Morning Reads

Since I really haven't had time to update my headline news site (a result of poor time management and almost a solid week of staying up past 8pm), I'll make the time this morning to post a few links here...fueled by coffee and the siren call of an omelet begging to be made.

According to Red State, wheat prices are at record highs, which I actually heard a couple of people talking about this weekend over lunch Saturday:

Most wheat varieties have been going for about $10 a bushel, give or take, in recent weeks. Today in Minneapolis, hard-red spring wheat for March delivery traded at nearly $25 a bushel. This contract was going for $8 three months ago.

(March is the front-month, so there's no daily limit on its price movements. A bushel of wheat or soybeans is 60 pounds. A bushel of corn is 56 pounds.)

This is totally wicked market action in a commodity that a year ago was trading for roughly half the price it is now. As I mentioned in a brief RedHot the other night, food prices will be the major wild card, or uncertain factor, in the global economy this year, and well worth your attention.

See a related story at SurvivalBlog.

Since I am on domestic items:

So Sunday's Oscar^TM broadcast was, underwhelmingly, a television ratings bomb. Not even the allure of Tinseltown's beautiful people walking down the red carpet in free gowns and borrowed jewels could tempt Americans to tune into what's known as the biggest self-congratulatory backslapping event in the history of mankind.

Early Nielsen numbers indicate that there were 14% fewer viewers than the last Oscar dud in 2003 (33 million that year).

I can only recall one instance of my watching the Oscars within the past 20 years: 1993, when Clint Eastwood's film Unforgiven won best picture. I've never been much of an awards show fan anyway. The occasion sticks out because I was a new mother at the time, perpetually short on sleep, and I resented the fact that I had to stay up so darn late to see the big finale.

Source: American Thinker

It has been more than a year since I have been to see a movie because Hollywood hasn't been making movies I like, and when a director, or big star, participates in an anti-American movie, I make sure I do not contribute to the box-office success of that movie. The writer was correct, the idiots in Hollywood won't learn from their mistakes...they'll think they just haven't done enough of whatever it is they are doing. Come to think of it, I haven't watched any portion of the Oscars since sometime in the 1990's.

I spent Oscar night on Free Republic, checking out Arratik's live-blog of the Oscars, and (after 10pm because of a stupid hockey game), listening to The John Batchelor Show.

Since we are local, I'll plug AshVegas, who noticed my video of Don Yelton and gives a good rundown of the people running for Buncombe County Commissioner, as well as keeping track of the goings on of the WLOSers.

Our Congressman Heath Shuler has appeared on Lou Dobbs, which led to a predictable kerfuffle in the Hooligan comments section, and that is always a good thing, just as this year promises to yield many rewarding hours of posts, and comments from the peanut gallery, in regards to the Buncombe County Commissioner Race.

As if that weren't enough, the anti-American war protesters losers will be swinging from the rafters next month when the 5th anniversary of our long overdue invasion of Iraq. There will be die-ins, anti-American movie nights, and other Direct Actions in Freakville. Fun for the whole granola-chompin' family!

I shouldn't focus on the local lefties...we have some right-thinking people who work hard, and deserve some coverage.


The big boy in town can't help but gloat at the Hilda Beast's poor showing at the polls:

Usually I am not the sort of person who likes to kick a person when they are down. However Hillary and Bill Clinton are such perfect living symbols of nearly everything that is wretched, detestable, vile, filthy and evil about the modern Democrat party that it is not just acceptable to pile on but even necessary.

Dean Stephens takes up the possibilities of The Perfect Storm for conservatives:

So what we are seeing on the horizon is a perfect storm for a group bound by common philosophy that is at odds with all the participants in the 2008 presidential elections. If conservatives would take a moment from eating their young, look up from the bloodied carcass of fallen comrades they have abandoned in the hunt for perfection, they would see a perfect storm on the horizon.

A Watauga Conservative worries about whether or not our children have lost their nerve. I think they have just grown up in a very soft world, and haven't been paying attention to the expansion of Islamofascism, the rebirth of nationalism in Russia, and preparations for military expansion by China. And, then nuclear war brewing from Iran.

A thunder storm is brewing here, so I'll have to cut this session short before the power goes...the internet is already cutting in and out...