"Romney tops state GOP poll on presidential hopefuls"

This is the headline from The Detroit News today.

From the article:  "Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was the first choice of 28 percent, followed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 15 percent."  Romney?  And Huckabee?  Are you kidding me? 

This is why Michigan Republicans drive me crazy - they keep on voting for losers who have no clue.  Romney, who created and passed through the Massachusetts legislature the model legislation on which Obamacare is based?  Really?  He's a guy to bring fiscal sanity to the US?  And Huckabee, who never met a legislative solution to a problem that could better be solved in the private sector that he didn't like?  And who releases murderers so they can go out and murder again?  He's the smaller government guy you like?  Hope you're prepared to lose again, folks.

Yes, it's early.  No, there isn't much to choose from right now.  But nearly a third of you Republicans think Romney is a better choice than a bag of hockey pucks?  And 45% of you would vote for either one of these two over said bagged rubber?

I sure am glad I'm not a Republican any more.  I would be embarrassed.

Winter Fun

My daughter went sledding with her church youth group last Saturday.  I think it was about 10 degrees, and the wind chill around zero.  Fahrenheit, that is.

Granholm to teach at UC Berkeley

So reads the headline in The Detroit News today.

First:  THANK GOD THAT WOMAN IS GONE!!!!  Now we might actually make some headway with our economic woes here in Michigan, since we have someone in the Governors office that actually understands how to make economic decisions based on reality instead of some fluffy leftist utopian academic brain fart.  Which means she'll be right at home at Berkeley, where that sort of thing happens daily.

The article goes on to say that she will teach in their Public Policy school.  She's certainly qualified to teach what NOT to do in terms of Public Policy.  But again, this is Berkeley we're talking about, so she'll probably be the darling of the department.

And finally, the article reports she will be a "paid contributor" to NBC's Meet the Press show.  This fact tells you all you need to know about NBC.  Well, I guess the whole country is going to see the incredible ignorance we have had to put up with in Michigan for the last eight years.  Have your barf bags ready everyone.

Congressional response to Giffords shooting

First things first:  my fervent prayers and best wishes go out to Rep. Giffords and her family, as well as the families of those wounded and killed by this piece of excrement.  None of them deserved what happened to them, and the piece of crap that did it needs to fry - with extreme prejudice.  And yes, I'll say it:  I'll volunteer for the firing squad.

As for the reaction of those in Congress, I am a little disturbed by the haughtiness of those who believe that they need more protection for themselves in the wake of this attack.  I say if they can afford it, they should absolutely hire more security for themselves out of their own means, not that of the taxpayers.  Otherwise, they can live under the same laws and in the same environment they have set up for the rest of us to live in.  If DC is a gun-free zone, then those laws need to apply to them too.  If their district does not allow for "shall issue" concealed carry permits, then they shouldn't have any special privileges for self protection either.

They have created this little slice of utopia - they need to live it it like the rest of us do every day.

Sometimes, I just shake my head

Working at a major state university, "political correctness" and "diversity" are a part of the daily landscape.  But today my email contained one that just caused me to facepalm.  I was reading an email conversation from a Listserv I belong to for network administrators on campus, and one of the topics was whether or not there were a list of email addresses from our SAP implementation project, so they could be put into what is called a "whitelist" on a departments email server.  For those who don't know, in the email server world, a "whitelist" is a list of email addresses that are always allowed through, while a "blacklist" is a list of addresses that is never let through (usually because they are known spammers or attack sites).

So one guy gets on and requests that everyone use the terms "allow lists" and "deny lists" because of the racial connotations that are attached to "whitelist" and "blacklist".

I don't understand why otherwise intelligent people continue to subscribe to destructive philosophies like "diversity", which is not about equality and inclusion, but about divisiveness and exclusion based on external physical characteristics that no one can do anything about.  It pigeonholes people based on these characteristics, it makes broad assumptions about what they think and how they think based on these characteristics, rather than promoting understanding and reconciliation.

I have been through all the seminars and heard all the slogans and experienced the attempts at indoctrination over my twenty plus years at this institution, and it has always revealed itself as a philosophy that is empty of meaning and substance, promoting of strife, and frankly rather paranoid.

Not for me, thank you very much.