Your Morning Sift

Good morning.

There's a lot of commentary on President Obama's speech floating around the SoFla blogosphere this morning. Here's that and a little more in this Hump Day morning Sift...

A- Some Cranky Guy says we should all lighten up. Things aren't that bad, he said this morning as he prepared to head out to his job.

During the Great Depression, unemployment rose to 23.6%.

Today we are heading to 8% and it is likely we will hit 9% in the summer. But we are a long, long way from 23.6%.

B- Jeff Eats says that Nunzio's on Bird Road is worth a visit.

Let’s talk food…dynamite. Numzio’s got loads of appetizers, soups, salads, pastas, pizzas and meat-seafood-chicken entrees and desserts…before I go any further, make sure that you finish your meal off with Nunzio’s “ZUPETTA” a home made-tiramisu like concoction, absolutely incredible.

A recent outing had me doing a “basic” food taste…you know, pizza, lasagna, baked zita, gnochhi, veal parm…this stuff is terrific. I am telling you, YOUR favorite “mom & pop” joint doesn’t come even close to Nunzio’s stuff.

C- Miami Condo Investments shares some relatively pedestrian photos of some condos in downtown Miami.

D- Bark Bark Woof Woof posts a nice review of President Obama's speech last night.

Some pundits compared Mr. Obama's delivery to that of Ronald Reagan with its upbeat tone and celebrities in the gallery, but where Mr. Reagan handed out nostalgic nostrums and relied on his charm to get things done without bothering with the policy details, Mr. Obama was more specific than Mr. Reagan and didn't hold back in telling us that the only way things are going to get better is if we all pitch in. Whereas Mr. Reagan relied on a belief in the passive and inherent goodness of America -- something the Republicans talk about but don't really trust -- Mr. Obama made it clear that we have a lot of work to do and that he had every confidence that we can do it. That wasn't Ronald Reagan; that was Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Those are big footsteps to follow, but this president gave every indication that he -- and we -- are up to the task.

E- And Reidblog tackles the weak Republican response.

He looked shell shocked. He spoke in a monotonous, hokey voice, that reminded me of one of those old fashioned "Your body and you" films we were forced to watch in seventh grade. And that accent! I mean, the guy sounded like an Indian Barney Fife! But what was truly lame about Bobby Jindal's response to President Obama's commanding address tonight was the content. In short: there was none.

Jindal invoked Hurricane Katrina (which caused billions of federal dollars to be sucked into his state) to pooh-pooh government spending. He then waxed creepy, referring to an "old saying" about half of Louisiana being "under water" and the other half being "under indictment." Sorry, but even so many years after Katrina, that under water sh*t's [Ed.] just not funny, man.

F- For their part, babalu never did get around to offering their opinion on last night's speech. *


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* Parody.


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