Recently in Wicked Smart Category

And homilies too. I wish my parish priest would figure this out.

"What orators lack in depth they make up for in length." - Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

I came across this quote here and love it:  "he who marries the spirit of the age soon finds himself a widower."

Like Ralph Waldo Emerson in his famous essay "Self-Reliance," I feel compelled to say be your own man and let others catch up to you.

Imagine my surprise to find out that Janine Turner (yes, that Janine Turner) has joined PJ Media.

Her first foray into the world of PJ Media delves into the daunting topic of How To Convert A Democrat.

One of her first points: Do not remain silent when Democrats start stating outright untruths. Silence is taken as agreement with a position, even if it is blatantly wrong. She also gives us a list of things to remember in our efforts to "convert unyielding and uninformed liberals". Among them, reason and knowledge.

To enter into this battle, one must be armed, agile, sharp, and resolute.

Here are some tools. When the Democrats start ranting, use the GIRLFRIENDS acronym to forge through the storm.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing, including the comments.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Janine!

Apparently Sarah Palin did well guest hosting on NBC's Today. Despite a rather chilly reception from Matt Lauer and Ann Curry at the beginning, she seemed to have won over Lauer later.

Far too many in the media still see Palin as a light weight, forgetting that she is a tough Alaskan woman, was once governor of Alaska, and (horrors!) a former TV sports reporter.

As DaTechGuy writes:

Why the hostility? I think the explanation comes from the movie The Natural

Pop Fisher: My gut tells me this and Red agrees, we feel Hobbs can fill your position very neatly...

[A]fter today Mika Brzezinski and every single woman who makes her living in front of a camera on the Today show or MSNBC understands that line above applies to them.

Be afraid, be very afraid!

I think she could indeed do better than many on morning television, and possibly do really well with her own conservative talk show.

By way of Maggie's Farm comes this announcement that Katherine Hepburn's home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut is for sale. The asking price is $28 million.

I know the place as we used to drive near it on occasion on our way to or from Lenny and Joe's Fish Tale, one of our favorite restaurants on the Connecticut seacoast.

Normally I wouldn't even post anything about this as I have little real interest. But a recent viewing of The Aviator (the story of Howard Hughes) reminded me of something I had almost forgotten. (I cannot say for sure this actually happened, but it certainly made for interesting cinema.)

There was a scene that took place at the Hepburn house (and I believe it may have even been shot there, comparing scenes from the movie to photos seen in the listing), where Howard accompanied Katherine to dine with her family one summer weekend. During the meal Katherine's mother, a rather outspoken woman in her own right, blathered on about being socialists and that she didn't care who knew it, and anyone who disagreed would never step into her house.

Howard sat there quietly fuming until he couldn't stand it anymore. He replied to her, saying that she and her family could afford to be socialists because they had money, while the average working man could not. He basically lambasted her for her ignorance about how business and the economy actually worked, then got up from his seat and left.

Howard Hughes may have been eccentric, but he knew his stuff when it came to business, economics, and the working man. He also spoke a truth (or at least the Howard Hughes in the movie did).

Those with money can afford to be socialists. The rest of us can't.

Socialism rarely effects the limousine liberals. After all, they've already got theirs. Living with the effects of socialism is only for the little people. (That means you and me, folks.) It also means that it's the little people who, in the end, pay for it all, be it with confiscatory taxes, crappy social services, poor educational and health care systems, substandard housing, or dead end it's-for-the-public-good 'jobs' of the "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us" variety.

This has to be the best marriage proposal, ever. It's also one of the cleverest I've seen.

How many of the celebrities we've followed over the years are hiding a secret known only by a few people? Many would be shocked to find out what they were hiding.

What is the secret to which I refer?

Brains.

No, not the "I want to eat your brains" kind of secret. Rather, it's the fact that they actually have extraordinary smarts.

The latest to make the list of brainy celebs is Academy Award winner Natalie Portman.

She's not just a pretty face, she's also something of a scientist, and has been since her high school days. She also studied neuroscience at Harvard.

A few others to add to the list include Mayim Bialik (Ph.D. in Neurobiology), Danica McKellar (B.S. in Mathematics), Brian May of Queen (Ph.D. in astrophysics), Lisa Kudrow (B.S. in Biology), and one of the most beautiful film actresses ever, Hedy Lamarr (co-inventor of spread spectrum radio communications).