News Headline: “Lying less linked to better health, study finds.”
News Headline: “2012 presidential candidates’ healthy routines.”
Might we suggest one additional routine?

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News Headline: “Ryan gets first full day on campaign trail, energizes crowds and Romney.”
A fresh start, and we move on.
QT isn’t giving even a second thought to Mitt Romney’s tax returns.
What do you think he’s hiding from us, anyway?

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News Headline: “White House is determined to destroy America.”
News Headline: “Republicans are out to destroy America.”
News Headline: “Republicans are helping Obama destroy America.”
We take our bipartisanship where we can find it.

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Gene Christianson, an Overland Park, Kan., regarding reports of assaults with a banjo and a ukulele, reminds us that the attackers gave in to their bassist instincts.
But M.G., a Chicago reader, thinks the attackers were looking for treble.
Or… .

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News Item (1996): Helium Privatization Act signed into law, turning helium production over to private industry.
News Item (2012): Helium shortage continues to worsen across the nation.
So we won’t be able to release a lot of balloons to celebrate Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare.

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We Have Seen the Present, and It Does Not Work:
Some airlines have stopped allowing single men to be seated next to children, citing a need to “minimize risk.”

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News Item: Internal Republican memo is leaked instructing candidates to avoid using the words “privatize,” “entitlement reform” and “every option is on the table.”
Almost a challenge, isn’t it?
The trick is to use Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, “privatize,” “entitlement reform” and “every option is on the table” in a single sentence.
And let’s add “tax return,” while we’re at it.

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Rush Limbaugh on the Democratic talking points:
“How do you fight propaganda? You gotta turn into a propagandist yourself and you’ve got to abandon the truth. Some of us don’t know how to do that.”
Someone is being modest.
No one is better at fighting propaganda than Rush Limbaugh.

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News headline: “Lake in France turns blood red.”
In other developments:
+ The Rapture Index at www.raptureready.com, which measures the progression of end-time prophecy according to world events, has stayed for two weeks at a record high of 184.
+ The number of Google hits for “tap-dancing militant Islamic fundamentalists” has risen suddenly from 1,210 to 1,310.
Plan accordingly.

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QT Erly Warnin Systm:
Resirchers r findin dat ppl hu txt 2much ca deve “txtN thum”— a 4m of tendnitis.
So b careful ot der.

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News Headline: “Smartphone navigation blamed as mountain rescue crews help 18 people in four days.”
News Headline: “Smartphone app could be used to drive cars.”
What could possibly go wrong?

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E. Hinsch, a Columbia, S.C., reader, regarding QT’s search for a good Illinois joke to go with the Iowa and Wisconsin and Indiana jokes, writes:
“You know how Chicago was founded, right? Some guys were sitting around in New York City and one says, “Ya know, we’re enjoying all the corruption, crime and pollution here, but it just isn’t cold enough.’ “
All right. A South Carolina joke:
Q. Who are South Carolina’s governor and senators?
A. Nikki Haley, Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham.
Almost a classicjoke, if QT does say so itself.

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Ralph Nader regarding Wall Street financial practices:
”The owners, employees and creditors of these institutions are rewarded when they succeed, but it is all of us, the taxpayers, who are left on the hook if they fail. This is called private profits and socialized risk. Heads, I win. Tails, you lose. It is a reverse Robin Hood system …''
Then again, what do you expect from–
No. Wait.
Those are the words of David Einhorn, founder and president of the Greenlight Capital hedge fund.
Sorry.

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From the QT Archive of Knowledge:
+ Moliere’s father was an upholsterer.
+ A baseball has 108 stitches.

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Today’s Birthdays: “Siegfried,” 136; “Over the Rainbow,” 73.

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QT Grammar R Us Seminar on the English Language:
Mary Lu Larsen, an East Hazel Crest reader, wants you to know that “short-lived” rhymes with “high-fived.”
And QT wants you to know that “dour” rhymes with “fewer.”
And “scone” rhymes with “gone.”
And can we remind ourselves too often that “err” rhymes with “fur”?
QT will continue to inveigle here.
Which rhymes with “beagle.”

Write to QT at qt@wbez.org
QT appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.