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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The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

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