You know the campaign has begun in earnest when you start seeing musical parodies about the candidates. Here’s one starting to gain popularity on You Tube: Rick Perry supposedly singing “It Sucks to Be You” — clearly produced by a non-fan:

Accountants working for companies provide a valuable service. They compile numbers about various aspects of a company’s operations that management can use as guides to improve performance. But there are caveats. If the counting doesn’t include all important factors, if it seems to emphasis one factor above another in an incorrect way, or if management uncritically uses numbers that accountants provide...

Rick McKee, The Augusta Chronicle This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Today marks the 125th ‘birthday’ of the Statue of Liberty. For all our disagreements and debates here on TMV I think we can all agree liberty and freedom is worth celebrating. Here is an amazing video (it is 10 min long) of the finale of the 1986 celebrations. Hopefully we can keep the political debates in other threads and use this one to celebrate our common love of freedom and each other.

If Halloween by itself wasn’t frightening enough, this Oct. 31 has been set by U.N. demographers as the official day when the 7 billionth person will be born, as TIME says, “on a planet already strapped for resources.” No one knows where this 7 billionth person will “officially” be born, albeit TIME says he or she may be born in India, “which will be the world’s most populous nation by 2030.” Halloween...

WASHINGTON – The video above is of Sgt. Shamar Thomas. It went viral and now has over 2 million hits. After Scott Olsen’s assault, it seems even more relevant. Interestingly, Olsen is reportedly from Wisconsin, the state that Gov. Scott Walker ignited with his anti-democratic view of economic equality. As a reminder, Pres. Obama and the Democrats did not mount any economic message for the 2010 midterms....

I had heard this story before but now that the ads are airing it was brought to my mind again. Dr. Pepper has this new ad campaign talking about how their new soda “isn’t for women”. It seems that this new soda is part of a whole new segment of the soda market. When i saw products like Coke Zero or Pepsi Max I just assumed it was some sort of branding thing, trying to get catchy names versus...

The leaders of EU countries have successfully confronted the Greek Crisis. The crisis of 11 million Greeks being ground down into national penury, their economic futures taken away? Oh, no. Why bother about that? The crisis that EU leaders successfully confronted was the possible lose of a lot of money by banks that had loaned money to Greece. It was important that this challenge be met because if it weren’t,...

Not a big surprise but now it is official

WASHINGTON – My e-book is scheduled to be published in less than two weeks, on November 8th. It will be available on Amazon, to download on Kindle, or on Barnes and Noble, as well as iPad. It’s a busy, exciting time in my world. Since I announced my book two weeks ago, I’ve had a lot of feedback on the cover. This article from the Atlantic, which appears in the November/December issue,...

Texas has been toying with the idea of issuing a so-called “vanity” license plate that contains the Confederate battle flag. A vote on this controversial issue could come as soon as next month. A previous vote on this issue this past April ended in a 4-4 tie. “The plate has been proposed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an ancestral history group involved in previous dust-ups over displays of the...

At least a dozen demons answer to the name Anonymous. At one time these demons had names, but they’ve lurked so long under the cloak of anonymity that their names have simply been forgotten. They abide in just about every corner of the blogosphere. Mean spirited comments attached to meaningless user names. Wickedness with a handle. Sin with a disembodied avatar. In the internet age we know more than...

My friend Kay suffers from two afflictions that cause her great difficulties in this political season — common decency and common sense. It was the latter that brought on a very strong reaction the other day while we were driving in Philadelphia, and she noticed a bridge that had just undergone repairs with federal funds. “How can the government not be spending big on infrastructure improvements these...

Now I am a big animal right supporter and I am concerned that all animals in captivity are treated properly, but as usual PETA is making themselves look ridiculous. They are asking a federal judge to award constitutional rights to a group of whales. Of course to a degree this is a PR stunt, but I am sure there are people who really think this makes sense…

WASHINGTON – Several times recently on “Morning Joe,” the conversation has veered into why, as Joe Scarborough and others see it, the primary process weens out the best candidates, people like Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour and others. Lamenting the current Republican field, the conversation has often revolved around the amateur hour we’re all seeing unfold, however, they’re...

PERCY, REX, NICKY & JACK AT THE MOUNTAIN RETREAT — Having installed a passive solar power system at the mountain retreat that is paying dividends because our local utility has to buy our surplus electricity and we’ve got gobs of it, the next logical step in managing our lives more economically and environmentally friendly was to buy a hybrid vehicle. And so the DF&C ponied up for...

VOLVO 188ES: THE MOST BEAUTIOUS CAR EVAH My newborn children came home from the hospital in Volvos. I put 262,000 miles on one of them and it never failed to start, including one morning when the temperature had dipped below zero. It’s marvelous four-cylinder turbo could really crank, and in the late 70s I once did 125 miles an hour on a long straightaway in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico. The...

Not sure if I want to laugh or cry

Anti is a revolutionary prefix. When joined with the right name, system, or organization, it can change the course of a nation. Anti topples entrenched regimes and tyrannical dictatorships. Anti unites diverse factions under a shared purpose; a purpose often rooted in anger and frustration. Anti is seldom a solution for the future. Instead, it is a judgement on the past. Anti might not know how to solve...

A few months ago, I commented on a piece by Pulitzer Prize winner Leonard Pitts at the Miami Herald calling birthers “morons,” ”jackasses,” “imbeciles,” “idiots,” “doofuses” and “pinheads.” He also called the birther movement “not just claptrap, but profoundly racist claptrap.” I said, “While I agree with Pitts on the claptrap,...

It now turns out that Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi’s end may have been more brutal than originally thought: footage suggests he was sodomized.

A little more than a year ago, I wrote an article about a subject that I found fascinating: “The World War II Navajo Code Talkers.” It started with a reference to the great, 2002 movie “Windtalkers,” about the use of Native Americans, such as the Navajos, during World War II in the Pacific Theater by the U.S. intelligence services to transmit secret messages using “codes” built around their...

Sadly this isn’t getting as much coverage as it should (including here at TMV)

George Will has a good column in the WaPo today about Richard Lugar facing a primary challenge from the right wing of the party (though he should know they are Hoosiers, not Indianans). As Will points out, Lugar’s record is pretty mainstream Republican and is hardly one of a ‘RINO’ type, assuming there is such a thing (my comment not his). Lugar is one of the finest members of the Senate and...

Governor Bobby Jindal of Lousiana was easily re-elected tonight with about 67% of the vote. The GOP also appears to be headed for a sweep of the rest of the statewide races, indeed in several cases the contest was between two Republicans as the Democrats did not field any candidates. The Republicans also appear likely to retain control of both houses of the legislature. Given the one time dominance of the state...