I heard the sad news that a founding member of the band The Band died. I must admit I don't know the band The Band. I am no expert on music but I would think that if your band is named The Band, then you better be so good that everybody knows who you are. I mean a band that represents a city, state or the whole country should be quite famous. America, Chicago, Boston and Alabama, for example, are all well known bands. Young people hearing John Denver singing "Rockey Mountain high" must think that Denver represented Colorado, even though he was not from there until late in life. So when you hear the band The Band, it has to be the band of all bands.

Of course there are examples of total arrogance. I see many French restaurants named Le Cafe. They can't all be THE Cafe! Are they telling us their cafe is better than all others? They can't all be right. Then there is Le Petit Cafe near my house. Talk about lack of self-esteem. Can't they think of a better original name than to be someone elses' smaller version? Standford has the gall to call themselves The Cardinal, not cardinals. THE Cardinal usually mean the Pope. Does Stanford think they are the most powerful school of the NCAA? Then there was that movie called "The Doctor". Come on, there are thousands of us who are quite good, nobody can't be the ONE. Why not just call it "The Movie"?

OK, enough ranting for no reason. I forgot to rank college hockey last time. I would rate it just below world class soccer. I agree that a lot depends if I have a team to root for so those are rankings based on no particular team I am rooting for. I did not know George Takei has same birthday as Hitler!

No major story to get excited about for me lately. So I will just rant about a few things.

Romney accuses Obama of anti-women because the great majority of jobs lost during the past 3 years were held by women. Of course Romney discounts the fact that the first jobs lost during the recession were in manufacturing and construction which were jobs mostly held by men. Since then, due to the deficit, lot of government jobs in teaching, clerical and nursing were lost. Those jobs were overwhelmingly held by women. Now I thought Romney and the Republicans want to cut government jobs. So they were rooting for more women to lose their jobs? Also a lot of blacks lost government jobs and the unemployment rate is much worse for them. Is Romney going to say that Obama is anti-black now?

Secret service agents caught taking prostitutes to their room while on the road with the president! The oldest trick in the world for spies to get info from the other side is using the seduction by women. So these knuckleheads put the president and national security in great danger. My question, besides what the hell are they thinking, is that is this an isolated incident or just happen to be the one time they are caught? I think the latter!

The GSA is caught have a "conference" in Vegas for $800,000 of taxpayers' money. My question is that is this an isolated incident or just happen to be the one time they are caught? I think the latter!

Obama proposes the Buffet rule which was dead on arrival. The same with whatever tax cuts the Republicans propose. Let's be serious, both sides. We need to get rid of the stupid tax code we have. Just have a flat tax, no deductions, no loopholes. Having benefited from deduction for my children all these years, I never understood why you get a deduction for having children. Nor do I understand why we get a deduction for our mortgages. I don't understand why $800,000 "conferences" are deductible for private businesses either. Get rid of all these. You can make a tax code on couple of sheets of paper! Do what Hong Kong did (I don't know if this is still true under China rule), a flat tax and tax the hell out of luxury items like Rolls Royces.

Hockey, to me, is the most uncivilized of the major sports. Football is violent but you are hitting during the course of action. If you fight or hit someone after the whistle, you get penalized. In hockey after the whistle the players will still hit each other. Unless they drop the gloves and fight, no penalty is called. And even when there is fighting for several minutes, nobody gets ejected. In any other sports, including football fights like that would lead to automatic ejection and suspension. Are the hockey players more temperamental? It just seems to me they are out of control as human beings and the league encourages this behavior.

I welcome any comment to these few rants and any other rants that you may have!

Rick Santorum has quit before the Pennsylvania primary. I had predicted that this may well happen because there was a good chance that he would lose Pennsylvania. If he had lost his home state, not only was he finished for this election but maybe out of any future election as well. Remember he had lost his senate reelection bid in 2006 by a wide margin. So it was not like he was popular even within his own state. That is why he surprised many people, including myself when he came in second in this nomination campaign. By dropping out now after a relative good showing, he can claim to be the torch bearer for the conservative wing of the Republicans in 2016. Like Romney, who came in second in 2008, Santorum may well get the support of the Republican establishment in 2016. This is assuming that Romeny will lose to Obama, which I am sure Santorum is counting on. So this is an expected and good move for Santorum. And if he was to lose Pennsylvania, then his career in national politics would have been over.

My question now is would conservatives hate Romney so much that they run behind Gingrich and help him win Texas? Now that would be an embarrassment for Romney and a disaster for the Republican establishment!

A few comments about recent competitions in the news. Kentucky wins men's basketball tournament. With no underdog in the final four, I didn't really care who wins. But given the number of one and out players on Kentucky this year and recently, I would say KU is my least favorite. Well, I guess the team with the best players did win this year.

Baylor wins the woman's tournament tonight. Am I the only one who thinks that Griner looks and sounds more manly than the other Baylor stars, including RG IIII? Compare to other women, Griner is a cross between Yao Ming and Dwight Howard, the tallest and most athletic center.

Mitt Romney's win in Wisconsin tonight pretty much sewed up the nomination. Rick Santorum insists that he is staying in. But if polls show that Romney passes him up in Pennsylvania, I think Santorum will quit before that primary to prevent the embarrassment of losing in his home state.

Tiger is back. I predict a Masters win for him this weekend!

My favorite sports to play when I was young were basketball and tennis. This explains my lack of dancing ability. Monica Seles, Meta World Peace and now Martina Navrotilova were all the first star to exist from the DWTS. If I had actually gone into speed skating, gymnastics or figure skating, my dance ability would be a lot better. Jack Wagner going out the second week and Missouri losing in the first round, maybe I have jinxed Tiger!