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Okay, so Somalian pirates captured an oil tanker worth $100 million.

The question is, so what would they do with it? Take it to the local fence? Use it as stake in a poker game?

Despite this huge drawback, seems we’re way too close to the issue. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack says, “There are no easy answers”.

I’d propose that, yes, there *are* easy answers. As in, “Hey, pirates– want a job guarding our oil tankers?”

I think I have figured out how the Universe actually works. More on that later.

If Tim Tebow were to offer tone control advice to the members in the band, would that make him an embouchure quarterback?

Shots from the 2008 Greater Gainesville are up on the site.

I can’t thank promoter Brian Elliot enough for the amazing job he’s done resurrecting bodybuilding here in my hometown. Probably 90 percent of the competitors were going on stage for their first competition, and that’s always a promising sign. The show was amazingly well-lit, and ran as smoothly as any I’ve seen.

Everyone had an enjoyable time and I’m already looking forward to the show next year.

Next shows to go up: the 2008 All Forces and the 2008 All South.

(BTW, carelessly erasing the flurry of “Vote for Me!” ads from the latest political carnival, I accidentally deleted a phone call from one of the competitors asking about shots from the Gainesville. Please shoot me an email, thanks.)

• The line when I voted this morning wasn’t bad at all. It was crowded, but there were plenty of open stations.

  I had had the idea of creating an “express lane” for those who had cast ballots in the previous two elections, but it turns out not to have been needed.

• Here’s one reason polls should be banned: They favor the two-party system.

  Suppose a large number of people wish to vote for a third-party candidate. If the media has skewed the polls by saying Party D has or is getting a lead (not that they would *ever* do that), then the third-party voter is likely to cast his vote for Party R, his _second_ choice, even though it wasn’t necessary to do so. Perhaps worse, Party R now has a perceived mandate.

  Eliminating election-day polls will require a self-imposed restriction by the news media, so it will never happen.

  Of course an alternative to this would be to allow people to vote *against* a candidate rather than for one. This might be surprisingly popular with the “Anybody but __________” crowd.

• Typical of the liberal “We have to win at any cost” mentatlity, there’s been a “Businesses for Obama” full-page ad in the paper the last few days. It contains a highly misleading graph showing America’s finances over the past four presidents.

  Of course Clinton comes off looking like a magician, because the way he juggled the books it looks as though we were making huge profits and reducing our national debt.

  It overlooks the facts that Reagan inherited a foreign mess from Carter but still managed to end the Cold War, that Clinton inherited the Internet boom and let it bubble and burst, and most importantly, that Clinton financed his “recovery” in large part by gutting military maintenance spending.

  Most people wouldn’t notice that vulnerability in our military preparedness. But someone did and, perceiving us to be weak, attacked. Good thinking, Bill.

  The graph then shows a huge spike in deficit spending after W. took office. This makes sense. Before he could do *anything* after 9/11, Bush had to bring the military back to full preparedness– to “pay off the Clinton credit card”, as it were.

  *That* debt doesn’t show up in the graph, though. It only shows dollars and cents.

  Point of all this is that, in the words of Twain, “there are lies, there are damn lies, then there are statistics”.

• I’ve slung stink at both candidates over the last few weeks. When the election is over, and sometime before the impeachments begin, I’ll remove at least the ones regarding the winner. Whoever ends up in the office, the position itself deserves our respect and support, and there are things you can say about a candidate that aren’t appropriate when referencing a sitting President.

  I’m not taking back anything about Garry Trudeau, though. When the day comes that our enemies have nothing to throw at us but sarcastic artists, he will be the perfect choice for leader. Until then, I wish he’d stop meddling.

There was a plane this afternoon towing a banner that said, “Vote Obama Today!” Which is interesting because early voting has ended and the regular election is _tomorrow_.

Normally I wouldn’t be concerned about anyone being foolish enough to choose the leader of the free world based on a sign hanging out the a$$-end of a toy plane.

But these days, I worry, greatly, about the future of our country.

Do we really have enough gullible people to elect Obama?

Despite having been fooled once by the Democrat mantra “We will change things!” in 2006, is there really a majority who believe that Obama can provide solutions elusive to experts, simply because he *says* he can with such conviction?

Are that many Americans really so far removed from reality?

For several days now there’s been a van parked in front of one of the buildings on the University campus, essentially offering to drive people downtown to vote _if_ they promise to vote for Obama.

I was wishing we could have the police remove them from the premises. Of course they would complain about the people’s right to vote and right to free speech. To which I would respond,

“Just because you have an individual right

does not mean that the state or local government

can’t constrain the exercise of that right.”

— Barack Obama

which is a direct quote from Obama in the Pennsylvania debates in 2008.

Surely you got all the change you wanted on 9/11.