So much for the snow. On Saturday, we got an inch—maybe—and it’s all gone again. I woke up on the couch yesterday afternoon with the sunshine streaming in through the open patio door. This has to be the best winter that I’ve ever seen here in Minnesota …
… but not for everyone. My friend plows snow for a living—and to say that business has been slow is an understatement. He and I were listening to the CB radio last night, for lack of anything better to do.
What? A CB? Sure. I have the thing set up in my kitchen. I talked to someone last night named Blue Jeep who was saying something about honey badgers, which is weird because a buddy of mine was telling me about these interesting creatures on Saturday.
Honey badgers are the Republicans of the animal kingdom. They’re mild-mannered little brutes with big teeth and huge claws; they exploit and consume anything that they can get their filthy hands on; and they don’t give a shit at all about anything but themselves.
Here’s a video of John Boehner in action:
Jesus, what’s wrong with me? Is it because I watch too much TV? Am I addicted to the news? Why do I write things like that?
Whatever. I obviously blew the entire lead to this story—and it’s too late to go back and make changes—so I’m just going to press on and hope for the best.
"You won't have Jon Huntsman to kick around anymore," the candidate promised.
Jon Huntsman has announced that he’s dropping out of the race, despite his third-place finish in last week’s primary. Even though I never expected him to make it this far, I figured that since he’s stuck around this long, he’d hang in there for the sure-to-be-fantastic beating that was waiting for him in South Carolina—especially after he talked about his “ticket to ride” and all that.
It never ceases to amaze me what a dog-and-pony show we’re subjected to every four years. Up until yesterday, Huntsman had no problem calling Mitt Romney a communist and lumping him in with the likes of Chairman Mao—but now all of a sudden he’s toeing the party line and has officially endorsed his ex-rival.
Right. It’s been obvious for weeks now who the GOP nominee will be—obvious to everyone but the other candidates—and now they will all fall in, one by one. Huntsman has said that Romney is “unelectable”—and he is, of course—but he will support him in his doomed bid for the White House.
Huh. “Governor Huntsman is proud of the race he ran and his message of restoring trust in Washington,” a campaign source said. “But he did not want to stand in the way of the candidate best prepared to beat Barack Obama and turn the economy around. That’s Mitt Romney.”
Right. Even though he’s “unelectable.” And that last statement sure doesn’t say much for Huntsman or his pals—the “unelectable” candidate still stands a far better chance than they do.
And what about his staffers? Well, they all found out that they’d be looking for new jobs via unlikely sources such as Romney’s campaign workers and reporters’ tweets. Still, within just a few hours, they managed to tear down several websites and remove all of the anti-Romney videos from Huntsman’s YouTube channel.
Newt Gingrich, meanwhile, has been cranking up his own campaign efforts by making pompous statements such as this: “If you vote for Senator [Rick] Santorum, in effect you’re functionally voting for Governor Romney to be the nominee because he’s not going to beat him. The only way you can stop governor Romney for all practical purposes is to vote for Newt Gingrich. That’s just a fact. It’s a mathematical fact now and I think that’ll be a key decision point for conservatives in South Carolina for the next four or five days and I expect it’ll be very intensely discussed.”
And this: “Why would you want to nominate the guy who lost to the guy who lost to Obama?”
It will be interesting to see whether or not old Newt gets behind Romney when he gets the nod from the GOP.
"Dr. King would have wanted it this way," said Scott Walker, before being told to get his lying ass off the stage.
It is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker started bandying MLK’s name around at the state’s official ceremony, he was just about booed off the stage; in contrast, University of Maryland law professor Sherrilyn Ifill was greeted with loud applause when she pointed out that the Rev. King would not have approved of voter ID laws and certainly would have stood up for workers’ rights.
In other news, a German couple was removed from an airplane after having the nerve to expect food and drinks in first class, which just goes to show you that even when people spend big money to fly, they’re still treated like criminals and cattle.
Finally, North Dakota’s tourism division has pulled an ad that was meant to showcase the state’s nightlife (I didn’t know that North Dakota had nightlife). The ad depicts two young men in a bar, looking out a window at three young women; the text of the ad reads, “Drinks, dinner, decisions. Arrive a guest. Leave a legend.”
Sickening?
The advertisement drew dozens of complaints, with one person going so far as to say that it was “sickening.”
Right. Because this is America and the very idea that people engage in intercourse—and go to the bar to find willing partners—is just too much to bear.
The president of the ad agency is dumbfounded; the director of the tourism division is stunned; and the models themselves are disgusted with and embarrassed for all of these folks that obviously have too much time on their hands.
Here’s your wisdom:
John T. Schmitz
John T. Schmitz is the editor & publisher of Secret Laboratory; he is the founder of Maple Hills Press and has also freelanced as a writer and photographer, contributing to various local and international publications. Mr. Schmitz lives in Minnesota with his wife, Megan, and their two children; he is the author of four books.
E-mail Mr. Schmitz at editor@secretlaboratory.org.
