No matter how loudly and how clearly the American people, Democrats and Republicans and Independents, say they do not want these programs cuts, Obama just spits in the collective face of Americans.

Losers:

Experts estimate so-called budget sequestration could cost the country about 700,000 jobs...

Winners:

but Wall Street doesn't expect the cuts to substantially alter corporate profits or threaten stock markets.

Republican Rep. Ed Orcutt says bikes are bad for the environment because they cause cyclists to have "an increased heart rate and respiration." "You would be giving off more carbon dioxide if you are riding a bike than driving in a car," he said, before admitting that he had not "done any analysis" of the difference between carbon dioxide emissions of bikes and cars.

The author explains his theory of why only we, of the 27(!) different human species that have trod the earth, are still around.

In fact there was another recently discovered human species in S. China that existed as little as 11,000 years ago.

If I have it correctly, he attributes our ascendency to our long childhood. That the 6 years or so of childhood when our brains are furiously being wired and rewired enable us to learn much, much more than the any of the others.

He says this came from our specific evolutionary adaptation to the narrow pelvises and narrow birth canals that all human species developed as result of our extending period of waking upright on the savannahs of Africa.

The trouble was, as the birth canals evolved narrower, the various human species' brains brains and skulls were evolving larger, leading to life-threatening (and species-exincting) problems giving birth.

Apparently homo sapiens alone evolved the practice of giving birth much earlier to much less developed babies than the other species, such that our heads could fit through the birth canal but then grew about 3x in size after birth.

So our brains spend about 6 years of their development while outside the womb interacting with the world around, in contrast to at most about 1 year in apes, our closest living relatives.

Think about it. Romney will be 69 years old, he still has a healthy surplus in his war chest, and when -- not if -- the far-right finally implodes politically, I don't see any credible GOP candidates -- save for Chris Christie, maybe -- on the horizon who'd be able stop him if he does decide to run again.

The far right has mostly succeeded in its quest to purify the GOP, because other than Romney and Christie, the GOP doesn't really have any other name candidates who could appeal effectively to the mainstream.

Rick Perry totally embarrassed himself on the national stage in 2012, so I don't see him in the mix at all. Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan or Marco Rubio? Uh, no. Each one of those three brings multiple damaging flaws to the table. Pretty much every other known GOP personality out there who has aspirations for the White House -- here's looking at you, Rand Paul -- is a charter resident of Looney Tunes territory.

Ronald Reagan ultimately succeeded to the White House in 1980, in large part because he simply refused to do the decent thing by Beltway standards and go away after challenging incumbent President Gerald Ford for the 1976 GOP presidential nomination and losing. Like today, there were no other big-name, post-Watergate GOP presidential aspirants in the aftermath of the 1976 elections, except for Reagan, Sen. Bob Dole and perhaps Gov. Jim Thompson of Illinois.

(Sorry, but George H.W.Bush was not a big name back then, and really rose in stature only because Reagan subsequently named him as his 1980 running mate.)

Now, the reason I said this is interesting is simply because of who is doing the investing, and like that commercial from years ago, "when Warren Buffet is buying, smart people are listening." (or something like that)

Anyway, I started doing some more research on this subject, again, because it's Buffet, and Warren has always said that his first rule of investing is "only buy stocks (companies) that you understand inside out." I do know that he sometimes studies certain stocks, companies, and industries for many years before investing. So, I have to conclude that he's done his homework (due diligence) and sees value there where no one else does.