off front lawns.Depending on where #curiosity landed.
— James Hofheins (@jwhof) August 6, 2012

A Utah woman won a court case in Utah last week allowing her to get paid for braiding hair without 2,000 hours of classroom work and a professional license. Good heavens, what's next? Will we have to allow the kid down the street to mow our lawn without a Ph.D?
The cosmetology establishment argued that if you braid hair incorrectly, it can lead to permanent hair loss. That explains why you see so many bald little girls running around school yards.
There was only one problem with this argument: The 2,000 hours of required classroom work had little to do with braiding. They did, however, have a lot to do with stifling competition.
The The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said July was the hottest month ever recorded in U.S. history. The previous record was 1936. Given the bad economy and the relentless heat, all we need is to pull Shirley Temple out of retirement to do some movies, close our eyes and it will be 1936 again.
No, if it were 1936 we would be facing an election between a charismatic liberal president and a staid, buttoned-up governor accusing him of subverting the Constitution.

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"On Second Thought" for Sept. 3, 2012

"On Second Thought" for Aug. 27, 2012

'On Second Thought' for Aug. 20, 2012

On Second Thought for Aug. 13, 2012

Ha! Ha! Ha!

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