Sarah Palin is the gift that just keeps on giving.

The former half-term Alaska governor went to the Tea Party Convention in Nashville and blasted President Obama for, among other things, his generous use of a TelePrompter.

Then, during a Q&A, she sneaked a peek at her hand while responding to a question about her vision for America. It seems she didn’t need a TelePrompter; no, she needed crib notes scribbled on her hand to remind her of the talking points all of us out here in Flyover Country thought she had memorized by now.

That’s what we get for thinking, yes?

Why all the hoo-ha over this? Well, no one would have said a thing had she shown up with note cards to which she could refer. Instead, she tried a little sleight of hand to hide the crib notes. What would President Reagan — one of Palin’s alleged heroes — have thought of that? The late president was well-known for his use of note cards. But he surely knew how to communicate verbally in public when he spoke about the principles upon which he stood.

Thanks again, Gov. Palin, for the good laugh. Many of us need it right about now.

I’m listening to non-stop (seemingly) coverage of the East Coast snowstorm. Then it hit me: The snow that blanketed Washington, New York and all the points between those points has hit the newscasters where they live, literally.

Thus, their local story becomes a national story. I get that.

It’s interesting how relatively little coverage those folks gave the snowstorm that pounded the middle of the country — from New Mexico, to the Panhandle and into Oklahoma. Sure, they reported it with a two-minute segment before moving on to other stories.

But the East Coast storm is a “big deal,” as one Denver-born talking head on MSNBC said this morning.

Thirty inches of snow surely is a major event, no matter where it falls. But I’m struck by the attention the broadcasters are giving this story. It affects them right there, given that the broadcast and cable networks are HQ’d in Washington and New York.

We feel your pain.

Someone once offered a quip about weather forecasters. It goes something like this: How is it that meteorologists can be so wrong so often, but still keep their jobs?

I laughed when I heard it — and I’ve been repeating it ever since.

But I have to hand the weathermen and women this one: They’ve gotten our winter weather just about right.

I had heard some months ago that the National Weather Service had predicted a wetter-than-normal winter for the Texas Panhandle. The Farmer’s Almanac had said much the same thing. National Public Radio was reporting it, too.

Last night’s snowfall is expected to be followed by more snow over the weekend.

El Nino is back in action off the Pacific Coast, and it’s driving storm systems this way — after pounding the dickens out of California, Oregon and Washington.

So, the past few days have caused considerable discomfort for us city slickers, while bringing smiles to the farmers — especially the dryland folks — who always welcome moisture. And they’ve gotten a lot of it in the past week. I haven’t heard anyone complain yet about getting “too much rain.” Those who live in a region — such as the Panhandle — that averages about 20 inches of rain annually never should gripe when precipitation keeps falling.

But the weather folks had told us this would transpire. My wife and I usually just smirk when we hear such things, believing that if you say something enough times that sooner or later, it comes true.

Well, this time they got it right.

Those of us who get pounded by those who disagree with us or who believe we are wrong about anything appreciate getting a good word it’s deserved.

Nice going.

Are you kidding me?

Turf Monsters or Venom? One of these two names will be hung on the Amarillo professional indoor football team before too long.

Surely we could have done better than that.

The Dusters name has been cast aside because of some contractual stipulation that prevents the team from keeping it. So, the organization asked fans to come up with a new moniker.

The team has settled on two “finalists.”

I’ll concede that perhaps one can get used to whatever name emerges as the winner — although I’m having trouble imagining how I’m going to ever like either name.

How do you characterize “Venom”? And just what does a “Turf Monster” look like?

Sheesh! I think we need to start over on this one.

I have lived in three cities in my life: my hometown of Portland, Ore., Beaumont, Texas and now, Amarillo.

Of the three, Amarillo is by far the best-prepared-for-snow-and-ice community of them all. The comparison to Beaumont probably is ludicrous, given that the Golden Triangle city hardly ever gets snow. When it does snow there — which it did once during our time there — the city becomes paralyzed. Portland does get snow most winters. Sometimes it’s severe, as it was during the winter of 1968-69, when I was home for Christmas leave from the Army and spent virtually the entire time cooped up at home with my parents. Man, what a blast that was. But when a major snowfall blankets Portland, that city seems woefully ill-prepared to cope.

Amarillo is different.

This morning, I pulled out of my house expecting to be slipping and sliding all the way downtown — about a six-mile drive. It didn’t happen.

Every major thoroughfare I traveled — Coulter, 45th, Western and Plains — had been cleared of snow by the plows. I looked up on Interstate 40 and saw traffic moving nicely along the highway. Sand trucks had passed through several intersections. A good friend told me he heard the plow trucks moving past his Paramount Boulevard home in the wee hours.

So, I take my hat off to the city for keeping at least my own path to work clear this morning.

It’s good to be so well-prepared.

Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards is a serial liar — who came within just a few thousand votes of becoming vice president of the United States.

He cheated on his cancer-stricken wife with a woman who worked as a videographer for his campaign. He lied about the affair to his wife and to the inquiring media, only to admit that he did have such an affair. Then he denied being the father of the woman’s baby daughter, only to admit that, yep, he’s the daddy. He reportedly pleaded with a former staffer and friend to cover it up, professing his love for his ailing wife and saying he wanted to protect her from all this bad publicity.

And all the while, Edwards was presenting himself to his adoring supporters as a dedicated family man, devoted to his wife and children and a champion of the concerns of ordinary Americans.

That might be the most important lie of all.

The word this week is that Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, have separated. Imagine that.

But now get this: The 2004 presidential election, in which Edwards ran on the Democratic ticket as the vice presidential nominee, came within a whisker of electing Sen. John Kerry as president — and Edwards as the VP.

The election came down to who would win Ohio’s 20 electoral votes. President Bush ended up winning that state by 158,000 votes out of more than 5.6 million votes cast. That means a swing of 79,000 votes to Kerry and Edwards and Ohio’s electoral votes go into the Democrats’ column. Thus, Kerry and Edwards win with 271 electoral votes to 267 for Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — which would have been nearly identical to Bush’s razor-thin winning Electoral College margin in the 2000 election.

Edwards’ fellow Democrat, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, had it right this week. Edwards is “disgusting.”

The story published the other day about residents complaining about the manure smell in southeast Amarillo reminded me of when I first arrived in Texas way back in 1984.

My already long list of pet peeves is getting even longer.

I got stopped yet again today by a traffic signal that, 99 percent of the time, serves no purpose.

It’s on Buchanan Street, between the Amarillo Civic Center and the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts. The only entry onto the street at the light is a driveway from the Performing Arts center parking lot. This was around 11 a.m. today. Nothing was going on at the center. Thus, there was no need — none — for the light to stop northbound traffic on Buchanan.

Why can’t that light be converted to a blinker during those many hours when the G-N Center isn’t hosting an event? Then, when there’s something going on, the city can turn the signal on to allow traffic from the parking lot onto the street once the event is over. That policy could apply when something is going on at the Civic Center and when parking spills over from the east side of the street to the west side, at the Globe-News Center parking lot.

There. Problem solved, with one less pet peeve on my long list. I’ll bet I’m not alone.

The president of the United States has a big day ahead of him. He’ll take care of the country’s business and then, tonight around 8 (CST), he’ll stand before a joint session of Congress and deliver his first State of the Union speech.

Pay attention, ladies and gents, and put your texting devices away. Oh, and avoid the unbecoming outbursts that became the back story of the previous time President Obama spoke to y’all.

The president has some serious things to discuss tonight. Jobs, the overall state of the economy, the on-going war against terrorists and the general state of matters in the United States will be covered. It’s reported that Obama even might admit to some mistakes during his first year in office. The president deserves the undivided attention of the elected reps sitting in front of him, and they shouldn’t be tweeting, twittering, texting, twisting and twirling to their friends, supporters and family members while the president is speaking to them.

Let’s remember, he’s been invited formally by the House of Representatives. That’s the protocol involved here. He’s a guest in the People’s House. And he should be treated with respect.

As for the outburst, one should hope everyone in the audience will have the good manners to keep their traps shut, unlike Rep. Joe “You Lie!” Wilson, R-S.C., who — the last time President Obama spoke to a joint session — embarrassed many Americans with his well-chronicled outburst.

Pay attention, folks.

Conservative vs. conservative.

That’s the nature of a key Republican U.S. Senate primary race out west, in Arizona.

John McCain, the incumbent, is facing a challenge from former radio talk show host and ex-U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who says — get this — that McCain isn’t conservative enough.

Interesting stuff.

McCain, as many millions of Americans are aware, is a war hero. He was captured by North Vietnamese soldiers when his plane was shot down in 1967. This valiant naval aviator spent more than five years being tortured and beaten within an inch of his life in captivity. Yet he continued to resist his captors’ attempts to pry information from him. McCain rejected an offer for an early release from his prison cell in Hanoi.

And now he’s being challenged by an upstart who thinks McCain — who has had the temerity during his long congressional career to work Democrats — doesn’t quite fit the mold of an Arizona conservative.

Hayworth has hung that terrible “moderate” monicker on McCain.

Someone needs to remind Hayworth that McCain, the GOP nominee for president in 2008, was conservative enough for many middle Americans. McCain captured 80 percent of the vote in the Texas Panhandle, even though a good many Republicans here grumbled that McCain was just too darn moderate for their liking. Still, he polled tremendously in this part of the country.

McCain no doubt will pull out the heavy artillery to use against Hayworth.

What else would one expect from someone who’s taken part in an actual war, not just a mere political skirmish?