Here’s a big thank you for all of our top Entrecard droppers for February, 2009.

Life’s a Pizza Pie -31

Pepper Spray, Stun Guns, and Tasers… Oh My! – 31

Big Boys Have Toys Too – 31 It is worth noting that as a one of top droppers on this site we have received a very nice and unexpected 500 EC prize.

Faith and Facts -30

What’s On My Mind Today -30

Politics 2000 – 30

Daily Post - 30

Creating a Better World – 30

The Way I See It - 30

Thank you all! Please keep coming back!

And now an even more important category, we think.  The number of clicks of our ads on your blogs:

WHAT I THINK – 80

A World of Progress TeamZine -64

Mama ASID’s BadGal Blurbs -59

BadGalsRadio – 58

Jill’s Creative Cafe Page -57

Center Left -32

Have also received an ad display from the WalkingNewspaper, for being one their top droppers.

Thank you all again!

Technorati Tags: droppers, performers, politicus.us.top.entrecard

From left: Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi

Despite the dire economic news, which President Barack Obama delivered before a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, it was a much, much better speech and experience than any of the stilted, mumbling, awkward State of the Union, or non-State of the Union appearances by his predecessor – the 43.

A new national poll indicates that two-thirds of those who watched Mr. Obama’s address reacted favorably to his speech. There were a surprising number of standing ovations – at last count some 66, and for a change very few – if any embarrassing grammatical and mispronunciation errors. Quite a refreshing change, at least for those of us, who have gone to school and who do know how to read and regularly exercise that ability.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch Tuesday’s address, you can always catch up.

Another refreshing change was the much lighter (probably by at least 100 pounds) backbench. You know, the seats where the vice president and the speaker of the house sit, behind the speaking president. The combination of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi seemed positively thin and fit, when compared to the Dick Cheney/Dennis Hastert combination. We wonder also about the intelligence and evil indexes difference…

The president’s words described a rather ambitious agenda, including health care reform, catching up to Europe in education, and to Japan and Germany in solar energy, finally bringing the troops home. All of this despite truly crummy economic news and record deficits. We wish him luck. Maybe reducing the size and scope of our global empire might be a good idea, not only from an economic, but also from a diplomatic point of view?

And even though this is not strictly related to Tuesday’s address to a joint session of Congress, the really big news is that the Obamas will be getting a Portuguese water dog sometime in April. By the way, Senator Ted Kennedy owns two Portuguese water dogs and lobbied hard for the breed. There is no doubt that both Malia and Sasha are counting the days now.

Technorati Tags: bush, change, congress, obama, portuguese water dog, so much better, speech

Irish police have solved the mystery of a Polish recidivist who clocked up 50 traffic offenses on different addresses and who was never caught. For nearly two years, the Irish police were trying to locate and possibly apprehend a mysterious and incredibly hard to find culprit by the name of Prawo Jazdy.

As it turns out “Prawo Jazdy” means “Driver’s License” in Polish.

An internal police memo cited by Irish papers said officers taking details of Polish traffic offenders had been mistakenly using “Prawo Jazdy,” printed in the top right corner of the driving license, as the holder’s name.

“Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving license and not the first and surname on the license,” the police memo dated June 2007 said. “It is quite embarrassing to see the system has created Prawo Jazdy as a person with over 50 identities.”

A police spokesman declined to comment on the reports.

About 200,000 Polish people flocked to Ireland during the boom years of its “Celtic Tiger” economy but a poll in November indicated a third of them planned to leave due to recession.

Technorati Tags: drivers, embarassing screw up, irish, license, police, polish, prawo jazdy

The latest stimulus bill contains some $8 billion for developing high-speed passenger rail service – much too little, in our opinion.

Despite the fact that the United States still has the largest rail network in the world, unlike many other developed and even undeveloped countries, our passenger rail service leaves a whole lot to be desired, mainly because it is more profitable for the railroads to carry freight, rather than people. Read more on that in our guest post at  Phuck Politics.

The funny thing about the project is that despite some real need to improve the passenger rail service in the Northeast Corridor, between Washington, New York and Boston where the Amtrak Acela service crawls along, instead of flying, there are some other plans afoot.

Why aren’t the Acelas flying, you might ask? The reason is rather simple: the Acela trains were actually built four inches (10cm) wider than they should, reducing the permissible tilt on the turns from 6.5 to 4.2 degrees, effectively reducing the speed on large sections of the Northeast Corridor. At issue is basically the fact that it has been determined that a more pronounced tilt, at a higher speed could be dangerous if two trains were traveling in opposite directions on the same turn. So, the Washington, to Boston trip, which could have and should have taken just over three hours, if everything was copasetic, takes over six hours. That is not high-speed rail by our definition, not in the 21^st century, anyway.

There are also many other needed route improvements throughout the U.S., including in the Midwest and along the West Coast. All of those seemed to have been dwarfed by the urgent need to build a 300 mph magnetic levitation train (maglev) – similar to the German/Chinese super-fast route in Shanghai – from Disneyland, to Las Vegas.

Just think what a super-fast and the world’s longest so far maglev rail line between the cute, but kitschy Magic Kingdom and the not so cute and even kitschier Sin City could do to improve our dire passenger rail situation. Sounds like a great idea. Don’t you think? I am already trying to envision Mickey Mouse, dressed as a Nevada hooker, with gambler’s gold bracelets and chains here. That logo could and should be prominently displayed on the new trains, so there is absolutely no doubt about what we are dealing with here. Are you listening Harry Reid? Did you coordinate this great idea with Amtrak Joe first?

Is the line going to include extensions, leading high-speed trains to the whorehouses of Nevada as well? We sure hope so. Just think of all of those needy customers, already pumped up with Viagra, Levitra and other erectile dysfunction remedies rushing along, trying to make it there under four hours. We all have heard warnings that “if your erection lasts more than four hours, get medical help right away”. Maybe the trains should have fully staffed onboard emergency rooms? The Cleveland Clinic warns that: “Priapism is a persistent, usually painful, erection that lasts for more than four hours and occurs without sexual stimulation. The condition develops when blood in the penis becomes trapped and unable to drain. If the condition is not treated immediately, it can lead to scarring and permanent erectile dysfunction.”

Those trains better be fast and on time. We would hate to see all of those gold chain and bracelet-wearing dumbos develop any “scarring and permanent erectile dysfunction”. That might negatively impact the Nevada whorehouse industry and along with that the all-important casino enterprises, which by the way did not appear to receive any DIRECT financial assistance from the stimulus bill so far, with the exception of the possibility of the magnetic levitation rail line, of course.

Viva Viagra!

Technorati Tags: disneyland, hookers, kitsch, las vegas, levitra, maglev, magnetic levitation, protitution, rail, train, viagra, whore houses

We will keep this brief and will refer you for the  full story to Dana Milbank’s excellent piece in the Washington Post.

As it turns out Richard Perle, the neocon-in-chief, the ground zero in the necocon conspiracy and the chief architect of the Bush foreign policy and the Iraq war appeared at the Nixon Center and basically stated that:

1. Perle is not a neoconservative.

2. Neoconservatives do not exist.

3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly couldn’t be blamed for the disasters of the past eight years.

“There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy,” Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. “It is a left critique of what is believed by the commentator to be a right-wing policy.”

Need I say more? Read the rest of the story on the Washington Post website, or better yet, support them by actually buying the newspaper.

Technorati Tags: denies, existence, his, lies, neocon, Richard Perle