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If you’ve been watching the local news in the last month, you have seen footage of soldiers leaving for the Middle East. There are several military bases in South Carolina and the flow of soldiers oversees has been constant. Every time I see such a story, I think of a high school friend.

His name was Allan Gaines, but we called him Yank. His family moved south during his early teens and he never lost his accent. When he graduated from high school in 1967, he joined the Marines and left for Parris Island.

Dear Justplainwill:
I’m outraged. Here I am, working my ass off, trying my best to get along with people on the other side of the aisle, trying to get a Grand Bargain and they pull this latest crap. It’s not at all funny. When I first saw the picture we were at the water cooler just outside the Oval Office. I’d just separated Susan Rice and John Kerry. It was their third fistfight this week. (Rice is short but she has a temper and she was really kicking Kerry’s ass.) Anyway, it’s then that I see the picture falling out of Rice’s hands. Get this: the guy playing the Devil on the hit show, The Bible is my Doppelganger –my exact look-a-like.

After the Arkansas legislature overrode Gov. Mike Beebe’s not only pro-woman but also pro-taxpayer veto of an unconstitutional abortion ban the state will spend millions to defend, I speculated at Slate’s XX Factor about why the legislature thought that around 12 weeks was a good cutoff point for an abortion ban:

One reason that anti-choice legislators likely went with a ban at 12 weeks is that it’s an easier sell to the public than more aggressive bans…

It’s like 2011 all over again.

It was two years ago that, after Republicans claimed big gains in state legislatures across the South and country in the 2010 mid-terms, lawmakers made a national push for changes to voting laws, with one of the most controversial being restrictive bills requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls.

Now, with the 2012 elections behind them, state GOP leaders have again pledged to make voter photo ID a priority this year. But has the debate — and public sentiment about voter restrictions — changed this time?

Date on which U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) launched a talking filibuster protesting John Brennan’s appointment as CIA director, and raising concerns about the Obama administration’s policy on the domestic use of unmanned aircraft known as drones against U.S. civilians: 3/6/2013

Hours Paul spoke before he was forced to stop for a bathroom break: almost 13

Black Pope Cometh? Yankee Pope Goeth?

Lately, I am especially intrigued by odds and probabilities. This recent fascination can be traced back to last December when I was pondering whether to pay bills or buy Christmas gifts. The ultimate decision hinged on the odds of the Mayans being right in their prediction of an upcoming Apocalypse. Not long into the deliberations, I was poking around one of those gambling websites that handicaps various events. When it came to Mayan’s predictions, the site promised there “…is a better chance of the Pope quitting or a meteor hitting Russia next February than the chances of…

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
I think I’ll go eat worms!
Big fat juicy ones,
Eensie weensy squeensy ones,
See how they wiggle and squirm!

That nursery rhyme is about as good as any to explain how the Sequester, with which we are now wrestling, came about. The Congressional leadership had a hissy fit and the Sequester is the result.