Ross Mackenzie
Tribune Media

Questions, observations, and idiocies drawn from the recent news....

• Is Cairo’s Tahrir Square simply an updated version of Beijing’s Tiananmen?

• Do Egyptians now nourish more hate for America under Obama than they did for America under W?

• Wasn’t it George Bush who, with his “Freedom Agenda” so detested by all the right lefties, insisted on establishing an Iraqi democracy in the hope democracy might spread throughout the Arab Middle East?

• Would those arguing today that the November elections changed Obama conceivably concede that a similar electoral outcome, albeit one emphatically rejecting a conservative course, ever could (or would) change Bush?

• Maybe you missed this, from a Feb. 8 Washington Post “breaking news alert”: “A (federal) government investigation into Toyota safety problems has found no electronic flaws to account for reports of sudden, unintentional acceleration.” Could it all have been an anti-Toyota hoax?

• Likely coming to a post office near you: closure. Beginning next month, the Postal Service will begin shutting as many as 2,500 post offices and reviewing another 16,000 (half the nation’s postal inventory) operating at a loss.

• Remember when Ronald Reagan broke the unionized air traffic controllers? The Obama administration has just cleared the way for unionization of 45,000 kinder, gentler, touchy-feely airport screeners. One can see it now: Travelers upset about their compromised junk standing in line to file complaints with the union shop steward.

• It’s an open secret that the great Osama probably is dead.

• Was the unmarried Bristol Palin dis-invited from her $20,000 speaking gig (on pre-marital sexual abstinence) at Washington University because (a) her fee was too high, (b) school muckety-mucks deemed her too controversial, (c) she lacks a college degree, (d) she chose not to abort her baby, or (e) her mother is That Woman?

• Datum: Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a frequent seeker of the presidency, has filed a $150,000 suit against several companies affiliated with a House Office Building cafeteria for negligence regarding an “unfit and unwholesome” sandwich wrap he bought in April 2008. The wrap, he alleges, contained an olive pit.

• In 2006, Sen. Barack Obama, viewing a national debt of $8 trillion as a “sign of leadership failure,” voted against raising the congressionally mandated debt ceiling. Today, President Barack Obama regards the $14 trillion debt he did so much to create as an indicator of his stellar leadership and the nation’s financial strength. He wants the debt ceiling raised.

• Two headlines: (1) From the Jan. 20 Wall Street Journal, on the principal model for Obamacare, Britain’s National Health Service: “U.K. Unveils Plans to Revamp Health Service.” (2) From the Jan. 31 Washington Post, under the category “political news and analysis”: “2012 Republican Presidential Candidates All Have Flaws.”

• Just yesterday, it seems, there could be no extraterrestrial life because no planets could be seen beyond our solar system. Now NASA’s orbiting Kepler telescope has identified 1,235 potential planets, including a system of six orbiting a sunlike star dubbed Kepler-11. Notes a Yale astronomer: “This is an incredible, historic moment..., an absolutely staggering result. It shows that planetary systems with several small planets like our own seem to be common.” As is extraterrestrial life?

Ross Mackenzie may be

contacted at rmackenzie@

tribune.com.