BarbaWire, Feb. 3

You Are No Lil' Wayne, Sir
It is all politics today, so let’s start with something stupid. We need someone to laugh at.

Enter Jerome Smith. The 27-year-old was arrested in Ohio earlier this week on battery charges – he pistol whipped a pregnant lady! Not cool. Anyway, this dude looks like he got into a major fight with a tattoo needle and very clearly lost. Loser.
Story time! This reminds me of being in Dublin, Ireland circa 2002. We went to the Guinness factory and a friend of mine bought a hoodie that he thought said Guinness. It didn’t, it said genius. As in the old campaign: Guinness, Pure Genius. The genius returned the hoodie.

Foot in Mouth for Kenneth Cole

Today Kenneth Cole posted a tweet to promoted his Spring line that not only mentioned the Egypt situation, but he used the Egypt hash tag. For you non-tweeps, hash tags are essentially a cataloging tool for things of the same ilk. So, while people are tweeting, "People are dying in #Egypt," KC is using it to advertise.

For what it’s worth, he did issue an apology today that seemed pretty heartfelt. More.
Still, now I have a legitimate reason to dislike him, rather than his inability to stop making both genie and square-toed shoes.

Should He Stay or Should He Go Now?
President Hosni Mubarak granted reporter Christiane Amanpour an interview today, where he told her that he would step down right now if he didn’t think his whole country would turn to chaos and the Muslim Brotherhood would seize power. That could be bad.
Later in the day, news began to circulate that the Obama Administration was helping to devise a plan for Mubarak to resign now, but turn power over to VP Omar Suleiman. He would run the country through the election in September. More.

Century Club
President Ronald Reagan would have turned 100 this Sunday. My feelings are mixed about Reagan. From one side, who can’t feel some love for the guy that played a major part in ending the cold war? Those bomb drills in elementary school freaked me out! On the other side, he caught a major side eye from me when I saw footage of him eating grapes with a very smug look on his face while United Farm Workers co-founder Cesar Chavez was on a hunger strike for migrant farm workers’ rights.
Anyway, this is a great article that shows three discrete views of The Gipper. Read
Oh, and I can’t think of Reagan without thinking about this. Ahhh.

Shocking!

I have less conflicting feelings about President George W. Bush, but I did really like his approach to immigration reform. President Bush recently said that he is worried the country's attitude is becoming increasingly nativist.
Oh, really?? You don't say.