So what does Obama do now?

Libya doesn't look good. Even with US air support, Quaddafi's army is pushing the rebels back. Which is not to be wondered at, regular armies can usually beat civilian militias. Unless some of Quaddafi's army defects to the rebels, or the US Army steps in, or something bad happens to Quaddafi, the rebellion looks to be in trouble.
What will Obama do to pull his chestnuts (prestige) out of the fire? He will look mighty foolish if Quaddafi whips the rebels and retains power in Tripoli.

Recipe, chicken soup from scratch

You start with a chicken carcass, you know the bony ribcage left after all the white meat has been carved off and eaten. Fill a soup kettle with water and break the carcass up into pieces small enough to submerge in the water. Add some chopped veggies for flavor, an onion, a celery stalk, a mushroom cap, a carrot. Some spices, I use Bell's poultry seasoning, but a bay leave, and sage works too. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered for some hours, until the chicken meat comes loose from the bones.
Now comes the sticky part. Take the pot off the stove and when it's cool enough fish the chicken bones out. I use a slotted spoon and put all the chicken in a strainer. Pick thru the strainer with fingers, separating the bones and discarding them. Return the deboned chicken to the kettle and step 1 is done. You have a kettle of chicken broth, fresh and homemade. The veggies will have cooked down to almost nothing, but they contribute flavor.
Step 2 needs to start about an hour before serving time. Put the kettle back on the stove and then add things to cook in the chicken broth. Veggies, onion, celery, carrots, mushrooms, what every seems good. Some rice, or some peeled and cubed potato. Bring to a boil and then back off the heat so the broth is just on the verge of a boil and cook until the veggies are tender and the rice is cooked. Taste the broth and decide if it needs salt. I wound up adding a whole teaspoon of salt to a large kettle last night. Don't overdo the salt, its bad for the flavor.

How can you tell when a politician is lying?

Obama on TV just now. "My administration has done everything in its power to encourage off shore oil exploration". Right. In actual fact, Obama shut down all off shore exploration after the Deep Water Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year. It's still shut down.

So who gets blamed if the US govt shuts down?

Compromise doesn't seem close, or at least nobody will admit to it. House Republicans passed a continuing resolution to keep the US government running until the end of the fiscal year, September or October of 2011. The House passed measure calls for $61 billion worth of cuts. Which is chicken feed compared to the $1.6 trillion estimated for this year's deficit. But it's a step in the right direction, and if Congress cannot take a first baby step, we are going down the drain like Greece. The democratic controlled Senate doesn't want to pass it, they want the House Republicans to back off and continue spending as usual.
If the Republicans hold fast to their spending cuts, the government runs out of money and will "shut down", unless the democrats cave. Actually some crucial government functions like mailing (or direct depositing) social security checks and paying the troops will continue but life will get rough for a lot of people who work for Uncle Sam.
The democratic media, that's about all of them except Fox and the Wall St Journal, will blame the Republicans. The Democrats will blame the Republicans. But will the voters believe the media and the democrats? Who knows. Have any voters thought about this one? Rasmussen isn't polling on this one. Presumably the Republicans are watching their polls and will stick to their guns if their polls indicate the voters won't retaliate for a shutdown next November.

Rick Santorum at the Lincoln Reagan Dinner

Clearly Mr. Santorum is sizing up his chances in the upcoming NH primary. He was the after dinner speaker and the Republican audience gave him a warm welcome and lots of applause. He spoke at length, and he speaks well. He described his family and childhood. He promised to sign a repeal of Obamacare. That's about all I can remember on the morning after. He took questions from the floor and handled them well.
Herman Cain (who spoke before this same audience a month ago) made a stronger impression.
And, Rick has some enemies out there. Upon leaving the event, I found an anti-Santorum flyer tucked under the windshield wiper of my car. It attacked Santorum for being insufficiently conservative. The flyer was unsigned, indicating a low level of courage on the part of its printers and distributors.

Where do all the groovy cannon come from?

Pictures from Libya show enthusiastic freedom fighters bombing around in low end pickup trucks with a cool looking gun mounted on the bed. The guns are all black, with muzzle brakes and air cooling fins on the barrel and lotsa cool grips and magazines and stuff hanging off them. They look to be maybe 1 inch to 1.5 inch (20 mm to 37 mm) in caliber, heavier than 30 and 50 cal machine guns, but still small bore by artillery standards.
Guns like this were anti aircraft guns in WWII but obsolete since. In Viet Nam the flak guns were all 57 mm and 100 mm, too heavy to mount in a small Toyota pickup. These things are a little on the heavy side for personal side arms. They must have come from government arsenals.
Why did Arab government arsenals contain so many guns too light to hit aircraft or stop tanks? Perhaps Arab purchasing agents entranced with the coolness of 20 mm autocannon? Combined with western salesmen pleased to find buyers for WWII surplus?

So how did GE manage to pay no Income Tax?

I haven't checked GE's books, but its probably tax loss carry forward. Under US tax law, companies that lost money last year can subtract last year's losses from this years income.
We ought to rewrite the tax law to do away with tax loss carry forward. Right now, companies that loose money get a a double tax break. Loose money and they can rightly show no taxable income for the year of the loss, AND they can reduce their tax next year by the amount they lost this year.
I don't think we need to reward losers in our tax code. Companies that loose money ought to go out of business, not get a tax break. Companies making money ought to pay income tax on earnings regardless of how bad last year was.
Plus it would surely simplify doing their taxes if they couldn't mix last year's books with this year's books.