In the halcyon days of TV there was a game show, “To Tell The Truth,” in which contestants bluffed – even lied – their way through their résumés, claiming experiences and expertise they did not have. The object of the game was to fool the panel into voting for the bogus contestants, instead of the one who really was who (s)he claimed to be. This seems to be the strategy Mitt Romney (R-MA) is using to get to the White House.

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As I said… Hillary needed someone to make this look like a contest and Obama fit the bill. He was never really in it and now his imaginary surge–in many respects a media/HRC-friend creation anyway–fades and she can be the “Comeback Kid.” Don’t be fooled: this is playing out just as they hoped it would.

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Recently Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney defended his Mormon faith, hailed America’s Judeo-Christian tradition, and scorned bigots pining to drive religion from the public square.  His tour de force was brilliantly written and passionately given.  Such amalgams are hard to find.     

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An article this past summer on Balkan Insight’s website titled “New Cathedral Symbolises Catholic Rebirth in Kosovo” attempted to demonstrate progress on religious pluralism in the independence-seeking province.

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Well, Christmas is winding down. Hopefully you all had a blessed and wonderful day. Of course, for the parents out there, no doubt the relaxing is only now beginning (one doesn’t realize how hard one’s parents worked at the holidays until one is a parent!).

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It was Saturday, December 22nd and there were three full shopping days left before Christmas. The checkout clerk at Wal-Mart seemed upset about something as she asked, “Did you get all your Christmas shopping done?”

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I’ve often written and spoken about my three children. My oldest guy, Harry, is a brilliant little boy, destined I’m sure for a world-class college.

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Mrs. Gibbons, a native of Liverpool, England, who had been teaching at the Unity High School in Khartoum since July, decided that it would be fun for her six- and seven-year-old students to name a teddy bear. Then each student would be able to take the teddy bear home for a visit and write an essay on that and share it with the class.

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Aruban commentator: We are momentarily waiting for Joran Van der Sloot, one of the three men suspected in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. He is going to make a statement and answer some questions regarding his innocence regarding Miss Holloway’s vanishing and hopefully put all the rumors to rest that he had anything to do with any criminal activity the last night she was seen and also help our wonderful country regain their tourism dollars…Here he comes now.

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Right wing pundits crow; left wing pundits declare America ungovernable. Why? because instead of accepting defeat, Bush opted for victory in Iraq. Those, who interpreted the 2006 election as a vote for accepting defeat the way the British have, feel betrayed. British Clive Crook is so upset that he is ready to chuck the American constitution:

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They are all around us throughout the year, but the Christmas season is their time for taking center stage. To whom am I referring? Terminally Offended Americans.

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Former Rep. Charlie Wilson’s in the news a lot these days, with release of the great movie “Charlie Wilson’s War.”But if you want to see Wilson at his best — and wax nostalgic for the good old days when there was room to be a boisterous, free-wheeling colorful character in political Washington — let’s revisit a yellowed Washington Post article from Nov. 7, 1978: “Charlie Wilson: Every Day’s A Party For Him.”

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More than 20 years ago I bought my first computer, a Kaypro 2X. I didn’t want a computer, I wanted an IBM Selectric II electric typewriter, baby blue, so it would rhyme: “a baby blue Selectric two.”

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Like the bone-chilling Siberian winter winds, the bad news just keeps howling out of Mother Russia these days.

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A tornado has crashed through this presidential campaign.  A few, actually.

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Romney and the Anti-Endorsement and New New Hampshire Polls–McCain Surges, Obama 2 Points up on Clinton

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Here’s something you don’t see every day: a somewhat insightful essay from Maureen Dowd.

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Either way, autism has become a prominent issue.  And for the first time in history, presidential candidates are talking about it.  But so far in the campaign, there is a difference in emphasis between Republicans and Democrats.

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More and more people — at least in Europe, which is more intimately acquainted with Islam than Americans are — have been calling a spade a spade, and figuring out that Islam is not a religion, but an alternative political ideology and system that uses religion as a cover while it spreads. In short, they’ve figured out that Islam is just like any other “ism”. I would argue that it’s the ultimate ism. In fact, the name itself gives this fact away: Islam. Ism. The only difference between the two isms is the misplaced article “la”: Is(la)m ==> La Ism.

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     As a grandparent, I’ve been torn between objecting to certain child rearing practices and wanting to be a dispenser of unconditional love.  I first discovered the schism when my oldest grandchild got ferberized - the newfangled notion that letting an infant cry for sustained periods of time will eventually train him/her to put him/herself back to sleep without parental adjustment.  In other words, if you let the baby cry without picking it up, after a few nights or weeks, it will understand that it has to go back to sleep because no help is in sight.  I admit that my first exposure to this tactic made me so nauseous and conflicted that I had to cut my houseguest visit short or run in to rescue the child.  I chose the former in order to respect the boundaries that I’ve had to learn:  the difference between being a parent and a grandparent.

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Peggy Noonan has interesting things to say about Huckabee, but she’s wrong on at least one point. She says that the DNC’s failure to attack Huckabee this year shows how much they want to run against him. No. It shows that they (like everybody else) didn’t give him a chance through most of this race. (For those who think beyond horserace analogies, he still doesn’t have much of a chance. (A tax-raising, nanny-state Republican? C’mon.)

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I have no idea the musical tastes of readers of this blog. Mine, however, are pretty, ummmm, broad. If yours are, too, check out Santastic III in 3-D and, if you like it, go to the ABOUT page and check out the links to the two previous years’ versions. Merry!

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In the fall of 1914, as the newly born World War I raged in Europe, there was another, more quiet death in the Cincinnati Zoo. That day Martha, the last passenger pigeon on earth, breathed her last and fell lifeless to the bottom of her cage.

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Today is the winter solstice, meaning it’s the shortest day of the year.  And it comes not a moment too soon, as Bill Clinton campaigns around Iowa—-for himself.

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For years, people have been telling Santa to go on a diet. But according to Israeli researchers, he might have the right idea. Toting a few extra pounds in your golden years might be the healthiest thing for you, a recently released study from The Rabin Medical Center has found.

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I’ve always been a bit intrigued by the lawsuit that was filed against Wall Street brokerages last year by Electronic Trading Group LLC. This suit was dismissed yesterday, which is a shame.

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For all the left’s avowed love of science–and their drumbeat claim of a conservative “war against science”–they sure don’t brook scientific debate, do they? Anyone who dares dissent from their global warming religion is dismissed as dishonest, a liar or a paid-off fool. There will be a backlash to this someday soon. I predict the trigger will be when some Democrat in Congress decides to take some “faith”-based action on his global warming beliefs and tries to change how we live day-to-day.

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(First published in the Vallejo Times-Herald) 

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(First published in the Vallejo times-Herald) 

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     The old man that I go to visit is not an ex-professor with infinite, sanctimonious wisdom to impart.  Instead, he is an 88 year old black man who used to work for our family in several different capacities.  We inherited him from an older couple who relocated and pulled the rug out from under him, leaving him unemployed on very short notice.  When Murray worked for them, he was an old fashioned butler who wore a white jacket and polished the silverware when he wasn’t serving dinner or cocktails on the veranda.  We yanked him from that genteel lifestyle and hired him to clean my husband’s offices and to help at dinner parties several times a year.  Intermittently, he was loaned out to help an incapacitated aunt and an Alzheimered father, for whom he became a friend as well as caretaker.

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A sixteen-year-old girl gets knocked up? Geez, that’s never happened before, has it?

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Here’s the silliest bit of political prognostication I’ve read lately: Pat Buchanan declares that the Republican race is down to Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, period. Ya know, I sometimes wonder why we bother having elections, these pundits are just so danged smart!

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Mohammed” is now the second-most popular name in Britain. I thought they meant for teddy bears, but apparently not:

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