A GROWING NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS are skipping TV for smartphones & tablets.

I can understand why. I pay a boatload for TV, internet, landline and wireless phone service. And yet my landline phone is used primarily for ignoring junk calls; of the several hundred cable television channels that are available, I can stomach watching maybe 4 or 5; and my 'broadband' internet access is so clogged with popovers, popunders, and spam that I've hardly got better access than I had with dial-up.

Ninety percent of the money I pay is for communication 'services' I neither use nor want but can't not buy.

It won't be long before I join the 'Zero Services' user group.

DAVID LIMBAUGH: The World Is Upside-Down.

8-YEAR-OLD nabbed on felony BB gun charges. There ought to be a 'felony stupid' law applicable solely to local, state, and federal government employees.

HARRY R. JACKSON, JR.: State Grown Kids Always Fail. It doesn't take a village; it takes parents.

OH, MY: Global warming causes bumpy flights. Cue the tiny violins....

AMERICANS SHOULD LOVE HUGE GOVERNMENT DEFICITS. If you've ever wondered about the meaning of the phrase 'grasping at straws', you should read this.

MORNING EXAMINER: Why Obama will lose on guns.

Since the current gun control proposals would do nothing to stop mass shootings, even if Obama’s gun control bill became law, more are bound to happen. And the deaths in those events will be no more or less tragic than the deaths at Columbine, Aurora, or Sandy Hook. The emotional appeal for “more” gun control will be the exact same. Anti-gun activists would just use those future tragedies to justify further gun restrictions. The logic of doing “just one thing” so a father does not have “to bury his child” simply has no end.

Note that this is a consistent argument with every liberal policy failure of the past. Schools are bad; we haven't spent enough. People continue to smoke; we haven't taxed them enough. People are still getting killed in automobile accidents; we haven't mandated enough safety equipment. Americans are getting fatter; we must restrict calories and mandate gym memberships.

You get the picture.

ON FEBRUARY 4TH, 2013, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, addressed the Duma, (Russian Parliament), and gave a speech about the tensions with minorities in Russia:

In Russia live Russians. Any minority, from anywhere, if it wants to live in Russia, to work and eat in Russia, should speak Russian, and should respect the Russian laws. If they prefer Shari a Law, then we advise them to go to those places where that's the state law. Russia does not need minorities. Minorities need Russia, and we will not grant them special privileges, or try to change our laws to fit their desires, no matter how loud they yell 'discrimination'. We better learn from the suicides of America, England, Holland and France, if we are to survive as a nation. The Russian customs and traditions are not compatible with the lack of culture or the primitive ways of most minorities. When this honourable legislative body thinks of creating new laws, it should have in mind the national interest first, observing that the minorities are not Russians.

The politicians in the Duma gave Putin a standing ovation for five minutes.

From my email.

RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane: on the radio just a few moments ago I had to listen to President "It's not about me" Obama promoting his gun control policies. Does anyone remember President Bush (II), President Clinton, Prisident Bush (I), or President Reagan ever say "It's not about me."?

I don't.

DOG BITES SELF:

Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., decided last month not to recognize a Knights of Columbus group as a student club, citing the organization’s religious and gender exclusivity. The Knights are a Catholic men’s organization.

So are the Jesuits, who run Gonzaga.

PC is for little people....