Gary at Obama's Town Hall in Lancaster...10 minute 1 on 1 interview!

The Gary Sutton Show/Main Street of America will come to you LIVE on Monday from The Thaddeus Stevens College in Lancaster.

The show will include a 10 minute interview with Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, as well as comments from Dr. Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College, and the Town Hall Meeting starting at 10:00am.

This is another effort to give all prospective voters a chance to become acquainted with the candidates first-hand. The Main Street of America will continue to try explore every opportunity to get each of the candidates in front of you.

Listeners outside of our broadcast area can stream the show over the internet, as always. Click on the "LISTEN LIVE" button near the top of the right-hand sidebar.

Link to more information about the town hall meeting

New poll: Did Obama's speech do it for you?

There's a new poll in the top of the right sidebar:

Did Obama's speech do it for you?

Poll results: Too much Bill in Hillary Clinton's campaign?

Too much Bill in Hillary Clinton's campaign?

Yes - 9 votes
No - 5 votes
No; more Bill! - 2 votes
Don't care - 4 votes

Welcome, Greeks!

Welcome to the blog, readers from Greece! We're all familiar with Greek contributions to modern civilization.

I speak, of course, about the Greek invention of naming college fraternities and sororities. Without the system devised by ancient Greeks, we would have to refer to various fraternities and sororities as "the one with the crappy parties," "the one with all the jerks," or "the one with the crappy parties and the jerks."

The Greeks also gave us the gyro. Sadly, the correct pronunciation of this delicious sandwich is lost in the mists of time. Some linguists believe YEER-oh is correct. The majority of linguists, however, believe it's pronounced Gimme one of those things. Yeah, like what that guy's eating.

Greece also gave us George Stephanopoulos, the diminutive broadcaster and political adviser. According to legend, if anyone keeps an eye fixed upon him, he cannot escape, but the moment the gaze is withdrawn, he vanishes. If you capture him, he must be truthful and honest and tell you where he has hidden his treasure.

Who are the middle class?

Who are the middle class? The Congressional Research Service published a PDF report earlier this year on that subject.

Surveys indicate many people felt an income near $40,000 was the minimum to be considered middle class. On the other end, surveys suggested that those with incomes approaching $200,000 might still be considered middle class.

Well, that's pretty broad. And inconclusive, too:

There is no consensus definition of “middle class,” neither is there an official government definition. What constitutes the middle class is relative, subjective, and not easily defined.

Still, the short report (it's only six pages long) makes for some interesting reading.

Link to CRS report Who Are the “Middle Class”? (PDF format)

Welcome to the blog, Chile!

Welcome to the blog, Chilean readers! As you know, Chile is home to the vampire bat.

Identifying a vampire bat is pretty straight forward. Unlike fruit-eating bats, the vampire bat has a short, conical muzzle. Also, vampire bats will not cast reflections in a mirror and they often hesitate to cross running water.

Vampire bats are considered to be nocturnal, as exposure to sunlight tends to weaken them, sometimes even causing them to instantly turn into dust.

It is not true that vampire bats can be repelled with holy water, crucifixes and other articles of faith. This is a stupid and false urban legend with no basis in fact. They are, however, vulnerable to garlic.

Hate telemarketers? This guy does!

Hate telemarketers? Take notes, folks, because this is sheer GENIUS!

OMG....It Was True After All!

I'm sure the Clinton folks knew the REAL footage would come out eventually, instead of that "doctored up" version that CBS had. This should set the record straight, and put this issue to rest once and for all.

The Crush of the Middle Class slows down (at least for the moment)

Governor Ed Rendell has abandoned his plan to give lower-income families special payments of up to $400 this year to help stimulate the economy.

Why? Rendell said on Wednesday that there was not sufficient supporting the State Assembly even from fellow Democrats. The Governor had called for dipping into the “rainy day” fund to pay the $130 million dollar cost. The plan would have directed payments to about 475,000 families, but was turned down because legislators wanted the middle class included.

Rendell’s answer to this is instructive to us when he said, “There’s a limited number of dollars to go around.” Is he kidding? He and his cronies tax the middle class like it is the gift that keeps on giving. The “limited dollars” he talks about seems to never find its way back to this shrinking group’s pocket books.

Meanwhile, the Middle Class continues to independently work as the backbone of this state while those who dependently remain poor and play the system -- oh yeah, and who vote for the politician who enables them to stay that way by giving them money for nothing, get the benefits of our labor. One can only hope that even the state legislators are starting to realize the ceiling of middle class largesse is closing in on them and our dependent-enabling governor.

Maybe a great slogan for the middle class in PA would be: The PA Middle Class, from whom much is expected in servitude the to state, but to whom little is returned.

I’m Gary Sutton.

How Does Thy Nose Grow?

We'll suffice to say that Hillary has done it again! This time with a Bosnian sized slip of the tongue. Some, including herself, say she just simply mis-spoke. Click HERE to see a small list that Dick Morris has compiled, of things that the esteeemed senator from NewYork has "questionably" said over the years. It may just surprise you, then again considering the family's Pinocchioan history, it probably won't.

Tuesday's Tech Tip: Microplanes

Yeah, I know it's Wednesday already. You'll just have to deal with it. I'm giving you a couple of simple food tech tips today.

Yes, food has its own technology. Sometimes we get clever and borrow technology from other areas. That's what the Microplane is -- something borrowed from the woodshop. And at ten-ish bucks, it should be in every cook's kitchen.

Imagine I give you a taste of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. I'm talking about the real deal here, not that powdery garbage that comes in a green can. Tasty, eh? But the good stuff is kinda expensive. That's where the Microplane comes in.

Buy yourself a small block of Parmigiano-Reggiano and grate some on your food with the Microplane. It does such a nice job, you'll use less cheese than if you used an old-fashioned grater. Wrap the cheese tightly in some wax paper and then plastic cling wrap. It will keep nicely in your fridge for a month or two. It's hard to believe, but over the course of a couple months, you really aren't spending much more for a high quality cheese.

You can also pick up some real nutmeg nuts. Keep them around for any recipes that calls for nutmeg. Throw out your powdered stuff and use the Microplane to grate your nutmeg on demand. One or two nuts will easily last me a couple years.

Cinnamon? No problem. Need lemon/lime/orange zest? Look no further than your Microplane. Tattoo removal? Well. Let's draw the line there.

Obama - Perfect Unions

Deciphering Clintonese

I did not have.....it all depends on what IS.....is. I was in, uh I mean we were, ummmm well it's like, er, there were these..... Haven't we all heard all of this before? A fine display of the the art of lying by one of the master artists, problem is though....she needs some new brushes. The underlying purpose and drive to achieve power by means necessary, no matter who or what the cost, remains exactly the same.

Join in on today's show - Tuesday, 3/25

This morning's show will deal with the issues of race and religion as they relate to Jeremiah Wright's comments, and Barack Obama's association with the Reverend Wright.

Feel free to use this post as a forum during the show, and throughout the day, and I will be glad to share your thoughts on the air as well as comment later here.

Today we will have Major Darren Mudge who has ministered as a pastor in South Africa as well as here in York, Pastor Michael Smith of York, and Reverend Ruth Harvey who is pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in York and has met and heard Pastor Wright speak.

I would like to advance this dialogue of race today; not divide us further, so it is in that spirit that we offer this show. GS

Spying on paranoid schizophrenics

Is the government spying on paranoid schizophrenics enough? A roundtable discusses this important issue.



Remember: Even paranoids have enemies!

Welcome, readers from New Zealand!

Welcome, New Zealand readers! New Zealand's coat of arms isn't as awesome as Norway's, but the country does have some stunning terrain.

Many readers may already be familiar with New Zealand's beautiful landscapes -- it was featured prominently in the boring Lord of the Rings trilogy. Yeah, you heard me, LOTR fans. I said boring. If I want to watch three hours of people walking around, I'll save my money and spend an afternoon sitting on a bench in the mall.

Bah. No monkeys in New Zealand. Wikipedia notes that new Zealand is home to a reptile called the tuatara, which I previously assumed to be some kind of South American dancing style. Wiki says there are no snakes either, but I doubt that. How can they operate without lawyers, politicians or salespeople offering extended warranty programs?

Rant: Protecting children on the web

(This is an edited version of my rant last Monday. Yes, the sassy cutie to the left has little to do with this post, other than the fact that I used "children" in the title. But she's my god-daughter and I get to post pictures of her if I want to.)

I heard a caller on the show who saw an advertisement on a website that he thought was inappropriate for young people.

Now, I rarely see ads when I’m surfing the web -- I block them with AdBlock Plus, free software that comes with Firefox, my Internet browser.

The suggestion made to the caller was to go back to the site, write down the names of all the other advertisers and ask them to force the site to remove the one ad he didn’t like. Later in the show I got the feeling that a lot of people think the federal government should be taking care of this problem.

Let me ask you this:

Suppose I decide not to lock the doors to my house. I decide not to set my alarm system. I decide to allow strangers into my home. I do this for a while and pretty soon, there are cigarette butts on my carpet, the toilet’s clogged, and, worst of all, someone hung a Dallas Cowboys banner in my living room.

If I complained about this to you, what would you say?

Would you say: Jay, contact your neighbors and tell them what’s going on. Ask them to stop troublemakers from coming into your neighborhood. And let’s get the federal government on this. Let’s get a platoon of Marines stationed in front of your house to stop this. Would you say that?

Or would you say: Jay, why don’t you lock yours doors, set the alarm and don’t let strangers into your home. And if you don’t want to be responsible for what comes into your home, then it’s your problem.

Later in the show, I heard complaints about adult content on the rest of the web.

Again – I have to ask – why not just prevent that stuff from coming into your home? Software that filters the internet is widely available.

I did a little research one night. And by "research," I mean I spent 5 minutes typing keywords into google and viewing the results. Here’s what I learned.

If your internet service provider is Comcast, guess what? They give parental control software away for free. How about AT&T? Free. Verizon? Five bucks a month.

It took me about 5 minutes find a bunch of free – or close to free – options to control the content that comes into the home. (You can find some links and info here.)

But you know what? I’m convinced – I don’t want to spend any time or any effort to control what I let into my home. I don’t want to be responsible for what I let into my home. Let’s get the federal government involved instead.

Let’s see, some people suggested creating a new domain on the internet for adult content. We have .com, .gov, .edu; so let’s make, I don’t know, .xxx.

Let’s move pornography over to .xxx. Some of those men’s magazines have pretty racy pictures, so let’s send Maxim Magazine and FHM over there, too. Sports Illustrated has to go – that annual swimsuit issue can be revealing. Websites that explain breast health and cancer awareness might show naughty bits, so they’re out.

The Onion is a pretty funny parody of online news, but they use bad words, so they’re out. Speaking of bad words, I saw some blogs that occasionally drop the f-bomb. They’re gone too.

Now, someone needs to be in charge of reviewing web sites, managing the new .xxx domain, and handling disputes. Let’s form a new federal bureaucracy to deal with this called the Bureau of Naughty Websites. It’ll have to be pretty big – there’s a lot of new web content published every second.

Of course, none of this will work. Why? Even if we move everything offensive to someone over to the new .xxx domain, we still have to block those sites from coming into our homes.

And we already decided that we don’t want to spend any time or effort into blocking stuff coming into our homes that we don’t want.

News of the Robot Monkey Apocalypse

More news of the coming Robot Monkey Apocalypse from Danger Room:

To the growing menagerie of robotic pack mules, snakes, lobsters, and insects, you can now add another creature: this mechanical, headless monkey.

The Stanford-built robot, Capuchin, "carefully balances its weight across its arms and legs using force sensors in the tips of its limbs," New Scientist notes. That allows it to scale walls "around 40 times faster than an earlier climbing robot built by the team." NASA is hoping to send the thing to Mars one day.

The accompanying video make it clear that the Robot Monkey Apocalypse draws nigh.




Link to Headless Monkey-Bot Scales New Heights

U.S. prison population at 1.6 million (and more in local jails)

I mentioned the U.S. prison population on the show Monday. We learn from the International Herald Tribune that

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million, after three decades of growth that has seen the prison population nearly triple. Another 723,000 people are in local jails.

Reason Online asks whether we're locking up nonviolent offenders:

As James Q. Wilson himself has observed, imprisoning those people [nonviolent offenders] does not reduce the total number of drug dealers, since others quickly take their place. Worse, it leaves less prison space for the robbers, rapists, and murderers who represent a genuine threat to public safety.

With limited resources, politicians face an unavoidable but rarely acknowledged tradeoff between being tough on drugs and being tough on crime.

Finally, the late arch-conservative William F. Buckley's thoughts on marijuana laws:

"Legal practices should be informed by realities," Buckley argued, citing 700,000 pot arrests each year, 87% of which involved only possession of small amounts. "This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10-15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone."

But would America ever rise up and demand a change in marijuana laws?

"It is happening, but ever so gradually. Two of every five Americans, according to a 2003 Zogby poll cited by Dr. Nadelmann, believe "the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and make it illegal only for children". The Dutch do odd things, but here they teach us a lesson."

More than 1 in 100 U.S. adults are in prison (from the International Herald Tribune)

Americans: Stars in Bars (from Reason Online)

Collected Controversies of William F. Buckley (from 10 Zen Monkeys)

Welcome to the Main Street, Norway and Iran!

Welcome, Norway and Iran! That's Norway's coat of arms to the left. It's pretty bad-ass. As near as I can tell, it features a lion. With an ax. And he's wearing a little crown, as if to say, Go ahead and make fun of my little crown. I'm a lion with an ax. I think he's smoking a Clint Eastwood-style cheroot, too.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't taunt the fella, but I am saying that it wouldn't be on my list of things to do on any given day. Getting my head caught in the gears of a steam engine would come before taunting a lion armed with an ax.

I wonder what early drafts of Norway's coat of arms looked like. Maybe an earlier draft had the lion riding around in a tank and the King of Norway said "Looks good, Sven, but maybe we should lose the tank."

Does Norway have monkeys: No. But they get a pass for the ax-wielding lion.

And welcome to the blog, Iranians! Wikipedia says the highest state authority is the Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Supreme Leader is a pretty sweet title, although I would've gone for Grand Poobah of the Universe.

While I'm on the subject, Persian food can be an amazing experience. I went to a place near Philadelphia called the Persian Grill and it was fantastic. I understand that it changed owners, so I need to get out there and see if it's still awesome.

Monkeys? Sadly, other than the infamous Filipino Monkey, the answer appears to be no.

What would you ask the candidates?

Pennsylvania is about to be overrun with candidates courting our votes. If our presidential candidates walked into your favorite restaurant (like WOW Cafe & Wingery ...), what would you ask him or her?

I talked about this on Monday's show. I've got some questions based on what I read on Factcheck.org.

I'd ask Sen. Clinton about her claims of foreign policy experience. Factcheck.org writes

... Clinton did not in fact "negotiate on matters such as opening borders for refugees during the war in Kosovo." Macedonia had reopened its border to Kosovar refugees the day before Clinton’s arrival, as has been widely reported. Clinton now says that she pressed for opening the borders "much wider."

So how much "pressing" did Clinton actually do? According to her official travel schedule, Clinton was in Macedonia for less than nine hours ... [and had] a total of 30 minutes for negotiations, minus time for photos.

I'd ask Sen. McCain about his math. And I'd ask Sen. Obama for more details about his planned withdrawal from Iraq. He talks about pressing Iraq's leaders to reconcile, focusing more on diplomacy and humanitarian aid. I want to know how this will work and what his Plan B is if his plans don't work.

What would you ask?

Book: Founding Faith

We discussed faith and our Founding Fathers on Monday's show with Prof. Jon Rowe. He mentioned a few books that he recommends and one of them caught my eye: Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, by Steven Waldman.

Praise for the book is coming from a pretty diverse group of people -- everyone from William Bennett to George Stephanopoulis to historian Joseph Ellis. From Publishers Weekly:

The culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Many activists on the right maintain that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.” Many on the left contend that the Founders were secular or Deist and that the First Amendment was designed to boldly separate church and state throughout the land. None of these claims are true, argues Beliefnet.com editor in chief Steven Waldman.

With refreshing objectivity, Waldman narrates the real story of how our nation’s Founders forged a new approach to religious liberty, a revolutionary formula that promoted faith ... by leaving it alone.

Link to Founding Faith on Amazon

Reforming the Electoral College

David Brin is the author I mentioned on the show yesterday. He suggests reforming the Electoral College by changing the winner-takes-all method of allocating each state's electors to a proportional one.

There is no provision for winner-takes-all in the Constitution.

This system is far from natural or required. In nearly every state, electors are awarded all-or-nothing because state legislatures -- generally controlled by one party -- have forced unanimity onto their state's dissenting minorities. They have done this simply because they can.

David Brin's The Electoral College: A Surprisingly Easy Fix

Tuesday's Tech Tip: Parental controls and the internet

We talked about parental controls and the internet yesterday. As far as I can tell, Comcast and AT&T give the software away for free to their customers. I believe Verizon charges $4.99 a month for their parental controls.

If your internet service provider (ISP) isn't on this list, look around on your ISP's website or google it. You can always fall back on calling them if you don't mind being put on hold.

• Free Comcast Security Suite
• Getting Started With Verizon Parental Controls
• AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Parental Controls

If your ISP doesn't offer free parental control software, you can find many off-the-shelf solutions by googling "parental control software" or checking out the software section of your favorite retailer.

I also mentioned AdBlock Plus, a free plug-in that comes with the Firefox internet browser. It blocks most ads. Firefox also has a built-in pop-up blocker. It should install with Firefox.

Get Firefox

Founding fathers and religion

Thank you, Jon Rowe and the great callers we had! I have to apologize to Rob from Red Lion -- I really wanted to hear what he had to say, but I answered the phone wa-a-a-y too close to the commercial break.

Rob, feel free to share you thoughts with us here! Just click on the underlined "comments" under this post and you can join the discussion.

I'll update this post to include links to some of the books and sources we talked about.

Political contributions

I got the list of celebrity political contributions we talked about on-air from the Newsmeat Hall of Fame. I'm curious, it's fun to look up various celebrities, but beyond being fun, does anyone care who celebrities contribute to?

Oh, here's another fun site -- Fundrace2008 at the Huffington Post. The neat feature here is that you can plug in a city or zip code and see how your neighbors are contributing.

Gary Sutton Show on March 17th

As you know, I'll be hosting the show tomorrow, March 17th, St. Patrick's Day. I might wear green, I might not wear green. There's just no telling. That's the kind of guy I am.

Anyone interested in personal responsibility, censorship and new government bureaucracies should be sure to tune in to the 9 o'clock hour. Listen for Professor Jon Rowe in the second hour who will give us the rundown on the Founding Fathers and religion. Were they really big-time Christians? Why does it matter? We'll also have a roundtable with nuclear security experts Dave Lochbaum and Scott Portzline in the third hour.

I've lined up a lot of stuff to cover and, of course, we'll be taking your calls. And don't forget that you can stream the show on the internet by clicking the "LISTEN LIVE" button near the top of the left-hand sidebar.

-j

Rep. Sinclair (R-OH) brings chips and salsa

A congressional committee discussing Iraq War casualty levels approves of the tasty chips and salsa Rep. Sinclair (R-OH) brought to the hearing.

New poll: Too much Bill Clinton in Hillary Clinton's campaign?

The new poll is up: Too much Bill Clinton in Hillary Clinton's campaign?

Feel free to discuss the poll here!

Poll results: Do polls affect your voting habits?

Poll results: Do polls affect your voting habits?

Yes - 1 vote (2%)
No - 44 votes (97%)

Wow. But shouldn't the person who voted yes switch their vote to no? Did I just blow your mind?

Oi! What's on your mind this weekend?

Well, the weekend is here, and with that, our weekly question: What's on your mind this weekend? What happened this week that you'd like to discuss?

I know, I know -- you're too busy planning the festivities surrounding my hosting The Gary Sutton Show this Monday. And, I guess, St. Patrick's Day. But mostly for me, right? Right?

I figure we'll spend about three hours discussing the coming Robot Monkey Apocalypse.

Welcome, Macedonians!

Welcome to blog, Macedonians! Macedonia is the New Hampshire of Europe. Consider:

New Hampshire's motto? Live Free or Die. Macedonia's motto? Freedom or death.

New Hampshire's is 9,350 square miles. Macedonia is 9,779 square miles.

Now if New Hampshire applies for NATO membership, it's a lock. Case closed.

Monkeys? No.

Gary's pulling a Clark Griswold!

That means he'll be getting in the "Family Truckster" and heading out on vacation. In the coming days there will be a variety of guest hosts, here is a list of who and when. Hopefully Aunt Edna and Dinky won't be along for the ride.


Fri. March 14th - Michael Geer - PA Family Institute
Mon. March 17th - Jay Vidyarthi - W.O.W. Blog
Tues. March 18th - Joel Sears - Tax Guru Extraordinaire
Wed. March 19th - Jeff Coleman- Churchill Strategies
Thur. March 20th - Leo Cooper - Former Head of York NAACP
Fri. March 21th - Charlie Gerow - Quantum Comm./Politico
Mon. March 24th - Charlie Gerow - Quantum Comm./Politico

Gary will be returning on the 25th, just in time for the final month leading up to the now VERY important PA Primary!

Spitzer: Don't Cry For Me....Jim!

It just never ends, does it? I might have expected a Jimmy Swaggart-like breakdown appearance from Elliot Spitzer someday, but not Jim Cramer!!

Are You a High School Basketball Fan? I am!

I'm looking forward to broadcasting the PIAA Basketball Championships on the Pennsylvania Cable Network for the 16th straight year starting at 12 noon on Friday. The games will be LIVE. Check out the York Catholic Girls going for their third straight on Friday, and Terrell Pryor , the number one high school football player in the country leading his basketball team Jeannette on Saturday afternoon. Steel High and Susquehanna Township also hook up in an unprecedented District III State Championship Final in Boys' 3A on Friday night. Here's the Schedule:

Friday- 12:00 Noon- Girls' 2A- York Catholic(33-1) vs. Northern Cambria(29-1)
Friday- 2:00pm- Boys'1A- Freire Charter(20-6) vs. Serra Catholic(29-2)
Friday- 6:00pm- Girls'4A- Central Dauphin(27-7) vs. Mt. Lebanon(28-3)
Friday- 8:00pm- Boys'3A- Susquehanna Twp.(32-2) vs. Steelton-Highspire(27-6)

Saturday- 12:00noon- Girls' 1A- Marian Catholic(31-1) vs. Mount Alvernia(21-8)
Saturday- 2:00pm- Boys'2A- Strawberry Mansion(23-5) vs. Jeannette(24-4)
Saturday- 6:00pm- Girls'3A- Mt. St. Joseph's(29-3) vs. Merceyhurst Prep(30-2)
Saturday- 8:00pm- Boys' 4A- Chester(32-1) vs. Norristown(32-1)

Enjoy the games and be gentle on the criticism of the announcers. We are very sensitive.

Play-by-Play- Boys games- Bob McCool-3rd year
Play-by-Play- Girls games- Kelly Goodman-2nd year
Color Analysts All Games- Steve Bohen- 6th year
Gary Sutton-16th year