Always refreshing to wake up and see Karl Rove on television - or nauseating, maybe? He was of course on Fox 'n Friends, with everyone's favorite playing dumb, highly educated mother (Gretchen Carlson), promoting his new book.

This is where I am hoping someone can do me a favor. Take a look at Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. When I first saw the cover, it immediately struck me that it looks exactly like a well-known book I once read, about blacks fighting for a place in society and within their own race. He stole it. Only I can't remember the name of the book or its author. Anyone have any ideas?

In other sports news:
- Sports: The Pac-10 Tournament starts today in LA. This time last year I was hoping a quick Southwest flight down there for what turned out to be an awesome few days of basketball and listening to Tim Floyd berate officials. Remember having a conversation with someone about a guy named Renardo Sidney and the cost it would take to bring him to your program. Turns out, after pulling his commitment from USC, it cost Miss. State one year, nine games and $19K.
- Sports: UConn will likely spend the NCAA tournament practicing for NIT games. St. Johns pounded the Huskies through the Madison Square Garden floor Tuesday to knock UConn out of the first round of the Big East tournament.
- Sports: Another report that Ernie Kent has been fired at Oregon. The Dean of Pac-10 coaches is in his 13th season, but has seen the Ducks finished 10th and 9th in the last two seasons of Pac-10 play.

Now in other news:

• This is a really bad clip for Meg Whitman, who is running for governor in California.
• Yesterday, now former Rep. Eric Massa went on the Glenn Beck Program. All you need to know about it is that Beck himself apologized to his audience at the end, for wasting an hour of their time. From Politico: Massa admitted to groping and tickling at least one staffer but insisted that he did 'nothing sexual' -- just hours after it was reported that he's been accused of having inappropriate physical contact with at least four male subordinates, including one intern.
  This is just a clip of what the whole thing was like.
• One of the major stories hitting news today is the chasm between the White House and the Supreme Court. It obviously kicked off with Obama taking a shot at them during the State of the Union and, as the story says, Chief Justice John Roberts had some words for that. Interestingly, this all happens the week after an erroneous rumor was circulated, saying that Roberts was going to retire. He would would of course die, literally, before allowing Obama to fill his seat.
• Bank of America has changed its debit card overdraft fee policy.

Finally, if you have like five minutes to dedicate just to flipping through this website, do it. I think I've linked it before, but a friend of mine is doing a screening of the movie, Crude, which reminded me of it. The devastating things Chevron has been involved in, not just pollution, but cold-blooded murder, around the world are painful to read about.

And one more interesting thing that I picked up from today's paper (people actually still read the real newspaper, did you know that?): 48% of the children born in the U.S. in 2008 were born to minorities in 2008. I know it seems weird that 2008 is in that sentence twice, but it means the parents were minorities in '08. They may no longer be that. Demographers believe 2010 may be the year more minority children are born, which begs the question: who even counts as a minority these days?

Had to kick off this addition with a Jon Stewart clip on what he's calling the "New York Crimes." It's been a rough time for the integrity of New York politics:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The New York Crimes - David Paterson & Charles Rangel
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Could there also be some more ugly activity by a New York congressman? Yes, this is not confirmed, but it is on the front page of Politico, not the Enquirer.

Political also has an all-inclusive story headlined, "New York Gone Wild."

What a way to start the day huh?

Some other links:

• No one could ever say David Broder isn't blunt. He takes shots at his own paper in defense of Barack Obama.
• What is probably good about doing all these things at once is that they overshadow each other. Yesterday, the Obama administration upped the ante on financial reform, leading to the top headline in the Huffington Post today: "Does Congress Have the Guts?"
• The 2010 Political Oscars.
• A look at proposed NFL overtime rules. What I don't understand is why the obvious hasn't come up: the college overtime, but with kickoffs. Each team gets a possession, but a turnover can be taken at the spot. If a team turns it over on downs, it just kicks off. Or, we could just do what every other sport does and play 10 more minutes. If no one is leading, call it a tie.

Yesterday, in a bill passed with real bipartisanship, the present will sign the Travel Promotion Act today, something Majority Leader Harry Reid called for a couple of weeks ago. It will do exactly what the title says: promote America to tourists.

Lastly, love this quote, from Politico: 'I think we've allowed the Republicans to get away with too much obstruction for too long without using our prerogatives,' said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who warned that Republicans can 'look forward to seeing more' demonstrations of Democratic muscle like the one that forced Bunning to undertake an active six-day filibuster of the bill.

Be aggressive and make Republicans look bad trying to block you. Filibusters don't look good.

An update on the unemployment rates: men: 10.0%; teens: 26.4%; blacks: 16.5%, Hispanics: 12.6%. Women: 7.9%; whites: 8.7%. It's ugly out there.

For those who want more about what I am doing out here, well, this is it. Honestly, I work. And I love it. But this stuff is what I am interested in and what I spend a lot of my days looking at. I am starting to do a little more as far as communications are concerned, but that is still preliminary. Maybe more on it later.

All for now.