Those Black Friday folks are crazy

Let me start off by saying that not all of those Black Friday fans are nuts.

In fact, my wife gets up bright and early every Friday after Thanksgiving and hits the stores. And who can blame her? Some of the prices are incredibly low and everyone wants to save money, right?

No, the Black Friday shoppers I'm talking about are of a special breed. A crazy breed. A perhaps dangerously insane breed.

Who are the insane Black Friday shoppers? I saw a report on the news the other night about people who started camping out in store parking lots on Tuesday. That's right -- Tuesday.

So, some people went and missed out on Thanksgiving entirely so they could sit in a parking lot and save a few bucks when all hell broke loose on Friday morning. What would drive someone to do that? I honestly don't know. Well, perhaps I do know -- it's insanity that drives some people to such lengths.

My wife, I think, did it the right way. She enjoyed Thanksgiving and made a list of items she wanted in advance. She got up at around 3:30 a.m. (far too early for me, I'm afraid) and hit the stores. While she didn't camp out overnight, she did manage to grab everything she wanted except for one item -- a new HDTV set for our bedroom.

That's not a bad deal. She got to enjoy Thanksgiving with family and will have to make do with the 20" tube television set in our bedroom until we get around to replacing it. Meanwhile, our Christmas shopping is now all but finished. Not a bad day's work.

By the way, we spent the Thanksgiving holiday in northwest Arkansas with my wife's family. The news outlets were all covering Black Friday shopping. My brother-in-law was out with the Black Friday shoppers and he got interviewed by two different television stations. My mother in law recorded the broadcasts on her DVR and, sure enough, he was all over television today.

How cool is that?

Cornpone and Mud Flap revisited (Tell Me Thursday submission)

For my Wordless Wednesday submission yesterday, I posted a photo of my two nieces.

Yes, Cornpone and Mud Flap (nicknames made up at random by me) are 13-month-old twins. Thanks to the inspired folks over at Tell Me Thursday, I feel compelled to mention a little bit about my nieces.

My family and I are spending the Thanksgiving holiday in northwest Arkansas with my wife's family. Young Cornpone and Mud Flap (yes, I'm sticking with those nicknames because I think they're funny) are the daughters of my wife's youngest sister. My sister-in-law and her husband have five children to raise and, as such, they have my sympathy.

While my sister-in-law was at work the other day, my wife, mother-in-law and I got to take care of Cornpone and Mud Flap. It seems they like their Uncle The Hawg, but it is obvious to me that Mud Flap likes me better than her sister does. Regardless, they're fun kids.

Now, we took the twins to the store the other day. My mother-in-law was carrying Mud Flap while I was toting Cornpone. A clerk came up and made a big fuss over Cornpone and got to the point where she asked the question I dreaded -- "What is her name?"

"I'm not really sure," I replied.

The clerk just looked at me.

"Look, they're twins," I explained. "I'm just the uncle. I can't really tell them apart yet, you know?"

She gave me a look that said "you're terrible" all over it. Fine with me. I'll learn to tell them apart one day, I'm sure.

Still, we had a good time with young Cornpone and Mud Flap. It'll be a hoot when they're young enough to come stay with my wife and me down in central Arkansas one of these days. We can spoil the heck out of them and send them back home to their parents so they can raise five kinds of hell.

We've had that happen to us enough when our kids stay in northwest Arkansas for awhile. Turnabout is fair play, right?

Wordless Wednesday -- Cornpone and Mud Flap

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Against all logic, health care debate advances

After a drama-filled week, the Democrats bought enough votes (60) to move the health care debate forward.

The final holdout was our own Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) Another holdout -- Sen. Mary Landrieu -- sold her vote for hard, cold cash. It doesn't appear that Lincoln got a thing for voting to move the bill into the debate state.

That's too bad. Landrieu can at least claim she sold out in exchange for $100 million (at least) in federal dollars for her district. Lincoln is left saying she voted to debate a bill she's against so that the Senate can have the opportunity to change it and stuff. Or something like that. She could have at least held out for a few bucks for Arkansas, a cool car or something else of value.

The concern here, of course, is that the latest Rasmussen poll shows that only 38 percent of the country supports the current bill. The bill has already passed the House in spite of the fact an awful lot of congressmen have claimed they are against it and wouldn't vote for final passage if the bill is similar to the one they voted to pass.

Work your way through that logic if you dare. Meanwhile, senators like Lincoln are currently using similar logic, meaning that it's not altogether impossible to suspect the very senators and representatives claiming to oppose this thing will eventually pass it.

It's worth pointing out that the Landrieu example stands as evidence that votes are totally for sale on this bill and proponents of the bill are more than happy to buy them. We saw the same thing with that dreadful bankruptcy reform a few years ago (the credit card industry spent millions buying votes for that piece of slop) and that does appear to be the way business is done these days (just ask General Motors). Shameful. These folks can be bought and it doesn't matter one whit what the people who elected them want.

How did our Arkansas congressional delegation fare? Not surprisingly, that mustache-mumbling Rep. Vic Snyder (D-2nd Dist.) voted to pass the bill in Congress. Rep. Marion Berry (D-1st Dist.) somewhat surprisingly followed suit. Rep. John Boozman (R-4th Dist.) voted "no" as did Rep. Mike Ross (D-3rd Dist.)

In the Senate, Sen. Mark Pryor joined Lincoln in voting to move the bill to debate. That's no surprise, really -- Pryor would vote for legislation authorizing nun beating if the Democrat leadership told him it was a good idea. Rumor has it the man had an original thought 30 years ago and decided he didn't much like it.

It appears there may be some merit to what the Republicans opposing this bill said -- voting to move it to debate is really a vote to pass the bill. These folks are for sale, seem to disregard what their constituents want and are amazingly prone to pressure from leadership. The American public might not want this bill but, by God, we may get it. How's that for representative government?

Music Monday – the Pretenders

Great song from a great band…

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