Is this all they are demanding? Shutting down the Federal government over less than $50 billion dollars when projected annual deficits are $1.5 trillion as far as the eye can see? The wimps haven’t even completely axed Amtrak, mass transit and High Speed Rail. They’re still arguing about the current fiscal year from October 2010 thru September 2011. Just wait till they debate raising the total federal...

Actually, Paul Ryan calls his plan “The Path to Prosperity,” but I think my name for it is more accurate. Here he is in the Wall Street Journal, spinning madly:

I originally predicted that President Obama would be a one-term Chief Executive in a TMV post dated 11/8/10 that was picked up by a number of prominent blog sites. I even started questioning his chances of re-election in other earlier 2010 TMV posts. Today respected long-time independent blogger Charles Hugh Smith made the same prediction on his excellent political/economic/social blog called Of Two Minds...

UPDATE: April 9 Legislation that would legalize concealed handguns on Texas college campuses for students 21 years and older has suffered a temporary setback, falling short of votes in its first attempt at passage by the Texas Senate. However, the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, intends to bring it up for consideration again Monday. According to the Austin American-Statesman: …even though the...

That’s Paul Ryan’s budget proposal:

Milt Priggee, www.miltpriggee.com This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Since the 2012 election season has already begun, we can anticipate nothing being accomplished with respect to any new major federal legislation. Instead, the status quo will continue as Congress is completely gridlocked and paralyzed. The only excitement will be how long the federal government stays closed, and after a few months of general inactivity, will anyone really notice or care. TMV writers and readers...

It showed up Sunday in my Facebook newsfeed: the conversational piece in my house this a.m. // food dyes (& non-regulation) linked to behavioral problems according http://j.mp/eTCdrB “It” is a Washington Post op-ed titled “The rainbow of food dyes in our grocery aisles has a dark side” and is authored by a Columbia University psychiatrist and the executive director of the Center...

I’ve decided I’m not going to write about my vasectomy. Although my vasectomy is fertile soil for comedic musings, it would be unwise to dedicate an entire blog to such a crass subject. Lowbrow readers might clamor for some inappropriate commentary, however, I refuse to provide even a snippet of salacious reporting. Frankly, my cutting edge compositions are not worthy of such unseemly prose. Therefore,...

Elizabeth, an Incomparable of Her Time has passed away: Here’s what you won’t read in the headlines which are often vulgar, focused on foibles, overlooking the worth of not only this woman, any woman. You’ll hear about her peccadilloes, her many marriage and other chisme, gossip. But you wont hear she was a child actress who never had a childhood. You wont hear that she sought forever the...

As the new law turns one, the occasion recalls a greeting purportedly sent to a company president after surgery, “The Board of Directors wishes you a speedy recovery by a vote of six to five.” A year later, the public is still confused, Republicans swear to kill the law and the White House is sending out explainers to sing its praises. It’s like combining a wake with a birthday party. A new...

UPDATE, March 28 Yokota Air Base, just outside Tokyo, has become the nerve center and logistical hub for “Operation Tomodachi,” the U.S. humanitarian assistance efforts to help earthquake/tsunami/nuclear-power-plant-disaster-ravaged Japan. In the weeks that have followed the disaster, some 1,300 military and government workers have converged on Yokota, and “[s]uddenly, this usually sleepy airlift base...

One of the reasons I’m not inclined to give Republican leaders and lawmakers the benefit of the doubt is that they keep grabbing the doubt and hurling it over the cliff, to crash and shatter on the rocks below. If someone had told me, even as recently as the midterm elections, that Republicans in Congress would be spending their time, two years before Pres. Obama runs for a second term, in the worst economy...

I’m a professional engineer. I love building roads and bridges. I tell people I never got past building them in the sandbox. I understand how blessed I am to be able to combine passion with a vocation. Truth is, I would probably do it for free. Being a pro engineer, however, I get paid to do it. I get paid a lot. People don’t have to tell me how lucky I am. Well, maybe lucky is not a good choice of words....

I’ve lost 22 pounds since the first of January. Since I have a habit of finding the weight I’ve lost, I’m going to celebrate this achievement while the scale is still cooperating with my efforts. About 7 years ago I weighed 277 pounds. After a prolonged stretch of low-carbing and Taco Bell avoidance, I got my weight down to 237. Since that time, my weight has fluctuated like the tide. Right now I’m...

UPDATE, March 17 From the Stars and Stripes: U.S. military personnel have delivered 40 tons of supplies to the hardest-hit areas of Japan, as humanitarian aid continues in the face of an ever-increasing threat from the failing Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant. The U.S. 7th Fleet reported that aircraft from the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group flew 15 sorties Wednesday, delivering food, water, clothing,...

STRATFOR Red Alert: Nuclear Meltdown at Quake-Damaged Japanese Plant [March 12, 2011 | 0827 GMT] A March 12 explosion at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown….. MORE

Some have written today about a disgraced former counsel, named Kevin Maher, who is alleged to have made some beastly comments about Asians in Okinawa and Japan. Maher was then also removed from shuffling forward incoming stories for the Japan desk for the State Department, apparently. That this story runs today merits a response, I think. Just this: There is massive regard carried by the masses of Americans...

UPDATE: Washington Post, 20:12 ET, March 15: New assessments of the explosion at Unit 2 of Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Tuesday heightened fears that it will begin spewing large amounts of radiation. The explosion probably damaged the main protective shield around the uranium-filled core inside one of the plant’s six reactors. Such a breach would be the first at a nuclear power plant...

UPDATE: 4:00 pm MST Friday: The devastation in Japan is massive as is loss of life. Watching the great black debris-tsunami wave of water speed overland like the 1950′s movie, The Blob, which portrayed a huge rolling mass that ate everything in its path… that was this. No one in its path could survive long without higher ground. The farm plains of Japan where the waves hit are flat. Flat flat. There...

…a Franciscan blessing I hope everyone will appreciate: May God bless you with discomfort. Discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. Amen. May God bless you with anger. Anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. Amen. May God bless you with tears. Tears to shed...

Where I grew up on the Great Lakes, lamprey eels attached themselves with rows of teeth angled backward toward their gullets… attached themselves to large fish, feeding off their innards for days or weeks until the fish died. Then on to the next big fish. Most of the world’s four-wheeled and 6 and 8 and 10 and 18 wheels’ nations are the big fish. The Lampreys? You decide. As I understand it–...

Her name is Marizela “Mei” Perez. So young. Gone since Saturday, last seen on surveillance cameras in early afternoon. Numbers to contact directly with tips are below. As a PI, I hope the lead investigator does not rule out following leads for foul play even though Marizela has been on anti-depressants for a long time. Though the ‘usual profile’ for persons who go missing when they are teens...

Jerry Remmers was like a brother to many of us at TMV. A rare thing amongst former strangers. It went something like this… As a woman in the ‘biz’ so to speak, having the protective wing of brothers and sisters is a blessing, and I mean it. It is a rare and beautiful thing. The tiny group who play wingman and wingwoman to my work at TMV before and after it sees the light of day, are beyond...

You read that title correctly. You are not hallucinating: