Today is March 17th. Today is St. Patrick’s Day, in honor of the bishop and missionary who died on this date in 461. In the U.S., the first St. Patrick’s Day parade took place in Boston, in 1737. The first New York City celebration of the holiday took place in 1756. The first person to get drunk and throw up on the holiday was everyone. Also on this date, in 1942, General Douglas MacArthur became Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Pacific theater. His corncob pipe was appointed assistant to the supreme commander. And finally, in addition to St. Patrick’s Day, today is also National Corndog Day. So there’s that. Consider this an Open Thread.

What if the Left is just one Potemkin Village after another? | Mark Tapscott
“Yet, by maintaining the fiction of independence from one and other, they appear to much of the press to be a pack of scrappy underdogs sinking their teeth into the ankles of the big-money men.”

Study: Feds Approving Fewer Oil and Gas Leases | Heartlander
“The number of oil and gas leases granted by the federal government in the western United States declined by 44 during the first two years of the Obama administration versus the last two years of the Bush presidency, according to a new study prepared for the American Petroleum Institute (API) by EIS Solutions.”

Obama campaign film contains $25 billion error on auto bailouts | Raw Story
“But it’s not all roses for team Obama: part of the film contains a gross inaccuracy. Specifically, it claims that General Motors (GM) has fully repaid its federal bailout loan. It has not — meaning the documentary contains a $25 billion error.”

Today’s Word of the Day comes via Dictionary.com
selcouth (SEL-kooth): adjective Strange; uncommon.