When I see a wishing well now, I toss a coin in and hope that anyone would criticize Kentucky’s John Calipari for being a questionable head basketball coach. On Sunday, the Wildcats (32-2) won their 26th SEC Tournament title in a 75-74 overtime victory over Mississippi State. But, let’s remember that Calipari has a 1995-96 Final Four appearance – with Massachusetts – and a 2007-08 NCAA Championship runner-up – the Derrick Rose-led Memphis squad – vacated. The only time I’ve smelled anything fishier is when I caught a whiting over the summer.

I cannot emphasize enough how key reaching out to the community is for the future success of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Planning an event – although rain moved it inside – with owner Wayne Weaver and quarterback David Garrard in attendance was a must. Thursday’s Team Teal rally was a hit. I expect the Jaguars’ ticket sales “gas gauge” to increase throughout the off-season. Weaver should attend every event along with either Garrard or star running back Maurice Jones-Drew. And, stay to sign any and all autographs. I am deeming the next five months as “Reach Out 2010.”

In 2009, Jaguars players appeared in the community 516 times – including charity events, hospital and school visits. I do not think it is absolutely necessary to publicize charitable acts, but it needs to be noted. The Jaguars are out and about in the community giving their time and effort. Even though the team organizes a majority of the appearances, players still have to want to actually appear with smiles on their faces. Thanks to the Jaguars’ Ryan Robinson for the numbers.

Former Jaguars offensive tackle Tony Boselli has received a lot of heat recently for his comments at the Rotary Club of Jacksonville last week. Boselli, who has been mentioned as a potential candidate for mayor of Jacksonville, said, “Even if you don’t like football, if you’re in business in Jacksonville you need to support the Jaguars. It’s the duty of anyone who can afford season tickets to buy them.” Form your own opinion. Mine could start a brushfire.

The JU Dolphins will be making their second consecutive trip to the National Invitational Tournament. JU is scheduled to face Arizona State (22-10) on Tuesday night at 11 p.m. – it will be aired on ESPN2. If the Dolphins (19-11) defeat the Sun Devils, they will play the winner of the Seton Hall-Texas Tech game. Keep an eye out for JU guard Ben Smith. He needs 10 points to move past Ronnie Murphy to become JU’s second all-time scorer. This season, in person, Smith has been my favorite player to watch. I would move to whichever city he plays professional ball in just so I could see him play.

I met UNF athletic director Lee Moon for the first time on Saturday. There is no way the school could have hired anyone better. Not only does he know nearly everybody in the NCAA community, but he commands a room with his presence. Moon had answers to all of my inquiries. It was as if he had been handed my questions beforehand. I asked Moon whether he thought the UNF men’s basketball program can become the athletic team that will soon define Osprey athletics. He matter-of-factly stated, “I want to win at everything.” Confidence never hurt anybody. It’s interesting because I truly believe Moon.

Is it a faux pas to listen to NCAA basketball tournament games on the radio while I attend the River City Rumble between the JU and UNF baseball teams this Saturday, March 20?

——————————————

Richard Miller is a national broadcaster for Jacksonville Jaguars’ home games on Sporting News Radio. This Friday and Sunday, Richard will be covering the first-round NCAA Tournament games in Jacksonville for SNR.

Additionally, he can be heard on ABC 1320 WBOB in Jacksonville at 5:45 p.m. on Wednesdays with The Jacksonville Observer Radio Show. Richard also contributes to Inside the Game every Saturday from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. on WBOB.

Currently, Richard is writing David Lamm’s biography entitled Lamm at Large: The David Lamm Story, which will be available in 2010.

Follow Richard’s daily blog on The Jacksonville Observer and e-mail Richard at Richard.Miller@jaxobserver.com.

The back story on how the “Dancing With the Stars” and “America’s Funniest Videos” host wound up on “Castle” is as much fun as the episode sounds like it will be. Tom reminds that “DWTS” is the lead-in show for “Castle,” and that stars Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic have been in the audience of the live dance competition to promote their series. Bergeron’s become friendly with them. “I told Nathan I was a fan of ‘Firefly’ and introduced him to my wife,” he tells us.

“Independent of that, I ran into Jonathan Frakes and Genie Francis at the Starbucks near my house just about two weeks ago, after not having seen them for a couple of years. I told them I’d recommended them to our ‘Dancing With the Stars’ casting people because with Jonathan’s sci-fi background and Genie’s in soaps, they bring in two different fan bases.

“Then Jonathan said, ‘I can do you one better. I’ve been directing ‘Castle,’ and I’ve recommended you to the producers for an acting role.’”

One call led to another — ABC head honcho Steve McPherson was quick to get on board — and Bergeron wound up center stage in the episode, airing April 12, called “The Late Shaft,” with Fred Willard as his sidekick, and Bill Bellamy as his rival. Not only that, but all this camaraderie and mutual admiration has led to Bergeron serving as host of “An Evening With Castle” with the producers and cast tonight (3/16) at the Paley Center for Media in L.A. He’ll finish shooting his scenes as late-night comic Bobby Mann on Thursday (3/18), then go right into preps for the new “DWTS” season launch Monday (3/22).

Bergeron is excited not only by this season’s lineup of dance competitors — including Pamela Anderson, Niecy Nash, 80-year-old former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, pilot Jake Pavelka of “The Bachelor,” Olympic Gold Medal-winning figure skater Evan Lysacek, Erin Andrews of ESPN, Kate Gosselin and Pussycat Dolls leader Nicole Scherzinger. He’s also looking forward to getting in step with his new co-host.

Bergeron was in on the casting of Brooke Burke to replace departing Samantha Harris. “Brooke, based on everything — her experience doing live TV, not only as a host, but her unique experience on the show as someone who has won — was a slam dunk. It will undoubtedly feel different since Samantha and I did eight of the past nine seasons together, but I have no doubt it will be good.”

CAN YOU SAY ‘WORKAHOLIC’?: Five episodes into shooting the third season of “In Plain Sight,” star Mary McCormack says, “I could use some sleep. I’m not going to lie.” The “In Plain Sight” team keeps up an even more hectic pace than stars of broadcast network hour dramas, since the hit USA Network cable series is shot on a more compressed schedule. Add to that, she has her 5-year-old and 2-year-old daughters with her in Albuquerque, where the show headquarters — while her husband, producer-director Michael Morris, toils away in L.A. on his show, “Brothers and Sisters” — and it’s no wonder she’s sleep deprived.

“I don’t know how we’re doing it,” she says. “We haven’t had a vacation together, ever. Not one. One of us (is) always working. And we’ve been together almost 10 years. Last year for my birthday, we planned a whole thing on the Mexican Riviera. We had our plane tickets. Then the swine flu hit and we couldn’t go. Who knows? Maybe when our girls go to college, we’ll sit on a beach and do crosswords.”

Except for the swine flu, McCormack isn’t complaining, however. She’s actually all revved up about the new season, debuting March 31 — with guest stars including Donnie Wahlberg, Tess Harper, Allison Janney, Rita Moreno and Steven Weber. “It’s hard to walk that tightrope of doing a half-funny, half-dramatic hybrid. Sometimes we’ve gone too dark. I think it took us a while to figure out. But now we’ve got it. We’re doing it successfully. Our show has really grown up and gotten better and better,” she says. They also have a new director of photography, “and he’s making it look like a feature, He’s lighting it different. The tones and the color are different, more real. It’s the edgiest show on USA. Now the look matches the content.”

ON ANOTHER FRONT: “Psych” co-star Corbin Bernsen is busy, busy, busy. He’s wedged a couple of promotional events in between preps for his “25 Hill” labor of love — a movie he wrote and is producing. It’s based on the true story of a friendship between a boy who lost his military man father in Afghanistan, and an old veteran who lost his firefighter son in 9/11, and how the two team up to compete in a soap box derby. He’s wrapping up casting, with shooting to get under way before month’s end.

With reports by Emily-Fortune Feimster

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

What is Bunning doing that deserves such reproof? He has the audacity to stall a 30-day extension of unemployment and COBRA health care benefits on the grounds that the extension would add $10 billion to the federal deficit, which is already expected to hit $1.6 trillion this year. Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wants to pass that extension unanimously in order to expedite the process; Bunning has refused, correctly pointing out that the Democrats passed a “pay as you go” policy that was supposed to make spending deficit neutral, and that now they’re tossing that policy out the window for political convenience. Bunning has even suggested a way to make the extension deficit neutral: Take money out of the unspent chunk of the Obama stimulus package and use it to fund the extension. Democrats have refused.

Here’s the truth: Bunning is a hero and his senatorial critics are villains. That goes for Republicans as well as Democrats. Bunning’s opponents are liars and hypocrites of the highest order. The Democrats have no intention of lowering the deficit or abiding by “pay-go,” and this only proves it. President Obama set up a joke commission supposedly designed to restore fiscal responsibility (he appointed noted spendthrift and Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern), but at the same time, Obama’s mouthpiece, Robert Gibbs, is informing the American public that “This is an emergency situation. Hundreds of thousands have been left in the lurch … I don’t know how you negotiate the irrational.”

The Democrats and Republicans who oppose Bunning want fiscal responsibility, unless it actually requires them to act fiscally responsible. Unless it’s an “emergency.” Here’s the question: If we can’t trust legislators to be fiscally responsible during economic emergencies, how can we trust them to be fiscally responsible during economic swells?

But there’s something even more insidious going on here than simple political gamesmanship. Too many Americans now believe that the checks they receive every month from the unemployment office — like the checks they get from the welfare office, from Medicare, from Social Security — are inalienable rights. They are not.

Our politicians and our press have become too loose with “rights talk.” Everything is now a “right.” The “right” to work. The “right” to health care. The “right” to a own a home. Each and every one of these “rights” is actually a restriction on liberty.

Our Constitution provides for liberty because it focuses on true rights — negative rights. Negative rights are rights created by restraining others from treating you in a certain way. The right to free speech exists because we restrict the government from encroaching upon free speech. The right to bear arms exists because we restrict the government from taking away guns (or should, in any case). The right to life exists because we restrict citizens from murder.

Positive rights are something else entirely: They are rights created by forcing others to engage in certain behavior. The right to work, for example, requires someone else to give you a job. The right to health care requires someone else to provide health care for you. These are not true rights, but tyrannical impositions, taking from Party A and giving to Party B.

No country that focuses more on positive rights than negative rights can remain truly free for long. Negative rights provide a space in which individuals can pursue happiness; positive rights impose crushing burdens on some for the benefit of others.

Sen. Bunning is standing up for negative rights — the same underlying rights that provide the framework for our system of government. His opponents are standing up for positive rights, suggesting that some of us, the employed, owe something to the unemployed — or worse, that future generations owe something to today’s unemployed.

Everyone sympathizes with the unemployed, of course. But many of those who are living off the unemployment program affected by Bunning’s stand have been on the unemployment lines for over a year at this point — at minimum, everyone affected has been on unemployment for at least six months. We simply cannot keep extending unemployment benefits indefinitely by calling on imaginary “rights” derived from depriving others. That is not only a betrayal of those who must pay, but a betrayal of our founding principles.

Ben Shapiro, 26, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School. He is the author of the new book “Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House,” as well as the national bestseller “Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth.” To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM.

Say a person, let’s call him Harry, suffers from diabetes and he has no means to pay a laboratory for blood work, a doctor for treatment and a pharmacy for medication. Does Harry have a right to XYZ lab’s and Dr. Jones’ services and a prescription from a pharmacist? And, if those services are not provided without charge, should Harry be able to call for criminal sanctions against those persons for violating his rights to health care?

You say, “Williams, that would come very close to slavery if one person had the right to force someone to serve him without pay.” You’re right. Suppose instead of Harry being able to force a lab, doctor and pharmacy to provide services without pay, Congress uses its taxing power to take a couple of hundred dollars out of the paycheck of some American to give to Harry so that he could pay the lab, doctor and pharmacist. Would there be any difference in principle, namely forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another? There would be one important strategic difference, that of concealment. Most Americans, I would hope, would be offended by the notion of directly and visibly forcing one person to serve the purposes of another. Congress’ use of the tax system to invisibly accomplish the same end is more palatable to the average American.

True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another. In other words, my rights to speech or travel impose no obligations on another except those of non-interference. If we apply ideas behind rights to health care to my rights to speech or travel, my free speech rights would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with an auditorium, television studio or radio station. My right to travel freely would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with airfare and hotel accommodations.

For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, or any other good or service, whether a person can afford it or not, it must diminish someone else’s rights, namely their rights to their earnings. The reason is that Congress has no resources of its very own. Moreover, there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy giving them those resources. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces one to recognize that in order for government to give one American citizen a dollar, it must first, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.

To argue that people have a right that imposes obligations on another is an absurd concept. A better term for new-fangled rights to health care, decent housing and food is wishes. If we called them wishes, I would be in agreement with most other Americans for I, too, wish that everyone had adequate health care, decent housing and nutritious meals. However, if we called them human wishes, instead of human rights, there would be confusion and cognitive dissonance. The average American would cringe at the thought of government punishing one person because he refused to be pressed into making someone else’s wish come true.

None of my argument is to argue against charity. Reaching into one’s own pockets to assist his fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else’s pockets to do so is despicable and deserves condemnation.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

Globalists all, they rejected any federal measure to protect America’s industrial base, economic independence or the wages of U.S. workers.

Together they rammed through NAFTA, brought America under the World Trade Organization, abolished tariffs and granted Chinese-made goods unrestricted access to the immense U.S. market.

Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services has compiled, in 44 pages of charts and graphs, the results of two decades of this Bush-Clinton experiment in globalization. His compilation might be titled, “Indices of the Industrial Decline and Fall of the United States.”

From 2000 to 2009, industrial production declined here for the first time since the 1930s. Gross domestic product also fell, and we actually lost jobs.

In traded goods alone, we ran up $6.2 trillion in deficits — $3.8 trillion of that in manufactured goods.

Things that we once made in America — indeed, we made everything — we now buy from abroad with money that we borrow from abroad.

Over this Lost Decade, 5.8 million manufacturing jobs, one of every three we had in Y2K, disappeared. That unprecedented job loss was partly made up by adding 1.9 million government workers.

The last decade was the first in history where government employed more workers than manufacturing, a stunning development to those of us who remember an America where nearly one-third of the U.S. labor force was producing almost all of our goods and much of the world’s, as well.

Not to worry, we hear, the foreign products we buy are toys and low-tech goods. We keep the high-tech jobs here in the U.S.A.

Sorry. U.S. trade surpluses in advanced technology products ended in Bush’s first term. The last three years we have run annual trade deficits in ATP of nearly $70 billion with China alone.

About our dependency on Mideast oil we hear endless wailing.

Yet most of our imported oil comes from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Nigeria and Angola. And for every dollar we send abroad for oil or gas, we send $4.20 abroad for manufactured goods. Why is a dependency on the Persian Gulf for a fraction of the oil we consume more of a danger than a huge growing dependency on China for the necessities of our national life?

How great is that dependency?

China accounts for 83 percent of the U.S. global trade deficit in manufactures and 84 percent of our global trade deficit in electronics and machinery.

Over the last decade, our total trade deficit with China in manufactured goods was $1.75 trillion, which explains why China, its cash reserves approaching $3 trillion, holds the mortgage on America.

This week came a report that Detroit, forge and furnace of the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II, is considering razing a fourth of the city and turning it into farm and pastureland. Did the $1.2 trillion trade deficit we ran in autos and parts last decade help kill Detroit?

And if our purpose with NAFTA was to assist our neighbor Mexico, consider. Textile and apparel imports from China are now five times the dollar value of those imports from Mexico and Canada combined.

As exports are added to a nation’s GDP, and a trade deficit subtracted, the U.S. trade deficits that have averaged $500 billion to $600 billion a year for 10 years represent the single greatest factor pulling the United States down and raising China up into a rival for world power.

Yet, what is as astonishing as these indices of American decline is the indifference, the insouciance of our political class. Do they care?

How can one explain it?

Ignorance of history is surely one explanation. How many know that every modern nation that rose to world power did so by sheltering and nurturing its manufacturing and industrial base — from Britain under the Acts of Navigation to 1850, to protectionist America from the Civil War to the Roaring Twenties, to Bismarck’s Germany before World War I, to Stalin’s Russia, to postwar Japan, to China today?

No nation rose to world power on free trade. From Britain after 1860 to America after 1960, free trade has been the policy of powers that put consumption before production and today before tomorrow.

Nations rise on economic nationalism; they descend on free trade.

Ideology is another explanation. Even a (Milton) Friedmanite free-trader should be able to see the disaster all around us and ask: What benefit does America receive from these mountains of imported goods to justify the terrible damage done to our country and countrymen?

Can they not see the correlation between the trade deficits and relative decline?

Republicans seem certain to benefit from the nation’s economic crisis this November. But is there any evidence they have learned anything about economics from the disastrous Bush decade?

Do they have any ideas for a wholesale restructuring of U.S. trade and tax policy, for a course correction to prevent America’s continuing decline?

Has anyone seen any evidence of it?

Patrick Buchanan is the author of the book “Churchill, Hitler and ‘The Unnecessary War.” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

For years, liberals have imposed their revisionist history on our nation’s public school students, expunging important facts and historic figures while loading the textbooks with liberal propaganda, distortions and cliches. It’s easy to get a quick lesson in the virulent left-wing bias by checking the index and noting how textbooks treat President Ronald Reagan and Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

When parents object to left-wing inclusions and omissions, claiming they should have something to say about what their own children are being taught and how their taxpayers’ money is spent, they are usually vilified as “book burners” and belittled as uneducated primitives who should allow the “experts” to decide. The self-identified “experts” are alumni of liberal teachers colleges and/or members of a left-wing teachers union.

In most states, the liberal education establishment enjoys total control over the state’s board of education, department of education and curriculum committees. Texas is different — the Texas State Board of Education is elected, and the people (even including parents!) have a voice.

Texas is uniquely important in textbook content because the state of Texas is the largest single purchaser of textbooks. Publishers can hardly afford to print different versions for other states, so Texas curriculum standards have nationwide influence.

The review of social studies curriculum (covering U.S. government, American history, world history and economics) comes up every 10 years, and 2010 is one of those years. The unelected education “experts” proposed their history revisions, such as eliminating Independence Day, Christopher Columbus, Thomas Edison, Daniel Boone and Neil Armstrong, and replacing Christmas with Diwali.

After a public outcry, the SBOE responded with common-sense improvements. Thomas Edison, the world’s greatest inventor, will be again included in the narrative of American history.

Schoolchildren will no longer be misled into believing that capitalism and the free market are dirty words and that America has an unjust economic system. Instead, they will learn how the free-enterprise system gave our nation and the world so much that is good for so many people.

Liberals don’t like the concept of American exceptionalism. The liberals want to teach what’s wrong with America (masquerading under the code word “social justice”) instead of what’s right and successful. The SBOE voted to include describing how American exceptionalism is based on values that are unique and different from those of other nations.

The SBOE specified that teaching about the Bill of Rights should include a reference to the right to keep and bear arms. Some school curricula pretend the Second Amendment doesn’t exist.

Texas curriculum standards will henceforth accurately describe the U.S. government as a “constitutional republic” rather than as a democracy. The secularists tried to remove reference to the religious basis for the founding of America, but that was voted down.

The Texas Board rejected the anti-Christian crowd’s proposal to eliminate the use of B.C. and A.D. for historic dates, as in Before Christ and Anno Domini, and replace them with B.C.E., as in Before the Common Era, and C.E.

The deceptive claim that the United States was founded on a “separation of church and state” gets the ax, and rightfully so. In fact, most of the original 13 colonies were founded as Christian communities with much overlap between church and state.

History textbooks that deal with Joseph McCarthy will now be required to explain “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of Communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers are authentic transcripts of some 3,000 messages between the Soviet Union and its secret agents in the United States.

Discussions of economics will not be limited to the theories of Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes and Adam Smith. Textbooks must also include Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market theory.

History textbooks will now be required to cover the “unintended consequences” of Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. Textbooks should also include “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.”

Texas textbooks will now have to mention “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” instead of blaming society for everything and expecting government to provide remedies for all social ills.

It’s no secret that the people who control public schools are at war with our nation’s history, culture and achievements. Since taxpayers foot the bill, it is long overdue for a state board of education to correct many textbooks myths and lies about our magnificent national heritage and achievements.

After a public comment period, a final vote on the Texas standards is expected in May.

Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, conservative political analyst and the author of the newly revised and expanded “Supremacists.” She can be contacted by e-mail at phyllis@eagleforum.org. To find out more about Phyllis Schlafly and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

And based on two recent polls, Mr. Rubio has a lot to smile about.

I was able to attend Wednesday’s Rubio event, while my schedule prevented me from attending Crist’s. So I can only tell you what I saw firsthand at the South Beach Community Center in Jacksonville Beach.

The Wednesday crowd, estimated by some to be as high as 350, packed the meeting room to hear Marco Rubio speak. Many folks I talked with after the event said it was the first opportunity they’d had to hear him in person, and that was the case for me as well.  Mr. Rubio seemed to understand that, and the speech was very much one of introduction. He talked about why he chose to run for the U.S. Senate, and what are his core values. He took a couple of swipes at Governor Crist along the way, but only in the sense that focusing on expensive haircuts and alleged back-waxes are the sign of a campaign that’s struggling, and that’s a plausible assessment.

In the question and answer period, Mr. Rubio finally got into some specifics. Rubio said he favored the Fair Tax, but thinks it’s probably not realistic to think that it could be enacted, as it would require the total disbandment of the IRS … a notion that seemed very attractive to many of those in attendance.  He said rather that he hopes that a “fairer, flatter” income tax could be worked out, so that the average taxpayer could fill out a return “on a postcard.”

He also said he favored legal immigration, but that illegal immigrants should not receive any special treatment, again, a popular theme for those in the room.

But it was the energy of the campaign stop that seemed to be telling. Two recent polls show Former Speaker Rubio now leading Governor Crist by as many as 30 points, which represents a 60 point swing in the race from a year ago. The poll numbers, and a cheering crowd in an admittedly conservative area of the state, are likely very uplifting for Rubio, who is positioning himself to the right of Crist.

The Governor’s events were, by most reports, not as well attended.  Governor Crist’s flight to Jacksonville was delayed by weather, making him late to his first appearance at Bono’s on Norwood Avenue, and his town hall meeting with Representative Lake Ray reportedly had a lot of empty chairs.

A lot is made of momentum in a political campaign, and right now, it has all swung to Marco Rubio. The media has taken notice, and there are an increasing number of stories about GOP credit cards and other  starting to appear. One has to hope that the election will not turn on issues like haircuts and back waxes.  At a time when Florida needs thoughtful, intelligent representation in Washington, the debate should be about jobs, the federal deficit, taxes, and did I mention jobs?

Of course, many of us say that about every election, and we’re so often disappointed.

The Rubio campaign does have some questions to answer. If they are handled in a straightforward manner, he has a chance of putting those issues astern before the campaign runs its course. The five months between now and the primary election are both a lifetime and the blink of an eye, and while Rubio has the momentum now, as they say in the investment business, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

1. “Mixed Pairs Shoveling the Car Out of the Snow Sprint” — In this event, couples are given a shovel, an ice scraper, a parked car and 3 feet of snow. The first team to get their car out of a parking space and drive to work on time wins. Using your arms to push the snow off the hood of the car is legal, but any team caught cursing the snow or paying a next-door neighbor’s son to help them shovel is disqualified immediately.

2. “Combined Cross-Country Trudging Through the Snow to Run Errands and Help Their Kids Make A Snow Fort” — Olympians must trudge a half-mile through the snow to pick up the dry cleaning. Athletes may wear only standard rubber galoshes or work boots; no snowshoes or walking sticks are allowed. Anyone caught accepting a ride from a passer-by with a four-wheel drive will be disqualified. After picking up the dry cleaning, competitors must return home, hang up the dry cleaning, then go out to the front yard and help the kids with their snow fort. Strategies include deciding whether to eat a snack when you get home or going directly outside to get it over with.

3. “Team Snowball Fight” — Each country assembles a team of its five most tireless, vicious and aggressive snowball fighters. Most countries will find themselves with teams of teenage boys. The Team Snowball Fight will take place in the middle of a crowded street. Extra points are given for hitting opponents in the face, knocking an opponent over or catching a snowball and throwing it back without crushing it. Judges will give demerits for hitting innocent bystanders or passing cars — and double demerits and possible disqualification if either team hits an old lady.

4. “Team Pursuit Forcing Your Kids to Wear a Scarf Relay” — In this event, parents try to persuade their children to wear a scarf to “keep their necks warm.” Success will depend entirely on how well behaved and eager to please the children are. Popular tactics include telling your children that if they don’t wear a scarf they’ll “catch a cold” or, worse, “get the flu.” After one child has successfully been forced to wear a scarf, competitors move on the next.

5. “Men’s Combined Checking the Weather Report and Looking Outside to See if it’s Started Snowing Yet Slalom” — The winner in this event is the man who can check the weather report and look outside to see “if it has begun snowing yet” the most number of times in a two-hour period. Competitors may use all sources of information: Internet, TV, radio or almanac. Extra points are given for checking more than one source simultaneously.

6. “The 30K Drag Your Child Through the Slush on a Sled at 7 a.m. Run” — Each athlete will be given one sled, one child and 30 kilometers of slush. Great physical and mental stamina are required for this grueling event. Strategy includes talking to friends on your cell phone, drinking from a thermos filled with coffee to stay awake and occasionally trying to see if your dog is capable of dragging the sled while you take a breather.

7. “Outdoor Freestyle Taking Pictures of How Much Snow There is Medley” — Competitors are given a digital camera and 30 minutes to go outside and document how much snow has fallen. After the pictures have been taken, players e-mail the images to friends and relatives with captions like, “Can you believe this?” “The Abominable Snowman!” and “Ugh!”

(Michael Showalter is the guy behind the hit comedy film “Wet Hot American Summer,” as well as “The Michael Showalter Showalter” and numerous comedy productions.)

COPYRIGHT © 2010 MICHAEL SHOWALTER DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

The governor wants to close it. The Department of Corrections wants to close it. A business advisory group said to shut down the prison as soon as possible.

Yet, when a deal was reached last week on a $900 million budget deficit, the 148-year-old Nevada State Prison at Carson City had escaped the budget ax yet again. Instead, Nevada will raise fees on business, reduce education spending and raid accounts for environmental protection and other purposes.

The state’s opportunity to save $12 million had lost out to concerns about how the closing would affect guards who work there and the struggling economy of Carson City, the state capital. The survival of the 148-year-old prison is an example of how hard it is for government to operate with business-like efficiency, even when in dire financial need.

States across the USA are streamlining operations and reducing waste to cope with falling tax collections. They’re merging departments and centralizing purchasing. Connecticut even closed a prison.

Yet for every money-saving step, other actions – things businesses would do automatically – are left undone.

“The prison is a classic example,” says businessman Bruce James, chairman of the Nevada Spending and Government Efficiency Commission, a governor-appointed panel that’s advising the state on how to do more with less. “The union is opposed to closing the prison, and the Legislature doesn’t have the backbone to do it.”

The Nevada State Prison, one of the nation’s oldest, requires three times as many guards per inmate as a modern prison. “Electronic supervision is much tougher at an old prison, and things keep breaking down” says Nevada Department of Corrections spokeswoman Suzanne Pardee.

The state has built new facilities that can hold the old prison’s 800 inmates, but some of the 165 guards could lose their jobs or have to relocate to prisons far from Carson City.

“Even when the numbers make sense, you come up against the political side, and people ask, ‘Is there another way to save $12 million?’ ” Pardee says.

The union argued that state employees had sacrificed enough in earlier budget cuts. Carson City has been hit hard by the recession, even harder than the rest of Nevada.

The county’s unemployment rate was 12.7 percent in December, up from 9.0 percent a year earlier and 5.6 percent when the recession began.

Jobs are the area’s No. 1 political issue.

“I told everyone they needed to be very careful about closing that prison because while we want what’s best for Nevada, we also have to think about what’s best for the local economy,” says Carson City Mayor Bob Crowell, a lawyer. “That’s 136 jobs and 136 families that could be hurt.”

Rochester Institute of Technology professor William Johnson Jr., a former mayor of Rochester, N.Y., says government efficiency often collides with political reality. He has been a vocal advocate of governments consolidating operations to save money. “I can teach this as theory in class all day long, but take it out into the community, and you run into all kinds of obstacles,” Johnson says.

Nevada isn’t alone in failing to maximize efficiency.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to save $462,000 a year by eliminating state permits for child entertainers because school districts already issue similar permits.

The federal government still files tax liens by paper in 4,000 jurisdictions. Congressional advocates say filing the liens on a central Internet site would save more than $100 million a year.

Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, says big governments tend to be less efficient than small ones. He ranks the federal government as least efficient, followed by states and then local government.

Florida TaxWatch President Dominic Calabro says efforts to improve government efficiency often get caught in a clash between the cultures of business and politics.

“Government can be more business-like, but you have to understand that business doesn’t run based on statutes and laws. Government does,” Calabro says.

His group oversaw a task force that recommended more than $3 billion in cost-saving changes for Florida. Calabro expects two-thirds to be adopted. The key: The committee included leading elected officials of both parties, as well as business leaders.

“You have to write recommendations in the language and lore of legislative committees to get things done,” Calabro says. Otherwise, well-meaning business recommendations – such as centralizing purchasing or using office space more efficiently – won’t produce results, he says.

Ending wasteful practices can require crossing 635 lines out of budgets and various laws, Calabro says.

“You have to go after everything from 50 different directions. You have to surround it, quarter it, smother it, and then come back later to make sure it’s still dead,” he says.

New York state Sen. Joel Klein, a Democrat, is trying to change his state’s culture. He’s joined Republicans on a new anti-waste committee that’s tackling cost-saving measures that are hard to execute, such reducing unnecessary overtime and consolidating operations.

“Now is the time,” Klein says. “The old adage of ‘do more with less’ is here.”

Susan Urahn, head of the Pew Center on the States, a public policy research group, is optimistic that hard times will compel more efficient government, such as consolidating school districts and court systems. Better management is “not always the fun policy stuff. But if you get it right, it can take you far.”

The Afghan army and national police have lost 13,000 weapons, 200,000 rounds of ammunition, 80 vehicles and one pair of night vision goggles, members of a U.S. task force told USA TODAY.

All the gear was bought for the Afghans by Americans, part of $330 million in weapons purchases.

Most of the weapons have been seized from the Taliban or other insurgent forces.

The review by Joint Task Force 1228 deals with weapons lost or recovered in the past 11 months.

“Most of it comes off of dead bodies,” said Army Lt. Col. Michael Rayburn, who heads the task force.

The actual number of items unaccounted for will be larger, because guns and ammo have been handed over to the Afghans since 2002.

No U.S. deaths have been attributed to the weapons, but the military is aware that it may be facing its own weapons on the battlefield.

“No (American) wants to see their son or daughter killed by American weapons,” said Ken Feiereisen, a civilian working with the task force.

Last year, Congress began requiring American forces in Afghanistan to better track every bullet, M-4 assault rifle and Humvee purchased by U.S. forces after similar problems with missing weaponry in Iraq.

Members of Task Force 1228 sort through weapons that Afghan security forces have seized from insurgent compounds, discovered in bazaars, taken from illegal arms sellers or recovered after battles.

At least some of the weapons were sold to the Taliban by Afghan soldiers or police officers, Army Col. Thomas Umberg said. The task force is trying to instill accountability among Afghans, who are accustomed to using and trading the many weapons that have floated through this country over the decades.

Rayburn said Afghans did not see a need to keep close track of weapons.

“They thought they were just toys and that the Americans would just keep giving them toys,” he said.

“They’re starting to do formal reports of what happened to their equipment,” he said. “Now, if a Taliban is found with (a weapon), we can track who got it and work with the police or army to determine how it got in their hands.”