Barry Corzine's White House

Barack Obama manages the federal government with the same level of skill and judgment that Jon Corzine brought to MF Global.

Barney Frank to Retire!

First reaction: Wow!
Second reaction: It's about time!
Third reaction: Thank goodness.

A very intelligent friend of mine, who spends far too much time with the folks in Washington and therefore should know, says that Barney Frank is easily the most intelligent guy in Congress. That's sad on a number of levels.

Happy Birthday, Bill

William F. Buckley, Jr.

This One's for Megan and Her Friend Tigger

Time For a Bath

After 642 posts, time for a little humor.

It's not often that I pass on to others one of the dozen email chain letters that arrive before breakfast every morning, but this one—from a truly seasoned citizen—struck a chord.

$5.37! That's what the kid behind the counter at Taco Bell said to me. I dug into my pocket and pulled out some lint and two dimes and something that used to be a Jolly Rancher. Having already handed the kid a five-spot, I started to head back out to the truck to grab some change when the kid with the Elmo hairdo said the hardest thing anyone has ever said to me. He said, "It's OK. I'll just give you the senior citizen discount."

I turned to see who he was talking to and then heard the sound of change hitting the counter in front of me. "Only $4.68" he said cheerfully.

I stood there stupefied. I am 56, not even 60 yet? A mere child! Senior citizen?

I took my burrito and walked out to the truck wondering what was wrong with Elmo. Was he blind? As I sat in the truck, my blood began to boil. Old? Me?

I'll show him, I thought. I opened the door and headed back inside. I strode to the counter, and there he was waiting with a smile.

Before I could say a word, he held up something and jingled it in front of me, like I could be that easily distracted! What am I now? A toddler?

"Dude! Can't get too far without your car keys, eh?" I stared with utter disdain at the keys. I began to rationalize in my mind!

"Leaving keys behind hardly makes a man elderly! It could happen to anyone!"

I turned and headed back to the truck. I slipped the key into the ignition, but it wouldn't turn. What now? I checked my keys and tried another. Still nothing.

That's when I noticed the purple beads hanging from my rear view mirror. I had no purple beads hanging from my rear view mirror.

Then, a few other objects came into focus: The car seat in the back seat. Happy Meal toys spread all over the floorboard. A partially eaten doughnut on the dashboard.

Faster than you can say ginkgo biloba, I flew out of the alien vehicle.

Moments later I was speeding out of the parking lot, relieved to finally be leaving this nightmarish stop in my life. That is when I felt it, deep in the bowels of my stomach: hunger! My stomach growled and churned, and I reached to grab my burrito, only it was nowhere to be found.

I swung the truck around, gathered my courage, and strode back into the restaurant one final time. There Elmo stood, draped in youth and black nail polish. All I could think was, "What is the world coming to?"

All I could say was, "Did I leave my food and drink in here"? At this point I was ready to ask a Boy Scout to help me back to my vehicle, and then go straight home and apply for Social Security benefits.

Elmo had no clue. I walked back out to the truck, and suddenly a young lad came up and tugged on my jeans to get my attention. He was holding up a drink and a bag. His mother explained, "I think you left this in my truck by mistake."

I took the food and drink from the little boy and sheepishly apologized.

She offered these kind words: "It's OK. My grandfather does stuff like this all the time."

All of this is to explain how I got a ticket doing 85 in a 40 mph zone. Yessss, I was racing some punk kid in a Toyota Prius. And no, I told the officer, I'm not too old to be driving this fast.

As I walked in the front door, my wife met me halfway down the hall. I handed her a bag of cold food and a $300 speeding ticket. I promptly sat in my rocking chair and covered up my legs with a blankey.

The good news was I had successfully found my way home.

Pass this on to the other "old fogies" on your list (so they can have fun laughing, too).

Notice the larger type? That's for those of us who have trouble reading.

P.S. Save the earth...... It's the only planet with chocolate!!!!!

Oakland Should Be Ashamed

Every resident of Oakland, every business, every city employee, especially the Oakland Police Department, should hang their heads in shame.

Some Days Are Made for Crying

Today, the first day of life in the iCloud

Without the man who made it so

Insanely Great, Steve Jobs 1955-2011

The Good Old Days

Remember when we thought spending $600 for a toilet seat and $400 for a hammer was bad? Sounds absolutely terrific in this day of $24 million for a day job at a relative's solar panel factory.

Let's all hope future history books view the Obama administration as an aberration!

Goodbye, Charly

Charly has been my best friend for more than 40 years, though we never met in real life. We couldn't, him being a fictional character and all.

Charly and I grew smarter at about the same time, though his growth, thanks to his surgery, was much more rapid. He enjoyed being intelligent, at times far too much so. I was more ambiguous. His retreating IQ was much more rapid, but in that retreat were lessons that I've tried to appreciate over the decades since Daniel Keyes put Charly away forever.

I think Cliff Robertson enjoyed his relationship with Charly for some of the same reasons that I did. He played the character often over his career, sometimes with Algernon, sometimes in roles that had no mouse, but always with real deference to the complexity of the mind. In time, I confused, or perhaps commingled is the better word, Charlie Gibson and Cliff Robertson, a compliment to the actor's skill. Mr. Robertson was reputed to be one of the smartest men in Hollywood. I'd believe it. A real clue to its truth is how poorly he fit his industry when not in front of a camera.

Rush Limbaugh mentioned recently that Steve Jobs is one of five people who Rush would like to meet in person, a point of agreement. For me, Cliff Robertson was another. He was an interesting man: actor, thinker, highly skilled pilot, professional-level trap shooter, honest, brave, curious, intense and comfortable.

Thank you, Mr. Robertson, for providing an image of my imaginary best friend that has remained dynamic and real for nearly half a century.

Not a Perfect President, But a Good One

This is how it's done.

Notice that he said "I" just once, because it was never about him.

It was all about them.

Thank you, Mr. President.

MORE Obama Illegal Aliens?

FIrst, it's Aunt Obama, poor, dirt poor living in government housing, here illegally.

Now it's Uncle Obama, a drunk driving illegal.

What's the man doing, smuggling them in on Air Force One?

Geez, Mr. Buffett, Quit Whining!

Dear Mr. Buffett:

I've never thought of you as helpless and I am not now enjoying the mental image of you publicly whining about your plight in The New York Times.

Quit complaining that you only paid $6,938,744 in federal taxes last year. After all, it's your own fault. You've spent zillions through the years paying CPAs and tax lawyers to help you and your companies avoid the very taxes you now complain isn't enough. Does your hypocrisy know no shame? Just recently you sheltered billions, literally billions, with the Gates Foundation rather than paying estate and capital gains taxes.

Even with that, all is not lost! Go ahead, pull out your checkbook and write a big one. A really big one. Make it out for all the taxes you've avoided paying the last forty years or so. The easiest way to determine the right amount is to take your total income over the years and multiply that figure by whatever tax rate you believe "the wealthy" ought to be paying today to carry "their fair share" of the burden.

Go ahead, man, for your own dignity, man up!

But please, quit the damn whining.

To Have Hope We Need Change!

It's that simple.

Change and Hope?

Let's agree to Change so that we can Hope!

Without Change there can be no Hope.

News Flash! Bachman Smarter Than Obama?

In a development that surprised many within the Beltway, Michelle Bachman today announced that she plans to campaign in all 50 states.

No response yet from the White House on whether Mr. Obama will extend his campaign to the 57 states he spoke of earlier.

Nor has the White House commented on Mrs. Backman's apparent greater familiarity with American geography.

The View From Planet Hubris

Imagine a scouting team of aliens arriving on Earth from planet Hubris, a team with absolutely no concept of economic freedom and free markets. If all they knew were macroeconomics learned from a book, they would not realize that billions of individual decisions underlay and direct markets every day, 24/7, each of which is made to provide narrow advantage, but in the aggregate provide the best collective choices.

Wouldn't they immediately presume to know better how things should work and set about to make it so?

That's what we have in the Obama White House and spreading through every federal agency like pod people, body snatchers completely alien to free markets and which views individual freedom as a messy obstacle to a better life to all.

Our "Not Ready for a Triple-A Rating President"

Barack Obama is awash in a sea of his own misconceptions, drowning in mountainous waves of misperceptions.

He is by far the most idealogical of our presidents, and the most mistaken.

The Stupidest Crisis Statement Ever

I've never thought much of Alan Greenspan, whose aura outweighs his judgment by a wide margin, but this is the absolute stupidest approach ever taken to calm financial markets:

"The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default," said Greenspan on NBC's Meet the Press.

Boy, that'll do it. The cat's out of the bag, all you folks to whom the U. S. owes money. I hope the seniors counting on Social Security appreciate his frankness.

We're just going to pay everybody with worthless, inflated dollars.

Yep, calmer markets are just around the corner.

Uh, er, make that just on the other side of the canyon we're about to leap into.