So there was another GOP debate last night. Aside from the constant stream of commentary that was flying by on Twitter, I didn’t pay much attention to it. NPR, however, had some coverage this morning, and played a snippet of Romney and Santorum fighting with another over who had the better record regarding earmarks.

After a somewhat rambling and not entirely unreasonable response from Santorum about good earmarks v. bad earmarks, Romney came back with this gem (from CNN’s transcript of the debate):

ROMNEY: I didn’t follow all of that, but I can tell you this — I would put a ban on earmarks. I think it opens the door to excessive spending, spending on projects that don’t need to be done.

I think there are a lot of projects that have been voted for. You voted to the “Bridge to Nowhere.” I think these earmarks, we’ve had it with them.

Let’s leave aside, for the moment, the fact that earmarks are, as John King pointed out before asking his original question, a vanishing small portion of the total federal budget. Let’s also ignore the fact that “earmarks” mostly tend to be money spent on stuff in other people’s Congressional districts, certainly not the obviously necessary funding for your local development project.

No, let’s just focus on this question: How the hell would a President “put a ban on earmarks”? Am I missing something? They are part of legislation considered and voted on by Congress. Is there any option for the President aside from vowing to veto any bill that contained anything he considered an “earmark”?

I learned on the radio this morning that today is Buddy Tate’s birthday. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that until today, I did not actually know who Buddy Tate was. That situation has now been remedied

They YouTube pickings are somewhat thin, but here’s a sample:

Fortunately, Spotify has a better selection, although still not particularly large.

I guess the promise of online advertising is supposed to be that, by looking at my cookies and tracking my browsing habits, marketers will be able to show me ads that are relevant to me. That sounds great! Sign me up!

On the other hand, we get dire predictions that this sort of tracking will allow evil and all-powerful corporations to track and predict our every movement. “While we would like to offer you the position, I’m afraid we can’t due to the website you visited last Tuesday night…”

Unsurprisingly, reality seems to be somewhere in the boring middle. I bought a new Roku box last weekend, and now I see ads for Roku everywhere I go. Good work, guys–advertising dollars well spent!