Danger! Danger, Mitt Romney!

The Danger Newt Gingrinch Poses... to Mitt Romney:

Romney was always inevitable until he was not. And three times now someone has gotten ahead of Romney. The first could be an anomaly. The second had to be considered. The third time must be taken quite seriously.

Could it be that Herr Mittenmeister has some serious structural problems?  Perhaps... as William Jacobson points out, most pro-Romney rhetoric seems to come down to a single un-finishable sentence:

"You can’t vote for Newt, he’s as big a flip-flopping RINO as, um, er ….”

Mitt Romney:  The Oatmeal (TM) Candidate.  I'm seriously starting to think that Romney winning the Republican primary will be the last nail in the coffin of the GOP.

Self-deprecating... check

Saw this over at Pundit & Pundette:

Perry's ad suggests he has a sense of humor and maybe even [gasp] some humility. What a refreshing contrast to the egotism we're used to.

Hmmm.  Newt/Perry or Perry/Newt?

Great minds n'at.

Neo-neocon thinks there's three reasons why Newt may end up the Republican nominee.  I'm not sure of her #1 reason - I'm afraid that Romney may end up being the last man... er, politician... standing.*  As for #2 and #3, though, I think she's spot on, and (as usual) more eloquent than I could ever aspire to be:

(#2) He’s not afraid to confront Obama...

One of the many reasons so many Republicans are still angry at John McCain for the campaign he ran in 2008 was his almost palpable fear of criticizing Obama. Gingrich will have no such problem, and it’s because Gingrich is unlikable rather than despite that fact.

(#3) His skeletons have been out of the closet and rattling around for so long that they’ve almost turned to dust. 

* In which case I'm going to go out and sniff some eau de skunk to kill the smell of RINO and vote for Herr Mittenmeister.  Not that I think he's much better than Obama, really - just more survivable.  I see an eventual vote for Mitt as a vote for "both legs broken" instead of "knife through the heart".  I'd rather not have either one, thank you very much...

My Daily Crack

Linux boot time optimizations.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm good.

"Your name is in the mouth of others: be sure it has teeth."

I like free and open source software (yeah, there's a difference).  I like it as a developer.  I appreciate it as a user.  I love the price.  There are a number of reasons to appreciate the flexibility and power of the F/OSS model.

Project names, unfortunately, are not one of them.

There's a new peer-to-peer search engine project, called... YaCy.

Ya see what they did there? 

Sheesh.

(The title of this post, of course, is maxim 16).

"Please Hold, Your Call Is Important To Us. Not."

Penn State has apparently set up a new hotline for reporting abuse, the "Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Hotline".  Good for them!  I mean, they only have over 90,000 students at 24 sites across the state - I'm sure that they have never had to deal with allegations of sexual assault and violence before, right?  Especially not any connected with their sports program!

*crickets*

If PSU was honest, the number would be 1-800-TELL-JOE, and result in a "This number is no longer in service" message.  Or maybe just infinite hold music.

Oh, no, wait - it's ESPN that has the infinite hold music.  My mistake.

So... Drop Me A Line

Apparently, President Obama made the coveted GQ "Least Influential People Alive" list this year.  So nice to see him finally get the recognition that he deserves after having to accept those "Man of the Year" and "Leader of the Year" consolation prizes from GQ in 2008 and 2009.

While Mr. Obama comes in at #25, I was unable to determine if that meant that GQ considered him to be the most influential, or the least influential, on the list.  In any case, it's a pretty stunning accomplishment.  Nobel to Nobody in three short years.

Well, stunning for those of us who didn't already see his complete lack of potential back in 2007.  Very hipster of me, I know, but... I knew that Obama was an incompetent political hack before knowing he was an incompetent political hack was cool.

Heck, according to GQ, even I have more influence than the President, the Speaker of the House, and major CNBC media personalities.  Combined.  If y'all have anything you'd like, you know, influenced, apparently I'm your man.  I'll look at publishing a rate sheet later this week.

Nothing To See Here...

Net oil imports in the US are at the lowest they've been in the last 16 years.

Shale oil production in North Dakota is booming - a six-fold increase in the last six years.

Completely unrelated, I'm sure.

For the Record...

Daniel Hannan across the pond at the Telegraph writes sets the record straight, and tells the Occupy protesters ten things we evil capitalists really think:

Chatting to some Occupy protesters this morning, I was struck by how wide of the mark were the beliefs they attributed to me as a Right-winger. In the interests of deeper understanding, here are ten things which – trust me – most of the Tory scum I hang around with think. Obviously, I don’t expect to turn my Leftie readers in a single post; still, they might get a clearer idea of what we actually believe.

Synchronicity

Former Soviet state unveils a statue commemorating a US president, while supposed US allies burn a US president in effigy.

A most excellent example of Quinn's First Law: Liberalism always generates the exact opposite of its stated intent.