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• While I’m not a supporter of President Trump, I’m going to give him a little credit with announcing his Supreme Court pick during prime time because it has gotten people interested in what’s going on with their government. However, I’m not a fan of him flying in both judges and making it similar to an episode of ‘The Bachelor’.
  • “Next week on . . . The Justice . . .
• After last night’s announcement, the White House launched a new Twitter account – @GorsuchFacts – Judge Gorsuch will be fair to all regardless of their background or beliefs. This is exactly the kind of #SCOTUS Justice @POTUS promised. #JusticeGorsuch
• It’s weird how the public is always on “death watch” when it comes to the Supreme Court and the type of “celebrating” that goes on one dies.
• Gov. Abbott orders state hiring freeze through August
  • Gov. Greg Abbott said in his State of the State Address Tuesday that he is ordering an immediate state hiring freeze to pare spending. But the hiring freeze includes a public safety exception that includes Child Protective Services.
• Jerry Falwell Jr. Says He Will Lead Federal Task Force on Higher-Ed Policy
• I posted a video yesterday of Tom Brady tearing up when talking about how his father is his hero. That got me to thinking how the term “hero” is overused or misused. I’m throwing out the disclaimer that I respect all firefighters, police, military personnel, and the like, and they should be commended for what they do.  However, I’m not sure if we should automatically say they are heroes because they willingly chose those paying professions and putting themselves in harm’s way is an expectation, if not an obligation or requirement – they want to do those sort of things. Though I guess there’s an argument to say just choosing to be in those professions may be heroic. Well, it all reminded me of a ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ segment which aired back in December about the Carnegie Hero Awards. A definition of “hero” was provided, and I like how it distinguished a hero is under no obligation.
  • While lots of people think they know what a hero is, Mark Laskow, chairman of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, has a particular definition: “It’s a person who’s under no obligation to act, leaves a place of safety, puts himself or herself in serious risk of death or major injury to save the life of another human being.”
• The TICKET is once again broadcasting from the Super Bowl.
  • The morning show, in an under-rated bit, has gotten Chris Berman to say “Roman Polanski” while interviewing him for the last 14-year straight years. It all started with some talk of Bill Romanowski and Berman somehow confused or mixed-in the director’s name. I’d love for them to have a real sit-down interview with him and play those recordings from the past 14-years and see if he realized he’s referenced the name “Roman Polanski” so much.
    • In case you are wondering what Bill Romanowski is up to, he’s running a nutrition company he founded.
    • Romanowski used to be referred to as just “Romo”. I wonder if it annoyed him when Tony Romo became more popular than him and when “Romo” was mentioned people didn’t first think of him.
    • Remember his crazy health routine Rick Reilly wrote about him?
      • He’ll also gulp between 100 and 130 pills throughout the day, depending on what his feces sample, his consultants and his body are telling him.
      • If this were postgame, though, he’d start an IV of 50 grams of
        vitamin C and five of glutathione to fight what he calls the
        “massive amount of stress” he puts on his body.
    • What ever happened to Rick Reilly, people used to always talk about his articles?
  • In a tribute to the show ‘Arrested Development’ and how Buster Bluth has always referred to the Army as just “Army”, Craig Miller is only referring to the Super Bowl as simply “Super Bowl”. I think I’m going to do the same this week.
  • As of Sunday, Fox still had three Super Bowl commercial slots to sell. I would have thought all slots would have been sold out at least six months ago.
  • Oprah Winfrey becomes special contributor to “60 Minutes”
    • Personally, I don’t think she’s a good fit for ’60 Minutes’. The news magazine is always been about “tell me story“. She’s a talented interviewer, but I don’t think her style fits.
  • The Washington Post – If NCAA ignores Baylor rape scandal, it deserves the death penalty
  • San Jose Councilman Takes Oath of Office With Captain America Shield: ‘I Want to Shine a Ray of Optimism’
    
  • Nebraska flag flew upside down at Capitol for 10 days and ‘nobody noticed,’ says senator who wants design change
  • Air Force loosens flight suit sleeve rules – The Air Force is allowing its pilots, navigators and airmen who wear flight suits to roll up their sleeves whenever they’re not on in-flight duty, according to a new memo.
  • Private university in North Korea seeks Texas A&M academic help

Somebody named Keith forgot to publish this post this morning, sorry for the delay . . .

• I’m not sure how many people still have landline at home and only use their mobile phones, but I still have one because I work from home and stuck on conference calls all the live long day, and Ooma makes it super convenient and affordable. With Ooma, you get free VoIP, you just need to buy the box, and I think I got a refurbished model a decade ago for fifty bucks. On my office desk is  a cordless phone and a base unit with a speakerphone. Sometimes I take cordless phone around the house and will use the speakerphone option, but recently the speakerphone speaker broke. For the heck of it, I took apart the phone and found a tear in the speaker. The speaker itself is a little of an inch in diameter, and the cheapest replacement I could find was eight bucks. However, I had a pair of old headphones I never used and broke it apart and found the speaker was almost perfect. I did the switcheroo and a small bit of soldering and it was as good as new. Heck, it’s even louder and clearer than the old speaker. And I believe yesterday was the first time I ever soldered something.
• In Peter King’s MMQB, Brett Musburger shared a great story about Vince Lombardi and how times have changed regarding game day:
  • On Saturdays before Green Bay home games in the sixties, Red Smith and some of the New York columnists, and some of the rest of us coming in for the game from out of town, we would all go to Lombardi’s house for cocktails and hors d’ouevres. And he’d be there with a drink, as jovial and engaging and as wonderful a personality as you could imagine. Vince Lombardi! Entertaining the media the day before the game! Somebody would ask him about his preparation, and he’d say, ‘Hay’s in the barn, young man. Nothing I can do.’
• For some reason yesterday, I got really interested in the baseball attendance records for U.S. presidents.
• It’s “silly” presidential tidbits like this that I enjoy – Trump sticks with tradition for presidential pen choice
  • When he signs executive orders, Trump is using a Century II black lacquer and gold roller ball pen, made by manufacturer A. T. Cross. The Trump White House put in an initial order for 150 of the pens.
  • Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also used the Cross Townsend pen, although Obama later switched to the Century II. Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were also known to use Cross pens, however, the official Cross-White House program began under Clinton.
  • Trump, Obama and Bush use the medium felt tip refills — Bush in blue, Obama and Trump in black.
  • The Century II in black lacquer is available for purchase for the general public with an MSRP of $110 for the rollerball pen, plus the $6.50 felt tip refill.
    Cross sells the pen to the White House through a distributor in the Washington area, the spokesperson said. The distributor gets a discount, paying less than $50 per pen, although it was not immediately clear how much they charge the White House.
• This is an impressive young man – Va. student appointed to all 4 main US military academies
  • Being appointed to the United States Coast Guard Academy, the United States Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy and the United States Military Academy is a rare achievement. The Trinity Christian High School student told us that the accomplishment is “almost surreal.” But it is something this 18-year-old has been working toward since he was very young. “I would say when I was about 8 years old, there was a documentary on the History Channel talking about these four service academies and I thought to myself that day, I want to do that,” he recalled.
• I’ve been looking at some virtual reality apps on the Google Play store, but some of them are quite expensive. I recently discovered, and I guess iTunes has something similar, but if you don’t like the game, you can get a refund within 48-hours.
  • You may request a refund within 48 hours of the transaction if something you bought isn’t working, isn’t what you expected, was bought by accident, or you changed your mind about the purchase.
• Eleanor Roosevelt would have been a force on Twitter.

Eleanor Roosevelt raps JFK on knuckles after he complains about her public criticism, yesterday 1959: pic.twitter.com/ytinWG6Oec

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) January 30, 2017