"My entire taxable income, plus some, went to the payment of taxes."

"This does not include real estate taxes, sales taxes and other taxes I paid for 2010."

Oh? We should care? He's 1%. He should pay. Jesus wants him to pay.

Anyway, the key word is "taxable." Throw all the deductions back in and he's only paying 20%. Obviously, then, he should be paying even more. Jesus wants him to pay more.

"For me as a Christian, it... coincides with Jesus's teaching that for unto whom much is given, much shall be required," Obama said, quoting the Gospel of Luke.

"If they began this project where they want it to go — between San Francisco and Los Angeles..."

"... they would run into so much opposition from the environmentalists, and from local politicians influenced by the environmentalists, that the delays could take the high-speed rail advocates beyond the time limit for using the federal subsidy money. But the green fanatics have not yet taken over politically out in the San Joaquin Valley."

Writes Thomas Sowell about the high-speed rail line between Fresno and Bakersfield, California.

In other words, they are going to start wasting money out in the valley, so that they will be able to waste more money later on, along the coast. This may not make any sense economically, but it can make sense politically for Jerry Brown and Barack Obama.

Scott Walker supporters advocate writing in Scott Walker's name in the primary that will determine who will be his recall opponent.

A devious notion!

It started as a conversation on Facebook, but less than a week ago [it became] the page Operation: Write in Scott Walker in Democrat Primary...

And it's got 834 "likes" as I write this.

Wisconsin's system of open primaries means voters do not have to share a political party's affiliation to vote in its primary. So, there's nothing to stop Republicans from voting in a Democratic recall primary — and from writing in Walker's name.

If this effort were successful, it's unclear what the effect would be on the general recall election. The Government Accounability Board was contacted Friday, but didn't immediately provide an answer....

When asked about his initial impression of the write-in campaign, Wisconsin Democratic Party Spokesman Graeme Zielinksi said it was, “Surprise, then laughter.” Zielinski said the effort has no chance of succeeding.

“Republicans seem frightened by democracy and the will of the people and, given what Scott Walker has done to ruin Wisconsin, they should be,” Zielinski said.

Ha ha. I'm laughing too!

ADDED: I'm working on a parody "I'm My Own Recall Opponent," to the tune of "I'm My Own Grandpa." ("I'm My Own Grandpa" lyrics here.)

AND: I like the diagrammed version:



(The voice there is Ray Stevens. The first version, above, was Grandpa Jones. The second one... ?)

"Avoid the gruesome pitfalls of overdressing or underdressing."

"Simply dress like you are going someplace better later."

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor tells a joke about Romney and Mormons and polygamy and Gingrich.

"One is a practicing polygamist, and he's not even the Mormon."

That sounds like a joke that's just out there waiting for everyone to discover it. I find it hard to believe that she's the first person to say it... and also that she did say it.

"The NFL Has an 'L' of a Problem."

In 2016, it will be Super Bowl L... unless they give up the Roman numerals thing.

The Roman numerals got hard to read quite a while ago, but getting to the simple "L" for 50 is going to look weirder than any of the elaborate configurations of letters we've had to puzzle over — or ignore — in recent years.

What do you want to see in 2016?
	Super Bowl L
	Super Bowl 50
pollcode.com free polls

"What Time Does the Superbowl Start?"

= the best-ever string of words for pulling internet traffic.

Part of the strategy is the missing space. It should be: Superb Owl.

AND: Speaking of the Super Bowl, here's Madonna:



Who doesn't want to walk along the helmeted heads of football players as if they were a cobblestone street? And... where can I get wall-sconces like that (see 2:25)?

"When Iyal is distressed, Chancer is distressed. Unlike Iyal, Chancer knows what to do about it."

"Iyal rages by crossing his arms, sitting down hard on the floor and screaming and kicking. Chancer unknots the crossed arms by inserting his wide muzzle through the locked arms from below, opening them up and nuzzling toward Iyal’s face, licking and slobbering, until the boy’s screams turn to tears of remorse or to laughter.... Chancer doesn’t know that Iyal is cognitively impaired. What he knows is that Iyal is his boy."

A dog and his boy.

Shouldn't Democrats have had a viable candidate lined up before they went to all the trouble to get a million signatures on those Recall Walker petitions?

This list of 11 potential candidates is horrifying — or hilarious, depending on how much you like Governor Scott Walker. I mean, Citizen Dave has the 11 in order, and #1 is Herb Kohl! Herb Kohl is a 76-year-old man who's retiring from the U.S. Senate after a quarter century (and very little to show for it). According to Dave, the great thing about Kohl is that he's very rich, so he can use his own money. Note the implied concession: People aren't going to want to make contributions to the other candidates. But, look, there are no donation limits in the recall election. If Kohl wants to dump his money into the election, he can hand it to whomever he wants.Maybe one of the other 10 characters on Dave's list. Maybe #6, Kathleen Falk, who is, you know, the only person on the list who's actually announced her/his candidacy.

ADDED: Here's the Government Accountability Boards memo about contributions for recall expenses. The exemption applies to money used "for the purpose of payment of legal fees and other expenses incurred in connection with the circulation, offer to file or filing, or with the response to the circulation, offer to file or filing, of a petition to recall an officer prior to the time a recall primary or election is ordered, or after that time if incurred in contesting or defending the order."

"Even if he has the proportions of a porn star..."

"... no intellectual woman with an ounce of self-respect would flop around in the mud with an imbecile like Meade."

The people over in the Isthmus forum are trying to understand Meade.

ADDED: That's from page 5 of a thread that begins with the question why the forum — called "Daily Page" forum or "TDPF" — doesn't seem to have any participants who are "non-white." By page 3, there's some bizarre race-baiting about intelligence, in which — you figure out why — it is demanded that Meade admit he is less intelligent than Barack Obama.

ALSO: If you really want to go deeply into the background here, the subject of the thread "TDPF: whites only" is a play on an earlier thread "South Carolina GOP: whites only," which began "South Carolina's population is nearly 30% black. Yet in yesterday's voting, blacks made up approximately 1% of the electorate. It's remarkable how little discussion there is about this...." In that conversation, Meade tells the good liberals of the forum that they are displaying "covert racism," and much defensive posturing ensues.

At the No Photograph Café...

This is an open thread with no photograph. I'm sorry. You should see what it's like here in Wisconsin. There's nothing to photograph. We're stuck in this slough of not-winter in mid-winter. Please! Chat with me. Dissipate the bleakness!

"Xylophone-powered pop is still a rarity and this Como track is almost entirely lost to history, even though it is a great hellzapoppin romp through falling in love."

"Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)" is #99 on the countdown of 100 greatest songs that reached #2 — but not #1! — on the Billboard list over the years going back to 1955. This is List-a-Beefy's new project. (Click on my List-a-Beefy tag to see past posts linking to the previous Top 100, which was limited to recordings that reached #1.)

"Hot Diggity" was #2 for 5 weeks in April and May of 1956. Rightfully blocking its ascent was "Heartbreak Hotel" (my favorite Elvis Presley record). I say that now. But at the time, when I was 5 years old, I adored Perry Como (and I didn't quite get Elvis Presley). I watched his television show, and I loved his very calm, gentle way of singing and speaking. This is how it looked in 1956. (Yikes! Be careful watching that. It's really wholesome.)

What proportion of libertarians...

... are just liberals who want their marijuana?

I'm talking about Americans who call themselves "libertarian" or who say they like Ron Paul and so forth...
	More than 50%.
	Maybe 20-50%.
	5-20%.
	Less than 5%.
pollcode.com free polls

"Donald Trump to endorse Mitt Romney for president today in Las Vegas, sources with knowledge of endorsement tell CNN."

Email just received.

Trump's a businessman. He can see who the winner is, and he's backing the winner. Rumors were that he was going to endorse Gingrich, as if Trump is all about conservatism (and Newt constitutes the conservative). Not so!

"In truth, the art project is akin to a massive resource extraction project, and under federal law should be treated as one..."

So reads the complaint in a lawsuit brought by a group of University of Denver law students against federal land managers who approved Christo's draping fabric over 6 miles of the Arkansas River.

[I]n classifying an art project as a “recreation activity,” the suit says, the federal analysts framed their assessment in ways that excused the impact of the thousands of bore-holes, rock-bolts and anchors that will have a cumulative effect, the suit says, not unlike industrial mining.

This is a new twist on the old "what is art?" question. These law students are arguing about the art/mining distinction.

Let me add: I love Christo. I used to hate him.