BYU: A revelation for sanity.

Today's Tids Issue #2,312
Opening Stuff:

Well, we made it to another weekend. Lets hope that Sheen is off the tube and pages next week. And maybe we can lighten up on Wisconsin protester talk, protesters who must be smelling pretty bad by now after all those days on the capitol floor. Of course, everybody will be talking about the BYU honor code. Too many kids today probably never heard of honor code. Or honor, for that matter. Maybe this is a good thing for a change.

I can see it now. If Romney starts to become a threat as a Presidential candidate, you can be sure that the big rumor will be, "Elect this Mormon and he will end sex." And lots of some of the bigger voting blocs will believe it.

When a dad says "This hurts me more than you" after spanking his child, you can probably bet he's a porcupine.

If Matt Kucher wins a few, he could become the new positive face of US Golf.

The Question: 
How many Royal Families still exist atop their countries? name 10.

The Headlines:
--Unemployment Dips To 8.9%; 192K Jobs Added.
--Wall Street Dips As Unemployment Gains Less Than Predicted.
--Legislation To Curb Public Employee Unions Speeding Through Ohio Legislature With Neery A discouraging Whimper.
--More Teens And Young Adults Putting Off Premarital Sex.
--Senate Democrats Joining Repubs To Block Law That Would Give EPA More Power Over Climate Rules.
--Russia Tests New T-50 Jet Fighter Which Would Give Them Air Superiority.

The news media keeps on writing headlines for states taking action to get runaway employee costs under control as "Anti-Union". I call it "Pro-Citizen".

Back to More Stuff:
A reader needs help badly Department:
She needs anybody to tell her how to cancel a bid on EBay. She out a five dollar bid in for a "Mickey Mouse Outfit", and now she is only six minutes away from owning Obama's cabinet and staff. This is serious.

Smart financial planners in Alaska put their money in fair banks.

I am pleased withe the final twelve for AI. I would have liked to see Kendra, who has a pretty powerful voice and would have brought a lot more diversity to the show. In fact I sensed that the final two chosen may have been about diversity, as Kendra was the best performer of the three in the sing-off. If you check yesterday's Tid's picks, you'll see we were pretty accurate. Stay tuned. It will be a good year.

The economy is so bad that half hour infomercials are now carrying commercials.

Irony Deaprtment:
The spokesman for the famous high calorie restaurant "Heart Attack Grill" that has menu items like single, double, triple and quadruple by-pass burgers; waitresses who are called nurses; a slogan that promises "Worth dying for..died yesterday...of a heart attack...at 29 years old!.

Almost Near: Chapter 10 continues. --Well, it looks like Little Rock will be step one. I hadn't an email or note from her for a while and I had the sense she had moved. Or, something had happened for about a year. Until that moment when I saw her walk down that dock...in this town which I created for her in her mind. This town which she had never seen, but appears to have taken taken as her own.
I have moved here within months after she left. I wrote about it to her in very descriptive terms, in a way that she could feel she was living here with me.
Almost poetic. A secret hideaway in our minds.
Tomorrow morning I'll go down to the newspaper and start searching for information about odd little things that may have happened over the past year in Little Rock. But tonight I had to read and catch up with her life. My life for her. I looked up at the stack of journals. And winced.

Most observers are saying that Microsoft has no future in the surging tablet markets. The big mahoff is in danger of becoming a necessary evil for only those products that need a little more than what Apple and Android offer the paddies today. And you can bet that these tablets will get more powerful and functional. And windows isn't a player. I'd like to be bug on the table in those boardroom meetings up there in Redmond.

A headline says "College atheletic departments get improved gardes for diversity." How silly is that. If there is anything that should be based only on skill and talent, it is sports. What are they doing, putting whites and dwarfs on basketball teams?

Reading Behind the lines Movie Reviews:
--Adjustment Bureau is exactly the kind of movie I crave. A monster conspiracy film that has soon to be elected Senator Matt Damon falling in love only to find that his life isn't his own. That everything he does has been manipulated by a strange group. The movie exciting and tense as Damon must decide whether to let her go or or give up everything he has achieved. He decides to fight.
--Take Me Home Tonight is a fair romantic comedy about a super bright MIT graduate who leaves his upward career path for a job behind the counter at a video store. He is comfortable as he confounds parents and friends, until his old high school crush walks into the store.
--Rango is your kids animated fare of the week. It's about a gun-slinging chameleon in a western town and is pretty good.
--Bereavement is a bad horror film and not worth wasting the time of this high slaaried reviewer.

The Answer:
There are 27 countries who still look up to monarchs. Malaysia has 9 sub-royals (i.e. Johor, Pahang, Terrengganu). Of course there is the british Royal family. Others are Belgia, Dutch, Danish, Spanish, Japanese, Bahraini, Saudi, Zulu, Swedish, Norwegian, Thai, Swazi and of course Liechtenstein and Luxembourg.

The (Weak) End:
State capitols should never be in a large college town. There are just too many students with nothing to do but protest.

Go outside this weekend and feel the flowers growing under your feet.