Fwd: Things to Know - 2 February

1.  Here is an interesting $3 course on Habeas Corpus and other related legalities in our justice system:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print/41107/

2.  In the campaigning ahead, one of the issues that will always come up, and which will always be around until it is changed is the concept, declared by Mitt, that "corporations are people, my friends".  Not so, and so it goes:
http://www.truth-out.org/print/12093

3.  So the guy wins Florida, and makes Porkie look really bad.  You think Romney would wise up, but no, he sticks his foot in his mouth big time again.  The sound byte will stick with him,  like an albatross, through the rest of the campaign:
http://www.truth-out.org/print/12110

4.  Wall Street has the Big Entitlement institutions that are Too Big to Fail.  The Military-Industrial Complex has weapons systems, entitlement programs, that are Too Big to Cut:
http://www.truth-out.org/print/12100

5.  Another one of Romney's gaffes (he does it quite well by now), was his proclamation on immigration reform - "self-deport", which really does nothing but alienate him from the Hispanic or any minority voters.  It also displays another facet of Mitt's out-of-touch persona:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/opinion/do-it-yourself-deportation.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

6.  What the take away is about Romney and his Florida campaign.  If he should have learned one thing, it is that when you want to get down and dirty and play like Gingrich, you will emerge with the same perception of values ascribed to Porkie.  Pigs wallowing in the same trough all smell and sound the same:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/opinion/the-darkening-tone-of-the-primaries.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

7.  You may have head the word "meme" lately.  It is an invented word that combines the social context of many expressions into one word. It is a verbal emoticon, if you know what that is:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-daum-meme-20120201,0,4207013.column

8. Lot of hoopla out the about Facebook and its IPO.   Here's a column that advises a cautionary approach to any purchase:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120201,0,146064,print.column

9.  Here is an interest of conflict.  Depending on who you read, CNN goes one way and the AJC goes another.  Does it really matter?:
http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/source-trump-to-endorse-1327422.html
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/02/trump-set-to-endorse-romney/?hpt=hp_t2
--
Juan Matute

"Start every day off with a smile and get it over with."
       -- W.C. Fields

"Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions."
       -- Evan Esar

"When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained."
       -- Edward R. Murrow

"Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, /And think they grow immortal as they quote."
       -- Edward Young

"Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but, unlike charity, it should end there."
       -- Clare Booth Luce

--
Juan Matute

"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."
       -- Thomas A. Edison

"Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?"
       -- Dick Clark

"Always get married early in the morning. That way, if it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted a whole day."
       -- Mickey Rooney

"Of those who say nothing, few are silent."
       -- Thomas Neill

"A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing."
       -- Alexander Hamilton