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Who Will Win the Super Bowl?

Who Will Win the Super Bowl? Patriots or Giants?
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Who Will Win the Super Bowl?

Who Will Win the Super Bowl? Patriots or Giants?
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Check out Tiger Woods' sparkly new $50 million bachelor pad

If you happen to be a single dude in south Florida and you think you're going to impress the ladies with your car or your oceanfront condo, you might just want to pack it in now. Tiger Woods is in town, friends, and his place has room to store yours in a forgotten corner of the attic.

Behold Tiger Woods' personal Xanadu, the recently completed $50 million estate in Jupiter Island, Florida. In this aerial photograph, commissioned by Jeff Lichtenstein Realty, you can clearly see not only the $35 million original estate but much of the $15 million sunk into improvements. As FanHouse noted when Woods purchased the property in 2007, the original estate was 9,729-square feet on a 12-acre lot. The additions included a 6,400-square-foot gym/media room/bar, as well as an elevator, a reflecting pond, and a slim lap pool.

Eagle-eyed observers will note that there appears to be several golf-type formations scattered around the estate. Cary Lichtenstein, part of the real estate group that took the photographs, offered this assessment of the golf aspects of the estate. [Note that this photo is taken looking eastward, so north is to the left and south is to the right.] Lichtenstein's take:

It appears he has one tee box in the southeast ... corner to hit drivers. The entire area just west of the lap pool can be used to hit long, medium and short irons into any of the 4 greens. Each green is guarded by a single trap except the green in the northwest corner which appears to have 3 pot bunkers.

Tiger has enough open space to practice his short game from any angle, any wind condition, which really appears what this practice area is all about.

His putting green is totally surrounded by dense vegetation. One wonders if he is trying to block out the wind by doing this or if he is cutting off both sunlight and air circulation. He probably has a sub-air temperature/humidity control system beneath the green, otherwise it would be worthless in the heat of the summer, especially if the grass there is bent or some northern grass.

What, no windmills?

News broke about Woods' mansion right about this time last year, and at the time it appeared to be a fortress for him and his beloved Elin to hide from the world's prying eyes. Shortly after that, Woods had a close encounter with a certain hydrant, and pretty much everything changed forever.

Regardless of all the hue and cry about Woods, both pro and con, the guy made his own bed, and now he's going to have to sleep in it. Clearly, though, that bed's going to be in one heck of a swank house.

What is Facebook Worth?

More than 50 mutual funds say they own shares of the closely held social-media giant Facebook, according to investment-research firm Morningstar. And some closed-end funds are investing the bulk of their portfolios in private firms, including Facebook. The catch: No one seems to agree how much the shares are worth.

Facebook could file papers for an initial public offering as early as next week, The Wall Street Journal reported, with a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion. As of the end of 2011, funds had widely differing estimates of its value—and that could have significant implications for investor returns.

Fidelity Investments, which has two dozen mutual funds with Facebook shares, valued the company at $25 a share. T. Rowe Price Group, which has a dozen funds with Facebook shares, valued them at about $31.15. Other funds priced the shares somewhere in between.

Over the past couple of years, small investors have been keenly interested in getting exposure to pre-IPO companies but have had few vehicles for doing so, because the Securities and Exchange Commission restricts the sale of such shares to "accredited" investors with a net worth of more than $1 million, excluding their home, or an annual income of more than $200,000.

The restrictions leave mutual funds and closed-end funds as the easiest avenues for individuals to get a stake in such companies, though the stakes typically are small and diluted among many other fund holdings. But the pricing discrepancies mean that buyers of the funds are effectively paying different prices for their stakes in Facebook and other private firms, experts say.

Lawrence Friend, a former SEC chief accountant, says that in an open-end fund, either the buyers or the sellers will suffer: "You're hurting the purchasers if your price is too high, or the redeemer if it's too low."

At the end of last year, for example, the Morgan Stanley Focus Growth fund had 3.68% of its portfolio in Facebook, valuing it at $27 a share, according to its portfolio disclosure form. At the time, investors could buy the fund at $33.63 a share.

If Morgan Stanley Investment Management had instead used T. Rowe Price's valuation of $31.15 per Facebook share, investors would have had to pay about $33.82 a share of the fund, a 0.57% increase. On the other hand, investors redeeming shares of Morgan Stanley funds made less money than they otherwise would have using T. Rowe Price's higher valuation. By comparison, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index's return for 2011 was 2.11%, including dividends.

Since the end of the year, Morgan Stanley or T. Rowe Price and other fund companies may have changed their valuations.

A Morgan Stanley spokesman declined to comment. A T. Rowe Price spokesman said the company's fair-valuation process includes a variety of factors, including a company's financial performance and prospects, and subsequent transactions between other parties.

The law allows fund companies some discretion in deciding how to price private companies, says Doug Scheidt, the SEC's associate director of investment management. Some firms use price quotes from third-party brokers, such as SharesPost or Second Market, while others use internal valuation models with multiple inputs.

The Tocqueville Opportunity fund, which had about 1.87% of its portfolio in Facebook at the end of last year and priced the company at $27.90 a share, takes quotes from secondary markets and applies a discount based on illiquidity and share restrictions, says fund manager Thomas Vandeventer.

He says one of the issues he has brought up with the valuation committee is that if Facebook goes public at a premium, "we have a hidden discount."

The lure of private companies has grown stronger since the tech bubble, as high-profile technology firms wait longer to go public, says Kevin Landis, portfolio manager of Firsthand Technology Value, a closed-end fund with almost its entire portfolio in private investments like Facebook and social-media company Yelp. Closed-end funds have a fixed number of shares and trade throughout the day like stocks. Their share prices can deviate significantly from the value of their underlying assets.

The Firsthand fund sells at about $17.25 a share, which the company says is a 30% discount to the value of its underlying assets. But because nearly all of its investments are in private companies, investors won't really know how much those assets are worth until the companies go public, says Geoffrey Bobroff, a mutual-fund consultant based in East Greenwich, R.I.

Mr. Landis says Firsthand uses an outside firm to value its holdings: "We want to have the most accurate values that we can."

The pricing issues mean that investors hoping to catch the IPO wave in a mutual fund have to be wary, Mr. Friend says.

"It's similar to figuring out what your home's worth when you apply for a mortgage," says Tocqueville's Mr. Vandeventer. "We try our best but all have different methodologies."

Vicks VapoRub: Cough Remedy

VICKS VapoRub - INTERESTING



During a lecture on Essential Oils, they told us how the foot soles
can absorb oils. Their example: Put garlic on your feet and within 20
minutes you can 'taste' it.

Some of us have used Vicks VapoRub for years for everything from
chapped lips to sore toes and many body parts in between. But I've never
heard of this. And don't laugh, it works 100% of the time, although the
scientists who discovered it aren't sure why. To stop night time coughing in
a child (or adult as we found out personally), put Vicks VapoRub generously
on the soles of your feet, cov er with socks, and the heavy, deep coughing
will stop in about 5 minutes and stay stopped for many, many hours of
relief. Works 100% of the time and is more effective in children than even
very strong prescription cough medicines. In addition it is extremely
soothing and comforting and they will sleep soundly

Just happened to tune in A.M. Radio and picked up this guy talking
about why cough medicines in kids often do more harm than good, due to the
chemicals in them This method of using Vicks VapoRub on the soles of the
feet was found to be more effective than prescribed medicines for children
at bed time. In addition it seems to have a soothing and calming effect on
sick children who then went on to sleep soundly.

My wife tried it on herself when she had a very deep constant and
persistent cough a few weeks ago and it worked 100%! She said that it felt
like a warm blanket had enveloped her, coughing stopped in a few minutes. So
she went from; every few seconds uncontrollable coughing, she slept
cough-free for hours every night she used it.

If you have grandchildren, pass this on. If you end up sick, try it
yourself and you will be amazed at how it works.

DON'T SHUN THIS ONE.. TRY IT THE NEXT TIME YOU GET A BAD COLD.
THE ONLY THING YOU CAN LOSE IS YOUR COUGH.

Unemployment Survey

Gator in Tub Lands Man in Jail

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bank Robber Shoots Self in Foot

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Teen drives school bus to safety

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Graceann Rumer, 17, started driving only two weeks ago. But when her school bus driver collapsed from a heart attack Tuesday afternoon, she didn't hesitate to use what she knew to steer a bus full of children to safety.

"I just realized that there's no one driving this bus... I need to do something," Rumer said.

The 17-year-old senior at Calvary Christian Academy in northeast Philadelphia had been driving herself to school recently for practice, but on Tuesday she opted for the bus.

Rumer and about three dozen other students were riding the bus home when 51-year-old driver Charles Duncan suddenly crumpled to the floor at about 3:30 p.m. Duncan died soon after.

With the driver obstructing the brake pedal, Rumer acted quickly -- grabbing the wheel of the moving bus and making a U-turn to slow it down and change direction, as it was heading into oncoming traffic, witnesses say.

With still no access to the brake pedal, Rumer put the bus into park and successfully and safely stopped it, according to witnesses and bus company officials.

"I usually panic at like everything but I just reached over... grabbed the wheel and I pulled it over to the side and got off the road," Rumer said.

None of the students were injured.

Parents of fellow students, friends and school officials all praised Rumer’s quick thinking and action.

"We had three of our children on the bus along with dozens of other kids and the outcome could have been much different," said Renee Lawsin, one of the parents. "She did something very heroic."

But Rumer dismisses being a hero, instead saying she was just the closest student to the front of the bus who had any driving experience.

"I don't think it was that heroic though. But it was a legit miracle," Rumer tweeted Thursday. "God really protected us."

How a typo led to a marriage

The next time you make a particularly strange typo, don't throw your keyboard out the window — instead just smile. Smile, because it's possible for a simple typo to lead to a marriage.

After all, it was a typo that brought together Rachel P. Salazar and Ruben P. Salazar despite the fact that they lived about 9,000 miles apart and were "completely unaware of each other's existence."

Apparently an email intended for Rachel accidentally went to Ruben — thanks to their similar email addresses and some sloppy typing skills — in Jan. 2007. Ruben politely forwarded that email along to its intended recipient and began an email chain that led to a marriage proposal.

You can hear Ruben and Rachel share the details of their love story in the video below. It is an animated clip created by the folks behind StoryCorps, a non-profit organization with a mission of providing "Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories" of their lives. (I strongly recommend checking out the organization's YouTube page after you're done watching the video. There are many more gems to be found there.)

Obama's Solyndra Scandel

Alaska Airlines discontinues controversial prayer cards

Would you be offended by a prayer card?

In a memo sent to its frequent fliers Wednesday, Alaska Airlines announced that the prayer cards it has been providing to passengers on meal trays for the past 30 years will be discontinued as of Feb. 1.

“A former marketing executive borrowed the idea from another airline and introduced the cards to our passengers in the late 1970s to differentiate our service,” the memo written by the company's chairman and president explained.

But airline spokesperson Bobbie Egan told msnbc.com that over the years the airline has received letters and e-mails from customers for and against the card. Last fall the company decided to stop distributing the cards because, Egan said, “We believe it's the right thing to do in order to respect the diverse religious beliefs and cultural attitudes of all our customers and employees.”

Meal tray service in the coach class ended six years ago, so the prayer cards have been provided only to passengers in the first class cabin. MVP Gold flier Roz Schatman gets the cards on her meal tray quite often. “In the spirit of diversity, I find them offensive,” she said.

The Alaska Airline statement said that while some passengers enjoyed the cards, reactions like Schatman’s were not unusual.

“…[W]e've heard from many of you who believe religion is inappropriate on an airplane, and some are offended when we hand out the cards. Religious beliefs are deeply personal and sharing them with others is an individual choice.”

“It always seemed odd to me,” said George Hobica of the consumer travel website Airfarewatchdog.com. “Flying on a wing and prayer? I don’t think those two go together.”

Can President Obama be defeated in 2012?

WHY OBAMA WILL BE RE-ELECTED IN 2012

Dr. Williams' prediction: Maybe you have read some newspaper articles written by Dr. Williams a conservative economist. He has taught at several Universities and is currently teaching at George Mason University .

No Matter What

By Dr. Walter Williams

Can President Obama be defeated in 2012? No. He can't. I am going on record as saying that President Barak Obama will win a second term. The media won't tell you this because a good election campaign means hundreds of millions (or in Obama's case billions) of dollars to them in advertising.

But the truth is, there simply are no conditions under which Barak Obama can be defeated in 2012. The quality of the Republican candidate doesn't matter. Obama gets reelected. Nine percent unemployment? No problem. Obama will win. Gas prices moving toward five dollars a gallon? He still wins. The economy soars or goes into the gutter. Obama wins. War in the Middle East? He wins a second term.

America's role as the leading Superpower disappears? Hurrah for Barak Obama! The U.S. government rushes toward bankruptcy, the dollar continues to sink on world markets and the price of daily goods and services soars due to inflation fueled by Obama's extraordinary deficit spending? Obama wins handily.

You are crazy Williams. Don't you understand how volatile politics can be when overall economic, government, and world conditions are declining? Sure I do.

And that's why I know Obama will win. The American people are notoriously ignorant of economics. And economics is the key to why Obama should be defeated.

Even when Obama's policies lead the nation to final ruin, the majority of the American people are going to believe the bait-and-switch tactics Obama and his supporters in the media will use to explain why it isn't his fault. After all, things were much worse than understood when he took office.

Obama's reelection is really a very, very simple math problem. Consider the following:

1) Blacks will vote for Obama blindly. Period. Doesn't matter what he does. It's a race thing. He's one of us,

2) College educated women will vote for Obama. Though they will be offended by this, they swoon at his oratory. It's really not more complex than that,

3) Liberals will vote for Obama. He is their great hope,

4) Democrats will vote for Obama. He is the leader of their party and his coat tails will carry them to victory nationwide,

5) Hispanics will vote for Obama. He is the path to citizenship for those who are illegal and Hispanic leaders recognize the political clout they carry in the Democratic Party,

6) Union members will vote overwhelmingly for Obama. He is their key to money and power in business, state and local politics,

7) Big Business will support Obama. They already have. He has almost $1 Billion dollars in his reelection purse gained largely from his connections with Big Business and is gaining more every day. Big Business loves Obama because he gives them access to taxpayer money so long as they support his social and political agenda,

8) The media love him. They may attack the people who work for him, but they love him. After all, to not love him would be racist,

9) Most other minorities and special interest groups will vote for him. Oddly, the overwhelming majority of Jews and Muslims will support him because they won't vote Republican. American Indians will support him. Obviously homosexuals tend to vote Democratic. And lastly,

10) Approximately half of independents will vote for Obama. And he doesn't need anywhere near that number because he has all of the groups previously mentioned. The President will win an overwhelming victory in 2012.

-- Dr. Walter Williams

IN ADDITION TO THE VOTING BLOCKS HE MENTIONS, THERE IS ANOTHER HUGE GROUP: THE NEARLY ONE-HALF OF ALL ADULTS DO NOT PAY ANY TAXES AND, IN FACT, MOST OF THEM RECEIVE MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT. THESE PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO "SHAKE THE BOAT" TO DO ANYTHING TO STOP THE FLOW OF TAXPAYER MONEY TO THEMSELVES.

It's believed the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's - and they vote - then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this.

If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom

Man shot nail into brain and didn't know it

Gail Glaenzer still can't believe that her fiance unknowingly shot a nail into his skull, let alone that he posted a picture of the X-ray on Facebook during his ambulance ride between hospitals for surgery.

But she was joking about the circumstances Friday, a day after doctors successfully removed the 3.25-inch(8.25-centimeter) nail from Dante Autullo's brain.

"Dante says, 'I want it, to make a necklace out of it,'" Glaenzger said.

Glaenzer sat Friday in the lobby of Advocate Christ Medical Center, where Autullo, 32, was listed in fair condition in the hospital's intensive care unit. She was still trying to process just how lucky the father of her four children was.

"He feels good. He moved all his limbs, he's talking normal, he remembers everything," said Glaenzer, 33. "It's amazing, a miracle."

Autullo was in his workshop using the nail gun Tuesday when it recoiled near his head, Glaenzer said.

He felt what he thought was the point of the gun hit his head. But what really happened was that when the gun came in contact with his head, the sensor recognized a flat surface and fired, she said.

"I looked at it when he got home, and it just looked like (his head) was cut open," she said.

With nothing to indicate that a nail had not simply "whizzed by his ear," as Autullo explained to her, she cleaned it with peroxide.

Neither thought much about it, and Autullo went on with his day, even plowing a bit of snow. But the next day when he awoke from a nap, feeling nauseated, Glaenzer sensed something was wrong and suggested they go to the hospital.

At first Autullo refused, but he relented after the two picked up their son at school Wednesday evening.

A couple hours later an X-ray was taken, and there in the middle of his brain was a nail. Doctors told Autullo and Glaenzer that the nail came within millimeters of the part of the brain that controls motor function.

Hospital spokesman Mike Maggio said the surgery took two hours, and the part of the skull that was removed for surgery was replaced with a titanium mesh. The surgeon didn't want to put that part of the skull back in place, fearing it might have been contaminated by the nail, he said.

Glaenzer said that while Autullo hasn't really talked about how scared he was about what might have happened, he did express a recognition about coming close to death.

"He was joking with me, (after surgery), 'We need to get the Discovery Channel up here to tape this,'" she recalled him saying. "'I'm one of those medical miracles.'"

Gratitude

The Whale ... If you read a recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso and a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help.

Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around as she was thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude. I pass this on to you, my friends, in the same spirit.

Winds of Change....

THIS WAS ORIGINALLY AN EMAIL:

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2012

1. No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no
pay when they're out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social
Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the
Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into
the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the
American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all
Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.
Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and
participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the
American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void
effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this
contract with Congressmen/women.

Congressmen/women made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in
Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers
envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their
term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will
only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive
the message. Don't you think it's time?

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!

If you agree with the above, pass it on. If not, just delete.
You are one of my 20+ - Please keep it going, and thanks.

5 reasons 'American Idol' may go on nearly forever — or not

American Idol sounds like a hit broken record: It has been TV's top-rated show year after year after year after year after …

That isn't likely to change in the 11th season that kicks off Wednesday night (8 ET/PT) either, which raises a key question: How long can the Fox reality singing competition remain a ratings and pop-cultural juggernaut?

Probably a long time, say observers who've followed a show that has survived the addition and elimination of judges Kara DioGuardi and Ellen DeGeneres, the loss of Simon Cowell, and even the victory of Lee "Who?" DeWyze in the eminently forgettable Season 9.

"I think it could be like Saturday Night Live," says MJ Santilli of MJ's Big Blog (mjsbigblog.com), which follows Idol and other shows in the genre. "At some point, it may not be as popular as it was. It may not be as huge a cultural touchstone as it was at its height. But I don't see any reason why it couldn't go on for a really long time, even with personnel changes. I know people were saying in Season 9, when Simon was going to leave: 'One more season and Idol is done.' Wrong."

But, as they say on Wall Street, past results aren't a guarantee of future performance. To that end, here's a a look at five reasons Idol may be singing a happy tune well into the future — and why things could get a little pitchy along the way.

1. It's America's choice.

Idol has been TV's top-rated show for a record seven consecutive seasons (eight among young adults), in recent years by a wide margin. Last year, Idol's numbers actually went up 4% to 25.2 million viewers — part of an impressive Season 10 rebound — while its ages 18 to 49 audience (11.1 million) was down just 3%.

While the sight-unseen predictions are for Idol to slip a bit this season, common for shows as they age, it should remain dominant and "head and shoulders above" everything else in the singing genre, says analyst Brad Adgate of ad firm Horizon Media.

"It's extraordinary. I think it could go on for a number of years. I think the show will last at least 15 years and still be a force on the television landscape, and that's only four more years," he says. "Last year, it overcame a hump. There were a lot of questions with the show, Simon had left, there were new judges, they were moving to Thursday nights. There were some of the biggest changes the show has had in its tenure on television, and it came out smelling like a rose."

But: Despite last year's uptick, Idol's ratings have been in gradual decline, down 18% in viewers and 32% in young adults since their Season 5 peak. Its audience is aging, too, from a median age of 32 to 47, which means a growing portion of its audience has outgrown the young-adult demographic prized by advertisers.

"It's been gradually creeping older. Younger folks are not watching Idol like in the days of (Season 1 and 2 winners) Kelly Clarkson and Ruben Studdard," Adgate says. "Kids are on to other things, whether it's stuff like Jersey Shore or Real Housewives, for their reality fix."

That audience may reflect a safer approach taken by the show, says Richard Rushfield, author of American Idol: The Untold Story. "The turn they made last year into a much more positive, uplifting, middle American (show) with their corniest champion yet — who has done very well — they've clearly cut out what their space is now. It is older and very down the middle, schmaltzy, tearjerker land. That's a huge thing. None of the other shows are competing with them to be that. But that could well be the biggest audience."

2. It's the leader of its pack.

While over the years there have been other singing competitions, most faded quickly. "We've been there the longest. I like to think we're the gold standard," executive producer Ken Warwick says. "We put a bit of comedy and humor in it. We don't take ourselves too seriously. The judges are great. When you want that little extra bit of bite, we have (music producer) Jimmy Iovine there. And I also like to think we produce better stars and talent than everybody else."

Says Randy Jackson, who has been at the judges' table since Day One, "We are the originals of this whole thing. You want to learn from the OGs, the original people that created something that was authentic. And this is just a great, great talent show. I still think it's the best of its kind. There have been many copies and there will be other versions, but this still is based on the talent."

But: The genre is rapidly getting crowded, and the newcomers are sticking around longer. With the addition of Fox's X Factor and NBC's The Voice (Feb. 5, after the Super Bowl, before moving to Mondays), which had successful first seasons but lag far behind Idol, the question arises whether there are too many singing competitions, and whether they'll cannibalize each other's viewers (if not their talent pool). NBC's America's Got Talent also should get a boost this summer from the addition of Howard Stern.

Warwick sees "audience fatigue" as the one potential threat to continued dominance. "It's kind of strange how all these shows are totally new and totally fresh and nothing like Idol. But, of course, they are identical, really. They change one little nuance."

Judge Steven Tyler isn't worried: "If there is competition, bring it on. We won't look too bad in the end," he says, before going off on the kind of riff that pleased Idol audiences last year: "Just tell them that the things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those that got there first. And that would be us."

Jackson follows Tyler with a dig at The Voice, which is bringing on Clarkson as an adviser. "And if you're looking for real talent, just look at Idol and choose some mentors from Idol."

3.Young blood freshened an aging show.

Fox reality chief Mike Darnell thinks that new judges Tyler and Jennifer Lopez are "great. I really think they did an amazing job. They are who they are and I want them to be true to their personalities." And he says they can do it without snark: "All Steven Tyler has to say is that he's disappointed in, say, a rock-and-roll guy. I've seen these kids devastated. So it has the same impact; it's just how they do it."

Last year was an improvement over its predecessor, says Atlanta Journal-Constitution blogger Rodney Ho, who writes about Idol. "To some extent, Steven, Jennifer and Randy do work reasonably well as a trio, better than Ellen, Kara, Randy and Simon. That didn't work at all. Chemistry really does matter. Randy has the respect of being there from the beginning. Jennifer and Steven respect each other as equals, as artists, and they seem to genuinely like each other."

But: Some felt that the critiques by the judges, especially Tyler, became bland and repetitive, especially as the series progressed into the live performances.

Ho says the judges' comments grew tired when there were about seven or eight contestants left, although he says that isn't uncommon as the show starts to wind down. While he feels that Lopez "did a good job overall," he says Tyler "just kept saying the same stupid things over and over again. … I hope this time he'll put more effort into it."

Santilli thinks superstar judges may have a tendency to hold back to avoid alienating their fan bases. "I thought the judging got kind of boring toward the end of the season," she says. "Steven ran out of things to say, which I think was a problem. He is a pretty funny guy. When they could edit him for the auditions, he was pretty hilarious. Once he got in front of the camera, he was repeating himself a lot."

Lopez says the judges were direct, but their less confrontational style may have disguised that to some degree. It may be more apparent this year, now that they have a season under their belts.

"I think people were more taken by the fact that we were kind. But we were giving them good notes and good criticism, constructive criticism. Criticism doesn't have to be given in a non-constructive way," Lopez says. "We're still the same this year, but again, I think we're a little bit more direct, we cut a little bit more to the chase. We know what our job is. We were getting our footing last year."

4. Its simple, successful formula focuses on the contestants.

X Factor and The Voice combine the roles of judging with mentoring, giving those who are supposed to critique a rooting interest in some contestants over others, and inciting feuds among the judges.

"The problem with The X Factor and The Voice (is) there's so much emphasis on the coaches, on the judges. …Idol really knows how to get viewers invested in the contestants," Santilli says. "We're Americans. We're aspirational. We want to see that kid from the small town who comes on Idol and gets his big break. It's not about the judges. It's about the kids. Idol understands that perfectly."

Lopez adds, "We enjoy the process as much as the audience does. It's so exciting to watch. It's a great journey and a real journey. It's not overproduced. You walk into a room, you audition and you keep going through rounds and rounds and rounds until you're in front of America and they get to vote. It's a very authentic process."

On Idol, which will feature no major changes this season, singers bloom before viewers' eyes, Tyler says. "When they first come here, they think they can sing. And then once we give them a little confidence and we let them through and they get themselves through to the next door and the next door and the next door, this flower comes out, this person that you didn't see the first time," he says.

But: Viewers often are drawn to shiny new things, whether it's The Voice's chair-spinning, blind auditions or X Factor's smoke-filled, laser-lit, heavily choreographed productions. "The Voice has younger, hipper judges. They do more modern styles. American Idol has really defined itself. They are in pageant land," Rushfield says.

X Factor and The Voice "are obviously a little fresher. The Voice has existing artists (known by) people under the age of 30. If you like a glossier product, X Factor is right up your alley," Ho says. (Clarkson will be an adviser this season on The Voice.)

5. It's a proven starmaking machine.

From Season 1's Clarkson to Season 10's Scotty McCreery, who just went platinum with his debut album, Clear as Day, Idol has a track record of creating or introducing stars, including Grammy winner Carrie Underwood, Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, Chris Daughtry and Adam Lambert. Season 5 runner-up Katharine McPhee stars next month in NBC's musical series, Smash. "The list of stars they have from the show is amazing. I've never seen a show like it," Darnell says.

Last year was rich in talent, which could bode well for the future, Newsday pop music critic Glenn Gamboa says.

"They found a whole bunch of new talent, and if they can really sell themselves as a place to find new talent, they'll be set for a while. Seven of (Season 10's) finalists got major label deals. That hasn't been seen in I don't know how long," he says. "I think Scotty will be a real star in country and that's the kind of thing last year's class showed, that if you're really good in a specific niche, you can still do well in the show."

But: The machine has slowed recently. The bulk of Idol's big names come from the earlier years of the competition.

"They haven't found the next Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood. Those levels of stars don't come around very often," Gamboa says. "I think it's just tougher to launch a new star in general, no matter where they come from."

There also has been predictability but not much diversity, with white men winning the last four competitions, and only two women qualifying for those season finales. Rushfield says Idol shifted into more of a popularity contest a few seasons ago, with voters more focused on picking a winner as an end in itself rather than finding someone whose career they would support.

"Idol has its reign of the cute white boys. That's not the producers' fault, but you design a certain kind of show for this middle-American audience, this older audience, you're going to get a certain kind of result come out of that," he says. "Going into this season, if you're not a cute white boy, you've got to be thinking the best you can shoot for is No. 3, which makes it a different kind of competition."

Darnell counters that last year's field was very diverse, with the first country winner in a number of years. And he says the overall track record speaks for itself.

"I think the show's been amazing. It's unrealistic to think that every winner is going to become a superstar. We've had fully somewhere around a dozen people come from this television show (and become) bona fide celebrities, bona fide stars," he says. "Yes, I think we're doing fine. How's that?"

World Bank warns countries to prepare for a global slump

The World Bank warned Wednesday of a possible slump in global economic growth and urged developing countries to prepare for shocks that could be more severe than the 2008 crisis.The bank cut its growth forecast for developing countries this year to 5.4% from 6.2% and for developed countries to 1.4% from 2.7%. For the 17 countries that use the euro currency, it forecast a contraction, cutting their growth outlook to -0.3% from 1.8%.

Global growth could be hurt by a recession in Europe and a slowdown in India, Brazil and other developing countries, the Washington-based bank said. It said conditions might worsen if more European countries are unable to raise money in financial markets.

"The global economy is entering into a new phase of uncertainty and danger," said the bank's chief economist, Justin Yifu Lin. "The risks of a global freezing up of capital markets as well as a global crisis similar to what happened in September 2008 are real."

Developing countries that have enjoyed relatively strong growth while the United States and Europe struggled might be hit hard, Lin said. He said they should line up financing in advance to cover budget deficits, review the health of their banks and emphasize spending on social safety nets.

Many governments are in a weaker position than they were to respond to the 2008 global crisis because their debts and budget deficits are bigger, Lin said at a news conference.

In the event of a major crisis, "no country will be spared," Lin said. "The downturn is likely to be longer and deeper than the last one."

The bank's outlook in its "Global Economic Prospects" report issued twice a year adds to mounting gloom amid Europe's debt crisis and high U.S. unemployment.

"It is very likely that most European countries, including Germany, entered recession in the fourth quarter of last year," said Hans Timmer, the World Bank's director of development projects.

Investors cut investments in developing countries 45% in the second half last year, vs. the same period in 2010, Timmer said.

The report follows similar warnings about the global economy by its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund, and private sector forecasters.

For the United States, the bank cut this year's growth forecast to 2.2% from 2.9% and for 2013 to 2.4% from 2.7%. As reasons, it cited the anticipated global slowdown and the on-going fight in Washington over spending and taxes.

Global growth might suffer from the interaction of Europe's troubles and efforts by China, India, South Africa, Russia and Turkey to cool rapid growth and inflation with interest rate hikes and other measures, the bank said.

China's expansion slowed to a 2½-year low 8.9% from a year earlier in the three months ended in December , vs. the previous quarter's 9.1%.

As Europe weakens, developing countries could find "their slowdown might be larger than is necessary to cope with inflation pressures," Lin said.

A global downturn would hurt developing countries by driving down prices for metals, farm goods and other commodities and demand for other exoprts, the World Bank said.

Slower growth is already visible in weakening trade and commodity prices, the World Bank said.

Global exports of goods and services expanded an estimated 6.6% in 2011, barely half the previous year's 12.4% rate, the bank said. It said the growth rate is expected to fall to 4.7% this year.

Prices of energy, metals and farm products are down 10% to 25% from their peaks in early 2011, Timmer said.

The United States is already feeling some pain from Europe's crisis. Exports to Europe fell 6% in November, the Commerce Department said last week.

Marine Stuns Crowd at Tea Party

What do YOU think???

Ron Paul's Full Speech at the Value Voters Summit 2011

Ron Paul is America's leading voice for limited, constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, sound money, and a pro-America foreign policy.

Man's marimba iPhone ring stops Mahler symphony dead

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Concertgoers at the New York Philharmonic Tuesday night did not have to be musicologists to work out that the marimba was not part of the famous work.

Conductor Alan Gilbert halted the performance of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony when the offending iPhone ringtone sounded -- and persisted -- a media contact at the symphony confirmed.

Just minutes from the end of the hour and a half-long piece, Gilbert turned to the phone's owner, seated close to the front of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, according to an eyewitness account published by "Superconductor" blogger Paul Pelkonen.

In the ensuing pause, some in the audience reportedly called for blood, shouting: "Kick him out!" and "$1,000 fine!" the witness recounted.

Gilbert quietly employed shame until the offender -- described as an elderly man by another blogger -- confirmed that the phone was off. Before continuing with the concert, Gilbert apologized and explained that normally it’s best to ignore such disturbances, but he said this was "so egregious that I could not allow it."

This was the first time Gilbert has stopped the orchestra for a violation of the "cell-phones off" rule, the symphony media contact said, but at least the second time that it has happened in the symphony’s history.

For classical music buffs who witnessed it, there was some satisfaction to be gained from the incident, which occurred in what is otherwise a quiet and mesmerizing part of the Mahler work.

"In a way, it’s great that that schlimazel’s iPhone happened to go off at such a sweet spot in Mahler’s Ninth on Tuesday. All of us… got to exercise some righteous indignation, schadenfreude, and the adrenaline rush of watching a fight," wrote a classical music blogger on "thousandfold echo."

The downside, said the writer, was that after "Mahlergate" there was just no turning back the clock.

"After this kerfuffle, it’s impossible to talk about the actual music, just as it was impossible for listeners to return to the symphony’s transcendent stillness after the cellphone," with news coverage focused on the man with the marimba, and "nary a pixel spent on what came before or after."

Government at Work

UNC and Duke Reactions

Monday night 11/14/2011 at Lambeau Field

This is what ESPN failed to show you Monday night, 11/14/2011. Apparently, they thought their commercials were more important than showing this scene for about 5 seconds. Thanks to all our veterans and GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Papa John's apologizes for racial slur on receipt

Papa John's Pizza is apologizing after an employee typed a racial slur on a receipt to a customer at one of its New York City locations.

Customer Minhee Cho posted a message on Twitter along with an image of the receipt from a Manhattan location describing her as "lady chinky eyes."

Several hours later after the message had gone viral, the Louisville, Ky.-based company formally apologized on its Facebook and Twitter pages for Cho's experience.

The company says the employee was dismissed.

Spokeswoman Tish Muddon told the Louisville Courier-Journal the company was attempting to reach Cho to apologize.

Cho didn't immediately respond to messages sent by email and Twitter.

The image of the receipt on her Twitter page shows she went to Papa John's on Friday.

Seacrest Out for Good?

This could be Ryan Seacrest's last year hosting "American Idol." According to the Hollywood Reporter, the omnipresent media host is in the homestretch of a 2009 contract extension that pays him $15 million a year and is not likely to be renewed for that price.

According to an unnamed "Idol" insider quoted in the story, Seacrest -- who has hosted the show for all 11 of its seasons -- can be replaced for $2 to 3 million a year. In addition, Seacrest's biggest ally, "Idol" creator Simon Fuller, is no longer associated with the show.

But Seacrest, 37, is not likely to accept a pay cut when, according to this Wall Street Journal report, NBCUniversal is grooming him to take over co-hosting "The Today Show" for Matt Lauer, whose contract also expires this year.

According to the Hollywood Reporter source, the survival of "Idol" without Simon Cowell has proven to producers that it could take the lesser loss of Seacrest.

The 11th season of "American Idol" premieres Wednesday, Jan. 18, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.

Mountain Dew offers odd defense in mouse charge

An attempt to win a small court battle this week has put Mountain Dew in peril of losing a much larger war.

PepsiCo, the soft drink's parent company, defended itself against a man who claimed he found a dead mouse in a can of the citrus soda. Experts called in by PepsiCo's lawyers offered a stomach-churning explanation for why it couldn't be true: the Mountain Dew would have dissolved the mouse, turning it into a "jelly-like substance," had it been in the can of fluid from the time of its bottling until the day the plaintiff opened it, 15 months later.

Forget legal disputes over canned vermin. The new question has become: Is Mountain Dew really so corrosive that it can dissolve a mouse carcass? And if so, what does it do to your teeth and intestines? Is Mountain Dew's classic slogan — "It'll tickle yore innards" — the world's most sickening understatement?

Key to Pepsi's legal argument is that there's no chance a mouse's corpse could survive, intact, for 15 months swimming in Mountain Dew. While published studies have not been conducted on how rapidly Mountain Dew would dissolve a mouse, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the neon green soda can eat away teeth and bones in a matter of months, and would likely do quite a number on a rodent.

"I think it is plausible that it could dissolve a mouse in a few months," said Yan-Fang Ren of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, who has studied the effects of citric acid on bones and teeth. "But dissolving [the mouse] does not mean it will disappear, because you'll still have the collagen and the soft tissue part. It will be like rubber."

According to Ren, Mountain Dew contains citric acid, a substance naturally found in citrus fruits that exists as a powder in its purified, industrialized form. Most citrus sodas mix in the stuff to give drinks their tangy bite, while most colas, such as Coca Cola and Pepsi, incorporate phosphoric acid for the same effect. Consequently, these drinks have a low pH value around 3 (very acidic). Coca Cola, with its dark coloring and non-fruity flavor, may be the soft drink most often compared to battery acid, but in 2004, a well-known study led by dentist J. Anthony von Fraunhofer found that citrus sodas like Mountain Dew and Sprite erode tooth enamel around six times faster than colas. [ How Long Do Mafia Victims Take to Dissolve In Acid?]

When Fraunhofer's team soaked human molars in Mountain Dew for two weeks (a period of time comparable to approximately 13 years of normal beverage exposure, the researchers calculated) the molars' enamel lost more than 6 percent of its volume. Meanwhile, molars soaked in Coca Cola for two weeks lost slightly more than 1 percent of their enamel volume. (As a side note, "Diet" labels won't shield your teeth from the damage: In the study, Diet Mountain Dew eroded more than 8 percent of the tooth enamel in the course of two weeks.)

Citric acid in Mountain Dew would eat away a mouse's bones in a similar manner as it erodes teeth, breaking down the chemical bonds that hold the tissue together by infiltrating them with positively charged particles. "The acid also has a 'chelating effect' — it can combine with calcium in the bones, taking it away quicker," Ren told Life's Little Mysteries.

Your stomach and intestines, however, are built to withstand a variety of acidic digestive juices. For people with healthy digestive tracts, a little extra acid from Mountain Dew, which passes through your system relatively quickly, shouldn't harm your stomach like it does your teeth.

Defenders of Mountain Dew sometimes argue that orange juice contains as much or more citric acid as the neon green soda. "It's basically true," Ren said. "The pH of orange juice is between 3.5 and 3.8 — also very acidic. From what our experience is, yes, the rate of decay would be the same."

However, juice presents a small tradeoff: It erodes teeth, but it also provides vitamin C. "Orange juice has a healthy aspect, so people should continue to drink it," Ren said. He suggested minimizing the contact between the juice and your teeth by taking large gulps rather than small, frequent sips, then washing your mouth out with water. Or, you could use a straw.

Unlike orange juice, Mountain Dew contains no vitamin C… and, if you're lucky, no rubbery ghosts of mice, either.

Report: Nordegren demolishes mansion

Tiger Woods' ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, has just demolished her $12 million Florida mansion — so she can build a better home on the same plot, TMZ reported Thursday.

Nordegren bought the North Palm Beach home in March, eight months after she finalized her divorce in 2010 from her cheating husband and received a $100 million settlement.

It was thought that the Swedish former model would move into the sprawling six-bedroom, eight-bathroom property with her two children by Woods, but instead she knocked the whole place down.

She hired a top architect to help build her a new dream home, and every worker involved in the project is required to sign a confidentiality agreement, according to TMZ.

It was not known when the 32-year-old's new pad would be completed, and in the meantime, she is living in a nearby mansion inside the private community.

Observations From 20 Years of Iowa Life

On January 3, Iowans will trudge through snow, sleet, sludge, ice, gale-force blizzards -- whatever it takes -- to join their neighbors that evening in 1,784 living rooms, community halls, recreation centers, and public-school gymnasiums in a kind of bygone-era town-hall meeting at which they'll eat and debate, and then vote for presidential candidates along party lines. Chat 'n' Chews, they are called.

These Iowa Caucuses create a seismic shift in the presidential nominating contests. Obama catapulted to the top of the Democrats' dance card when he captured 38 percent of Iowa voters in 2008, and then swept to victory at the Democratic Convention eight months later. Without such a strong initial showing in Iowa, Obama might not have been able to steamroll through subsequent state primaries to win the presidency.

Since Obama is the presumed Democratic candidate in 2012, this year it's the Republican candidates who have trained their attentions on the state these brisk, late-autumn days. They're falling over each other in front of grain elevators and cornfields, over biscuits and gravy in breakfast cafes, and at potluck dinners (casseroles are the thing to bring), glad-handing and backslapping as many Iowa voters they can. Great photo ops, you know. Hoisting a baby in the air is good politics. So's gulping down a brat (short for bratwurst).

Considering the state's enormous political significance, I thought this would be a good time to explain to the geographically challenged a little about Iowa, including where Iowa is, and perhaps more importantly, in both a real and metaphysical way, what Iowa is.

For almost 20 years I've lived in Iowa, where as a professor at the University of Iowa I've taught thousands of university students. I've written a couple of books on rural Iowa, traveling to all 99 counties, and have spent much of my time when not teaching, visiting with and interviewing Iowans from across the state. I haven't taken up hunting or fishing, the main hobbies of rural Iowans, but I'm a fan of University of Iowa Hawkeye football, so I'm a good third of the way to becoming an adopted Iowan. I even have a dog, born and bred in Iowa (more on that later).

* * *

Iowa is not flat as a pancake, despite what most people think. Northeast of Cedar Rapids is actually pretty hilly. It's an agricultural (corns and soybeans), landlocked state. While Iowa's landmass is a little larger than England's, its population is only three million, about 17 times smaller. The state's name derives from the Ioway Indians, one of several tribes that used to call the region home. Of Iowa's 99 counties, 88 are classified as rural. Iowa's capital and largest city is Des Moines (pop: 203,000), whose primary business is insurance. The state is 91 percent white.*

On the state's eastern edge lies the Mississippi River, dotted with towns with splendid names like Keokuk, Toolesboro, Fruitland, Muscatine, Montpelier, Buffalo, Sabula, Davenport, Dubuque, and Guttenberg. Each once was a booming city on the swollen banks of the river that long ago opened the middle of America to expansion, civilization, abundance, and prosperity. Not much travels along the muddy and polluted Mississippi these days except rusty-bucket barges of grain and an occasional kayaker circumnavigating garbage, beer cans, and assorted debris. The majestic river that once defined the United States has been rendered commercially irrelevant these days.

Mark Twain once lived in Southeast Iowa, in Keokuk, working at his brother's printing press. He also was employed nearby as a reporter for the Muscatine Journal. When Twain lived in Keokuk 150 years ago, the Gateway City was a sought-after destination; some seriously said Keokuk would someday rival Chicago as a metropolis of culture and commerce. Thirty-eight hotels crowned the intersection of the Mississippi and Des Moines Rivers. The coming of the railroads changed all that, and today, Keokuk, is a depressed, crime-infested slum town. Almost every other Mississippi river town is the same; they're some of the skuzziest cities I've ever been to, and that's saying something.

On Iowa's western frontier lies the Missouri River, which girds a huge, sparsely populated agricultural region anchored by Sioux City (pop: 83,000) in the state's far northwest and Council Bluffs (pop: 62,230), across from the Nebraska hub of Omaha. Eskimo Pies, the original I-Scream Bar, was invented by a Danish immigrant in Onawa, a tiny town not far from the Missouri, and today you can visit an Eskimo Pie display at the Monona County Historical Museum there.

In between these two great, defining rivers, Iowa is a place of bizarre contrasts. The state is split politically: to the east of Des Moines, Iowa is solidly Democratic; to the west, it's rabidly Republican. Iowa's two U.S. Senators are emblematic of this schizophrenia: Fundamentalist Republican Charles Grassley and Ultra-liberal Democrat Tom Harkin. Grassley is 78; Harkin 72; both have held seats in either the U.S. Senate or House since 1975.

Insular Iowa is also home to the most conservative, and, some say, wackiest congressman in America, Republican Rep. Steve King, who represents the vast western third of the state. Some of King's doozies: calling Senator Joe McCarthy a "hero for America"; comparing illegal immigrants to stray cats that wind up on people's porches; and praying that Supreme Court "Justice Stevens and Justice Ginsberg fall madly in love with each other and elope to Cuba." Keith Olbermann named King not only the worst congressman in the U.S., but the Worst Person in the World six times.

Considering the above, not just a few Iowa heads turned when a District Court in Des Moines in 2007 declared same-sex marriages legal. Iowa, at the time, was the second state in the U.S. to allow gays to marry each other, a decision the state Supreme Court unanimously upheld two years later. In retaliation, Iowa conservatives in 2010 mounted a successful campaign to oust three of the justices who ruled on behalf of same-sex marriage. Marriage between two same-sex people is legal in Iowa for now, but may not be for long. So far, Democrats have blocked a statewide referendum on the issue (Dems hold sway in the Iowa Senate 26-24), but if Republicans take control of the Senate, gay marriage could -- and likely would -- be repealed.*

Whether a schizophrenic, economically-depressed, and some say, culturally-challenged state like Iowa should host the first grassroots referendum to determine who will be the next president isn't at issue. It's been this way since 1972, and there are no signs that it's going to change. In a perfect world, no way would Iowa ever be considered representative of America, or even a small part of it. Iowa's not representative of much. There are few minorities, no sizable cities, and the state's about to lose one of its five seats in the U.S. House because its population is shifting; any growth is negligible. Still, thanks to a host of nonsensical political precedents, whoever wins the Iowa Caucuses in January will very likely have a 50 percent chance of being elected president 11 months later. Go figure.

Maybe Ambrose Bierce described it right when he called the U.S. president "the greased pig in the field game of American politics." For better or worse, Iowa's the place where that greased pig gets generally gets grabbed first.

* * *

Rural America has always been homogenous, as white as the milk the millions of Holstein cows here produce. Many towns are so insular that farmers from another county are strangers. Historically, at least since 1900, whether because it was too hard to get to, too uninviting, or promised too little, few newcomers chose to knock on America's Heartland door.

Iowa anchors the Upper American Heartland, the rural interior that produces much of the world's corn, pigs, cattle, and soybeans. The corn grows so fast in Iowa -- from seedlings to 7-foot-high stalks in 12 weeks -- that it crackles nonstop throughout the summer months. The sound is like popcorn popping slow-motion in a microwave. That pop-pop-popping can be heard especially in the early morning hours, as dew and fog cover the acres of gently swaying cornstalks that surround farming villages the way the sea encircles an island. Rows upon rows stretch further than most urban minds can fathom, leathery husks and silky tassels bending in unison to the shimmying breeze. From one angle the corn resembles a hodgepodge of gnarly green stalks, but from another, each plant appears positioned with precision next to another, next to another, an exacting maze, for thousands upon thousands of acres.

For any corn connoisseurs out there, don't think of poaching an ear from a field, boiling it al dente, then slathering on it hot butter. Almost all the corn Iowa farmers grow is feed corn, not sweet corn. It's meant for pigs, not humans, and tastes that way. Almost all of it gets stored in an elevator (elevators in rural America raise and lower grain, not people.)

Each isolated Iowa homestead is marked off by a stand of trees (usually maples, cottonwoods, sometimes basswoods), as much windbreak as shade grove from the blazing sun. Just about everyone wears a hat; farmer's tan is a condition every Iowan knows -- a blanched forehead above a leather-cured face. Ailing windmills stand unsure next to sturdy no-nonsense homes and dilapidated peeling-red barns, often with freshly tilled beds of Black-eyed Susans or gladiolas in front.

In this land, deep within America, on Friday nights it's not unusual to take a date to a Tractor Pull or to a Combine Demolition Derby ("First they were thrashin', now they're CRASHIN'!"). There are few billboards along the washboard-bumpy, blacktop roads that slice through the countryside, only hand-drawn signs advertising sweet corn, cattle, lemonade, or boar semen. Driving through these throwback towns, a stranger might receive a slight nod from a farmer on the side of the road, or a two-finger driver's greeting from knobby fingers atop a pick-up's steering wheel. Strangers are rare in these parts. Why would they be here? What would bring someone with no business or family to such a remote pocket of America, where car alarms are as unheard of as home burglar alarms? Locals don't bother to put on their turn signals because everyone knows where everyone else is going. Some rural counties in Iowa don't have a single traffic light.

In the large towns (population more than 2,500), towering grain elevators are what you first see from a distance. In mid-sized towns, it's church steeples, their bell towers once a call to farmers toiling in the fields. Just about every town, no matter what size, has a water tower with the town name scrawled or stenciled on the tank's side. Each summer, the 4H and Future Farmers of America sponsor contests where teenagers vie for birthing and raising the best pig, lamb, goat, roster or hen. Housewives compete for best pie (always with a no-fail pie crust). A float pulled by a farmer's pickup showcases smiling and often-hardy girls waving, to be crowned County Fair Queen, Dairy Queen, and Pork Queen. Kids compete in a Mom-calling contest; the loudest wins.

Iowa is these gently rolling plains, full of farms and barns and also millions of pigs and turkeys (twenty times as many people). But there also are too-many-to-count empty storefronts (and not coincidentally scores of flourishing Wal-Marts). The region has suffered terribly, particularly since the 1980's when the ravaged farm economy started spinning out of control into free-fall.

After winning the Iowa Caucuses three years ago, then-candidate Barack Obama didn't mince words about the lingering impact of the Farm Crisis.

Speaking at a San Francisco fundraiser, Obama said, "Like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."*

Obama got scalded for his comments. Those are tough sentiments to share with those caught in the middle. I imagine many in the rural Midwest must have said a variation of this -- "Whaddaya expect from a Harvard-educated, black city slicker who wouldn't know a John Deere tractor from an International Harvester combine?" And what better audience before which to piss on rural America than one filled with wealthy Bay Area Democrats, few of whom could pick out Iowa from Nebraska? If the audience wasn't primarily vegan, gluten-intolerant foodies, what came out of Obama's mouth was some of the most succulent red meat he could have tossed their way.

Coastal elites love to dump on Iowa the same way Manhattanites trash New Jersey. Iowa is the place East and West Coasters call "Fly-over Country." It didn't rate even a speck in Saul Steinberg's classic 1976 New Yorker cover. Obama's comments went over without a second thought, until they wafted back to the Heartland. What Average Joe in Iowa wants to admit he clings to anything -- except hunting, fishing, and the Hawkeyes? Guns, religion, xenophobia? Them's fightin' words.

Obama might have been wrong for telling the truth, which seldom happens in politics, but the future president was 100-percent accurate when he let slip his comments on the absolute and utter desperation in America's hollowed-out middle, in particular in the state where I live.

There's the idealized version of rural America, then there's the heartbreaking real version, the one Obama was talking about.

Take One: The fairytale rendering is pastoral and bucolic; sandy-haired children romping through fecund, shoulder-high corn with Lassie at their side. It's Field of Dreams meets Carousel with The Waltons thrown in for good measure. The ruddy, wooden Bridges of Madison County (where John Wayne was born) may be in the background as the camera pans wide.

Take Two: The nightmare reality is tens of thousands of laid-off rural factory workers, farmers who have lost their land to banks and agribusiness, legions of unemployed who have come to the realization that it makes no sense to look for work, since work pretty much no longer exists for them.

An illusionary, short-term salve has been the proliferation of casinos in the state. In the last two decades, Iowa has established 18 of these bell-clanging jackpot landmines and more could open as the economy continues to go south and overseas. (But, of course, this is happening far and wide in the United States. Detroit has three downtown casinos for those who want something to do while in the Motor City.)

Maytag, the iconic American company that makes washer and dryers, is a good example of Iowa economics. Maytag's flagship operation had been based in Newton, Iowa, for more than a century (the company was founded by Fred Maytag in 1893). After Whirlpool bought Maytag in 2006, workers girded for the worst, which came a year later, when Maytag closed the two million square-foot plant, leaving 2,000 workers unemployed. In protest, workers left their boots hanging on the cyclone fence surrounding the plant. At its peak. Maytag employed 4,000 workers in Newton, a town of 16,000. The Newton plant was union; consolidation of Maytag and Whirlpool was shifted to nonunion facilities, as well as overseas.

In part, rural Iowa's economic malaise has been made all the more in-your-face by the thousands of undocumented immigrants arriving every month, trolling for work that pays indecent wages in some of the most dangerous jobs imaginable, mostly on under-regulated, non-union kill-floors of the rural slaughterhouses. The migrant workers (almost all young, single, Central American men) end up living in deplorable makeshift shantytowns that have cropped up over the last decade amid the splendor of green and golden fields.

Four states -- California, Texas, New York, and Florida -- get two-thirds of the nation's immigrants. But for many immigrants, these states serve only as ports of entry; once inside the U.S., these newcomers converge in rural America in waves of secondary migration. And some immigrants head directly inland, altogether bypassing American coastal cities. In Iowa, they almost all come for slaughterhouse jobs, where entry-level positions are plentiful and workers don't need to know a word of English. The only requirements are a strong stomach and a strong back, and a willingness to accept that the work and the pay don't match. It's no wonder Iowa locals spurn such jobs as knockers, stickers, bleeders, tail rippers, flankers, gutters, sawers, or plate boners, all of whom work on what amounts to a disassembly line. Turnover at these grueling jobs is higher than 100 percent a year; health benefits at most plants don't kick in for several months; but the first months in a slaughterhouse are the most dangerous, when accidents are most likely to occur.

How'd so many slaughterhouses get from the cities to the country? For more than a century, slaughterhouses were located in brawling cities like Chicago, Fort Worth, and Omaha. Chicago rose to prominence, in part, because of its famed cattle-processing industry. The city's Union Stock Yards opened in 1865 and eventually grew to 475 acres of slaughterhouses. Today, only one slaughterhouse remains in Chicago, a tiny boutique lamb and veal processor. All the rest have closed shop or moved to rural America.

In a fundamental shift in how meat was processed, industry leaders decades ago realized it made more sense to bring meatpacking plants to the corn-fed livestock than to truck livestock to far-off slaughterhouses in expensive cities with strong unions and government regulators poking their noses into the meatpackers' business. Mobile refrigeration allowed processed meat to be trucked without spoilage. At the same time, the industry became highly mechanized. Innovations such as air- and electric-powered knives made expensive, skilled butchers superfluous. Mega plants in rural outposts became the norm. Hourly wages for union meat-production workers in 1980 peaked at $19 per hour (1980 dollars), not including benefits. Today, starting pay is often barely minimum wage at rural slaughterhouses. Because packinghouses are located in such isolated pockets of America, employers don't have to pay wages competitive with jobs in more urban venues. It's take it or leave it, and most locals would rather leave it. For undocumented workers, though, these jobs are a bonanza.

About the only possible bright spot in the rural Iowa economy is wind energy. It's a huge on-the-come bet that may actually pay off. Iowa is the second largest producer of wind energy in the U.S. (Texas is the first). Twenty percent of all electricity in the state is generated by wind. Drive down Interstate 80 for any stretch in Iowa, and you'll pass wide-loads announcing what's in front and behind: 150-foot-long, 12-ton blades for wind turbines. You'll also pass "wind farms," surreal grassy outposts with row after row of huge white turbines, their blades spinning. It's the windmill updated, but this time for the masses.

But relatively few rural Iowans are employed in the business of wind energy. The bulk of jobs here are low-income ones most Iowans don't want. Many have simply packed up and left the state (which helps keep the unemployment rate statewide low). Those who stay in rural Iowa are often the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in educated) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that "The sun'll come out tomorrow."

It's no surprise then, really, that the most popular place for suicide in America isn't New York or Los Angeles, but the rural Middle, where guns, unemployment, alcoholism and machismo reign. Suicides in Iowa's rural counties are 13.55 per 100,000 residents; New York's suicide rate is 5.4 residents per 100,000. Hunting accidents are common, perhaps spurred by the elixir of alcohol, which seems to be the drink of choice whenever a man suits up in camo or orange overalls. Mental-health clinics have all but been shuttered in Flyover Country; in a budget crunch, they're the first to go. Other, more nuanced reasons for the high rate of suicide: Farmers and ranchers by occupational nature rely on themselves to solve problems; the stigma of depression prevents those affected most from seeking help -- if help existed. Some residents turn to church leaders (as Obama said), but few are genuinely qualified to offer that kind of counsel.

* * *

I live in Iowa City, a university town 60 miles west of the Mississippi, along Highway 80 (known as The Interstate to younger Iowans, just The Highway to older Iowans). Eighty is America's Main Street, bisecting Iowa, connecting the hallowed-out middle of Corpus Americana to the faraway coasts. Granted, I'm a transplant here, and when I lit out almost two decades ago for this territory, I didn't quite know what to expect. The first day I arrived from San Francisco, wandering about Iowa City during spring break, billed as a bustling Big Ten University town, I kept wondering, "Where is everyone?" I thought a neutron bomb had gone off; there were buildings but few, if any, people.

Today, I still not quite sure what I'd gotten myself into. I've lived in many places, lots of them foreign countries, but none has been more foreign to me than Iowa.

They speak English in Iowa. You understand the words fine. (Broadcasters, in fact, covet the Iowa "accent," since it could come from anywhere, devoid of regional inflections.) But if you listen closely, though, it's a wholly different manner of speaking from what folks on either coast are accustomed to.

Indoor parking lots are ramps, soda is pop, lollipops are suckers, grocery bags are sacks, weeds are volunteers, miniature golf is putt-putt, supper is never to be confused with dinner, cellars and basements are totally different places, and boys under the age of 16 are commonly referred to as "Bud." Almost every Iowa house has a mudroom, so you don't track mud or pig shit into the kitchen or living room, even though the aroma of pig shit is absolutely venerated in Iowa: It's known to one and all here as "the smell of money."

Friday fish fries at the American Legion hall; grocery and clothing shopping at Wal-Mart; Christmas crèches with live donkeys, sheep and a neighborhood infant playing Baby Jesus; shotgun-toting* hunters stalking turkeys in the fall (better not go for a walk in the countryside in October or November). Not many cars in these parts of America. They're vehicles, pronounced ve-HICK-uls -- 4X4's, pick-ups, snowmobiles). Rural houses are modest, some might say drab. Everyone strives to be middle-class; and if you have some money, by God you'd never want to make anyone feel bad by showing it off. If you go to Florida for a cruise, you keep it to yourself. The biggest secret often is -- if you still own farmland -- exactly how many acres. Ostentatious is driving around town in a new Ford F-150 pickup.

The reason everyone seems related in small-town Iowa is because, if you go back far enough, many are, either by marriage or birth. In Iowa, names like Yoder, Snitker, Schroeder, and Slabach are as common as Garcia, Lee, Romero, Johnson, and Chen are in big cities.

Rules peculiar to rural Iowa that I've learned are hard and fast, seldom broken: Backdoors are how you always go into someone's house. Bar fights might not be weekly occurrences, but neither are they infrequent activities. Collecting is big -- whether it's postcards, lamps, figurines, tractors, or engines. NASCAR is a spectator sport that folks can't get enough of. Old-timers answer their phones not with "hello," but with last names, a throwback to party-lines. Everyone's phone number in town starts with the same three-digit prefix.

Hats are essential. Men over 50 don't leave home without a penknife in their pocket. Old Spice is the aftershave of choice. Everyone knows someone who has had an unfortunate and costly accident with a deer (always fatal for the deer, sometimes for the human). Farming is a dangerous occupation; if farmers don't die from a mishap (getting a hand in an auger, clearing a stuck combine), they live with missing digits or limbs.

Comfort food reigns supreme. Meatloaf and pork chops are king. Casseroles (canned tuna or Tatertots) and Jell-O molds (cottage cheese with canned pears or pineapple) are what to bring to wedding receptions and funerals. Everyone loves Red Waldorf cake. Deer (killed with a rifle is good, with bow-and-arrow better) and handpicked morels are delicacies families cherish.

Religion is the glue that binds everyone, whether they're Catholic, Lutheran, or Presbyterian. You can't drive too far without seeing a sign for JESUS or ABORTION IS LEGALIZED MURDER. I'm forever amazed by how often I hear neighbors, co-workers, shoppers, and total strangers talk about religion. In the Hy-Vee grocery store, at neighborhood stop-and-chats, at the local public school, "See you at church!" is the common rejoinder. It's as though the local house of worship were some neighborhood social club -- which, of course, it is. A professor I know at the University of Iowa chides her students for sitting in the back of a lecture hall, saying, "This isn't church, you know."

When my family and I first moved to Iowa, our first Easter morning the second-largest newspaper in the state (the Cedar Rapids Gazette) broke all the rules I was trying to teach my young journalism students in its coverage of an event that was neither breaking nor corroborated by two independent sources. An archived edition of the paper shows it with a verse from Matthew 28:5-6 above-the-fold on Page One, along with an illustration of three crosses. The front-page verse -- which in its entirety read, "And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said." -- took up two columns and was played against a story about the murders of six people in the Iowa town of Norwalk.*

After years and years of in-your-face religion, I decided to give what has become an annual lecture, in which I urge my students not to bid strangers "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Easter," "Have you gotten all your Christmas shopping done?" or "Are you going to the Easter egg hunt?" Such well-wishes are not appropriate for everyone, I tell my charges gently. A cheery "Happy holidays!" will suffice. Small potatoes, I know, but did everyone have to proclaim their Christianity so loud and clear?

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea. One gutsy, red-in-the-face student told me in no uncertain terms that for the rest of her life, she would continue offering Merry Christmas and Happy Easter tidings to strangers, no matter what I, or anyone else, said, because, "That's just who I am and I'm not about to change. Ever!" Score one for sticking it to the ethnic interloper.

Such do-good obligation flourishes even when the words invoked don't have much to do with religion. After the University of Iowa played arch-rival Iowa State in football, one of my students got arrested for public intoxication. While walking back to her dormitory one Saturday afternoon, she paused to rest on the steps of the Old State Capitol Building, only to fall asleep until a police officer awakened her. All arrests in Iowa City are published in the local newspaper, and I asked her what had had happened. "When my parents find out, they're going to be furious. I'll get called home for a Come-To-Jesus talk."

On the surface, this Come to Jesus moment had nothing to do with religion. Instead, it described a meeting in which your butt was about to be kicked for some serious, errant behavior, and if you didn't repent your evil ways, then there'd be hell to pay. Come to Jesus was a nonsectarian, equal-opportunity expression that could just as easily involve Jews, Muslims, or Hindus (if you could find any in Iowa) as it involved Christians. But it was vintage Iowa, invoking the name of Jesus as though everyone believed in the good Lord's son and his providence.

Of the students I teach, relatively few will stay in Iowa after they graduate. The net flow of Iowans is out, not in. Iowa's greatest export isn't corn, soybeans, or pigs; it's young adults. Many born in rural Iowa grow up educated due to the state's still-strong foundation of land-grant universities (although, that too is eroding) and abiding familial interest in education (on a per-capita basis, Iowa has more high school graduates than 49 other states). But once they're through college, they leave. Iowa is the number-two state in the nation in losing college-educated youth (only North Dakota loses more).

An interesting sidelight to the outflow problem is the rapid influx of Chinese students at the University of Iowa. The university vigorously recruits Chinese undergraduates, and has even set up an office in Beijing with the express purpose of attracting Chinese to study in Iowa (no other recruiting office exists anywhere else). Almost all come from well-heeled families, who pay full tuition for their children to attend college. Few speak passable English, almost all congregate in majors that require little English (math, biology and actuarial science), and many drive around town in brand-new sports cars. It's a strange sight to see in Flyover County -- dozens of Chinese students moving together en masse, the girls chattering away in Mandarin, always holding each others' hands. These wealthy, ill-prepared bonus babies are seen as the future of the University. If Iowa has fewer and fewer young people each year to fill the University's cavernous lecture halls, and the state is still a tough sell to coastal American kids, then it's China that's the next frontier as state support for higher education dwindles.

Today, half of Iowa's 952 incorporated towns have populations of fewer than 500 residents, and two-thirds of the state's towns have less than 1,000. Iowa is home to the highest per-capita percentage of people older than 85; the second highest of residents older than 75, and the third highest of people older than 65. The largest and most elegant house in many rural towns is the local funeral parlor. The graduating classes of most rural high schools are so small that an Iowa tradition calls for silk-screened T-shirts with the names of all classmates on the back. Most, if not all of these teenagers, have worked for a couple of weeks in the summer as detasselers, when they remove the pollen-producing tassel on the top of each corn plant, letting it drop to the ground, so that two varieties of corn will cross-breed and make a hybrid. The job has become an absolute rite of passage for rural Iowa kids.

And while it's changing fast, rural Iowa is still a place where homes sell for $40,000 (some a lot less), serious crime is tee-peeing a high-school senior's front yard, and traffic is getting caught behind a tractor on Main Street. If rural Iowans ever drive on the highway (not much reason to do so, really), they welcome other vehicles accelerating on the entrance ramp, smiling, often motioning with their hand to move on over, as though gently patting the butt of a newborn.

The only smog comes from a late-autumn bonfire. Crime isn't way rampant in these rural towns, but it's edging upwards, particularly in towns adjacent to slaughterhouses. On summer nights, you can still keep your keys in the ignition and run into the local Casey's for an Icey or to get a cherry-dipped cone at the DQ one town over. Rural Iowa is still the kind of place where parents drop off their kids at the municipal pool to swim all day long.

Iowa is a throwback to yesteryear and, at the same time, a cautionary tale of what lies around the corner.

Which brings up my dog. And here's why: My dog is a kind of crucible of Iowa.

What does Hannah, a 13-year-old Labrador, have to do with an analysis of the American electoral system and how screwy it is that a place like Iowa gets to choose -- before anyone else -- the person who may become the next leader of the free world?

For our son's eighth birthday, we wanted to get him a dog. Every boy needs a dog, my wife and I agreed, and off we went to an Iowa breeding farm to pick out an eight-week-old puppy that, when we knelt to pet her, wouldn't stop licking us. We chose a yellow Lab because they like kids, have pleasant dispositions, and I was particularly fond of her caramel-color coat. Labs don't generally bite people, although they do like to chew on shoes, hats, and sofa legs. Hannah was Marley before Marley.

Our son, of course, got tired of Hannah after a couple of months, and to whom did the daily obligation of walking the dog fall?

That's right. To me.

And here's the point: I can't tell you how often over the years I'd be walking Hannah in our neighborhood and someone in a pickup would pull over and shout some variation of the following:

"Bet she hunts well."

"Do much hunting with the bitch?"

"Where you hunt her?"

To me, it summed up Iowa. You'd never get a dog because you might just want to walk with the dog or to throw a ball for her to fetch. No, that's not a reason to own a dog in Iowa. You get a dog to track and bag animals that you want to stuff, mount, or eat.

That's the place that may very well determine the next U.S. president.

* Corrections and clarifications 12/30/12. This article originally incorrectly stated that Iowa is 96 percent white; the 2010 Census data reports it as 91.3 percent white. It incorrectly said that gay marriage in the state would be subjected to a repeal referendum, but, in fact, that would only potentially happen if Republicans take control of the state Senate this fall. It incorrectly referred to the size of Britain on a second reference when it meant England, the first reference, and said Sol Steinberg's New Yorker cover was published in 1967 when in fact Saul Steinberg's cover was from 1976. It incorrectly said "He is Risen" was printed on the Cedar Rapids Gazette 1994 Easter Sunday front page as a headline, when the front-page from the paper's archives shows the words were printed on the front page as part of an A1 Bible verse, but not in headline form. In a note to Bloom, Gazette editor Lyle Muller said of the headline: "a couple of other people here thought this sounded familiar. But we cannot find it on any front page, nor features page covers. Perhaps it was a rack card; I don't know." And it incorrectly described fall turkey hunters toting rifles, rather than shotguns. The story has been updated to reflect these facts.

A number of commenters have argued that Obama was talking about Pennsylvania and not Iowa in his April 2008 remarks on guns and religion; the audio of his remarks published on the Huffington Post reflects him talking about small towns in both Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the Midwest: "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."