A few thoughts on Irene

That was it...? after all that?


We'll admit to hitting our saturation point, "Irene fatigue" if you will, by Thursday of last week.


So, why was this perhaps the most hyped natural disaster ever? It was a perfect storm of instances that when added all up could not help but be the most talked about, covered, analyzed and dissected natural happenstance in history.

Before we look at the hows and whys, here's our blog buddy Harrsion on all the hype:

Every news station had wall-to-wall hurricane coverage even as Internet reports were saying Irene was barely a hurricane. Fox News even had “Hurricane Irene” listed on DirecTV all weekend for its schedule. How many ways could Shepard Smith warn people? One reporter at Washington’s Fox affiliate WTTG (where Maury Povich, Connie Chung, and Steve Doocy got their starts) was drenched in green foam/sewage to make things look dramatic.

I hope he got his shots beforehand.

The weather reports kept emphasizing it was a “Category 1 storm” as if that was the most dangerous kind. The weaker the storm got the louder “Category 1″ was yelled.

With NYC’s total shutdown of the subway and airports I was expecting Morgan Freeman to reprise his role as President of the United State in Deep Impact and tell us we were all going to die so we could have a little morality play.

OK, back to the hows and whys:

1. It's August. Always the slowest news month on the calendar. It's the "almost" month. School's almost here. Football's almost here. Congress is almost back in session. Nothing really happening at the moment but you gotta fill up that dead air time.

2. It was potentially going to wipe out New York City and lord knows how much New Yorkers love to talk about themselves and their importance to the rest of us. With all the major news networks (except CNN) based in New York, the narcissism simply couldn't be helped.

3. After what happened 6 years ago, no one... repeat, no one was going to be left holding the Katrina bag.

4. Ergo, every pol and official was going to make sure they did everything they could to order people around and they made damn sure everybody saw and heard them ordering people around.

Here's George Will putting a nice, neat bow on things Sunday.

If it can be done in New Jersey...

With respect to entitlement and pension reform, timidity and kicking the can down the road at the federal level has given way to a lot of action at the state level. And in contrast to what we saw in Wisconsin, where the battle lines were drawn along party lines, deep blue states like New York and New Jersey were able to get state employee pension reforms accomplished in a bipartisan manner.

James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal sits down stands up with Steve Sweeney, Democrat, and President of the New Jersey Senate. (video approx. 10 minutes long)

I'm a labor guy: I saw a serious problem with the pensions and health care system we had in the state and it wasn't sustainable.

We did the right thing for everyone involved. They might be mad today... but I know what I did was right.

We took private sector pension management structure and put it into the public sector pension structure.

And yet here in California, public employee pension reform is nowhere close to being on the radar.

More government = more violence

Bad for your health in more ways than you may realize.



As predictably as the Sun rises in the East, cash-strapped states who are strangling the golden goose have found that slippery golden goose has gone underground.

Larry Penninger, acting director of the tobacco diversion unit of theBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), says investigations and prosecutions involving tobacco trafficking have been increasing as smugglers flood high-tax states with cigarettes from low-tax states.

From 2007 to last year, 27 states raised their cigarette taxes, according to Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which closely tracks tobacco tax rates across the country. Mackinac describes tobacco smuggling as an “unintended consequence of high cigarette taxes.”


There is so much illicit money to be made, Penninger says, that some drug and weapon trafficking organizations are adding tobacco to their product lines to boost profits. For example, in low-tax states such as Virginia, where cigarettes cost about $4.50 a pack, smugglers can sell a truckload (typically 800 cases) in New York at $13 a pack. New York is the highest tobacco taxing jurisdiction in the country.

Smuggling costs states and the federal government about $5 billion, according to U.S. government estimates. “Everybody out there (involved in illegal trafficking operations) is tapping into tobacco,’’ Penninger says.

(italics, ours)

Bless their hearts... it's as if Mackinac stumbled, quite accidentally, upon this phenomena.

Seriously, just what did the states think was going to happen when they started jacking up the price of cigarettes via higher taxes?

The statist just doesn't get it - he thinks that if you add a 75 cent sin tax on a pack of cigarettes, he is going to get that extra 75 cents x the amount of packs of cigarettes sold before that tax was added. It just doesn't work that way. Of course, people will seek the cheaper alternative and if that means purchasing cigarettes that were brought over state lines, that is exactly what they are going to do.

This is just a perfect illustration of how taxes alter people's behavior.

Terrific. Now states are out that projected revenue putting themselves in an even deeper whole and the feds have yet another potentially violent crime product they have to deal with all because of extremely short-sighted policy made by state law-makers that are economic dunces and who cannot see beyond their own noses as to the ill-effects down the immediate road brought about by their legislation.

Unreal headline of the day

U.N. Human Rights Council Takes Aim at New Target: United States


Alternate headline: "When You Lose Russia, Cuba and Iran"


Fantasy: to be the UN ambassador for one day and for that day to be also blessed with super-human powers so that the UN building in lower Manhattan would be leveled by the sheer fury and rage of our overturning-the-money-changers'-tables-in-the-temple righteous indignation.

Quotes of the day

Via Instapundit:

Now that DADT has been repealed, tools finding new and tortured rationalizations for keeping ROTC off college campuses.

ROTC and its warrior ethic taint the intellectual purity of a school...

Who the hell says things like this? The same person who also says this:

I admire those who join armies, whether America's or the Taliban's: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and to their principles, for their sacrifices to be away from home.

And from the nanny-state files...

If you really want Mayor Bloomberg to do something about the snow, just tell him that people are enjoying it.

heh

Wikileakspalooza: the New York edition

After some congratulatory back-slapping over the filters his employer put in place that governed which wikileaks were published, Brooks gets down to what was damaged the most, perhaps, by Mr. Assange:

Yet it might be useful to consider one more filter. Consider it the World Order filter. The fact that we live our lives amid order and not chaos is the great achievement of civilization. This order should not be taken for granted.

This order is tenuously maintained by brave soldiers but also by talkative leaders and diplomats. Every second of every day, leaders and diplomats are engaged in a never-ending conversation. The leaked cables reveal this conversation. They show diplomats seeking information, cajoling each other and engaging in faux-friendships and petty hypocrisies as they seek to avoid global disasters.

Despite the imaginings of people like Assange, the conversation revealed in the cables is not devious and nefarious. The private conversation is similar to the public conversation, except maybe more admirable. Israeli and Arab diplomats can be seen reacting sympathetically and realistically toward one another. The Americans in the cables are generally savvy and honest. Iran’s neighbors are properly alarmed and reaching out.

Some people argue that this diplomatic conversation is based on mechanical calculations about national self-interest, and it won’t be affected by public exposure. But this conversation, like all conversations, is built on relationships. The quality of the conversation is determined by the level of trust. Its direction is influenced by persuasion and by feelings about friends and enemies.

The quality of the conversation is damaged by exposure, just as our relationships with our neighbors would be damaged if every private assessment were brought to the light of day. We’ve seen what happens when conversations deteriorate (look at the U.S. Congress), and it’s ugly.

The WikiLeaks dump will probably damage the global conversation. Nations will be less likely to share with the United States. Agencies will be tempted to return to the pre-9/11 silos. World leaders will get their back up when they read what is said about them. Cooperation against Iran may be harder to maintain because Arab leaders feel exposed and boxed in. This fragile international conversation is under threat. It’s under threat from WikiLeaks. It’s under threat from a Gresham’s Law effect, in which the level of public exposure is determined by the biggest leaker and the biggest traitor.

Many years ago, we shared some candid and rather unflattering thoughts regarding a friend we truly did admire and respect to another person. What we said got back to our friend. Words cannot describe how mortified we were. It took years to rebuild the trust and friendship we had originally so we can understand where Brooks is coming from.


John Podhoretz, writing for the New York Post sees the myth of the ugly American exploded by the Wikileaks:

That ineptitude is not the only aspect of the US government revealed by the Wiki dump. One also gets an overpowering sense of just how well-intentioned the United States is. The cables I've read so far show our diplomats trying to make sense of a Bizarro World in which the United States tends to say what it means while almost every other nation is essentially allergic to candor or straight talk.

Arab potentates say exactly the same things the Israelis say about the Iranians and their intentions -- but won't say them out loud in public, nor lift a finger themselves. The Chinese whine about oil and Iran, and we help them with the Saudis.

Our diplomats must cope with Khadafy's lunacy, the solipsistic nihilism of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and the shifting allegiances and gamesmanship of Vladimir Putin.

If the pop-culture version of the US government had any basis in reality, it would be revealed in these documents. These are, after all, written for a tiny audience of governmental high-ups, and are supposed to be frank and unadorned. If we were plotting to overthrow governments, or figure out ways to divert precious resources for our own use, such things would appear in these cables.

They don't, because that's not what really goes on -- at least not so far as the United States is concerned. From the bits I've been able to read, the WikiLeaks documents open a window onto a US government trying to keep weaponry out of the hands of bad actors, to help bring peace and stability to Iraq and Afghanistan, to figure out the constitutional basis of a coup in Honduras.

This isn't the Ugly American. It's the Smiley-Face American.

And both Brooks' and Podhoretz's columns, in turn, reminded us of a post by B-Daddy while doing some guest-blogging at BwD, stressing the critical importance that a functioning republic have a loyal, dedicated and competent civil servant work force that runs the government and continues with their respective duties and responsibilities regardless of which party is in the Oval Office or roaming around Capitol Hill.

This is both a strength and a weakness of our system. Because the Federal Agencies operate under the laws passed by the Congress, they move out, slowly perhaps, to execute the mission given to them by law. When a new administration is in power, the mission doesn't change. Except for the actual war fighting execution, where the President is in charge as Commander in Chief, even if he doesn't want to face up to that, even the Defense Department cruises along building systems and training forces without huge changes.

"Left full rudder." "Aye-Aye Captain, but the rudder is already left full."




And, of course, what would be a New York edition without directing your attention to Thomas Friedman fantasizing leaked cables from the Chinese embassy in American sounding an awful lot like Thomas Friedman Op-Ed columns.

Sub-headline of the day

Disaster On Primary Day As Machine Glitches Cause Chaos



Given the number and degree of tea-fueled upsets that went down around the country on Tuesday, that sub-headline made us think of something other than malfunctioning vote counters.

Of mosques, hate speech and gay bars

Greg Gutfeld's plans to build a gay bar adjacent to the Ground Zero mosque (Al Gayda? The Velvet Sword? Sharia Spa?) as a way to build a bridge to understanding with the Muslim community that is, we understand, somewhat hostile to homosexuals, brought this reaction from Megan McArdle:

This is kind of a jerk move. But it's a brilliant jerk move. I am hoping that at least one person will attempt to explain why we should support the mosque near Ground Zero, but not the gay bar next to the mosque near Ground Zero. I would find that very entertaining.

Indeed. After all the lecturing and tut-tutting the left has been doing with regard to center-right Nation's horrified response to the mosque proposal, it's time to turn the tables.

(For the record: though we believe building this mosque there is strictly an act of provocation and an incredibly insensitive one at that, we can see no legal standing to prevent them from building it there)

And McCardle gets her "one person".

The Ground Zero mosque spokesperson tweeted Gutfeld the following:

You're free to open whatever you like. If you won't consider the sensibilities of Muslims, you're not going to build dialog

Well, that's certainly a matter of opinion, now isn't it, champ? Just consider this a lesson in that whole American freedom and liberty thing cutting both ways.

But Gutfeld's gay bar got us to thinking about offensive/hate speech and actions. In some places, what Gutfeld is attempting to do, would get him frog-marched to in front of some civil rights commission (think Canada or parts of Northern Europe) but that's not what we do here.

In one of our posts regarding free speech in America, we talked about what constitutes hate speech and how, because we view free speech in this country much differently than other countries, the bar for hate speech is set much higher:

Precisely because the bar is set higher, the legitimization of hate speech is much more infrequent. Rather than officially recognize alleged hate speech in courts of law, the rantings of say, a Jeremiah Wright or the suggestions by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson that the acceptance of homosexuality in this country was, in part, responsible for 9-11, it is instead held up for public scorn, ridicule and mocking…. as it should. The question of legitimacy is taken off the table and in fact, it is viewed not as court-defined “hate speech” but rather, “illegitimate speech.” In other words, speech that is outside the legitimate circle of polite and civil discourse.

We will not take you to court, we will, however, make fun of you and then simply ignore you.

And this is what Gutfeld is doing. He has turned the tables on the mosque builders. He is gutting (no pun intended) the spiteful intent of these people with mockery and satire. He is de-legitimizing the mosque with this brilliant Alinsky-like tactic.

There is a parallel here and it occurred just 3 years ago in the same city:

A perfect case-in-point for this is the Iranian mad-bomber, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who came to New York last year to make a number of speeches and appearances. We understood the calls for banning and/or boycotting his speeches but we generally came down on the side of letting the man speak knowing that the true Mahmoud would reveal himself and sho’nuff, the raving lunatic, homophobe and anti-semite we knew him to be did not disappoint.

Despite the serious nature of what he said, we mocked and ridiculed the guy, essentially turning Ahmedinejad into a late-night punch line effectively neutering and delegitimizing his message.

This is part of American exceptionalism so bring it on. Instead of cowering in a corner or behaving like a bunch of humour-less, politically correct, Euro-scolds, Gutfeld has embraced his inner wild, wild West(ern civilization) and is fighting this fight on his terms.

America: where freedom and fun happens.

Poll question of the week

It's been a little while since we've done one of these. In fact, it's partly because we were crushed by the fact that you all thought that Timothy Geithner was a bigger hack than that miserable hack that runs the Justice Department.

We've recovered.

You may have heard that the Cordoba House has been granted permission to be built near the site of Ground Zero. The poll is asking for your reaction, so please follow suit and please add any further commentary in the comment section.

Interesting side note from the New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting yesterday where they voted to allow construction of the mosque: A construction worker, Andy Sullivan, who helped with the bucket brigades there at the site in the days after 9-11 had this to say regarding an important logistical matter:

Later, Sullivan told reporters that the controversy surrounding the mosque is far from over.

“You’re going to have a problem getting labor there,” he said. “Everyone I’ve talked to will not lift a finger to build that disgrace.”

Having spent 4 years back there while attending Seminary, New Yorkers are not the type to be trifled with. We see picket lines.




Addendum #1: OK, folks, one more certainty (but in a good way): death, taxes and Sarah B.'s commentary. Liberated from the comment section:

I think it is a horrible symbolic statement by the Islamic community. They have zero sensitivity to what the extreme elements of their faith did at that location. If Islam is a religion of peace, I say PROVE IT. Spend the next 10 years building a track record of sensitivity and activism that illustrates how tolerant they are of other faiths, a willingness to protect and nurture women, and banish and battle terrorism. Why the hell are WE the ones who are supposed to open our hearts to all their demands and whims? They need to be in the WORKING end of their relationship with peace loving, God fearing, law abiding America. They want to be here in this great nation, fine...pony up (and I don't mean financially).

Full disclosure: We voted (b). And lest you think we're getting weak in the knees, be it known, we think Sarah is spot-on. Much like today's ruling from a single judge here in California, there is a legal aspect to this as well as a PR one.

Now, we're not going to pretend to know what the real PR motive is of the people who wish to build this mosque. If it is to build a bridge to understanding and reconciliation then that is going to take years and years, if at all, considering the emotions surrounding this. There would appear to be more effective and discreet ways of doing so than building this structure within shouting distance of Ground Zero.

If, however, the motive is to symbolically provoke then, Mission Accomplished.

This story and the words and deeds that follow, through the planning stages, ground breaking, construction and dedication of this mosque will be the lead narrative of Muslim relations with respect to not only this country but the West.

Suffice to say, we're not looking forward to the next few years of construction development in the NYC.

Messaging problem

Two men carrying Mexican flags in protest of Arizona's immigration law ran into the outfield during the seventh inning of the New York Mets' game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night at Citi Field.

The men were apprehended by security fairly quickly without much incident.

Prior to the game, about 40 people across the street from the ballpark chanted "Oppose racism!" and "Boycott Arizona!"

Others stationed closer to the subway exit handed out leaflets that requested Major League Baseball move next year's All-Star game out of Phoenix.

Maybe it was a false flag operation as there is no surer way to turn sympathy for your cause into indignation than running around with foreign nation's flag as the crowd's chants of "U-S-A!...U-S-A!" did attest.

But chances are, it wasn't a false flag operation but rather a counterproductive stunt performed by one of the true believers.

Recall when the open borders crowd started ramping up their protests some 4 years ago and everyone showed up with Mexican flags in Los Angeles on the first day but American flags on the second day as leadership, knowing Mexican flags are a P.R. disaster, sent out the word, pleading with the protestors to sport Old Glory.

Just as the messaging veil slips from time to time, it is merely evidence that this isn't about profiling, it isn't about discrimination and it isn't even about Mexico or Mexicans, per se. These messaging hiccups occur because they cannot be helped as setting at the core of the broad umbrella of the open borders crowd beats a heart of race-based identity politics and victimization. Its a philosophy that detests capitalism and American exceptionalism and to which the rule of law is a completely foreign concept.

It is ultimately hostile to our notions of freedom and liberty as these people view freedom and liberty merely as justifications for exploiting the underclass, the victim, as defined by them.

Don't take your eye off the ball. Stick around past the first few minutes of "No justice, no peace" posturing and sloganeering to hear what these tools of the ruling class really think about this country.

Since you won't be needing that liver anymore...

This is the sort of nonsense that goes down when you cede control of your healthcare decisions to the government as is the case with New York state's government-managed healthcare system.

Organ donation has become a vital way to save lives around the world, but a vast shortage of donors continues to mean people are losing their lives while on waiting lists.

But there is a unique proposal that could change all that.

New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky nearly lost his daughter, Willie, at 4 years old when she needed a kidney transplant, and again 10 years later when her second kidney failed.

"We have 10,000 New Yorkers on the list today waiting for organs. We import half the organs we transplant. It is an unacceptable failed system," Brodsky said.

To fix that, Brodsky introduced a new bill in Albany that would enroll all New Yorkers as an organ donor, unless they actually opt out of organ donation. It would be the first law of its kind in the United States.

"Overseas, 24 nations have it. Israel has it. Others have it. And it works without a lot of controversy," Brodsky said.

Currently one of the biggest obstacles to being a donor is while 9 out of 10 are favorable to it only 1 out of 10 is signed up to be a donor.

Isn't it benevolent that New York's overseers have seen fit to allow its citizens to opt out?

The tone of the article seemed puzzled that 90% of New Yorkers were for (voluntary) organ donation but only 10% participated the program. Seems to be perfectly in keeping with the volunteerism nature of America, to us... If it works for you, brother, go for it.

We understand that compulsory organ donation might work great elsewhere but that's not really the point. The point is, where do you draw the line? What other aspect of your literal body is the government going to invite itself to?

Very quickly and without much notice, that slippery slope of resigned personal choices becomes a Vancouver Olympics bobsled run. Enjoy the ride.

Now they tell us

The New York Times continues its fearless coverage of the consequences of ObamaCare in a series of articles that could be called, "That would've been nice to know back then" with the "then" being prior to the March 20th vote on ObamaCare in the Senate.

New York’s insurance system has been a working laboratory for the core provision of the new federal health care law — insurance even for those who are already sick and facing huge medical bills — and an expensive lesson in unplanned consequences. Premiums for individual and small group policies have risen so high that state officials and patients’ advocates say that New York’s extensive insurance safety net for people like Ms. Welles is falling apart.

The problem stems in part from the state’s high medical costs and in part from its stringent requirements for insurance companies in the individual and small group market. In 1993, motivated by stories of suffering AIDS patients, the state became one of the first to require insurers to extend individual or small group coverage to anyone with pre-existing illnesses.

New York also became one of the few states that require insurers within each region of the state to charge the same rates for the same benefits, regardless of whether people are old or young, male or female, smokers or nonsmokers, high risk or low risk.

The Ms. Welles in question here was paying over $17,000/year for individual coverage which includes that for her cancer and MS.

The Times article goes on to explain "risk pools" and the concept of needing healthy people to subsidize the health care expenses of those who need more health care. They also explain how in this model for ObamaCare in New York, the healthy customers decided that paying the high premiums weren't worth it and got out of the plan which, of course, resulted in sky-rocketing premiums for those who stayed in the plan.

Skyrocketing premiums to the point known in the healthcare industry as "adverse selection death spiral". We are not sure what bemuses us more: that the NYT would dare use the word "death" in describing a potential phenomena of ObamaCare (so, if you are not going to admit to "death panels" will you at least cop to "death spirals"?) or that the "adverse selection death spiral" is most commonly used when talking about universal/government-managed healthcare? Call it a toss-up.

Dig this:

“You have a mandate that’s accessible in theory, but not in practice, because it’s too expensive,” said Mark P. Scherzer, a consumer lawyer and counsel to New Yorkers for Accessible Health Coverage, an advocacy group. “What you get left clinging to the life raft is the population that tends to have pretty high health needs.”

Now we're clinging to life rafts?

Article goes on to explain that unless the government employs vigorous enforcement methods (hello, IRS) to ensure mandatory participation, it will be tough to avoid that whole death spiral thing. And don't we know it - we've been saying the same damn thing for months so it's good to hear the Times finally get into the act.

“In this new marketplace that we envision, this requirement that everybody be covered, that should draw better, healthier people into the insurance pool, which should bring down rates,” said Mark Hall, a professor of law and public health at Wake Forest University. But he added, “You have to sort of take a leap of faith that that’s going to happen.”

If you are scoring at home, we now have "death spirals", "clinging to the life raft", and "take a leap of faith", all used to describe what we can expect in the future from the HEALTHcare industry.

Go ahead and read the article. It's chockful of facts on just how royally screwed the healthcare industry in New York state really is. Again, this would've been really, really handy information for the "paper of record" to be so forthcoming with before the healthcare vote.

Not that it would've made a difference in the end, however, it'd be comforting to know that there was still some shred of decency and honesty remaining in the 4th estate of this country.

Doing the right thing

Facing one of the most nail-biting choices since the presidential election, David Paterson, the New York governor, has been told he would be guilty of “political malpractice” if he named anyone other than Caroline Kennedy as the state’s new junior representative in the Senate.

Mr Paterson, under intense pressure from some of the country’s most powerful political dynasties as he ponders his decision, has sole discretion to appoint a replacement for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is moving to the state department in Barack Obama’s administration.

.
.

It would appear that since that time that we and Princess’s house worker made compelling arguments for why she should be appointed to Hillary’s vacated Senate seat, the rest of the political establishment is starting to finally fall back in line on what should’ve been an obvious choice in the first place. Political dynasties are at stake, dammit!

Sources close to New York Governor, David Patterson, expect him to name Caroline Kennedy to the Senate seat in short order.

But in an odd twist, Patterson turns right around and appears to make a nod to… democracy:

Following continuing criticism of Kennedy, Paterson on Thursday threw down the gauntlet. Though Kennedy appears to be the front-runner to replace Clinton, Paterson said the next junior Senator from New York will have to win re-election on his or her own.

We’ll forgive Patterson that small gaffe in reference to the current practice of appointment-by-surname to this nation’s most exclusive political club as long as he does the right thing.

We’ve worked so hard for this... we can’t believe at long last it might actually become true.

She can see Jersey from her Manhattan apartment

Rather it is the aristocratic value system of most NY-DC journalists themselves who apparently still assume that old money, status, and an Ivy-League pedigree are reliable barometers of talent and sobriety, suggesting that the upper-East Side Kennedy's public ineptness is an aberration, a bad day, a minor distraction, while Palin's charisma and ease are superficial and a natural reflection of her Idaho sports journalism degree.

A few generations ago, Democrats would have opposed Palin but appreciated her blue-collar story, and applauded a working mom who out-politicked entrenched and richer male elites. But now the new aristocratic liberalism has adopted the values of the old silk-stocking Republicans of the 1950s—and so zombie-like worship rather than question entitlement.

We’re beginning to feel quite alone out here in the right-wing blogosphere regarding our endorsement of Caroline Kennedy’s ascension, er, appointment to Hillary Clinton’s vacated New York Senate Seat. (Shoot, even the East coast establishment is cracking back on her Senatorial bid).

As much as we hate to admit it we’re kind of with Kathleen Parker on this one. It’s not exactly like Kennedy is going to be one heart beat away from the Presidency or tasked with lugging around the “nuclear football”. She’s only going to be a Senator and have a listen below and ask yourself if she might just be overqualified for the job as she seems to possess the same “off teleprompter” skills as both the President and President-elect.



See? And back to the business of being a Senator – a member of an exclusive club - this august and deliberative body that is led by… Harry Reid. Harry Freaking Reid. Show up, punch the clock, vote “present” on the tough ones and vote with Uncle Ted on the others. This requires some sort of exhaustive resume' and comprehensive political skill set? Besides, the bar will not be raised very high for Princess to be party to an organization that is currently basking in an 18% approval rating.

And for those of you yammering about how all this violates some sacred democratic code of ethics regarding political dynasties, let’s just say that the Senate is currently the best case in point for illustrating how this nation is not a democracy after all but is becoming a fully formed representative-by-appointment-republic.

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch....

"...‘millipede’, ‘spigot’, ‘curvaceous’, vivacious’, ‘shade tree’, ‘cool breeze’, ‘bill of lading’, and of course, ‘socialist’, ‘street corner, ‘anthropod’, ‘Geico customer’, ‘hard hat’, ‘steel-toe safety shoes’, ‘wire-rim glasses’, ‘Cheech’, ‘Chong’, ‘Return to the Valley of the Dolls’, ‘Ring of Fire’, ‘cyclical’, ‘cynical’, ‘biblical’, ……

….’Coach Janky Spanky’, ‘Dr. Dooitch Bigg’, ‘random acts of kindness’, ‘quatrain’, ‘Coltraine’, 'Train in Vain' 'Ron Cey', 'Ron Mexico', 'Ron Turner', 'Bachman-Turner Overdrive', ‘polling data’, ‘double digit inflation’, ‘triple-digit, I.Q., ‘single-digit interest rates’, ‘Tony Romo’, ‘FDR’, ‘JFK’, ‘HUD’, ‘HHS’….”

(lone remaining reporter): “Uhh, governor… excuse me... excuse me, governor but the state of New York faces a historically unprecedented 4-year budget deficit of $47 billion which is $20 billion higher than projected since you started these remarks a couple of months ago."

Patterson: “What? Oh yeah, that’s correct. That’s why I’m going to Washington to get my marker in for federal aid. Everyone realizes the Big Apple is the engine that drives this nation’s financial sector and with the hit we’ve taken… well, let’s just say that I’m losing my ass big-time without that white collar tax revenue and I need a little somethin’-somethin’ to fund Medicaid and the state’s unemployment insurance."

Reporter: "Are you worried that after the Big Three auto manufacturers have come to Washington with their hat in hand that the public might be tired of these bailouts?"

Patterson: "They have?"

Reporter: "Who? The public?"

Patterson: "No, the Big Three."

Reporter: "Yep."

Patterson: “Well, damn. I gotta on a roll there and kinda lost track of time. Hey, at least I’ll be the first state in line for a federal handout…. I’ll beat that chump Schwarzenegger to the trough who will probably be whining about a slumping movie industry or illegal immigration or something like that. Besides, I want to do it here in short order. Groveling by the light of the Holiday tree just appears unseemly."

Reporter: "How much are you going to ask for, governor?"

Patterson: "I don’t want to be too direct… but I was thinking of something well below most of the other bail outs to not draw too much attention to our plight but also a nice round number like… $89 billion. Whaddya think?"

Reporter: “Whatever you say, gov’. So when are you going up to the Hill?”

Patterson: “Tomorrow”

Reporter (playfully): “So no big plans for tonight?”

Patterson: “Very funny, wise guy. Listen, when I got into this business of “public service” there was quite a bit of quid for the quo, if you know what I mean but Spitzer had to go and screw the whole deal up. Hookers…? Please."

Reporter: “Good night, then, governor.”

Patterson: “Late’…”

Rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated

Men rarely ask me about lighting. Women frequently do, wanting reassurance that it isn’t too bright.

Women more often ask if a menu has leaner, healthier options. Men more often ask if they can get a decent steak.

Finer New York eateries don’t stoop to “1/2-off ladies night” so they have to be a little more creative when dealing with those just-won’t-seem-to-ever-go-away differences between the sexes.

Your Sunday morning spot with the Times (sans crossword puzzle) here.