I'm usually a glass half-empty kind of a guy.
I have trained myself to hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.
But this Tuesday, as much as I am braced for the worst to happen, I can't see Willard "Mitt" Romney winning the presidential election.
President Obama has a lock on the electoral college and I wouldn't be shocked if he wins the popular vote by more than the pollsters are predicting.
Turns out the October Surprise was supplied by Mother Nature (nod to Rob Reiner on that one).
So, from me to you, here's hoping for the best.

So I walked into the newsroom this morning to find an editorial cartoon sitting on my desk.
It was called "The Ignorant Vote" and, at face value, looked like the one I chose to run as a complement to my column in The Times Herald Sunday.
But it was one intended to mock, or counter, the one we ran.
No one knows -- or wants to admit -- how it got to my desk. I suppose it once had legs and walked here.
Despite the similarities on the surface, there are two major differences.
The cartoon that ran in the paper was based on a real poll of voters in the only state that has four eyes but can't see: Mississippi.
Let's review:
-52 percent of Mississippi Republicans say President Obama is a Muslim (even if he was, so what?)
-12 percent say he is a Christian (52 plus 12 equals 64, so I would suppose the other 36 percent believe him to be Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist).
Following those numbers, again gleaned from an actual poll, the cartoonist from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch did a series of six boxes portraying a pollster talking with a yahoo.
The cartoon followed with six squares showing a Mississippian in overalls repsonding with the following:
-"Obama? He's a Muslim."
-"He's that feller that attacked us on 9/11!"
-"And you say he's the president?!?"
-"You must think I'm pretty stupid."
-"I know for a fact he is not the president."
-"Obama is dead! They buried him at sea last year."
Not hilarious, but it worked -- particularly in the context of a point I made in my column that you can judge a candidate, Rick Santorum, by the company he keeps (or gets votes from).
The intended "gotcha" on my desk was based on a conjured, hate-mongering "fact": 90 percent of city dwelling urban voters pull 'D' lever because they are told to or just want free money.
It then follows with the following responses (not altered, meaning the yahoo -- not an urbanite -- is doing the answering):
-"Obama? He's on the Iggles, right?"
-"Ya, I'm votin' for him. Free money man!"
-"He hangs out with Clooney and Jay-Zee -- cool, dude."
-"Democrats are always for us working guys."
-"Job ... no man, it's too much like work, dude."
-"Got to go, girlfriends in a bad mood and big game's on."
Before I had chance not to laugh, I read the writing below:
"Reality check ... People who live in glass houses ..."
Shouldn't throw apples?
Certainly not when we're not talking apples to apples.
One cartoon was founded in fact, the other -- if it counts as a cartoon -- on prejudice.

Rooting for Newt Gingrich - who just took Georgia - on this "Super" Tuesday laden with underwhelming candidates.

Why?

Need to keep this thing in chaos.

Politics makes strange bedfellows (no, Rick Santorum, I'm not talking about gay marriage).

Since the mind the average right-wing loon only grasps so much, Newt Gingrich knew what he was doing when he tried to make himself relevant again by lambasting President Obama for apologizing for the burning of the Koran by U.S. servicemen (or women).
As the miscalculated Iraqi War reveals (people dying daily since we "freed" them), throwing a blanket over all of Islam is a dangerous game (witness the protests around the world, even from Muslims who didn't previously have an anti-West sentiment).
We are in Afghanistan, in part, to free the masses of the clutches of the anti-west, terror-minded Taliban.
If the Taliban had a flag -- and I'm sure they do -- there would be no apology for burning it or turning into a role toilet paper.
Burning anything else Taliban related -- assuming it was not something needed to intelligence -- there would be nary a peep from the White House.
Burning the Koran is different. Obama knows it, and so does Gingrich.
Gingrich also knows how to sing a lullaby to his base; how to lead his choir in a nonsensical hymn.
For that, he should apologize.
Obama? I think the proof is in the pudding.
When it comes to dealing with radical Islam, he has made no apologies.

Welcome back, readers.
Sorry it has been so long.
I also want to say welcome back to defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins, who will be returning to the Eagles nest.
There was some talk in recent weeks -- talk that had me quite mortified -- that the penny-wise, dollar-foolish Birds were going to not keep Jenkins, one of the few newcomers from the free agency frenzy who earned his keep last season, because of a roster bonus.
You can add but subtract in sports, but not in this case.
Asante Samuel, that's another story ...

If you are still frustrated about the Studio Centre movie studios filed in the burgeoning phone-book-sized volumes of recent Norristown missed opportunities, fret not.

A movie -- "Silver Linings" -- was being filmed today on the grounds of the Norristown State Hospital.

It must be a big deal, because it stars Bradley Cooper. While I wouldn't know Cooper if he walked up and punched me in the nose, I'm told he is a big star with Montgomery County roots.

The plot of the movie is apparently that of a former teacher, Cooper, who comes home to live with his mother after spending time in a mental institution.

I wish the makers of the film would have reached out earlier. If they wanted to tape a scene in a real live nuthouse, we could have taken care of them here in our newsroom.

Upon further review, Amanda Knox and her one-time boyfriend, Raffaelle Sollecito, are not guilty in the brutal murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher in the Bohemian Italian town of Perugia.

Sadly, there are so many unanswered questions.

Not that I really care about a case that got too much media coverage when crimes like this happen all the time, but I couldn’t even tell you if Knox and friend got off on a technicality or were railroaded from the jump.

All the American media coverage was about how her “four-year nightmare is over” and how she is “free to go home.”

Check out the BBC or CNN International coverage, and the slant was much different (Kercher was British). It was more about the victim, her family, an unsolved crime and the fact those at least partially responsible were allowed to walk.

But no network really broke down the crime itself, at least not in a coherent fashion, and instead took the easy road of focusing more on the immediate reaction and hyperbole.

My years of training from watching old-time detective/police shows tells me that Knox and Sollecito were not involved in the murder, and that Rudy Guede (serving a 16-year term, which was less than Knox’s before it was overturned) acted alone or with someone yet unknown.