Category: Uncategorized

Hot weather makes Congress and Wall Street plumb nutty

COLUMBUS: This summer heat is wreaking havoc on Wall Street and Washington. They’re nice folks at heart, but they are just plumb nutty.

All these big companies turned in their quarterly reports. Wachovia lost $10 Billion, and, boy, did that affect their stock price! It immediately went up 20 percent.

Then Exxon-Mobil announced a $12 Billion profit, and their stock price dropped. It’s down 10 percent since January.

Next, General Motors admitted they lost $18 Billion. I haven’t heard, did their stock jump more than Wachovia’s?

Congress gets nuttier every day. You folks know that three-fourths of the country is complaining about paying $4 a gallon for gas. (Of course the other fourth don’t own a car.) But last week Congress, now get this, Congress voted that, given a choice, we should pay more than $10 a gallon rather than drill for oil along our coasts.

Then as soon as they voted, they adjourned and flew home for a long summer vacation. Well, I’ve got a solution to this mess they got us into. For those who voted in favor of $10 gas, make ’em drive home paying $10 a gallon. And force all their staff and close supporters to pay the same $10 during this 5-week holiday. Then make ’em drive back to Washington. Of course, if everyone was paying $10 a gallon they would have an easy road trip: no traffic to slow ’em down, unless you count pedestrians and bicyclists, and a few of us on horseback.

At the other end of the Capitol, 10 Senators got together and announced they would let ’em drill off the coasts of their states. It sounded like a good plan, but it was the wrong states. Sure, Louisiana and Georgia and South Carolina are among the 10, and that’s fine. We applaud their generosity. But for those other Senators, how much oil can we expect from “offshore drilling” in Tennessee, Nebraska and North Dakota? Now global warming may be serious business, but even Al Gore hasn’t predicted the Atlantic Ocean will approach Fargo.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers’ last radio broadcast:

“A man that talks on the radio to an audience in warm weather kind of affects his mind and the audience’s, too. Heat and reason don’t go together, anyhow. I’m just warning you what you’re going to get this summer. There’s going to be a lot of spouting from the radio and from the speakers’ platforms all this summer. There’ll be more perspiration than common sense flowing, and the whole political thing has come now to a pretty direct division point. I mean there’s been a direct split in the parties.

So all this talking and all this spouting, and all the hard feelings and all the perspiration that’s going to be smeared about all this summer will just be a total loss. Conditions win elections and not speeches, and these denouncing orators should remember that every time they cuss the President they lose friends. They may get some applause from a partisan audience, but we still think it’s the highest office in the whole world. And we always think, and we have justification in that thinking, that it’s always held by the highest type of men, regardless of which party they belong to. So any denouncing, no matter which side he’s on, he loses more votes than he gains.

Now don’t get all heated up in arguing and get mad over these problems all summer. Everybody is trying to save the country, only they’re trying to do it in different ways, and it’s too big for all of them put together to spoil, anyhow. See? So, good-bye and I’ll see you this fall.” Radio broadcast, June 9, 1935 (Will died in a plane crash in Alaska, August 15, 1935)

A Bush-Pickens-Rogers Plan for oil, water and wind

COLUMBUS: Gas is $3.61 here today. That’s about fifty cents less than a week or two ago when Mr. Bush made his little announcement about off shore drilling. It just goes to show what a President can accomplish when he don’t care what Congress says.

Now if he’ll add all of Alaska and the oil in the Rockies, why he could get it down to $3.00 and our tourists may yet squeeze in a summer trip. They’ve been sitting at home just waiting and hoping. Every Sunday afternoon Dad backs the van out of the garage, Mom makes sandwiches and packs some cold drinks, and the whole family sits there in the driveway watching a travel movie for two hours on the DVD player. Then Dad pulls back in the garage, content with expanding his kids’ horizon on a pint of gas.

Have you seen T. Boone Pickens? I don’t know how you could miss him; he’s been on television so much lately, second only to Senator Obama. He says we’re spending too much overseas for energy, and that we need to produce our own and keep the money.

Now, Mr. Pickens has another good plan; he’s preparing to sell Dallas all the water they can use from his vast land holdings in the Texas Panhandle. I don’t know if he will dig a canal to transport water like California, or lay a big pipeline. Either way, Oklahoma’s for it, because they’ll get to keep what little water they have without fear of Dallas siphoning it off.

I think I’ll hook up with old T. Boone. Call it the Pickens-Rogers Plan. He’ll provide the oil and water, I’ll bring the wind.

Historic quote from Will Rogers:

   “President Hoover (wants) to give all the lands belonging to the United States back to the Individual States. But he recommends that the Federal Government hold all the Oil and Mineral rights. Well, that’s just like offering a hungry man a meal and reserving the rights to issue him no food. You give him a plate and knife and fork, and you put him in a position to eat in case something shows up.
.   ..About all you can do with this public land is make a park out of it, and you have to make roads into it if it’s a park, and that costs you more than you can make out of the Soda Pop and Hot Dogs that the Tourists will buy on their way through it.
I tell you a Tourist is one of the worst, if not the worst investment there is. He knocks everything and buys nothing. He don’t know where he is going only that he wants to get away from his own home. He is sore at his wife and family that are in the car and he takes it out on your part of the Country. A tourist contributes nothing but empty tin cans and profanity to the up building of your State.” WA #352, September 22, 1929

Lonesome Will writes on Senators, wind and oil

COLUMBUS: All I know is what I read in the paper or see on television. I must be the only news hound left here this week. There’s at least two thousand of ’em following Senator Obama on his travels to Iraq, Afghanistan and ending up in Europe. But most of those birds have chosen to follow him only after he reaches Europe. We won’t know till later whether those journalists are on assignment or on vacation. It’s probably for the best that they stay out of Iraq. The Shiites and Sunnis are finally talking instead of shooting at each other, so we don’t need our television reporters to go there and rile ’em.

The Tour de France bicycle race is going on over there. Based on the early results, if they can locate a serious bicyclist who’s not on drugs, he will be declared the winner.

Former Senator and Vice-President Al Gore was on Meet The Press promoting wind and solar and various energy saving means. He was quick to point out that drilling 50 miles off our coasts is not an alternative to oil imports because it would take 15 years for the oil to reach shore. Now, I realize that some of our bigger vehicles only get ten miles per gallon, but that’s pretty good compared to three and a third miles per year. Whether windmills could replace our oil imports in 15 years, he didn’t say.

I read where Rock Port, Missouri, claims to be the “first U.S. town powered solely by wind.” That’s an admirable accomplishment, but they are mistaken. Rock Port is the second town powered solely by wind. The first is Washington, DC.

The world is waiting for the answer to the next big suspense thriller, How will The New Yorker magazine’s next cover depict Cindy and John McCain? He’ll probably be in a rocking chair, reading an Econ 101 textbook, while his wife, the erstwhile Budweiser distributor, is listening to the Rosetta Stone tapes on “How to speak Belgian”.

Yes, I know, even Belgians don’t speak Belgian, which may be why Senator Obama is visiting Germany, France and England, but not Belgium.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

(Will’s interpretation of a piece of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”)
“Mark Anthony was the first District attorney to have ambitions of becoming Governor. When he started speaking they couldn’t tell if he was for Caesar or against him, for it was the first time that satire had ever been used publically. When he kept saying, “Brutus was an honorable man,” why Brutus was taking it on the level, and he had to repeat it over twenty times to drive home his brand of humor.
…Mark Anthony made a wonderful speech. But it practically ruined all Senates to follow, for they have figured that all legislation must be based on oratory, and make up in gestures what you lack in ideas. So all these intervening years Senators have tried to emulate Anthony, and the only thing they have ever approached him in is endurance. Mark Anthony had one quality that the boys following have never been able to grasp: he didn’t take himself seriously.” WA 371, February 2, 1930

“Well all I know is just what I read in the papers, and what I run into hither and yon. You know I like to make little jokes and kid about the Senators. They are a kind of a never ending source of amusement, amazement, and Discouragement. But the Rascals, when you meet ’em face to face and know ’em, they are mighty nice fellows. It must be something in the office that makes ’em so ornery sometimes. When you see what they do officially you want to shoot ’em, but when one looks at you and grins so innocently, why you kinder want to kiss him. WA #345, August 4, 1929

Wall Street, Fannie and Freddie Fizzle after the Fourth

COLUMBUS: America survived another Fourth of July only to have record oil prices wreck Wall Street. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both lost half their value in one day, which seems logical when you find out they are owed $5 Trillion for mortgages, some of them going back to the 1930s.

But a Senator came to their rescue, claiming they are worth just as much today as they were a week ago. I’m not sure it helped. If I was owed $5 Trillion, and needed a spokesman to boost the public’s confidence in me, I don’t think I would call on a man from an organization with an approval rating of 8 percent. Better to hire a used car salesman.

When a Congressman, or even a person in high esteem, wants to give you their opinion on oil make ’em admit first whether he’s from the city or out in the country. If they live way out where you have to drive for miles to get anywhere, you can bet they want lower gas prices and they’re willing to drill for oil about anywhere to get it. If on the other hand, they live in a town where they can ride a bus or train for half price they don’t care how much a tank of gas costs because it’ll last ’em two months. And the few streets they do drive on, 55 mph would get ’em arrested for speeding.

Well, I’m an old country boy. The sight of an oil derrick a mile or two offshore would no more bother me than one on my own ranch, as long as it wasn’t a dry hole. While some folks say it would take ten years to make a dent in oil prices, I say we can do it quicker. If we can put a man on the moon in less than ten years, a couple of months should be long enough to drill an oil well and lay a pipeline to shore. Of course they’ve got to drill it where there’s oil. If you let Congress decide where to drill, it’s no wonder somebody predicted gas would cost $7 a gallon.

Senator Obama continues to have problems with preachers. There hasn’t been a politician with so many headaches over religious leaders since King Henry VIII. When the Pope refused to lighten up on divorce, Henry started his own Church of England. Whenever Henry had an excess wife to dispose of why he just used an annulment or an axe. As for Senator Obama and his ministers, he at times could be forgiven for wanting an axe, but in the latest episode, a sharp jack knife should suffice.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“You know you really don’t know how silly you are till you have to read (what you’ve written) awhile after it’s written. But we are all that way, not only with the written word but with the spoken. If somebody had a dictaphone on us all the time and then we had to sit and listen to it all run off every night or every month, or every year, I bet that would break us from shooting off so much….I sure would hate to be running for something and have somebody dig back through old papers and confront me with all the nutty things that I have shown my ignorance on. You see, conditions and events change so fast that what is passable today is ridiculous tomorrow.” WA #630, Jan. 20, 1935

Weekly Comments: Rhode Island hosts engineers and Colin Powell

COLUMBUS: This past week I ventured up to Providence, the county seat of Rhode Island. It’s a wonderful, bustling town in a state so small the city limits reach almost to the state line on three sides. Out West, there’s ranches bigger than Rhode Island. But instead of a million cattle, they have a million people to keep fed and watered.

I was in Providence congregating with 1500 agricultural engineers. They chose to meet here because it’s the only state that can house a million people without wiping out any valuable farmland. See, the whole state has such poor soil that if not for the generosity of the neighboring farmers in Massachusetts and Connecticut they would have starved to death years ago.

Here we are in a time when we need more food produced in spite of floods, drought and pestilence, and at the same time we are wanting to grow fuel instead of drilling for it. This convention drew some of the brightest engineers from around the world to figure out how to do it. I think they’re up to the challenge.

Folks are worried about oil at $145 a barrel, but water’s not far behind. I talked to an ag engineer who’s with a water district in Los Angeles. He told me that 80 percent of all the water used in California is for farmers to irrigate crops and nourish their livestock. That may seem wasteful till you remember that we all get to eat our share of those California crops. The other 20 percent of California’s water goes to the people in cities and towns. But here’s a shock: half of that 20 percent is used outside, mainly to irrigate lawns and flower gardens. I don’t recall seeing any California grass clippings or chrysanthemum petals in our grocery store. But water in California is kinda like gasoline for the rest of us; when the price gets high enough we find a way to use less of it.

A pleasant surprise in Providence was a chance to hear General Colin Powell. The whole state knew he was coming, but I didn’t know until I walked by the theater twenty minutes before he went on. (I got to meet him ten years ago; on my web site click on Photo Gallery.) He gave a fine talk on leadership and the importance of selfless service. About as close as he got to anything political, he said for either Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain, we will slowly draw down the number of American troops in Iraq as the Iraqis take over.

Happy birthday No. 62 to President Bush today. There’s always something special about a birthday around July 4^th.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

(Dateline Providence) “This is Rhode Island, the place where half their Legislature went out of the State and hid one time, and the State never run better in its life than it did then.” DT #254, May 15, 1927

“I live out here and I know the need of more water for the city of Los Angeles in the next few years. And they should have it, and they should pay for it the same as other cities pay for theirs. Our lawn sprinkling needs should not be compared with the needs of thousands of people [in the Mississippi Valley] on rafts and housetops floating down to join the ocean.” WA #250, Oct. 9, 1927

A surprise disaster victim lays claim to the $10 Million

COLUMBUS: It may come as a surprise, but once in a while you get fast action from a politician. Do you remember last week I suggested that Obama and McCain encourage their supporters to donate $10 million to help the victims of our recent disasters? Obama took me up on it. He announced he would urge his big contributors to raise ten million dollars, and he wrote the first check himself.

But it was not for the Red Cross, it was for Hillary Clinton.

Barack wrote his check for $2300, and his wife also wrote one for $2300. Hillary put those checks in the bank, and announced she and Bill would each donate $2300. Well, I’m thinking, that’s wonderful; at least the Clintons want to help the Red Cross. But no, their checks were made out to Senator Obama.

I’m still scratching my head over that one. It’s got to be a racket, but I can’t put my finger on it. I’ll admit to being suspicious. Why exactly $2300? Well it turns out that’s the legal limit of what a person can give a candidate, even one that’s already lost.

This idea of politicians trading $2300 checks may be a racket, but who knows, it could start a trend. Every winning candidate in any election across the country will write a check to all the losers, and all the losers in turn write a check to the winners. It may not change anything or do any harm, but moving all that money around will get people thinking the economy is booming. Wall Streeters will be tickled, and it’ll be left to the banks to sort out the honest politicians from those who bounce checks.

Senator Obama wrote a personal check to Hillary, but I kinda doubt he’ll write one to McCain. And I guarantee he won’t be giving any dough to Ralph Nader.

For all those big donors who figure the folks flooded out of their homes in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri deserve assistance more than a senator from New York, I’ve got good news. For donations to the Red Cross, there’s no $2300 limit.

Here’s another item from last week. Oil shot up above $140 a barrel, so it seems Saudi Arabia was just pulling our leg. If we want oil to come down, we’ve got to do it ourselves.

Historical quotes from Will Rogers:

“Our country has got so that each one of us have to live by a ‘racket’ of some kind and none of us must be too critical of the other fellow’s ‘racket.’
When you figure it right down none of us are in a really essential business but the farmer, and he raises so much that even his business is partly non-essential.
But we got to be tolerant, for these New Yorkers are likable rascals even when they are skinning you.” DT #2103, May 1, 1933

Will offers a flood relief plan

COLUMBUS: There’s fires in northern California and 115 degree heat in the Southwest, but that’s mild compared to the flood waters rolling downstream from Iowa to the Mississippi River. The flood of 1993 left most folks prepared for this one, but no one expected hundred year storms to come every fifteen years.

Several levees were topped. You can’t blame the levee if it was built for a 20-foot flood and the river hits 21 feet. I heard a television reporter wondering if levees are a good idea; maybe we would all be better off if the river is allowed to spread out where ever it wants to. Then he went on to say that downstream from St. Louis the Mississippi River poses no flooding problem. Well, folks, the reason there is no danger of flooding is because of the levees built or raised after the disastrous flood of 1927. (See Historical Quotes below)

A levee that keeps farmland from flooding 9 years out of 10 can be worthwhile. If you prefer that your house don’t flood that often, then build it on high ground, or on stilts.

The Red Cross is broke but they’re still helping the victims of these floods, fires and other disasters. They need our donations. John Deere gave a million dollars, and they’ll probably lose at least ten million in business as a result of the floods.

Our presidential candidates appear to have excess millions available. I suggest that each one donate $10 million from their campaign accounts. That keeps it even and sure beats having to watch more of their TV ads. But some Washington official would say that “putting campaign funds to such a good use is illegal.”

So here’s a better plan. Each candidate would instruct prospective campaign donors for the next month to send the money directly to the Red Cross. There would be a post office box for Obama supporters and a different one for McCain. Make it a contest. Whoever raises the most for the Red Cross, as long as it’s at least ten million, would get five extra electoral college votes. You may wonder, Where would these electoral votes come from? Well, each state, like Iowa and Missouri, that’s receiving major help from the Red Cross would kick in one vote.

Saudi Arabia called a meeting this weekend to announce what they would contribute in the way of extra oil production. Even though the announcement was in English, we’re not quite sure what they promised. Here’s a hint: if oil drops to $120 a barrel next week, you’ll know they want to help; if it jumps to $140, they’re just pulling our leg. My guess is they promised to deliver all the oil we need as long they get at least $130 a barrel for it. Who can blame them. They could say, Why should we give you our oil, just so you can sit on the oil you have at home.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers: (on the Mississippi River flood of 1927; these are from various Daily Telegrams, April 25 to June 9)

“I don’t believe our people that have never been around a flood area realize the tremendous need of these sufferers down on the Mississippi. It’s by far the worst thing that has happened in this country in years. We have helped every nationality in the world. Now we have a chance to help the poorest people we have in America, and that is the renter farmer.

There’s hundreds of thousands of people being driven from their homes, homes that won’t be there when they come back. These poor people have never harmed a soul or broke a law. Yet Mrs. Snyder’s picture [from a celebrity murder trial] has occupied more space in some of the papers than the whole State of Mississippi fighting for its life. There are ten reporters and photographers at the trial to one at the flood.

Every edition tells of more levees breaking and more people in danger. This Sunday is Mother’s Day. Now what could please your Mother more, either living or dead, than to mail one dollar to your nearest Red Cross for the flood sufferers? Even if you have given, give again.

Another levee broke today; another hundred thousand standing on the banks. Don’t forget that when you eat your big dinner and sleep in a nice dry bed tonight.

I hate to keep digging on it, but we still have 600,000 of our own whose homes are now floating toward Nicaragua. We can’t seem to get the Government interested in them financially. I wish you would send some checks to the Red Cross. If 600,000 people had lost their all and were being fed by charity in the East they would raise fifty million in a day.

Flew over hundreds of miles yesterday and saw the advance guard of 700,000 people returning home. Home to what? To a great, big, flat mud-hole. No houses, no barns, no fences, no plows, no seed, no work, no stock, no stoves. What a homecoming!

Water is going down in the Mississippi Valley and the politicians are coming up now.

There are two types of men in the world that I feel sincerely sorry for. One is the fellow that thinks he ‘knows women,’ and the other is the one that is always saying ‘I know the Mississippi River.'”

 

Tim Russert’s next interview

COLUMBUS: Just when the Midwest was all prepared for a drought this summer, up pops these record rainstorms in Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin and some other states. If the river that runs through your town is ten feet deeper than ever in history, like it was in Cedar Rapids, it’s out of your hands. Either move to the third floor or buy a boat.

You can understand why those folks are saying, We had our big flood in 1993, we weren’t due another one for 500 years. It’s not just floods, we’ve got tornados and wild fires and extreme heat causing havoc.

Congress continues to be confused on gasoline. Putting more taxes on oil would be like adding a tax on farmers to get ’em to raise more food. What we need in Congress is fewer lawyers and more economists, or at least more folks with common sense. Next they’ll investigate why corn is over seven dollars a bushel without bothering to find out that corn don’t grow well under water.

We lost a good newsman last Friday. Tim Russert was a tough interviewer on “Meet the Press” but was beloved and respected by his co-workers, competitors and practically everybody in Washington. He was best known for his thorough research on what his guests had said years earlier.

I can imagine Tim Russert up there in Heaven today, interviewing Jesus…

Tim: You stated, as reported in Matthew, Chapter 7, that we should “be on guard against false prophets; they come to you looking like sheep on the outside, but on the inside they are really like wolves.”

Jesus: Yes, and I still stand by those words today. I know you spent many Sunday mornings stripping the wool off those wolves’ backs.

Tim: You said, “Happy are those who work for peace. Happy are those who are merciful to others. Happy are those who are humble.”

Jesus: Yes, and there are many more ways for people to find happiness.

Tim: You also stated “everyone will have to give account of every useless word he has ever spoken.”

Jesus: We had to loosen up a bit on that one. It was knocking out three-fourths of the politicians, and all the comedians.

Now, wouldn’t that be a delightful way to spend an hour on Sunday morning.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“You could transfer Congress over to run Standard Oil or General Motors, and they would have both things bankrupt in two years.” WA #307, Nov. 11, 1928

“One time the Government split up Standard Oil into 31 parts, and in two years each one of the 31 was bigger than the original. So it looked like they just thrived on being split up.” WA #378, March 23, 1930

“What has the poor farmer done against the Almighty and the Republican administration that he should deserve all this?
If it’s not the heat, it’s the deep snow.
If it’s not the drought, it’s the floods.
If it’s not the boll weevil, it’s the tariff.
If it’s not the cinch bugs, it’s the Federal Reserve.
If it’s not relief he needs, why, it’s rain.
But there is one pest that he is always free from, that’s the income tax.” DT #1258, Aug. 6, 1930

Senator Clinton ends historic run too soon for Will

COLUMBUS: Well, it’s over. Senator Clinton conceded on Saturday, ending the longest, most intense, most expensive campaign ever by a candidate who ran second.

I wanted to see it go on to the Convention in Denver. That’s purely from a comedian’s angle, and I’m first to admit it was a selfish request. See, I’ve got loads of fresh material stockpiled from the 16-day 1924 Democratic Donnybrook in New York. You’ve read a bit of it, but there’s at least forty more pages, enough to last me through the summer heat.

She ends her race with 18 million more votes than she started with, but twenty million less dollars. She praised her 18 million voters, then gave a final plea for each of ’em to support Obama, but to mail her $1.10. That way she could break even and not have to write another book.

As it turned out Senator McCain pretty well wrapped up the Republican nomination in New Hampshire because Rudy’s bid fizzled in Florida (just like Big Brown’s in the Belmont), and from then on McCain got half the Republican vote while Romney and Huckabee split the other half.

So it’s Obama vs. McCain and we got six months to sort it out. Secure you ear plugs and hold onto your wallet.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with nowadays.” DT #1538, June 28, 1931

[After the grueling 16-day Democratic Convention of 1924, Will wrote a Weekly Article focusing on the outstanding women at the convention, mentioning fifteen by name. Here are excerpts.]
     “There will always remain one bright spot. Well, not only one bright spot, but many, for thanks to the 19th amendment there were many bright spots there.
Mrs. Leroy Spring from the Carolinas, the only lady who was ever nominated for the Vice Presidency, was another one I was fortunate enough to exchange daily jokes with…. Then there was another very able and charming lady, Mrs. Mary Miller from Pennsylvania. I defeated her by one half vote for the Presidency of the United States. She is the first woman to ever receive a vote (or half vote, rather) for the Presidency, and I am the first acknowledged comedian to receive one (not the first comedian, mind you, but the first acknowledged one.) She made a seconding speech for Al Smith that knocked the old men politicians right back onto their flasks.
The best speech made there was by Mrs. Izotta Jewell Brown from Virginia. She seconded the J.W. Davis nomination late in the evening.
Oh, I can’t tell you all the ones I met. It would take a book for this was truly a woman’s convention, and during the last few days who pops in but my good friend Mrs. Alice Roosevelt Longworth [daughter of Teddy Roosevelt]. I don’t know what she was doing slumming around a Democratic Convention, but I certainly was glad to see her, as she knows more politics in a minute than all the floor leaders that ever spoiled a candidate’s chances.
If this Roosevelt woman had been born a man we would not have to be worrying all this time over who would be one of our Presidents.
The women can feel proud of their record at this convention. They made better and shorter speeches, didn’t sell out, look better, dressed better, stayed awake better, and had they been running it, they would have cooked up some candidate earlier and we would all have been home.” WA #85, July 27, 1924

Will offers to help Obama find a church

#502

COLUMBUS, Ohio:  What a week for the Democratic Party. A candidate resigns from the church he attended for twenty years, and two days later his opponent beats him two to one in a primary. Of course that primary was in Puerto Rico, which can’t even vote in November. Senator Clinton explained that it was still an important win because it gives her momentum going into the even bigger primary on Tuesday, in Mexico.

What church will Senator Obama join next? He resigned for political reasons, and if he joins a new one for the same reason, I don’t know what denomination he’ll choose, but don’t be surprised if it’s located in Ohio. Over the next six months he’ll spend more days in Ohio than any other state, so why not Sundays.

I’ll be happy to send him a personal invitation to our little church. This morning’s sermon was on the importance of building on a solid foundation, and no political opponent could harp on that. We don’t have any prominent politicians attending, but the congregation does include a football coach with more influence than the Governor.

Meanwhile in Washington, the Democrats finally decided on Florida and Michigan. According to the original rules their votes counted for zilch. Here lately Senator Clinton insisted they should count a hundred percent, or at least as much as votes in Puerto Rico. So 30 Big Men (and Women) met and argued all day Saturday, then went off to a side room and compromised on 50 percent.

From now on, or at least till the end of August, if you’re a Democrat from either of those two great states, you’re worth exactly half as much as if you hailed from Kentucky or West Virginia. But that’s way more than you were worth before Saturday’s decision. These half-delegates have until the Convention to pair up so they will at least have a whole vote in there.

NASA engineers had an amazing week. After a journey of four hundred million miles, they landed a spacecraft on Mars, near the North Pole. Yesterday they discovered the landing was on a small patch of ice. When Al Gore heard the news he congratulated them, then added, “Ten years ago, the ice patch was much bigger.”

Finding water on Mars is a notable scientific discovery. Next they’re going after a notable economic discovery, by drilling for oil.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“Well, they have been balloting all day at the Democratic side show at the Garden, for that is what some misguided people think is the nominating place. The real nomination is taking place in a room at some hotel with less than six men present.” Convention Article #9, after seven days of the 1924 Democratic Convention

“Who said miracles don’t happen? Didn’t the Democratic National Convention nominate a man at last? This should bring more people back to religion than any other one thing. It has been a demonstration of faith, because, after all, God is good.” Convention Article #18, after sixteen days of the 1924 Democratic convention.