After what seems like decades of secrecy and lies, America demands to know: Who cut the cheese? Now we may finally have our answer. The conspiracy goes far deeper than any of us could have imagined....and it really stinks.

CBS takedown notices? Lawyer denials? Deadspin has a roundup.

I'm pretty sure this type of story never would have occurred with Nicklaus or Palmer, much less the greats of the game prior to them.  That's probably due to the wall-to-wall media world in which we live.

First, it is my pleasure to note the addition of "Disgruntled in NY" as a blogger to the Displaced Hoosier site.  I'm sure Disgruntled's observations will add insightful and entertaining material.  My hunch is that Disgruntled's posts and commentary may address current events and political, financial, economic (and sometimes bodily function) matters, so it should be interesting.  Bring it on, Disgruntled!

With that in mind, I offer the following short post on somewhat current events:

Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker has a short post concerning a photo coming out of the whole Gates-aquiddick fiasco.  You can check it out here.

Lifson’s commentary nails it.  My only addition is the observation in the photo caption I’ve added above.

I did not pay a great deal of attention to the whole kerfuffle over Gates (who I had never heard of until this incident), but I did hear a short clip of Officer Crowley being interviewed after the matter blew up due to BHO’s intervention.

Based on the comments I heard from the Cambridge cop and current resident of the Oval Office, I’d have no trouble voting for Crowley over Obama.  Crowley showed infinitely more common sense, class, wisdom, and PR savvy in his statements.

Hmmm, Palin-Crowley ’12?  I’m open to new possibilities if it means getting rid of the current DC crowd across the political spectrum.....

First, at -03.23 of the clip, there was the following exchange about the healthcare proposal:

George Stephanopoulos:  "What would you consider a bottom line victory?" (at -03.23):

Paul Krugman:  "In a way, since I have my own goals on healthcare, I can’t say what my final, what’s the least I’ll accept, because that then becomes a negotiating point.”

Second, at -03.23 of the clip, Krugman said the following:  "There is a theory, which I subscribe to, that if you get universality, cost control will follow through the political mechanism. Massachussets has a universal healthcare system that has zero cost control. It was a disaster from the cost control point of view. Now Massachusetts is getting serious about cost control because once you’ve established that you no longer have the safety valve of dealing with rising costs by making more people uninsured, then you have to deal with the problem."

When I started this blog [Note - this was originally written for posting at the Miss Otis blog site], I named it after our beloved family dog, Otis.  Unfortunately, she is no longer with us.  (Wait, you named a girl Otis? - ed.  Yes, I named a female dog Otis, but that’s another story for another day.)  But we were luck to have her for 16 years, she was a sweet, sweet girl and we loved her very much.  It’s been almost two years since she died, and I still can’t find the words to express how much I miss her every day.

Our kids are old enough that they remember Otis, and they are starting to make more and more noise about getting another pet.  Unfortunately, they’ve started pushing for a cat.

For months now we’ve been having occasional discussions with Jordan about her intense, little girl dream of getting a cat.  “Mommy and daddy are really not ‘cat’ people, honey,” we explain.  “We’ve never had a cat, and have always had dogs.  And right now we’re not really sure we have enough time to raise a puppy and give it all of the attention and love that a dog needs.”

Round and round it goes, with Jordan managing to get acknowledgments from us that a cat would not be as burdensome from the standpoint of time and monitoring like a puppy.  And then, heading into the Independence Day weekend, Christine shocked me by asking, out of the earshot of the kids, if maybe we should go to the animal shelter and see about getting a cat.

Again we went back and forth, but eventually our thinking was that Jordan would be an excellent pet owner, and she really loves animals, so maybe this would make sense.  So, on the Friday before Independence Day, we took a family trip to the Princeton animal shelter to find out about adopting a kitten.

It turned out that there were 3 kittens at the shelter, with another 20 or more on the way from a recent cat-hoarding discovery.  All the rest of the cats were full grown, but the kittens were all out of their cage and playing when we went in to visit.

After a lengthy discussion with one of the shelter volunteers, we made the decision to fill out an application to adopt the grey kitten with black stripes.  All three kittens were domestic short hairs, and the other 2 were black and from the same litter.

On leaving the shelter that day, our understanding was that by early the following week, after our references had been checked, we would likely be making arrangements to pick up our new kitten.

But as we sat down to lunch at home after the animal shelter visit, Christine shocked me yet again by telling me that, if we were going to get one cat, maybe we should just get 2 so they would have each other for company.  I half-joking asked if maybe we should just take all 3 of the kittens and be done with it, but Christine was serious, and after another discussion, I called the shelter and amended our application to request 2 kittens.

The kids, of course, were excited about all of this, and I was ok with our decision.  Cats are not my thing, but I don’t dislike them.  And if we had a cat or two in the house, I’m sure I would find some redeeming qualities to enjoy.

But by Sunday night following Independence Day, Christine was ready to surprise me again by telling me she was having really serious doubts about the entire “cat” concept.  Never having had cats, we were both a little concerned about having a “cat odor” house.  And Christine realized that with swim lessons, swim meets, and other things going on, she wasn’t even sure if there was an evening of the coming week when she would have time to pick up the cats from the shelter.  So was it really a good idea to do this?

Then we had to consider the ramifications of telling the kids that, despite the shelter visit , application, adding a second cat, etc., we changed our minds and are now NOT getting a cat, much less 2 cats.

Heading into Monday we figured we had a little time to think things over and make a final decision.  But when my cell phone rang at 9:10 a.m. and it was the shelter telling me our application had been approved and we could make arrangements to pick up the cats, I was in a little bit of a bind.  So I told the lady at the shelter the truth - we’d been thinking very hard over the weekend about the whole thing, and I wasn’t really sure what our final decision was going to be.  Perhaps that’s a not uncommon thing for animal shelters to deal with, for various reasons, as she seemed unfazed and told me to call them when we decided.

That night and the next morning, we talked things through again, and Christine did a nice job of easing the kids into the possibility of not getting a cat so that they were not on the verge of melting down if we decided that we should not get a cat.

And then on Tuesday, Christine called the shelter to tell them we changed our minds and were not going to be adopting a cat after all.

So all of this is good from Otis’ perspective as a dog, right?  We’re still not cat people and life is good?

Largely, yes.  But I was then greeted with Christine’s revelation that maybe the thing to do is to wait until the end of summer, after we’ve taken vacation, maybe even after school starts, and we adopt a puppy.

So now Christine’s unstoppable force of wanting a small, hypo-allergenic dog that won’t shed meets my immovable object of getting another “real” dog, with a solid “thump” to its chest when you pet it, and that’s large enough to pull a wagon or act as a horse for a 2 year old.

We’ll see where it all leads.  If there is such a thing as a 30-35 pound non-shedding dog that has a tail and doesn’t have long fur/hair that requires grooming beyond basic and occasional brushing, I’d sure like to have that in my back pocket as a bargaining position.  Maybe I better start doing some research....

A friend emailed me to ask my thoughts on the idea of requiring congresscritters to read the bills on which they vote.  My early morning musings on same:

The boston.com link didn't work for some reason, but I take it you're referring to Jeff Jacoby's editorial, which I found and skimmed through.

First, it's sad that we're at the point where it has to be proposed to make a law to require elected officials to do their job.  On that basis alone, I have a bit of a problem - if a rep is not doing his or her job, the voters should kick them out next chance they get.  A pledge shouldn't be needed.

Second, if I were serious about efforts like the one Jacoby is writing about, I wouldn't make it a pledge because those are worthless.  These are politicians we're talking about - to paraphrase one of them and apply her words more appropriately, they lie to us all the time.  How many of the clowns who signed "pledges" to term limit themselves are still in DC?

So rather than a pledge, I'd try to do something like get a member of congress to add an amendment to every single bill that comes up for a vote that says that by voting for the bill, a member of congress affirms under penalty of perjury that he or she has read it and understands it.  Ideally, I'd also like to put something in there that says they can point to the specific text of the Constitution that supports the power / authority that is the subject of the legislation and make them do it, and provide that if they are subject to immediate removal from Congress and a lifetime ban on holding public office, voting for public office, and being involved in any way with the fundraising for or election of any public officeholder if they are found to have violated the "read, understand, Constitutional authority" provisions.

Of course, that's completely unworkable in the real world, but if something can be done that would completely tie Congress and the legislative branch in knots so that they can't do further damage to the country, I'm more than happy to see that happen.  As I've commented in many online discussions I've had with people over the past couple of years, I'm at the point of wanting to see every single federally elected official voted out of office every election cycle, forever, and having every single one of them be subject to IRS audits, forever.  But that's just me.

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes  which impel them to the separation.”

So begins our nation’s Declaration of Independence, by which the Founding Fathers set forth their intent to create a new and independent nation.  And for all the talk about the Constitution and political disputes between the current major parties about what the Constitution means, I think the Declaration of Independence is a potentially much more important document for our current times.

But before we get there, what does any of this have to do with Farrah Fawcett?  Well, admittedly it may be a bit of a stretch to invoke her name in the context of the quest for liberty.  Still, her unfortunate passing last week was what inspired this minor rambling.  And how could a woman known for her swimsuit pinup posters and fabulous hair be at all related to the Declaration of Independence?

Because, while I came of age right as Farrah Fawcett became an iconic figure on Charlie’s Angels, what caught my attention in the biographies chronicling her life was the middle, possibly largely forgotten, portion of her career.

In the early to mid-1980s, Farrah Fawcett did some creditable work as a serious actress.  She was hailed for her roles in two movies about domestic violence and violence against women - “The Burning Bed” and “Extremities.”  Both movies, as I recall, were well received critically, and Ms. Fawcett was praised for her portrayals of abused women who had been pushed to the point of having to act to protect themselves.

And that’s what made me think about the nation today and the relationship between the local, state and federal governments and the citizens of this country.  I understand that a lot of life is like the probably apocryphal story about the woman from The New Yorker who couldn’t understand how Richard Nixon won the 1972 presidential election because she didn’t know anyone who voted for him.  So my 25+ year shunning of network television news and disdain for any news story from the New York Times or Washington Post that is in any way relevant to law, politics and government means that I find myself reading what was originally termed the “alternative” media, which now is easily accessible online.  As such, I probably find myself isolated, information-wise, in much the same way that the liberals in NYC and the Washington beltway are.

Still, the reports of increasing unrest across the nation in response to the current economic disturbances and the ridiculously out-sized and overly centralized government “plans” to make things right gives me some hope that maybe, just maybe, we’re on the verge of the citizenry waking up and taking a stand against government action, activism, expansion and intrusion into our lives.  Hence, maybe we’re on the verge of fighting back the way Farrah Fawcett did in “The Burning Bed” and “Extremities.”

Just this week, with the passage in the House of Representatives of legislation purportedly aimed at addressing “climate change” (f.k.a. “global warming”), it seems the elected officials in Washington are setting the course for more governmental control and higher costs for taxpayers.  One particularly disturbing element of the legislation I saw noted this week was a requirement for private homeowners to retrofit their homes to comply with federal environmental and energy-efficiency standards when they put their house on the market.  [If you’re interested: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjQzNDM0NjVhNDA3ZjM3MjllZDZjNGMyMTU3NzM3OTU=]

This type of stuff (the legislation, not the blog post) is lunacy.  And it will only get worse with the current administration and heavy liberal Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress.

And we get no relief from over-reaching government officials and bureaucrats at the state and local levels.  We moved to New Jersey over six years ago, and instantly saw our property taxes increase to six times what they had been in Delaware for approximately the same size house and property.

Every year we’re told by the charlatans who run for office, regardless of political party, that they are going to do something to “fix” the outrageous taxes, and especially the property taxes, in New Jersey.

Every year all I see is our property taxes, and taxes in general, going up.  And as a taxpayer / consumer of government services, I certainly can’t say that I see how I’m getting additional services and improvements for all the money that keeps pouring into the state’s coffers.

So I find myself on this Independence Day wondering what I can do to help bring about, essentially, a Declaration of Independence on the part of the citizens against the current government agencies and office-holders, and as much as anything, the major political parties.

I have never contributed money to a politician’s campaign, nor have I ever put a candidate’s bumper sticker or magnet on my car, or sign in my yard.  Given what I see as both parties’ disregard for the fundamental principles of how our government was designed to work and its role in our nation, I don’t see why I should support them financially, and only occasionally support party candidates with my votes, and even then very begrudgingly and with nose held tightly as I struggle to choose the “least worst” option.

But maybe the current Tea Party movement and online organization and communication will help people who are as frustrated with our country’s government, at all levels, as I am.  Certainly I hope that winds up being the case, but I’m still very doubtful.  [Again, if you’re interested:  http://www.teapartypatriots.org]

Months ago when I was writing more regularly on Townhall, I had some conversations / exchanges with other Townhall bloggers about a fundamental problem that conservatives face - how to fight the expansion of government with the promise to do nothing.  Both major parties have fallen into the trap I believe Madison, and likely others, identified - they have decided they can tax one person to promise something to another, and they are getting the votes of those who believe they will “get something.”

No candidate I’ve been aware of has been willing to stand up and say, “Enough!  If I’m elected, here are the first X programs I am going to eliminate and costs I am going to cut.  After those are eliminated, we’re going to keep going with program eliminations and budget cuts until we’ve pared it back to only those government programs specifically in line with the actual words of the United States Constitution.  The government is not a charitable organization - but we recognize the need for those organizations and will do everything we can to help private charities assume as much of the social welfare state programs as possible with X years.  But we will not continue these programs indefinitely just because no private charity appears ready, willing or able to take over.  There are just some things that government, as set forth in the Constitution, is not empowered or intended to do.”

THAT’S the kind of candidate I could start to listen to.  But it’s going to be very difficult for that kind of candidate to compete against the Candy Man candidates put forth by the current parties who promise that government will fix whatever ails you.

I hope that the Tea Party attendees are thinking somewhere along the lines of what I am, but only time will tell.  I plan to keep my ear to the ground, my eyes open, and try to stay optimistic that the flame of individual liberty still burns in enough of my fellow citizens that our current course can be reversed.

Heck, Farrah was from Texas.  I think she might even have agreed with a little of this.