NOTEBOOK: Get ready for the epic snoozer of Obama vs. Romney

By David McElroy · February 1, 2012

Cleaning out the notebook again…

I’m not sure what to say about the Florida GOP results that I haven’t already said over and over again. Barring something completely unexpected, Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee. The fall choice will be progressive vs. progressive lite.”

I continue to hear from my Ron Paul-supporting friends that he still has a chance to win. No, he doesn’t. I have more chance of being struck by lightning than he does of winning. A friend accused me Tuesday night of being negative, but it has nothing to do with that. It’s just a hard, cold analysis of the facts. Neither Paul nor anybody else selling libertarian ideas has any chance of winning anytime soon. That’s not what people want.

People don’t understand basic economics. I’m reminded of that frequently. The latest example comes from a couple who live on my street. They had their house on the market for months and months. They had one offer, but that offer was for $20,000 less than the asking price, so they declined it and the house is now off the market.

They talked to me a few days ago about this situation, and the wife kept saying, “I’m just not going to give it away. It’s worth what we’re asking. People just want you to give it to them because prices are down.” No, seriously. I’m not making this up. People don’t understand that something is worth what a willing seller will take and a willing buyer will pay. The value from a few years ago is irrelevant. What they prefer to get is irrelevant. This very nice woman is angry at potential buyers — who she sees as trying to cheat her. She doesn’t understand the market. Sadly, this is the way most people think. It’s the kind of ignorance that leads to wage and price controls, as well as laws to control all sorts of things instead of letting the market work as it’s supposed to. It’s that ignorance that’s leading us to financial ruin.

I saw a Newt Gingrich ad on a television in public Tuesday where I couldn’t hear the audio very well. Just seeing the video made me wonder for the longest whether it was a parody, though. It’s hard for me to believe that these vague, keyword-driven ads work, but I know they do — because I spent years doing the print version of them. It’s scary to realize just how stupid many swing voters are. It happened to be a Gingrich ad, but an ad for almost any campaign would have seemed just as devoid of substance. I had to admit that some of the pictures of Gingrich, though, were playing into the stories about how much he’s in love with himself.

It would be an improvement if we put the Keystone Kops in charge of border security instead of the Department of Homeland Security. The morons at DHS can’t figure out what’s a legitimate threat and what’s just a pop culture reference. A couple of British tourists were denied entrance to the country in Los Angeles because one of the two had been talking on Twitter — in slang and pop culture references — to the pair’s U.S. visit.

The first offending tweet to another person said, “free this week for a quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America.” The second one quoted TV show Family Guy in saying, “‘3 weeks today, we’re totally in LA p****** people off on Hollywood Blvd and diggin’ Marilyn Monroe up!” The idiots at DHS thought the pair were coming to the area to dig up Monroe’s body. Seriously. Yes, they really do appear to be that stupid. Instead of understanding that they were dealing with slang and pop culture, the pair were denied entrance to the country.

If you want a laugh — especially if you ever deal with middle school-age kids — here’s something from the Onion that might do the trick. It’s about Oregon parents who have petitioned a court of the right to terminate the life of their brain-dead 13-year-old daughter who is no longer capable of doing anything except texting on her phone and making occasional grunts and eye-rolls.

For the many people who’ve sent kind and supportive messages, I’m doing very, very well after surgery Monday. I had no right to expect that it could possibly go as well as it did or that recovery could start as smoothly as it has. For those who are interested in the details — and a few other thoughts I’ve had along the way lately — I’ll be writing something to wrap up this episode very soon.

I really do want you to know that I deeply appreciate the support I’ve had from many of you. In addition to regulars who I already knew, I’ve also heard from some of you who I’ve discovered have been lurking in the shadows without saying anything. No matter what category you’re in, I love and appreciate every one of you. Thank you.

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I haven’t posted anything new in my YouTube series about narcissism in the last couple of weeks, so some people have been asking about it. There’s nothing wrong and I’ll be back soon. The issue is simply a technical problem because of a piece of equipment that died. Here’s a brief video I posted on YouTube to explain.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

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