It's looking like it'll be John McCain and Barack Obama for the presidential race.

I initially supported McCain until his "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" song and his "McCain stroll" through a Bagdad marketplace with two attack helicopters, 100+ Marines, and a tank declaring that Bagdad was safe. But, with Ron Paul out of the race for all intents and purposes, I?m back to McCain. At least his conservative fiscal policies are better than Obama?s, even though I like Obama as a person.

I think, though, that McCain will have to change the message of the Republican Party if he wants to win, though. I, and apparently most others of the moderate right, have felt that the Republicans have been a party of hate for the past seven years or so. I mean, let me summarize a few of their salient policies. It?s not our fault that there?s a 50% divorce rate ? it?s those gays wanting marriage. It?s not our fault that we?re overspending in our federal budget ? it?s those immigrants. It?s not our fault that the world hates us and we?re losing creditability (and our ability to diplomatically coerce other nations), - it?s those ?militant Isalmists.? It?s not about Americans accepting responsibility for the government they didn?t bother to vote for. Rather, it?s about some other group doing something to us.

McCain will have to transform the Republican Party?s message to more of a message of hope. In other words, he needs to retain conservative values while being like Obama. He doesn?t have many role models in the current Party that presents positive, uplifting, hopeful messages, so I don?t envy him.

My oldest son has a pet baby grape that he's named Daisy.

I'm not sure there's much else to say about that.

Do you want to know one of my hot buttons that'll really get me riled up? Then, you have to talk about BIG Government, especially when it wastes our money.

Now, I know it's fashionable to complain about our government, but when I read stories like this Reader's Digest article, I can't help but get pissed.

I mean, first, they overreach their authority as granted in the Constitution (tell me where it says that the Federal Government can control education, for instance), then I read that they're conservatively wasting $1 trillion a year.

I'm really starting to see sanity in those crazy mountain men that go live off in the woods somewhere. I wonder if they have extra room for a family of four. SIGH.

It's now appearing that the video showing Iranians taunting American ships is a fake! According to reports, it's becoming evident that the audio was spliced onto the video.

If this story proves true, it would become the most blantant evidence of falsification of data in this whole march to war of the Bush presidency. I really hope it's not true, but I have a feeling it is.

If it is true, will anyone be prosecuted as traitors?

Apparently, going back for your loved ones is a liability in a Zombie Apocalypse.

57%

My wife often bathes our youngest son then runs some more hot water for the oldest's bath.

So, I go in to bathe my oldest. I take out a towel while talking out loud (repetition and stating your objectives out loud seems to prepare children for the trauma of the bath). I look over and see a washcloth already in the tub. "Oh, you already have a washcloth," I say. My eldest looks up and pipes in, "No, Daddy. This is (youngest son's). Get a new one. This one has butt on it."

He's five. He's smart. He's going to be pure trouble.

My 5 year-old surprisingly apt photographer goes running to his mom to show off a picture he just took on the digital camera. My wife looks at the picture on the LCD and asks, "So why did you take two pictures of your butt?" One was of good quality and one was a blurry close-up.

To that my son replied, "I just wiped [after going potty] and I wanted to see if I was clean."

A disturbing trend has been developing in bakery. Apparently, more and more folks are miniaturizing normal foods and baking in muffin pans. For instance, we went to a party the other night where they served muffin brownies. My wife has experimented with the aforementioned muffin meatloaf. This is a very disturbing trend.

Now, looking in the mirror, I'd have to agree that we should be eating less and that mini-muffin food is technically less food, but by muffinizing our desserts, they're adding more crust. I understand that some foods need a crust to enjoy...like pies, for instance. Having a crust whets your appetite for the creamy filling inside. By making things in a muffin pan, you?re taking otherwise normal food and surrounding it in more and more crust.

And, well, I'm not a crust person. I'm the person that cuts off the crust in a brownie pan so that all of the brownies can be like the middle one. I have the dream that, one day, no brownie will be judged by the dryness of their exterior but by the gooey content of their insides.

Now, I certainly understand that some abnormal people will claim they like the dry, hard, scab surrounding otherwise soft and wonderful foods, but I discount them. We should be liberating this food, not blindly accepting the dictates of the muffin man. So, next time you find yourself in a situation where you've been served crustified food, I urge you to eat just the insides and leave the crust behind as archaeological evidence of your pastry dissatisfaction. Slowly, de-crust by de-crust, we'll de-scab our foods...one bite at a time.

The other evening, my wife made for dinner some meatball 'muffins' ("because they cook faster that way"), some mashed sweet potatoes, green beans, and sliced tomato wedges. I thought that my two meatball muffins looked like mountains, so I spread the mashed sweet potatoes to be the mountain's foothills and the green beans to be the Midwestern plains. I plopped the two muffins to be the mountians on the sweet potatos. I then arranged the tomato wedges in a snaking caravan line like they're going through the mountain pass.

So, I showed this to my wife and explained the various parts. She asked about the tomato caravan. I tell her it's the Donner Caravan, and this time, there won't be any survivors.

I'm probably going to vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primary here in Texas. He started slowly, but he seems to really be gaining momentum (probably because the other Republican candidates aren't so hot.) His supporters are quite devoted, to the extent that they develop and pay for their own ads.