Quick links for Saturday afternoon

My mother is miserable.  With her, it’s always a chicken and egg thing, as we struggle to figure out if her mental misery causes her physical symptoms or vice versa.  This question actually matters because, if there’s a genuine health problem, medical care can perhaps alleviate her misery but, if her suffering is psychosomatic (real symptoms, but triggered by stress and anxiety, rather than a treatable physical problem), there’s really nothing to do.  Still, I’m heading over because she’s unhappy and she likes to see me.

Before I got, let me share with you all the tabs I have open.

Michael Yon is fueling a debate about Medevac helicopters.  I’m currently inclined to Blackfive’s view, which is that the current approach is sensible and is the best that can be done in battle conditions.  Do you have a take on this?

Don Quixote and I often talk about the lies, damn lies, and statistics, that fill the news.  When I point to this chart, he points to this chart and then points out that an aging population inevitably has a shrinking workforce, and that job numbers are climbing, and that conservatives have to deal with this reality in the lead-up to the November election.  Don Quixote wants conservatives to win; he just thinks they harm themselves if they live in a factual bubble.  I’ll admit that statistics fill me (and most people) with horror.  There is one number, though, that is inarguable and that may help ring down the curtain on the Obama administration, and that’s gas prices.  When both the ultra liberal San Francisco Comical and the more liberal Marin Independent Journal feel compelled to note the highest gas prices ever, people might figure out that something isn’t right in the economy.  The only question is whether they blame two years of a Republican House, or six years of a Democrat Congress, two of which included a Democrat White House too.

And lastly, before I run, read this and tell me what the heck kind of a nation we’ve become?  It’s stories such as this one that make me feel we deserve our downward slide.

Oh, one more thing:  Progressives are painting Santorum as Satan incarnate because he speaks openly about God and opines about social issues (although he gives no indication that he is going to use the federal government to create the Christian version of a Sharia state).  Mr. Bookworm, who is my go-to guy for finding out what liberals are thinking, says “I could never vote for him.”  But here’s the dirty little secret — If Romney is the frontrunner, Mr. Bookworm will say precisely the same thing, because Romney’s Mormon or because Romney is a wooden speaker or because Romney is rich.  For the diehards, it’s always something.  Trying to pick a conservative candidate who will appeal to the Mr. Bookworm’s of the world is pointless.  The same holds true when it comes to trying to pick a conservative candidate for the independents.  The Progressives will always find a way to twist and slime the Republican candidate in order to strike fear into the heart of average voters who aren’t paying close attention.  All we conservatives can do is pick a candidate who will be a good conservative leader and then hope that Americans will focus on the important issues such as the economy and national security.