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You really can find some unexpected treasures on YouTube ...

Like this Joni Mitchell appearance on The Johnny Cash Show, which aired 40 years ago, in July 1969.

Just about the time of Woodstock, which Mitchell missed, although she wrote a famous song about it later.

Mitchell, then just 25, and Cash make an unlikely pair, but they work nicely together here on "The Long Black Veil."

This actually was Mitchell's second appearance on Cash's program. She sang on the inaugural episode earlier the same season ... as did Bob Dylan.

In fact, the Cash show featured an incredible array of talent during its two seasons.

And there were some truly odd pairings, like Grandpa Jones and Melanie on Season 1 Episode 10. If that performance has made it to YouTube, I'm not going to spend much time trying to find it.

High Point native J.D. Hayworth could give Sen. John McCain a run for his money in a Republican primary next year, a Rasmussen Reports survey says today.

Hayworth is a former Arizona congressman who lost his seat in 2006. He's now a radio talk-show gabber in Phoenix.

Hayworth grew up in High Point, graduated from N.C. State and began a career in sports broadcasting in Raleigh and Greenville, S.C., before heading west.

He's expressed interest in running for McCain's seat but hasn't declared. He definitely would be a challenger from McCain's right.

Congratulations to Teresa Vincent, winner of the 2009 District Court Judge Award from Greensboro-based Court Watch of North Carolina Inc.

From the organization's news release:

"This coveted award is given to the District Court Judge who has excelled in helping parents collect child support. The selection was made by a Court Watch committee, after reviewing the nominations received from the Guilford and Davidson County Child Support Enforcement agencies. The CSE personnel had observed Judge Vincent in child support court rooms, and were impressed with her ability to collect child support from absent parents. Comments included that Judge Vincent conducted her child support hearings in an efficient, courteous manner and that she was knowledgeable, consistent, firm and fair with all of the involved parties. 

A substitute teacher at a Hickory elementary school has been canned for tying up four students who misbehaved in class, the Hickory Daily Record reports. 

She used a jump rope, keeping the boys bound for about a half-hour. One wriggled loose but was recaptured.

Frankly, this would be more effective.

Teachers can't get away with anything these days.

Nick Kristof hammers critics of today's health-care reform proposals with the Medicare cudgel.

We're hearing the same arguments that were raised against Medicare back in the '60s, the NY Times columnist says. They were wrong then, which means they're wrong now.

Wait a minute. I'm not sure that's a logical conclusion.

Medicare was Medicare. The Pelosi-Reid health-care bills are something different.

Sure, some of the opposition to Medicare was irrational. It didn't turn the United States into the Soviet Union.

But critics who said, "You're selling us a bill of goods. This is going to cost a lot more than you're letting on, and someday it might break us," weren't wrong.

I see an analogy to the aquatic center brouhaha here in Greensboro. The voters agreed to pay for a certain amount only to learn later it's going to cost quite a bit more. Its proponents say, "What are you griping about? It doesn't matter how much it costs. It's going to be a great facility." OK, it's going to be a great facility. But could it be a little less great at a little less cost? Or at least, couldn't proponents have been more truthful about it from the start?

Sure, Medicare is a terrific program, but it's terrifically expensive. Honestly, does it really have to cover folks who are very wealthy and could afford to pay for their own medical care?

The irony, of course, is that today's congressional leaders pushing their health-care reform bills sell them as affordable -- and even claim they'll reduce the deficit -- because they will cut Medicare spending, somehow at some time in the future.

Anyone who says that's just plain old BS is brushed off as sounding just like those Medicare opponents back in the '60s.

Health-care reform ought to be just that -- reform. One of the goals was supposed to be cost-containment. We desperately need cost-containment because health care is gobbling up a massive portion of our GDP. So where's the cost-containment other than these promised Medicare cuts that, come on, are not likely to really materialize? Paperwork efficiencies? Sure. Reduce ER visits? Maybe some, but you'll still have millions of illegal immigrants with nowhere else to go.

Tax increases are slated to cover some of the anticipated costs, but that just transfers more wealth from the non-health-care sector of the economy into the health-care sector -- the opposite of what we ought to try to achieve.

Well, never mind. To be on "the right side of history," you have to vote for it -- even if you think most of its promises are hogwash or wishful thinking.

If these kids actually committed this crime, it appears they took a break from school to hold up a convenience store ... and shoot the clerk while they were at it.

Another reminder of the importance of having armed police officers in our schools, unfortunately.

Something else bothers me about this, and it's been nagging at me for a while.

The victim here was a young man named Waqar Gilani.

We had another story today about the trial of a man accused of fatally shooting a store clerk in Greensboro in 2006. In that case, the victim's name was Satwinder Singh.

Am I just imagining that the victims in these crimes are very often Asian?

Mohammed "Mike" Ali in the Red Mike's murder of a year ago.

Phi Nguyen and Tam Nguyen at the McConnell Road Mini-Mart in 2005.

In Macon, Ga., Asian-American business owners held a rally earlier this year in response to convenience-store murders.

I hope a clerk's ethnic identity doesn't make it easier for a robber to pull the trigger.

Those 20 convicted killers and rapists? It turns out the Department of Correction was just 45 years off in calculating their release date from prison, according to Gov. Bev Perdue's latest pronouncement.

And that was her Department of Correction, mind you.

It was just a few weeks ago that DOC was getting ready to let those offenders go, in compliance with court decisions and its own formula for figuring how much time off their "life" sentences they had earned since they entered the system back in the soft-on-crime '70s. Back then, state law defined a "life sentence" as 80 years and prisoners could shorten that with good behaviors like brushing their teeth, combing their hair and singing Happy Birthday to the warden every year.

It was a joke, but here we are. The laws are tougher now, but you can't apply them retroactively to criminals who were sentenced in kinder, gentler times.

Not that the Guv isn't trying her best. After reworking the math, she announced today that she'll set those monsters free exactly when hell freezes over, which is now scheduled for 2054.

Staples Hughes, the state's appellate defender, responded cynically, calling this whole matter "simply a political issue and a mechanism for the governor to use to attempt to raise her popularity."

And it's working. Perdue probably could raise her numbers five more points by having Hughes arrested and thrown into prison until 2054, too, then declaring an end to appellate defenders in North Carolina.

Despite today's headline, however, nothing really has changed on this story. It's all going back to the courts, where judges will calculate for themselves what the law and applicable DOC policies say about these convicts' release dates.

My estimate of when we'll get a final decision on that: 2054.

Are North Carolina Republicans really stupid enough to bar unaffiliated voters from GOP primaries?

(Here's Mark's story on the issue.)

They might be that dumb, but I think wiser heads will prevail.

Here's the math, courtesy of the State Board of Elections:

Registered voters who are Democrats: 2,764,947

Registered voters who are Republicans: 1,931,641

Registered voters who are unaffiliated: 1,379,834

To compete with Democrats, Republicans need to attract most of those unaffiliated voters to their candidates. They won't do it by telling them, "Sorry, you can't vote in our primaries because you're diluting our product."

The poor logic of the GOP purists' argument here is plain: They aren't going to field successful candidates in general elections if those candidates can't appeal to independent or moderate voters. So it helps them, not hurts them, to get input from those voters in their primary.

It sure doesn't help them to drive unaffiliated voters to the Democrats' primaries.

Yes, I understand doing so could mess with the Democrats. Maybe that's part of the scheme here. More independents voting in Democrats' primaries will alter outcomes there, probably to the detriment of liberal Dems. But wait a minute. That means Democratic primary winners would be more moderate or centrist, and thus more likely to win the general election.

Uh-oh, Republicans. You could make a very bad mistake here. Better wise up.

President Obama from Asia responding to critics of the decision to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial in federal court in New York: People will see I'm right when we fry the SOB (paraphrasing). Then quickly adds: I'm not prejudging the outcome. Oh, no? He'd better be sure of this outcome.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., asked a pretty good question during a Judiciary Committee grilling of AG Eric Holder: Mohammed already tried to plead guilty before a military commission, so how are you going to improve on that?

Holder attempts to reassure skeptical relatives of 9/11 victims that the government has still-secret evidence that will make this all turn out right. Um, is that evidence being withheld from the defendant? If the government is taking the civilian court route, doesn't it have to follow the rules of discovery?

Speaking of Islamic terrorists, is Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan still on the Army's payroll? He should have been discharged years ago for substandard job performance. I hope someone has at least initiated those proceedings now.

The administration trotted out Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to say, Don't pay any attention to the recommendation about breast-cancer screening from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. That body doesn't set government policy.

So, exactly what does it do and why does it exist?

(That was a rhetorical question, but here's the official answer.)

On the subject of health-care cost containment, Harry Reid's bill is going to reduce the deficit ... by axing future Medicare spending. Somehow. Same as the House bill. I'll believe that when I see it.

A young woman in the next lane over had one of those pink breast-cancer ribbon decals on the back of her car ... and she was smoking a cigarette.

"Three weeks before Shaniya Davis disappeared, the Fayetteville man accused of kidnapping her was allowed to end his supervised probation six months early," the Fayetteville Observer reports.

Mario Andrette McNeill "appears to have been treated with leniency for years by an overburdened court system," reporter Greg Barnes adds.

Here's McNeill's Department of Correction record.

Unspeakably sad story. Investigations likely will turn up many opportunities missed to save this poor child.