I might have to change how I do these things. Originally, as the days of Morning Sedition wound to an end, I decided to put up a daily thread an hour or so before show time, which is where the 5 AM (eastern) post began. And it sort of became tradition from there on out.

Problem is, at 5AM, I generally don’t have much to say; I haven’t really looked at the news, I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m mostly on the brain dead side of things – way before coffee and a shower.

But, for now I’ll just say have a good Thursday.

It’s been really friggin’ hot here lately. Too damn hot, and too damn humid. Another hot day due today, with a slight relief tomorrow. Yes, I’m stooping to talking about the weather. Sad, indeed.

It’s too hard to type this morning, and I don’t really have much to say. Except, Iraq wants to know when the hell we’re getting out. Be nice, and have a good day.

This weekend, we put a rain barrel in the front of the house (already had one out back) for Granny’s latest garden project. Had to dig out a level spot and then build a platform out of concrete blocks and pavers to get it off the ground. Doesn’t quite fit in, in our ticky-tacky suburban neighborhood, but then, neither do we. Fuck ’em.

Managed to mess up my arm pretty good trying to get a 1 5/8″ hunk of nylon reinforced tubing onto a barbed plastic fitting. Between pushing and twisting, something bad happened. Hurts like hell, especially when I type. Good thing I don’t type for a living.

Have a good Monday.

My mom passed away nine years ago today. Odd. In some ways, it seems like yesterday, yet in other ways, it seems like a lifetime ago. That’s how it goes, I guess. Still thinkin’ about ya, ma!

Anyhow, today’s Press the Meat is possibly the best ever. That’s ‘cuz Wimbledon is on instead.

Over at CBS, they either have the same guests lined up again this week, or Faze the Nation is back in “stealth” mode, where they don’t bother to update their web page.

On Fux News Sunday, creepy Brit Hume takes over for Weaselface Wallace, hosting an “All-Star Power Panel” of Fuxheads: asshole Fred Barnes of The Weakly Standard, NPR’s Mara Liasson, scumbag Bill Kristol (also of The Weakly Standard), and token Juan Williams, who really ought to know better.

At the Goebbels network, George Snufalfagus has Obamite Jack Reed, his assholiness, Joe Lieberman and Libertarian candidate, zany Bob Barr. Then, on the “Roundtable,” it’s SU grad Ted Koppel, Johnathan Capehart, Michelle Cottle, and Mark Halperin.

On CNN’s Late Emission, they’re celebrating 10 years of Wolf. Or something.

Later, on 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper finds some Mountain Gorillas high in the African jungles and reports on why they have become so endangered. Steve Kroft listens to Douglas Feith’s lies. And Morley Safer wants to know if we should quit minting pennies. Wow, talk about investigative journalism.

Enjoy your Sunday, everybody.

I hope everybody had a good holiday yesterday. I pretended to be a good little American, and had a barbecue in my back yard. Of course, it was a barbecue for one, and there were no horse shoes or volleyball or frisbee or anything. I did play solo catch with the lacrosse stick and a tennis ball for a while, so that was fun.

The big news of the day seemed to be that Cindy Brady had a hangover and had to leave a radio interview to go puke. I guess that’s somewhat apt, since Cindy Brady always made me feel like puking too. Her and that smarmy Kathy on Father Knows Best. It’s no wonder Robert Young was hitting the bottle pretty good back then.

I wonder what exciting news today will bring?

Ah, July 4th, when we honor the great white men who forged an astounding democracy in North America. A democracy that considered black folks to be livestock (except when it came to apportioning representatives to Congress, of course, when they were counted as 60% human). And a ‘democracy’ that didn’t consider women – not even the white ones – as worthy of the vote. And, really, people like Adams were so terrified of the common people (the dirty fucking hippies of the time, I suppose), that they came up with the electoral college nonsense, with which wee are still saddled.

Problem is, there already was a democracy in North America – a confederation of the six Haudenosaunee nations – upon which the government of the United States of America (absent that pesky equal rights and womens’ vote stuff) would eventually be based.

Anyhow, back in 1763 or so, the Haudenosaunee had secured from the British a royal proclamation outlawing intrusions by the colonies onto Haudenosaunee land and creating formal procedures by which native nations could, if they desired, sell territory – as long as the sale was endorsed by the British government.

Needless to say, this pissed off our forefathers to no end (maybe even more than that tea tax you hear so much about). After all, this was their goddamn land to steal and kill for, and those bloody redcoats should just stay the fuck out!

So, the fine leaders of the colonies (mostly a bunch of land speculators), in the finest tradition of god fearing white men everywhere, ignored the new laws and encouraged settlement into native lands. Although they were far superior warriors (especially on their native land), the Haudenosaunee, wishing to avoid involvement in a conflict that would strain their confederacy (the Oneidas and Tuscaroras tended to side with the rebels, while the rest of the six nations sided with the British), made two treaties with the colonies in order to guarantee its neutrality.

The colonies, of course, failed to live up to their end of the treaties, and in 1777 the Haudenosaunee took up arms to thwart an illegal military venture into their territory by the “Americans” at the Battle of Oriskany.

The great white father George Washington decided to send General John Sullivan into Haudenosaunee territory in a “preemptive attack” (sound familiar?) to break the back of the Six Nations. In fact, the most significant US military venture of 1779 was not against the British, but Sullivan’s raids against the Haudenosaunee.

Sullivan and his 3,500+ troops were ordered by Washington to “lay waste all settlements around…so that country may not only be overrun but destroyed.” Sullivan launched a “scorched earth campaign” (a lot like US tactics in Vietnam), torching over 40 Haudenosaunee communities and destroying thousands of acres of crops. During the following winter of 1779-80 – among the most severe of the time – thousands of Haudenosaunee men, women and children – deprived of food and shelter – died of starvation and exposure. Their determination to carry on the fight remained, but the British eventually decided to cut their losses, and the 1783 Treaty of Paris between the US and Britain ended the war, but neglected to offer any protection to the Haudenosaunee. Veterans of the Sullivan raids snatched up huge amounts of Haudenosaunee territory, and the rest, as they say, is history

So, happy Independence Day, everybody! Well, to all us descendants of white Europeans, anyway.

Even four days this week were too goddamn many. I can’t wait to get today over with. I sure picked a lousy time to quit sniffing glue.

Don’t forget (as if you would), Maron on again for Hartmann today. I generally download Hartmann, ‘cuz I can get it for free. He drives me up the friggin’ wall if I sit and really listen, but it has kind of a numbing affect if you leave it on in the background while you, for lack of a better term, work.

Of course, hearing a real radio show that’s actually funny and entertaining makes it that much tougher to go back to listening to the Hart Man.

Remind me again, how come Maron isn’t on every day?

So, I’m on my way out to the park yesterday, driving past the “DEMAND DOMESTIC DRILLING NOW!” signs (not just support it, mind you, but fucking DEMAND) it, and I’ve got the radio on. Apparently I’m officially old now, because if I don’t have NPR on, I’m generally listening to the oldies station (not even the “Classic Rock” station, but the oldies station that used to play, like, Elvis and Frankie Lane and Johnnie Ray and Theresa Brewer and the Ames Brothers and Pat fuckin’ Boone, fer chrissakes, when I was a kid, and now plays – talk about depressing – the music of my life).

In my defense, radio around here really blows, except for some of the weekend shows on the SU station, so there isn’t much of a choice.

Anyhow, they have this regular little banter on with the DJ and the guy who flies around in his airplane giving traffic reports, where the DJ asks a stupid trivia question, and the pilot (who apparently doesn’t have enough to do flying his plane and trying to spot traffic in a town that has none) tries to answer it. So yesterday’s question is:

“Only one crime is defined in the US Constitution. Is it: a) Murder, b) Treason, or c) Stealing.”

OK, I’m no constitutional attorney like Barack “Warrantless Wiretapping is Cool with Me” Obama (BTW, if you think the only thing wrong with the soon to be enacted FISA update is telco immunity, you haven’t been paying attention; the wonderful “compromise” that makes immunity oh-so-worth-it is worse than the immunity itself), but I can make a pretty good goddamn educated guess at that one.

So the pilot says,

“What was b) ?”

And the DJ says, “treason.”

“Huh?”

“Treason”

“Freezin’?”

“TREASON!”

I’m thinkin’ maybe it’s noisy in the plane.

“Huh?”

“Treason. T-R-E-A-S-O-N. Treason.”

“Gee, I dont’ know what ‘treason’ means.”

You don’t know what fucking treason means? WTF? Are there, like, no minimum requirements whatsoever to get a pilot’s license? I’ll tell ya, this explains a lot of these midair collisions. Find it in the freakin’ dictionary, dude; look for the picture of George W. Bush, and it should be right there. I mean, c’mon, I’m no William Saffire, but, jeezus, treason isn’t a “big” word, is it? It aint exactly antidisestablishmentarianism (or even supercalifragilisticexpialidocious). I don’t know. Maybe this guy was home schooled or something.

So, the dude guesses “stealing” (since he apparently knows what that means). Oy. Even if you don’t know what treason means, don’t you thing it’s a safe bet that murder and ‘stealing’ are common enough that the friggin’ Constitution isn’t going to go out of its way to make it the one goddamn crime it mentions?

I’ll bet this fella’s DEMANDING domestic drilling, too, damnit! And demanding it NOW!

I’m telling you, as a species, we really deserve what’s coming to us. It’s just too bad the rest of us have to get caught in the fallout.

Happy July, y’all!