The Sunday Funnies

AP has a weekend feature on John  Boehner who would probably become speaker of the house if Republicans win big enough in November.The profile concentrates on what he'll try to do as speaker, and the writer tosses in a phrase about the trouble he would face trying to reconcile neocon Republicans and the "Increasingly libertarian-leaning (GOP) caucus."

It's pleasant to see the phrase in print, but whatever libertarian leaning is going on isn't enough to capsize the USS Business-As-Usual.

Show me 75 GOP congress critters who  will risk their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honors  (t' hee)  -- not to mention the Dantesque horror of losing an election --  to dismantle the Departments of Education, HUD, HHS, and Energy. Then, if  they will also vow to risk their all to end the War on Drugs (which has been lost since, roughly, the day Bill Clinton didn't inhale),  why,  then I'll agree the GOP caucus might be trending toward  libertarianism.

But let me repeat my pleasure in seeing even the word "libertarian" so high in a national story. Are we approaching the end of the era requiring us to explain that, no, it is not a misspelling of "liberal?"

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Down a little lower we run into one of those sneaky, perhaps unconscious, one-word editorials in a "news" story.

"Boehner already has a somewhat wary alliance with several younger and more dogmatic GOP members. "


Dogmatic? Would the writer have used that word to describe some  hard-core leftist congress critters? Of course not.  The required adjective in those cases is  "principled."

Generous Iowa

As I mentioned recently, my pride is unbounded in the self-sacrificing spirit of the Hawkeye State. We give you corn, soy beans, presidents, and a culture of Grant Woodism for your sophisticated amusement. But I was especially taken with a morning headline reporting that Indianapolis is  a special  beneficiary of our sharing spirit.

It reads "Apes Leave Des Moines, Become Hoosiers," because our "Great Ape Trust"* is sending four Orangutans to the Indianapolis zoo.

I speculated the gift might well be two legislators,  a governor, and our DNR director.

Reading the whole story sort of spoils the fun. What you're really getting is something like that, only hairier.

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*Yes, we have one. Don't ask.

Apt

Once in a while I offer news and comment on the enablers of Big Brother. I note this morning a new development in the  saga of Cogent (COGT, NYSE, $11.01).

The company makes and manages automated digital fingerprinting devices and databases to dissuade you from annoying your elected masters.

Cogent has recently sold itself to 3M.  Some shareholders think the acquisition price was too low. Enter the lawyers to sue Cogent management.

Okay, nothing unusual here except what I at first thought was a small joke in reporting the name of the legal firm.

Bull and Lifschitz.
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Live-blogging stupid and expensive fantasies

I am off to town to ask the price of a Willys Jeep, a CJ2A, I think. It's already haze gray. It is not  a total rust bucket. I don't know if it runs and/or drives.

I have a dream.  Except my stencils would say U.S.S. Henderson. Or maybe Desron 5.

I hope the price is prima facie  prohibitive, otherwise I may be setting myself up for the automotive screwing of the century.

EDIT: Damn. The price is in that treacherous sea between the Cape of Slight Overprice  the Straits of Laughing Out Loud.

Lord, give me the strength to say "No thank you." after the close eyeball and test drive tomorrow evening.