WonderfulPessimist.com

With fuel prices out of control, it’s no longer easy to plan a vacation, and when the opportunity comes along, sticking closer to home always seems like the smarter option. That’s why I like the idea of a Branson, MO, getaway.

Thanks in large part to my parents’ musical tastes as I was growing up, I have a high tolerance for country music, and in the wake of 9/11, patriotic crooners like Toby Keith made for much better listening, to me, than most of the anti-American rockers out there.

Branson’s become famous as an alternative to Nashville as a country music getaway, and likes to bill itself as the “live music capital of the world.” But Branson offers a lot even for those who are not country music fans; attractions include a selection of theme parks, as well as magic, comedy, dance, acrobatics, and drama, all performed live on stage.

With most packaged ranging from $423 to $551, as well as a couple top-notch packages in the $623 to $925 range, there really is a package to fit most budgets; and while transportation down and back isn’t included, you can still get some reasonable air fare rates to Branson from most metro areas these days … it’s cheaper than driving, that’s for sure!

The WonderfulPessimist.com recommendation, though, has to go to the Great American Package (naturally). It features four days and three nights at the Welk Resort Hotel, and includes two adult tickets to the Magnificent Seven with Dinner, Legends in Concert and, of course, the Veteran’s Museum. Additonal activities are extra, but at $454 per couple, it’d be hard to find a better value.

Reason number 47 not to vote for Barack Obama: the latest rumblings in Washington are that former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry is angling to become secretary of state, should Barack Obama acheive the White House in November. Just the notion of John Kerry taking over as secretary of state after a fine run by Condeleeza Rice is so earth shaking, it nearly knocked my HDMI wall plate loose!

Kerry, who is close to Obama and aligned himself with Obama against Clinton early on, is currently running for re-election to his senatorial term in Massachusetts, but if Obama were to win and place Kerry in Condi’s office, Massachusetts might have to brace to replacing two senators with fresh new faces, given Ted Kennedy’s recent diagnosis with a malignant brain tumor.

One has to think that, under the circumstances, Mitt Romney might be better served in the long term by running for US Senate in Massachusetts, rather than running alongside McCain this fall. If nothing else, it could be a fall-back plan for Romney, if McCain loses.

J.C. Watts, the Oklahoma Republican who served at one time as the chairman of the House Republican Conference, has announced plans to start an all-black news network that will be carried initially in several major markets through Comcast, beginning in 2009.

Tentatively called the Black Television News Channel, in an interview with the New York Post, Watts said, “I’m not so sure that you see anything on CNN or Fox News that specifically targets the African-American community. Our community features millions of people with all kinds of backgrounds. There’s a much broader segment of the population than what we see in mainstream news.”

Given Watts’ solid conservative credentials, it will be interesting to see if the network he’s helping to launch with be just another liberal sound chamber, or a truly balanced news network that will reflect a wide diversity of views, not just ethnicity.

Thus far, no financial, executive, or on-air talent details have been announced. Personally, while an alternate-voice news channel’s a fine idea, I’d rather see Watts running for the White House alongside McCain, ready to step into the big chair once McCain leaves politics to hawk senior life insurance.

Unlike Obama, Watts is a man of wide and respectable experience and accomplishments, who is more than ready to sit in the Oval Office. And he’s a darn sight more conservative than John “Bradshaw” McCain will ever be.

The latest weapon in the battle against gas prices at the pump may be a new microcar concept; developed by Diamler of Germany, the new Smart-brand car is only eight feet, 10 inches long, about five feet wide and about five feet tall. It is reputed to get 50 miles per gallon on unleaded gas, or nearly 70 miles per gallon on diesel.

The supersmall car is ideal only for two passengers with no room for a backseat, which would rule out couples with children. Still, the Smart Fortwo is considered the top-rated traditional gas car on the market for fuel economuy, aside from hybrid vehicles. Although boasting solid front and side crash-test results, the Smart Fortwo is miniscule compared to most SUVs and it’s hard to believe it wouldn’t become a Coffin Fortwo in any accident.

Don’t quote me, but I suspect there’s some patio furniture that would fare better in a collision with a full-sized SUV. I suggest packing up Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham in one and setting them loose on the LA freeways for an extended campaign tour up and down the California coast.

According to the Third Court of Appeals in Austin, TX, “authorities had no right to seize more than 440 children in a raid on the splinter group’s compound last month. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.”

This decision comes in the wake of a Texas raid on a polygamist sect called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (”Fundamentalist Mormons” or “FLDS” from here on out). The ruling by the appeals court could force the state Child Protective Services to return the children to their parents, though that could be forestalled if the state decides to press the decision to the level of the Texas Supreme Court.

Although most kids worry about things like the school dance and acne treatment, Texas Child Protective Services claimed sexual abuse charges, using them to justify taking away all the kids from the FLDS, even those who were among traditional two-parent families.

“Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse … there is no evidence that this danger is ‘immediate’ or ‘urgent’,” the court said. “Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may someday have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal.”

Kinda brings Waco to mind, doesn’t it? Don’t expect Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) to be running for the White House any time soon, after this embarrassment.

When women get pregnant, it is often said that they are “with child.” While Sen. Rodham is beyond her child-bearing years, she’s not beyond this kind of pregnancy. Going directly against the sage advice of Bart Simpson, presidential wishful Hillary Rodham, the senator from New York, is currently “having a cow” over her apparent loss to Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.

So hopefully she hasn’t thrown away all her 20-something-year-old maternity clothes from when she had Chelsea, because this looks to be one tough bull for her.

Despite claiming an advantage in the popular vote among Democratic primaries and caucuses, the fact is that Sen. Rodham cannot overtake Sen. Obama in the delagate count unless nearly all the super-delagates go her way.

That’s why she’s crying over the spilled milk of the Florida and Michigan primaries now; without them, she can’t win. Of course, it also shows weakness on the part of Sen. Obama’s campaign, since he can’t win with them counted.

Since editorialists everywhere are competing with each other to make the most outrageous price predictions on the cost of oil and the cost of gas at the pump, I figured I may as well join in the fun. So, WonderfulPessimist.com hereby predicts that oil will rise to $500 per barrel, with an at-the-pump price of $22.50 per gallon for regular unleaded.

Maybe. Someday. Certainly not anytime soon, though.

But still, if newspapers and TV stations across the country can get attention by treating the price of gas story like it’s an auction to be won by the highest bidder, I figure why not get really outrageous and really go for broke?

The current mess is cyclical and rather disturbing. OPEC are a bunch of greedy jerks, liberal media elites this we’re still not paying enough for gas for pure political reasons because a gallon of Starbucks coffee is still higher, and Democrats are looking for any excuse to make the mess worse by increasing the gas tax.

(It’s been a continual cry of liberal Dems ever since Paul “Tax On Gas” Tsongas ran for the White House. And Minnesota Dems demagogued the 35W bridge collapse enough to actually push a gas-tax increase through even in the midst of the worst pump-price spike in years. This in spite of the fact that a gas tax is one of the most regressive forms of taxation in our economy; guess the Dems don’t fight THAT hard for the poor, eh? So don’t tell me I’m making this up out of whole cloth.)

Also, let me be the first to predict this: prices will eventually ease again. Maybe not in 2008 yet, but certainly by next year. Too much of the current spike is not about supply and demand, but on baseless price speculation in the futures market. And like the irrational Internet economy of 2000, a bust will eventually take the air out of this oil boom.

Till then? I’m closing my wood shutters and not vacationing ANYWHERE this year.

Barack Obama may not find it as easy as other Democrats to win over the Jewish vote, especially in Florida, if recent campaign efforts are any indicator. Obama, who recently and famously has claimed, if elected president, he would sit down with anti-Israel terrorist leaders like Iran’s Ahmadinijad and Syria’s Bashar Assad, among others, reversed course and contradicted himself in front of Jewish Democratic voters in Florida this week.

“We must not negotiate with a terrorist group that’s intent on Israel’s destruction,” Obama said. “We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terror, recognize Israel’s right to exist and abide by past agreements.”

Of course, this is the exact opposite of his previous statements about sitting down with anti-Israel politicians around the world “without pre-conditions.” Here’s a quote from an MSNBC article:

In a Democratic presidential debate last summer, Obama was asked if he’d meet the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea without precondition and during his first year in office. ‘I would,’ Obama said.

So, which Israel policy will Obama be putting on his campaign’s promotional pens? I guess that depends on which audience he’s speaking to.

There are two main reasons Florida governor Charlie Crist is being mentioned as one of the first three VP candidates GOP presidential nominee John McCain will consider to run alongside him in November. First, his predecessor Jeb Bush is too toxic in this Bush-weary nation to invite onto the ticket, and second, he’s the popular governor of a key battleground state that is a huge electoral jackpot in November that most analysts agree McCain will need to carry agains Obama to keep the White House in GOP hands.

Yet there are a world of troubles with Crist, and you can’t buy memory enough to forget these negatives.

First, Crist is nearly as liberal as McCain, although he has a shorter track record in public life; that wouldn’t sit well with party conservatives who are already turned off to the McCain ticket and would be likely to skip the presidential portion of the ballot, or vote Bob Barr on the Libertarian ticket, if McCain chooses another liberal as his running mate.

Second, Crist doesn’t have Romney’s fundraising acumen, which is not an inconsiderable factor.

Third, all Crist brings to the table is Florida, which although key, is pretty much his only asset.

In all, since I’d rather see Jindal mature a bit before being thrown to the wolves of the national liberal media elites, and since Crist is not enough of a balance to the ticket, in the end I think Mitt Romney makes the most sense for McCain, of the three candidates mentioned.

Of course, there are always more folks out there who could come into play down the line, if none of these three want it. But a McCain-Romney ticket wouldn’t be a bad idea, especially if it lead to a Romeny-Jindal ticket four or eight years from now.

If I were a futures broker, I’d wager that first-term Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has a great future in the GOP as a future presidential candidate. He’s young, he’s quite conservative, and he’s well-liked. And as the son of India immigrants, he possesses minority appeal.

Of course, that’s why Bobby Jindal is one of the top three VP targets GOP presidential nominee John McCain is hosting in Arizona over the next few weeks. Although he has little in the way of experience or a fund-raising track record, and does no hail from a state that is a large electoral jackpot, Jindal’s biggest assets are that he would mollify GOP conservatives not enchanted by the liberal McCain, and that he is a bit of an Obama-solution, offering voters another non-white candidate with relative youth and charisma.

However, there are dangers in the Jindal strategy, and they are all at the cost of Jindal, not McCain. First and foremost, as a less-experienced politician, Jindal is untested on the national stage. While that works for Barack Obama, who has the liberal media on his side, that works less well with conservatives like Jindal, who the media would be out to embarrass, leveraging his youth and inexperience to make him look doltish.

If I were Jindal’s advisor, I’d console him to take a pass on running with McCain and concentrate on performing well as Louisiana governor and winning at least one re-election to that seat before moving on. Remember, Bush the Elder once selected a young, promising, very conservative senator as his running mate, and Dan Quayle as never lived it down. I’d hate to see that same vilefying happen to Jindal, whose chances will be much better four, eight or even 12 years down the road.

Finally, we come to my least-favorite name among the first three McCain is considering: Florida governor Charlie Crist.

As far as I know, no diamond rings will be involved, but GOP presidential nominee John McCain will be meeting over the weekend with three potential vice-presidential contenders, any of whom he might pair himself with for the November race. Of the three names mentioned, however, I only like two of them.

The one who might make the most sense is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who challenged McCain early in the GOP political process and seemed the presumptive nominee until a poorer-than-expected showing on Super Tuesday forced him from the race. Perceived to be more conservative than the liberal McCain, Romney’s biggest asset could be his fund-raising ability; since becoming the lone frontrunner, McCain’s campaign has shown weakness in its ability to build up a campaign war chest, an area of strength for Romney.

Younger than McCain, Romney would be an attractive choice among party conservatives who want to ensure the next GOP administration has an heir apparent ready to take office. As the man who came closest to McCain to garnering the nomination himself, Romney has all the right credentials.

Next we’ll take a look at the politically most-appealing VP target: Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal.

After Hillary swept the Kentucky primary and Obama obliterated her in Oregon, two things are clear. One, Hillary has taken the clear lead in the Democratic popular vote, and two, Obama now has enough pledged delegates that Hillary can’t beat him without nearly all of the unpledged superdelegates hopping over to her side.

That’s unlikely to happen; with Howard (EEEEEE-AHHHHHH!) Dean running the party (and subscribing to more than a couple wine clubs), he seems intent on cleansing the party of Clinton influences and Obama is the beneficiary of his efforts.

That said, this whole thing would have been over several weeks ago, had it not been for Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos efforts to draw the Democratic nominating process out as long as possible by encouraging GOP voters to “become Democrats for a day” in states where they are able, and vote for Hillary to prevent Obama from locking up the nomination too early.

All I can say is, “Thanks, Rush!” The bloom is definitely off the rose for both Hillary and Obama. Obama’s currently running like Hillary’s already conceded, while Sen. Rodham announced she intended to stay in the race following her dominant Kentucky win that helped vault her into the popular vote lead among Democratic voters.