GOP Presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) out to bed rumors or suggestions he would accept a third party nomination if he did not win the Republican nod. He also added a third party entrant into the race would not threaten the Republicans' chances against President Obama in 2012, but might basically create a bit of a hassle. That's an interesting statement to me, especially coming from a guy who campaigned as the '88 Libertarian Party (a third party last time I checked) presidential candidate. Just saying, is all.

White House senior adviser David Plouffe would not say on NBC's Meet the Press whether the White House would comply with a possible congressional subpoena regarding internal communications in the burgeoning Solyndra scandal. More specifically, he said "I am not going to comment on a subpoena if it has not happened." Okay, fair enough, you do not want to speak in hypotheticals. But at the same time, this stance coming from the "rule of law" White House is kind of like saying you don't know if you would put out a house fire until one breaks out.

Rick Perry on Fox: I can still win. This was a headline on the Politico mobile app. Of course he would say that. Why the hell wouldn't he say that? Who in their right mind, outside of Don Quixote, would maintain a campaign and flat say I'm friggin doomed? I mean, every boxer thinks they can still win the bout, right up to the point they wake up being asked if they know what city they are in.

Only what seems like a million days until the 2012 Presidential election, or as MSM has taken to calling presidential elections every time around, The most important election of our lifetimes, stopping just short of predicting the Four Horsemen saddling up should the wrong choice be made.

I'm obviously not impressed with President Obama's performance to date. I'm barely as impressed with the GOP candidates looking to unseat him. After having voted for the last two Libertarian candidates, I'm just not sure about joining the other probably 400,000 or so in casting that vote again this time around.

This Americans Elect concept that's sprouting up has drawn my attention though. Anyone who signs up (email only, with some security features) becomes a delegate for an Internet-only primary, where anyone can be a candidate, but the presidential and vice-presidential nominees have to be from different parties? That alone peaks my interest.

So I took the step of signing up as a delegate to take a further look. Who knows? Maybe ElectMyAss.com will live on past my current campaign. I did just renew it for another year, and besides, when it really comes down to it, I'm at least as viable as the pizza guy, the dingbat tax attorney, and Hopalong Perry...

Meanwhile, as I was trying to pick my jaw off the floor at my St. Louis Rams playing their first complete game of the season and shocking, SHOCKING the Saints 31-21 earlier today...

Last Friday, the University of Chicago played host to the UChicago Conference on Jersey Shore Studies. If this isn't proof that higher learning has become an overpriced disaster, nothing is. The event was put together by an enterprising student. Fantastic. Way to use that entrepreneurial mind, kid...sets you up nicely for a future hawking glow sticks necklaces on the county fair circuit. Although, it was kind of interesting to learn that Canadians refer to "Guidos" and "Guidettes" as "Ginos" and "Ginas." Is this payback for the whole Canadian bacon fiasco?

So, Allen Iverson (pictured during his brief stint in Turkey) is willing to play for any NBA team, even if it is off the bench, even if it is for a sandwich and a ride to the game. Not only do I think Iverson is being overly optimistic there even will be an NBA season (my preferred outcome), but is this the best example yet of an Answer arriving to a question no one was asking?

A Transportation Security Administration agent recently left a little note for a passenger, after finding a "personal item" in the woman's luggage. Yeah, I hear ya. Bullshit, ya found a vibrator. You know it. I know it. Tribes in the Amazon rain forest that speak in clicks and pops know it. The note advised her to, and I quote, GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL

And hey, why the hell not? It wasn't that long ago that finding an errant sex toy in some luggage (usually after it had somehow gained self-awareness and tried to escape) would result in an entire wing of an airport being closed down. It's not like the TSA isn't cutting this lady a break, I mean, they are letting her do to herself what 1 out of 5 passengers get in addition to their great deal by surfing Kayak.

Now, if the flight attendant had offered some pointers, mid-flight, THEN you got a story...

Okay, let me see if I've got this straight. According to a recent Government Accountability Office report, Indiana's relative share of federal highway money is lower than almost every other state over the period 2005-2009, from the most recent highway bill.

Also to consider is twenty-two states got more back than they paid in, and Indiana seems to be getting double-screwed. Not only are we near the bottom overall, but also at the top of states getting ripped off to boot.

The state of Indiana got back 91.3% of the share it contributed to the highway trust fund. When you add in general fund revenue used by Congress to supplement the highway funds, Indiana actually gets $1.07 for every $1 paid in taxes. At least, that's one formula, and that's also the problem. There are a million different ways to tell you the money is being wasted via the process.

If Indiana is only getting ninety-one cents of every dollar it pays in back, but receives sixteen cents thanks to an appropriation of general fund revenue, why not let Indiana keep its tax revenue (in so far as road repair), and the federal government can use that leftover seven cents to help out one of the twenty-two states that apparently need the help the most? How about doing the same for the other twenty-seven states?

Then again, I could reflect on the state of Indiana being 100% responsible for maintaining the now-closed Sherman Minton Bridge, but only about 38% responsible for the cost of fixing it. I'm not reflecting on that. I'm just saying I could.

Naturally, the GAO recommends the same old business. That is to say, absolutely nothing our do-nothing Congress will give a second thought if they even bothered hearing it in the first place.

The recommendations include Congress better defining the highway program's goals, and the federal government's role in that program. This means state and local governments assuming more responsibility over road projects the federal government should have no interest in.

That's right- state and local governments handling the issues and the federal government concentrating on other matters. Let highway money be issued from Congress on a case-by-case basis to the states that need it, rather than assuming the problem has a national scope and related cost that will automatically repeat year after year.

But like I said, no matter how much sense it makes, the Government Accountability Office is just like the rest of us on this- stuck on the side of the road holding a thumb out...

According to the Associated Press' Mark Jewell, "investors have barely had a chance to recover from a summer of anxiety." Uh, yeah...how about you tweak that to perhaps the last three or four summers of anxiety?

With deadlines of November 23 and December 23 looming for the supercommittee to advance a $1.2 trillion package of deficit cuts and then for Congress to approve the package to avoid an automatic $1.2 trillion in defense and domestic cuts starting in 2013, the peoples are left to wonder what the supercommittee has accomplished towards their lofty goals.

That's because this whole hot mess is a masterpiece of suspense. The supercommittee has not held an open meeting, but don't worry, folks...no decisions are being made in secret, according to Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), (pictured above left). Yeah, that's reassuring. So if the meetings have been closed to the public, but no decisions are being made in secret, then no decisions have been made at all is what I am hearing. But on a positive note, Sen. Baucus also says the privacy has kept the lobbyists "at bay."

Because that image in my head of guards constantly having to beat the lobbyists off the walls of the Capitol building is probably not that far removed from reality. So the lobbyists are kept at bay for what, an hour or two a day? Fantastic. Now, what about the rest of the work week, Saturday, and Sunday? How far at bay are they kept then?

The single most laughable thing I have heard yet from the supercommittee and its desire to work in private came from co-chair Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), (pictured above right) who said the lack of open meetings was because they wanted to be "honest with each other."

Yeah. Honesty. Honesty. After three years of less than zero performance, and the commiserate return on that investment, other than that time...or, you know, when they...no, after three years of doing nothing at just the rate one would expect nothing to get done at, now these people are talking about being honest with each other?

At this point in the proceedings, with the deadlines starting to bear down, how does one not come to the conclusion that the best thing just might be to let both sides obstruct the hell out of each other and let the automatic cuts go through? Then again, raise your hand if you think, even for a split-second, that whichever party is "in power" come 2013 is going to let sweeping defense cuts go through, no matter how automatic they were supposed to have been in 2011.

I guess we will see how honest everybody was behind closed doors on November 23, at least as far as they will let us know...

The blurb piece asks the question Entertainment Weekly was convinced was on everyone's mind: are people finally tiring of Jersey Shore, as the fourth season finale's rating dropped in relation to the previous three finales, a first for the inexplicable cable hit. The show still manages to break viewership records on MTV (whatever the hell prestige there is in that anymore), and is still basically drawing six-and-a-half million viewers.

Entertainment Weekly makes news out of one ratings dip in four seasons? I know there can be slow weeks for any news outlet, even one as loosely defined as Entertainment Weekly, but come the hell on. Didn't Lindsay Lohan buy a Bic lighter and a packet of mini-thins at a gas station somewhere or something?  What about Spencer Pratt? Haven't heard about him lately (not that I, or anyone else for that matter, is complaining), but shouldn't TMZ be checking to see if he's dead behind a dumpster in West Hollywood, the victim of smug poisoning?

Bottom line: People have been tired as fuck of Jersey Shore since day one. This level of tired can range from simply don't care to white-hot hatred and loathing, but it is not going anywhere anytime soon. I mean, I'd rather masturbate with a cheese grater than watch Jersey Shore, so I do not watch Jersey Shore, obviously. But a show's rating will decline. It is inevitable. Even for the juggernaut of duh that is Jersey Shore. While the rest of you ruminate over six dollar coffees until they return in January, I'm gonna take some strategic deep breaths and get back into the retro channels that have been popping up on my cable as of late. Been DVR'ing The Saint the last couple of days...cool, Roger Moore kicking ass in the 1960s.

Yeah, so as you can tell by the ever-widening gap between the posts on here, shit's been hectic lately.

So the other day, after taking care of the usual business and some campaign stuff, I started poking around on the Facebook fan page. What, you haven't been yet? Oh, well. It'll give you something to glance at before you dig in to The Sims Social for the next eight and a half hours. Don't look at me like you don't either. I can tell.

They are re-doing the insights, or breakdown of your fans and the page's traffic. Spiffy, I thought...it's not like they aren't re-doing everything else, every other week.

So I take a look, and no real big surprises. Not exactly ready to bust out the Spinal Tap reference about having a selective appeal just yet, but the marketing equivalent of "fuck, I needs to get on a treadmill." The majority of my fan base is between 25-44, I skew more heavily toward men, my viral numbers are promising (never knew I had viral numbers) and wait...what's this?

Wait, what? I'm no math expert here, but shouldn't that equal 100%? If fifty-four percent of my fan base are men, and thirty-nine percent are female, could somebody in Facebookland explain to me just what in the bluest of fuck the other seven percent are?

I mean, any one one the following would at least be accepted as an attempt:

• Three-boobed chick from Total Recall
  
• Post-op malpractice litigant
  
• Ya got both
• Whatever that shrill Nancy Grace thing is
  
• Too small to tell
• Undecided
• Awaiting test results like that South African runner
• Goat person living under a bridge