Is Illinois Romney's do or die state or is it Santorum's? How about Gingrich?

Conventional wisdom would say that today's GOP primary in Illinois would be a make or breaker for former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Santorum is far behind Romney in the delegate count, has a minuscule organization compared to Romney, yet, yet he keeps on winning delegates. Not only that his favorability rating within the GOP voting block just keeps getting better while Romney's continues to suck. Romney has all the cool kid GOP endorsements, but the the rank and file don't dig him at all. Couple that with his gaffes about wealth and women that have turned off many independents that would possibly have voted for him. Yet Romney is ahead in the delegate count and is polling ahead of Santorum in Illinois.

So where does that leave the GOP? In deep shit as far as I can tell. If the GOP primary continues to move at its current pace and both Santorum and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich stay in the race as they have continued to say, whoever the nominee is will be badly bruised going in to the general election. If all goes the way it is predicted then Romney will be the nominee. The GOP will rally around him, because they are sheep, but the independents will mostly be gone, especially if the economy continues to improve. Romney will be such an easy target by then that the people decided not to run this year will be very happy to have passed up the chance to run.

In the end, Illinois is no one's make or break. It seems that Santorum and Gingrich for that matter know they can't win? Instead of going for the win they are hoping to derail Romney and bring it to the convention. Again, risky business. Only time and more attacks will tell.

New Feature! BEER REVIEWS!

Welcome to World Musings’ beer reviews. This is the first of many future reviews of beers from all over The United States and the world. Before we can get to the review stuff we need to get to the rules of the reviews. Beers will be reviewed based on their, looks, taste and smell. The process goes something like this; I open the beer, give it a once over, give it a good long sniff, and then let my taste buds do the rest.  Here is the point scale breakdown:

95 – 100                   Go get it now!

90-94                        Find it soon!

80-89                        Good stuff

70-79                        Just average

0-69                          Don’t bother

Today’s reviews

Pied Piper IPA                 The People’s Pint, Greenfield MA                 

Category: IPA

This beer has a wonderful deep amber color, produces a full beige head that leaves a nice lacing on the glass.  The beer aroma is a mix of spicy citrus notes combined with an earthy pine scent. For an IPA it has a full mouth feel. Full but not too heavy with malt. There is a nice balance between the malt and hops. You get nice citrus and pine flavors balanced with a smooth malt feel. This is not super bitter for an American IPA, instead it has that heavy malt taste that balances with the hops. This is definitely maltier than traditional IPAs but this is a plus for this ale. This is a different kind of IPA but definitely a tasty one.

Score: 90 Find it soon!

Pandora                           Idle Hands Craft Ales, Everett, MA          91 Find it soon                                               

Category: Belgian Pale Ale

Idle Hands calls this a Belgian inspired pale ale. The beer has interesting amber to orange hue. At first pour the ale produces a nice thick white head followed by a nice lacing on the glass. The aroma is just a slight aroma of citrus but not much else. On first try the beer has a nice even mouth feel. Not too light for a pale ale and not too heavy staying in traditional parameters. The hops are up front but don’t knock you out because they are nicely balanced with the malt. For a dry hopped beer it is surprising that they aren’t more prevalent. This ale works because it is nicely balanced.

Score: 92 Find it soon!

Afghan National Assembly has lost patience with our troops, fine defend yourselves

The attack over the weekend by an American soldier on Afghan civilians was a horrible, cowardly act. I do not believe there is anyone that would disagree with that. However the statements now coming out of Afghanistan are disagreeable.

The first to speak were the Taliban who say they will attack American soldiers and workers. Nothing new there. What is completely disagreeable is what the National Assembly,  Afghanistan's version of our Congress, had to say.Today the National Assembly voted on a resolution seeking a public trial of the American serviceman responsible for the attacks. That seems somewhat reasonable. However the second part stated that the Assembly has lost patience with foreign troops. Wow, lost patience with foreign troops. Idiots. Without those "foreign troops" there would be no National Assembly or for that matter any Afghan government. With out a doubt the Taliban would be back in charge.  The Afghan Army isn't capable of any kind of order in the country without the extensive help of "foreign" troops.

I say fuck them. Enough is enough. We have wasted billions of dollars and far too many American lives propping up a government in Afghanistan that clearly doesn't want the whole burden of sovereignty. These so called leaders of Afghanistan are perfectly happy to have the US shed the blood of its young so they can  collect high salaries to do nothing but fatten their bank accounts through the corruption of all things government. If we backed out now they would be screwed.

The spring is coming in Afghanistan and the Taliban always launch an offensive in the Spring. I say we sit on our guns and see how the Afghans do without us. If they are getting crushed then we can step in to keep them from being overrun, otherwise let them spill the blood of their young for their own country. Then we'll see how much patience they have for us.

New Feature: Beer Reviews

Most people that know me, know I am a bit of a beer geek. I brew my own beer, attend beer festivals, read lots of beer literature and try to taste every new beer that comes out that interests me. So I thought what the hell lets add beer reviews to World Musings Ltd. So, in the next day or two the first beer reviews will begin. Thanks to my friends at the Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont, MA I have a great place to seek out the best new beers from around the US and the world. Stay tuned.

GOP beats the drums for insane war with Iran

Boom, bam, bam, boom, bang, boom, bang, bam, bang. The sounds of drums. You are hearing it again and its not the reunion tour of Van Halen or Black Sabbath. Those drum sounds you are hearing are the pundits, and retired nobodies, the GOP and washed up presidential candidates along with a lot of other people that don't mean much, pounding drums for the the United States to go to war with Iran.

Sounds familiar those drum sounds. Heard them after 9/11 and sure that made sense. Then we heard them with lyrics about Iraq and the drums got us messed up with some made up rhythms that were a flat out lie, in that so called war of the willing. Know one was really willing but us caused we caused the fucking thing. Funny thing is there's no violence between the US and Iran. Not directly. We hit them, they try to hit us but that's all very COVERT.

So instead of focusing on trying to change the Middle East by supporting an end to the brutal Assad regime in Syria some here in the good ole US (read the Republican Party) are clamoring for another Middle East nightmare. Don't get me wrong, letting Iran get a nuke is not cool on any level. However having the United States lead the charge to war in another Middle Eastern Country is pure craziness. We have made some strides in our image in the Middle East it would be suicide to go to war again. Suicide not only in our standing in the world but in terms of the toll of another war on our military, their families and the US economy, which would be devastated by higher oil prices from such a conflict.

Its is very easy to beat the drums of war when the decision is not yours to make. The drums pounded buy the likes of Mitt Romney mean nothing. Those types have no power and are willing to bring us to the brink of war for political gain.

Don't believe the hype. War with Iran now is pure insanity.

Romney barely wins Michigan, takes Arizona, Santorum eyes Ohio

Willard Mitt Romney barely avoided a potential campaign killer when he squeaked out a victory in Michigan, the state where he was born and raised. Romney beat Rick Santorum by just over 3 percentage points in a state that he carried easily in 2008. Many considered a loss in Michigan a fatal blow to Romney's goal of securing the Republican nomination before the August convention.

While Romney did win in Michigan, as it turns out he will only capture two or three more delegates than Santorum. Michigan is a proportionate primary and given that Romney only beat Santorum by one county, while a win, it isn't a convincing one in what is essentially his home state. Romney continues to have a large problem attracting the conservative base to his campaign. Santorum's surge as his chief competitor has made that even more difficult with Santorum's overall record in Congress much more conservative than Romney's time as Governor of Massachusetts. With Super Tuesday on the way and Santorum holding a sizable lead in Ohio it looks that Republican slugfest is far from over.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie Should Shut Up and Crawl Back Under His Rock

I don't know about you but I am tired of seeing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on television. Every time I see him I want to do to things. Duct tape his mouth closed and buy him a weight watchers gift certificate. While that may sound mean, especially from World Musings given that we try to be fair, Christie brings the shit on himself. For a man of questionable intelligence, a clear case of self inflicted obesity and a habit of saying sexist and racist things in public, its amazing he is still around.

A couple weeks ago Christie made a comment to a women during a televised Romney rally about going down, and I know you know what I mean, that was as sexist as one can get without being blocked on TV and yesterday it was telling Warren Buffet, a brilliant man, a man that makes Christie look even dumber than he is, to "shut up." Christie was apparently tired of Buffet talking about his and other members of the 1% willingness to pay more in taxes. I am not surprised by Christie's dumb ass comments, he is full of it and it shows. This is a man that used a government helicopter to go to his son's sporting event. Apparently it was too far a walk from the parking lot to the field for Christie to walk without missing the whole game. I bring the copter up because he used a state copter for his personal use and didn't pay for the helicopter until a whistle blower brought it up. Christie wants to live like a intelligent rich man. The problem is he is not rich and certainly not bright. It is amazing to me that the people of New Jersey were upset by the state's portrayal on the Sopranos, but don't seem to have a problem with their governor living the same stereotype of the fat, loud mouth New Jersey native. Christie needs to crawl back under a rock if he can find one big enough to hide him.