From the early 1980s I deeply mourned the fact that Margaret Thatcher could never be our president.  It's only been in the last few years that I realized, far too late, she'd simply have needed to acquire a Hawaiian birth certificate.  It can't be difficult, as doing so appears to present few, if any, obstacles...

I've long suspected the Coachella Valley to be an alarmingly accurate preview of Hell's waiting room-- and a place to be just as assiduously avoided.  While I won't say that you couldn't pay me to attend the "festival", I will note that the amount in question would have to be quite considerable indeed, and wholly tax exempt, at that!

Having long since become sick to death of the endless barrage of  hysterical yowlings from Ron Paul's tin-foil hat brigade of fanatics, who continue to insist that Romney "stole" the nomination from their crackpot hero and that this is why the Republicans lost the election-- (and will someone please give them their medication?)-- I have no desire to ever again, at any time, hear the surname "Paul" in connection with a presidential candidacy.  Not any Paul.  Of any generation.  EVER!  Enough, in this case, is considerably more than enough.

My fiance (a physicist) and I have interested ourselves in the exceptionally bright young son of our house-and-kitty sitter, and are doing what we can to encourage his intellectual development and native curiosity. 

In researching possible gifts for the upcoming holidays, we found on Amazon the "Thames & Kosmos Physics Workshop", which provides the child everything needed to build (and then experiment with) 36 models, ranging from simple gears and pulleys to windmills, 2-speed crane, pinball game, pendulum clock, and so on, all the while learning the fundamentals of mechanical physics.

It's intended for children 8 and older, but we think it will be perfect for our friend's 7-year-old, and it might also be right for your son.  We looked, too, at the "ScienceWiz Physics Experiment Kit", but preferred the Thames & Kosmos setup-- your mileage may vary, and you might want to consider the ScienceWiz option.

We're also getting him "Snap Circuits SC-300", which will allow him to build up to 300 fun projects-- radio, burglar alarm, delayed action fan, even a lie detector!-- while gaining a real understanding of electronic circuitry.

It's all about awakening their interest!

Not even at gunpoint.

It's to Ricochet's credit that, unlike so many other forums on the Web, it's populated by fairly literate adults who are capable of expressing themselves without having to resort to cutesy-poo symbols best left to the denizens of a kindergarten class.

I'd hope that those who find this too great a challenge for their current writing skills would make an effort to pull themselves up, rather than suggest that the rest of us should drag ourselves down.

If one combines Obama's disturbing addiction to magical thinking ("I think it, and thus it will be so") and the curious fact that, for a man who has risen so high, his life has been astonishingly free of actual achievement, it seems a safe guess that he intends to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  

Don't make the mistake of assuming it could never happen.  After all, who would have thought it even remotely possible that someone could be elected president on the strength of being a "community organizer" with a scant two years in the U.S. Senate, a record in the  Illinois legislature that consisted primarily of voting "Present", and a name that sounded for all the world like Osama Bin Laden?

I've always longed for a time machine.  There's a virtually endless list of historical events I'd love to witness, but in the end, it always comes down to this:  after years of publicly trading the most vile personal insults in the newspapers of their day, the mystery of the ultimately unforgivable words, left unrecorded, that finally passed between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr and lead to the fatal duel, is something I've always wanted to solve!

It becomes more difficult to convince people you walk on water when it's clear that you're in over your head.

Here in Oregon, where we no longer observe a proper election day and it's all done by mail up to three weeks in advance, the ballots arrived a week ago and, from the early numbers, it appears there will be a very high turnout. 

While the national numbers look hopeful for Romney (G-d willing!), I'm becoming increasingly convinced that he'll have to pull off at least a 7-8 percentage point win in the legitimate vote in order to just squeak past what appears to be shaping up as very determined and well organized Democrat voter fraud for Obama.  

Since "early and often" is the unofficial voter motto of the left-- and all the more so in this election-- it's essential that every potential Romney voter, from the true believer to the recently leaning, get to the polls, cast a ballot by mail, or dispatch a carrier pigeon to the local Department of Elections in order to see that the honest votes are of sufficient number to offset those from Mickey Mouse, Jimmy Hoffa, and hundreds of thousands of others, both fictional and dead. 

Make your vote count-- at least once!

Is there anyone who doubts that Barack Obama is counting on massive voter fraud to pave a filthy interstate path to another four years in office?

Between the votes of the dead, the fictional, the felonious, and SEIU members conveniently registered in multiple precincts, the president begins with an enormous (and predictably dishonest) advantage.  A 2-3 percentage point majority in the honest vote won't be sufficient for Mitt Romney to overcome the industrial-strength chicanery the Democrats will have in play on election day,  and it's probable that only a win of Reaganesque proportions will secure victory.

This makes it all the more incumbent upon every Republican and rational Independent to be sure that his or her vote is cast and counted.  We've never seen a more important election.  This time, nothing less than the survival of our country is at stake.

"Honorable"? 

I believe this is the point at which it would be prudent for us-- and most pointedly for Mitt Romney-- to recall Shakespeare's line in "Julius Caesar", "For Brutus is an honorable man".

...particularly given that the Ides of March fall just two months after Inauguration Day.

Just as a further note, she continues to vote absentee!

In 1980, my elder sister moved to Hong Kong and established her own architecture and design company.  Fast-forward to 2012, and the company she's built now has 12 major offices around the world, numerous satellite offices, and a client list that reads like a global "Who's Who" of big business.  Through tremendous hard work, laser-like focus, guts, determination, considerable intelligence, and with the non-interference of a government that had the sense to stay the hell out of the way, she's created a remarkable success.  For nearly half the years she's been in business, Hong Kong has been under the control of Beijing, and I find it fascinating that her company is subject to far fewer punitive regulations and strangling restrictions than it would be had she attempted to grow the same business in this country.  Under Obama, certainly, it couldn't be done.  But in Hong Kong, they know better than to kill the geese that lay so many golden eggs.   It's a lesson this country needs to relearn.  My fiance and I have it on our short list of places to which to relocate should the unspeakable occur in November.

I don't see anything "especially sad" about this-- unless, of course, only Christians are permitted to join the Boy Scouts. 

Last I noticed-- and speaking as a Jew-- subscribing to a faith other than Christianity in no way prevents one from believing in G-d and country. 

Nor does it require of one an encyclopedic knowledge of the religious traditions, practices, and holidays celebrated by others.

As another child expressed curiosity about Good Friday, I hope your son took the opportunity to share a part of his faith by politely explaining it, rather than merely dismissing the question and thus increasing the difference and distance between them.

I disagree entirely with her politics, but salute her tremendous courage and determination.  G-d bless her!

Paris, yes, of course he is, but it can't be news to you that Hispanics self-identify as a specific minority group with specific interests and concerns, and are collectively identified and accepted as something other than standard issue Caucasian.  This isn't a question of formal delineation of race-- it's a question of politics, which is all about perception.  In that reality, Rubio is a horse of a different color. 

This is going to be an incredibly ugly race-- everything's pointing to it-- and the Republican candidate is going to need some cover.  Rubio can provide that.  There will no doubt be those who squirm at the political incorrectness of pointing this out, but that's the reality of the situation.  There's nothing to be gained from pretending it isn't so. 

Happily, Rubio brings to the table far more than the obvious.  His qualities have marked him by many as future presidential timber, perhaps eight or twelve years down the road, and although 2012 is early for him, the second slot would be a good fit for the energy and excitement he brings with him.  Romney has the gravitas, Rubio the charisma.  It works.   .