SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET:

GREAT GAME – Wasn't the Super Bowl game great?  That ending was right out of Hollywood.  Both teams, the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, were excellent, but I'm kinda glad that the Patriots won.  Seattle won last year, but I don't know whether there was a celebration in Seattle, one of the most left-wing cities in America.  Were they ashamed to celebrate?  Did they think victory meant they'd become imperialist warmongers?  Or maybe they celebrated by throwing tofu parties and planting organic marijuana.  We have many readers in Seattle.  Please fill me in.

PANIC, INC. – Do you have the feeling that we get many wildly exaggerated weather stories?  Well, you're right.  From droyspencer.com:  "The numbers are in at the National Climate Data Center, and out of the top 55 snowstorms impacting the major population centers of the Northeast U.S., the January 2015 blizzard that blasted Boston ranked #41, or a weak 'Category 2.'   It’s not clear that more snowstorms in recent decades aren’t just from a slight shift in the storm track bringing Northwest Atlantic winter storms (of which there are many…Greenland routinely gets clobbered) closer to New England."  It's snowing right now where we are, with predictions of 4-9 inches.  We'll see if it happens.   There hasn't been any plowing yet, and there usually is.  I think the cities, having been the victim of a number of exaggerated forecasts, are trying to save some money by waiting to see how serious the snowfall actually becomes.

AGGRESSIVE RUSSIANS – From London's Express:  "A RUSSIAN bomber intercepted over the Channel last week was carrying a nuclear missile designed to destroy Trident submarines, it emerged last night.  RAF Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled on Wednesday after two long-range TU-95 'Bear' bombers were detected flying over the English Channel.  The incident was last night described as 'yet another in a series of deliberately provocative' measures by President Vladimir Putin which confirmed that Nato’s status had moved firmly from 'rival to adversary'.  Sources within the Ministry of Defence last night revealed that one of the two long-range bombers was carrying at least one air-dropped 'seek and find' nuclear warhead-carrying missile, designed to seek and destroy a Vanguard submarine."  Guess the reset with Moscow didn't exactly work.  Obama will blame Bush.

February 1,  2015