Damn, it got cold again, but at least the wind didn’t blow the roof off. I thought it was pretty big of Whittington to apologize to Cheney yesterday for standing in front of Cheney’s shotgun and all. Hopefully if I ever shoot somebody in Texas, I’ll be able to go back into the house and hide until I sober up, too.

It’s Friday, ya bastids! Oh, wait, wrong show. Anyhow, tonight marks the return of Bill Maher, and, unlike anything you’ll see on those Sunday bobblehead shows, it should be very interesting, as Bill has Russ Feingold, Eddie Griffin, Helen Thomas, and, just to get Nicki fired up, Dan Senor (now there’s a guy with “c*cksucker” written all over his face, am I right?). I don’t know who’s in studio and who isn’t, but I hope Helen Thomas slaps the shit out of this prick.

When I was a kid, it never occurred to me that there’d come a day when I’d think twice before divulging my nationality, but it’s getting awfully tough to be proud to be an American. I know we (and when I say we, I mean they) have done a lot of bad shit over the years (you know, damn near exerminating the people who already lived here, that whole slavery thing, South & Central America, to name a few). Still, we managed to be the good guys, we had all the cool stuff, our money didn’t look like it was printed by Parker Brothers – hell, we even sent people to the moon and invented the Internet. Being an American (especially a white male one) was pretty darn good (particularly my generation, ‘cuz we never actually had to do anything for it, except take what our parents’ generation had given us, and bitch about it).

Now, though…. Our fearless leader and his Wild Dick want to “reserve the right” to use torture, and yesterday we and the rest of the world (especially an already inflamed Muslim world) were treated to more pictures of just what it is that “right” they want so badly looks like. People – humans – in the cradle of civilization, being beaten bloody (or to death) and sexually humiliated in a most decidedly inhumane and uncivilized manner by a government that has the audacity to believe it has the right to sit in judgement of others. If they did these things to my dog, I would rip out their throats – or die trying. What in God’s name – yeah, in God’s name, and in our names, too – what would you expect to happen when you do these things to their fathers and brothers, sons, daughters, and mothers? How can this be allowed – let alone encouraged to happen? How can the ability to do these things actually be coveted by our “leaders,” and excused (or at least ignored) by our vaunted American media and half of our population?

You know, I really don’t think this country can survive much more of this. It’s not that an angry and disgusted Muslim population will be even more motivated to do us harm (though that certainly has to be the case). It’s that we are rotting from the top down, and the inside out. And every time our government does these things in our name, we rot a little bit more. Pretty soon, there won’t be anything left worth saving.

Early day for me. Up and out in a hurry. Carry on.

Well, we didn’t get a Marc Maron Show yesterday, but, on the bright side, just four more days to Bill Maher! Whattya wanna bet his opening bit has something to do with quail hunting? Much as I’d like to see some good shit happen in this country – or this world – for a change, I must admit it’s damn fun to watch the White House Press Corps kick the crap out of Snotty McFelon. I also like hearing Cheney referred to as “the shooter” (“Scott, when did the President find out the Vice -President was the shooter;” how bizarre is that?). I only wish I could hear Sipowicz say “Ipsa this, you fat f*ck,” and then throw the scumbag in the cage. Hey, I miss NYPD Blue, what can I say?

Happy Valentine’s Day, honey! :love:

Ah, another weekend shot (especially if you’ve been hunting with Dick Cheney), and no Marc Maron show to look forward to tonight, I guess. I wonder if the folks at AAR will be able to get to work today, or we’ll just get some “best-of” shows until they can dig everything out. I hope Bloomberg doesn’t call FEMA, or we may never see NYC again.

Today’s a day off for me, not for snow (because we didn’t get any), but because my trip to the Cisco “NOW” van (Network on Wheels) counted for my class tonight. So, it’s just me and the dog, hanging out, trying not to step in any cat puke (it’s been a very pukey year at my house, cat-wise). I don’t mind them puking, but all that retching and gagging…. God, just puke and get it over with. Dogs are much better in that respect. Plus, they clean it all back up afterwards.

Well, time for breakfast.

Ah, Sunday, and another round of talking heads on the teevee.

Hey, what’s this? Something potentially worth watching on Press the Meat? Timmuh has Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra, and Ranking Member Jane Harman, all of whom received briefings from the Bushies on the NSA illegal spying program before the story became public (as you may recall, they were all sworn to secrecy). Gee, even with Mister Potatohead running the show, this might actually be worth watching. Daschle’s out – will he have the guts to tell it like it is? Or at least was? We shall see.

Bobby “Bush Buddy” Schieffer has our helmet headed Secretary of State, plus Howard Dean and Elizabeth Bumiller from the New York Times. Well, Howard’s been pretty interesting lately. He really gets the freepers frothing, and that’s worth it right there.

Ah, here’s more what we’re used to. Over at ABC, George Snufalufagus has Helmethead Rice, Meathead Joe Biden, Lynn “Uncle Tom” Swann, and Sigourney Weaver talking about heart health (here’s a tip, try not to let aliens hatch in your chest). A bit of a changeup on the regular Roundtable weenies, though. We still have George :jerk: Will, but this week he’s joined by David Gergen and the woman who did such a bang-up job running the Kerry campaign, Donna “just ignore those swift boat guys” Brazile.

Fux News Sunday with Weenie Wallace will talk about what a wonderful job the Führ – oops, I mean President did on saving Los Angeles from the packs of flying shoe bombers. Then they’ll have LA Mayor Villaraigosa on, so they can taunt him. They’ll also have VA Republican Redneck Senator George Allen, and Jack Reed (the other Senator MBNA), and – ooh, this could be interesting, Rev. Joseph “Standing Ovation” Lowery and Ron “You think Lynn Swann is an Uncle Tom, you should see me” Christie.

On 60 Minutes, Steve Kroft tries to find out where our $50 billion (so far) for reconstruction work in Iraq was spent and why $8.8 billion of it is unaccounted for, Lesley Stahl looks at why the “culture of life” and dubya figure it’s better to destroy 400,000 unused human embryos every day in fertility clinics, rather than allow them to be used in Stem Cell research, and Mike “God my son’s an asshole” Wallace talks to some of the kids who’ve come back from Iraq after being severely wounded in combat.

Oh, and CNN has guests from CNN on to talk about how important CNN is.

Happy Birthday, Abe!

So, the Olympics have started (I guess). When I was a kid, these things seemed huge to me; I can remember everybody watching every event intently, and keeping a close eye on the medal count. It was very important to beat that nasty old CCCP bunch.

Now, eh. Whatever. Of course, back in my day, the Olympics were on 33% of all the TV stations we got. OK, well, 25% if you counted PBS, and maybe 20% if it was a clear day and we were getting the Kingston Ontario station (where we’d watch Curling, which is kind of a Zen sport that most of us in the US don’t quite get). These days, I almost never watch live television; between my two ReplayTV’s (and now the ReplayRadio), I have more hours of mindless entertainment than I know what to do with. But at least I don’t have to watch commercials.

So, will we have the Marc Maron Show to listen to on Monday? I’m kind of thinking we won’t. If anybody out there in SF caught or will be catching him this weekend, don’t forget to give us a full report!

I’m a little early this morning, trying to make up for yesterday. I was hoping we’d be heading into a weekend knowing that the new Marc Maron Show would be waiting for us on Monday. I guess that’s not to be, though, and I really wonder why. I mean, AAR knows there’s an active pocket of Maronheads out here who want to know what’s going on (and we know they know where to find us now, too). Would it be so terrible to at least acknowledge that there are some complications delaying the start of the show (even if they can’t say what they are)? I mean, I know the Bush administration wants to cloak itself in secrecy, but can’t AAR be a little more open with us? This is the kind of shit that loses you an audience. Maybe they think we’re just a bunch of fringe loonies, and they don’t care what we think (hell, they sure ignored the hell out of us when they cancelled MS). Now, just as I’m starting to gain back some interest in AAR, they pull this shit. Oy.

One is reminded of the Morning Sedition “big announcement” that never happened. Hopefully this isn’t going to turn into another deal like that.

Anybody watch the Grammy awards last night? Other than Marc’s brief report on last night’s MR, I remain blissfully unaware of who won (or was even nominated). Actually, I’ve mostly never heard of any of these folks. I guess I’m just not up on what the kids are listening to these days. And then I see the Stones at the Super Bowl, and start feeling mighty old. Oh well. I’ll listen to Marc’s full report on TRMS when I get back home, ‘cuz it’s up and out early today. I have to go and visit the Cisco van, and learn all about VoIP. Hopefully they’ll at least have some good swag.