Aaron Rodgers wins NFL MVP.

He's still not in the Super Bowl, but... nice.

"Romney holds large lead in Nevada."

"With 9% of the results in, Romney had about 45% of the vote while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas were tied far behind with 22% each. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who had largely bypassed the state, had 11% of the vote. Those numbers were gathered from vote counters at caucus sites across the state."

At the Monitor Café...

... if you let the light shining from you computer screen be your only light, you may lose the uniqueness that is you.

"While Americans fret over modern parenthood, the French are raising happy, well-behaved children without all the anxiety."

"Pamela Druckerman on the Gallic secrets for avoiding tantrums, teaching patience and saying 'non' with authority."

That's a column, but I'm not surprised to see it a book. Another book in the "Tiger Mother" genre — about other cultures' superior child-rearing methods. It's here — "Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting" — in case you'd like to buy it. It's also in the "French Women Don't Get Fat" genre — the "French is better" genre.

"The cat is a living human animal and doesn't deserve to be basically murdered...."

So said Circuit Judge David Hansher, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The cat is a living human animal!?

Anyway, the judge sent a man to jail for 6 months for killing a stray cat who was damaging his property. When people kill feral animals on their property, it's inflammatory to call it "murder." The method of killing the cat sound horrible — swinging it by the tail and cracking its head — but the man discovered the cat living in his vacant rental property, where it had been "urinating and defecating all over and tearing up furniture":

He told Hansher that he opened the doors and windows and tried to chase the animal outside, but that it instead hid under the kitchen sink. He said he tried to grab it by the neck but could only reach the tail, and once he pulled it out, the cat began viciously clawing and biting at him.

The judge said: "It's abhorrent and repulsive what you did... I'd rather have an armed robber in front of me than someone like you."

Crazy!

What is the truth about the Susan G. Komen foundation and Planned Parenthood?

There's a huge lump of politics, rhetoric, emotion, and ideology here — and here — and I'm not ready to make a diagnosis.

Milwaukee man with a concealed-carry permit shoots a robber in a store... but the store had a sign prohibiting weapons.

Should the man who stopped the robber be charged for bringing the weapon into the store? The DA has decided not to charge the man, Nazir Al-Mujaahid:

Fearing for the safety of himself, his wife and others in the store, he said, he unholstered his semi-automatic 9mm handgun, cocked it and kept it down at his side as he motioned another customer behind the robber to move away.

When the robber turned the shotgun toward him, Al-Mujaahid said, he fired six or seven shots from about 20 feet away. He said he hit the suspect in the leg and forehead. The robber then dropped the shotgun and bag, and fled the store....

(I guess that says something about a 9mm handgun. Hitting the robber in the forehead seems to have merely changed his mind.)

[Al-Mujaahid] said he did not notice the sign at Aldi prohibiting weapons in the store, and that if he had, he would have gone elsewhere. He said since he began to carry a concealed gun, he has stopped from going into other businesses where he did see the sign.

Okay, now what is the effect of those signs? Are they meaningless when we're happy about the use of the gun?

From the comments at the link:

This person illegally carried a weapon into a public store which prohibits firearms. Now he want to be a hero? What a pathetic loser, fine example of why CC is a failed policy. The ends do not justify the means. Nazir should be happy he did not get killed himself.

NOTE: As a matter of the law on the books, it's defined as a crime to violate those "no weapons" signs, even if you have a concealed-carry permit.

"A burbled value of $100 billion would price [Facebook] at an earnings multiple of 100 to one."

"Fast-growing Apple is currently valued at 13 to one. Google is valued at 20 to one. Facebook isn't LinkedIn or eToys or even Google."

Like a bank, it must care about its dignity and an image for stability because of its intimate relationship of trust with its 845 million members, who know their unparalleled cache of personal information is about to turn Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg into a billionaire 24 times over.

So far, Mr. Zuckerberg and colleagues have been more cautious in exploiting customer data than they get credit for. But let us be frank: There is no way the company can grow into such a gargantuan market value by adding even hundreds of millions of new members if it continues to extract only $1 in profit per year per user.

ADDED: In evaluating the worth of Facebook, can we take their judgment in interior design into account?



That is Facebook's own photo, so they are not ashamed to go out into the world looking like that. Disturbing! Those paper lanterns projecting out into the doorway or stuck back behind a trashcan and a rolling chair. The diagonal stripes on the carpet and continuing — miniaturized and de-diagonalized — on one wall. The horrid clock as the only thing hanging on the wall. I couldn't work in an environment like that, and yet the 2 individuals sitting on that crappy brown sectional couch are both billionaires. And they are billionaires in the business of creating something that will occupy the visual field of hundreds of millions of human beings. Something is terribly wrong!

The NYT "pounced on a murky tale about a star athlete" instead of "the erosion of due process at Yale and throughout American higher education."

Writes Peter Berkowitz in the Wall Street Journal:

The [sexual assault] complaint lodged against [quarterback Patrick] Witt was part of a new system for dealing with sexual-assault accusations at Yale. The school put the system in place at least partly in response to an investigation by the Department of Education stemming from allegations in early 2011 that Yale maintains a campus atmosphere hostile to women. Under the new system, the Times reported, Mr. Witt's accuser chose to file an informal complaint, which does not involve a full investigation or a finding of guilt or innocence....

"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)?