Yet another entry for the “tempus fugit” files, as it was 11 years ago today that we got married (go here for a few way over-compressed photos of the festivities – I was gearing everything towards dial-up back in those days, and my web design skills were rather lacking, so please forgive me). I only regret I can’t post the video of a monkey wearing a dress that we saw on our overnight honeymoon (a trip to Montana would follow about three weeks later).

The traditional anniversary gift for 11 years is apparently steel, while the modern gift is jewelry. So, I suppose I should go out and steal some jewelry. But, instead, I reckon I’ll just have the steel brake line that blew out in my van replaced instead. Not especially romantic, I suppose, but more romantic than slamming into a bridge abutment because your brakes don’t work.

Have a good Saturday.

So, the van headed off to the repair shop yesterday, and not under its own power. Not that it doesn’t run (it’s a Chevy, and every Chevy I’ve ever had was great at starting, with the possible exception of my ’76 Chevette, which had so many problems, I can’t remember if starting was one of them). No, last weekend while we were out and about, doing some happy homeowner shopping that required something with a bit more space than the Hyundai has, I hit the brakes and the pedal went to the floor. I couldn’t pump them back up, but managed to drive home brakeless (fortunately we weren’t far away). The brake fluid reservoir was full, so I have a feeling I pooped a seal in the master cylinder or power booster or something. There was a time when I’d have tried to fix it myself, but not any more (besides, have you ever tried to bleed the brakes with just one person? It’s kind of like playing ping-pong with yourself). So, we’ll see how much this costs me.

Another item to add to the long list of shit I don’t get comes via a new survey from Public Policy Polling. A majority of those surveyed say that Sarah Palin is unfit to be President. That part I get, of course, but the margin is 55%-37%. How can 37% of people say she’s fit to be President. I mean, on what are they basing this?

In addition, respondents were asked whether Palin’s announcement that she will resign as Governor of Alaska makes them more or less likely to support her for president. Only 30% say more likely, with 57% saying less likely, and 14% not sure.

OK, so how would somebody quitting in the middle of their first term as Governor make you more likely to vote for them?

Looks like I get to go to Adobe Max 2009 in LA this October. Should be fun (other than having to deal with flying, of course). I’ve never been to LA (never had a desire to go to LA, to be honest), and I don’t know how much I’ll get to see of it. I’ve only been to California once, and that was to San Francisco, which was nice, I guess. It happened to be Fleet Week while I was there, which was quite a spectacle, and there were tons of great little outdoor places where you could have a drink and hear a band (watched a Navy band that really rocked, which was kind of surreal, as they were all wearing their sailor suits), and that was cool.

Camping in Muir Woods was really nice. My rental car got broken into and my shit was ripped off while I was camping and hiking at Point Reyes National Seashore (I used to do a lot of hiking and camping back in the day, and that’s the only place something like that has ever happened), and got ripped off buying a bogus hit of acid down at the pier somewhere (which I half expected; I think I was just happy it didn’t kill me), and saw more homeless people than I’d ever seen before being a hick from the sticks and all), so I don’t have especially warm and fuzzy feelings for the area. It probably would have been a lot more fun if I hadn’t been alone, but that’s how I rolled back in those days.

Oh well, time to get this party started.

Last night our Governor decided to appoint a new Lieutenant Governor in order to hopefully break ties in the NYS Senate, and maybe get our dysfunctional state legislature to actually do their jobs. Unfortunately, it appears that the Governor doesn’t have the constitutional authority to do that. Or maybe he does. Only after a long, protracted court fight will we know for sure. In the meantime, it’ll be business (or, rather, lack of business) as usual. I find it interesting to note that our State Senators who don’t live in Albany get $160 day per diem for every day they’re in Albany (which lately means showing up once a day for two minutes to attend one of the Gov’s “special sessions”). That’s over $1,100 a week on top of their base pay of about $80,000 a year, and whatever else they get for committee assignments, discretionary budgets, and bribes. Oh, and they get mileage, too. Pretty good gig, if you ask me.

Sounds like not everybody was thrilled to hear Marc with Lewis Black the other day.

Didn’t anyone tell Marc Maron that the show was supposed to be about Lewis, not about him? From the first “question” which seemed to last about 10 minutes, he acted as if the whole night was his. I know I’m not the only one to have felt this way as I heard people around me grumbling that Marc was “hogging the time” and going way overboard on his stories. He’s a funny guy. but the guy we came to see was Lewis, who took it all in good humor, I thought. What else can one do when a narcissist takes over?

Oh well, can’t please everybody, I guess.

Sarah Palin became the Governor of Alaska on December 4, 2006. That means Morning Seditionists will have outlasted her by about 13 months when she quits sacrifices for the good of the people at the end of the month (say what you want about us, we aint quitters). And a new poll shows that 71% of Republicans would vote for her for President in 2012, despite the partial term abortion of her governorship. Of course, much like the proverbial Grand Jury indictment, Republicans would vote for a ham sandwich if it had an ‘R’ after its name (especially if it were running against an uppity socialist nigra). Independents, by a disturbingly close 55-34 margin, wish Palin would just go away, while CNN wonders whether Palin is the next GOP “kingmaker.” At this point, that’s a bit like being king of a very small, angry hill (like, say, Cotton Hill), but things can change awfully fast (especially when people who voted for a fast change see that things don’t seem to be changing at all).

Speaking of things not changing,

The Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted….
[…]
Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration argues that the legal basis for indefinite detention of aliens it considers dangerous is separate from war-crimes prosecutions.

Oh well, sucks to be them, I guess. Personally, I’ve decided I just don’t care anymore. Odds are, I’ll never be picked up and stuck in a dog kennel in Guantanamo. It’s possible, I suppose, but unlikely. If the NSA wants to illegally wiretap me, well, truth be told, I almost never use the phone and any conversations they might pick up generally consist of Granny calling to say she’s on the way to the store, and do I need beer, and me saying “well, duh.”

I have pretty good health insurance (at least, I think I do; as long as I don’t really use it, I’m sure they’ll let me keep paying for it), so I guess I don’t really care whether there’s single-payer healthcare or some crappy “public option” designed to let the insurance companies dump all the sick and poor people off on the taxpayers, while they continue to make millions of dollars in profits.

I’m not gay, so why should I care whether or not gay people have equal rights, can get married, serve openly in the military, etc.? I mean, other than it being the right thing. It’s not about what’s right, after all.

I don’t have kids, and global warming probably isn’t going to be too much of a factor in my lifetime. Odds are I can run out the clock without being too terribly affected, so what the hell?

I’ll keep recycling, of course, but only because recycling is free, and garbage costs a buck a bag. Same with composting. But only ‘cuz it’s cheaper that way, not because I care about being good to the environment that keeps us all alive (screw it; it’ll last longer than I will). Hell, I might even start burning old tires for heat next winter.

Mostly, I just don’t seem to give a shit this morning.

Now that Michael’s gone, nothing really seems to matter….

Single-Payer healthcare has long been a dead issue, and we’ve been told that a very flawed “public option” is the best we can do. Looks like even that’s gonna be a no-go now, as it appears that the White House is ready to abandon the public option, in favor of a gift to insurance companies that will make Medicare Part D look like socialized medicine.

It is more important that health-care legislation inject stiff competition among insurance plans than it is for Congress to create a pure government-run option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Monday.

This is no doubt part of a “stealth” plan on the behalf of President Obama – who once declared that single-payer was the way to go, but we first had to take control of the House, Senate, and White House in order to make it happen – to sneak his progressive agenda in through the back door. Stealth, of course, because – to the uneducated – it certainly looks as if Obama is unwilling to stand up and fight for much of anything. Even when public opinion is on his side. Maybe that’s being practical. Bill Clinton couldn’t get national healthcare, so Obama’s afraid to push for it. Or maybe he just figures he needs to completely enrage “we the people” so that we’ll force Congress (and him) to do the right thing.

Seems he once promised to fight for equal rights (if not marriage) for gay people, too, and to get rid of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and was finally shamed into granting some rights to federal employees.

I thought he was also a proponent of open government, but he seems to think we aren’t entitled to know who gets face time in the White House (we wouldn’t want to find out that lobbyists from the healthcare industry are on the visitor list). And we can’t investigate the people who tortured or approved torture in our names, because, well, I guess because we just can’t handle it.

Oh, I know. Nothing he can do with the Senate DINOs in office. 51 Democrats? Not enough. 55? Nope. 60? Nah. Not with Harry “I’m not good at twisting arms” Reid running the show (not sure he understands the “leader” part of his Senate Majority Leader title).

Oh, if LBJ was President, he’d goddamn sure ram his agenda through with a House majority and 60 Senators, you can be sure of that (he wouldn’t have a damn Portuguese Water Dog, either; too hard to pick up by the ears). Especially with public opinion on his side. Then again, LBJ took a conflict he inherited in Vietnam and escalated it, afraid of looking as if he’d “lost” there. And that was crazy.

About as crazy as fighting a war in Afghanistan would be. Just ask the Russians.

In an example of how “time flies” (whether you’re having fun or not), it was ten years ago today that my mom died. Hard to believe ten years have gone by so quickly. Ten years, six jobs (for me; I don’t think I have enough fingers and toes to count all of granny’s jobs), a bunch of cats (same dog, though, plus one), two Marc Maron shows, 9/11, one basketball national championship (five lacrosse), a black president elected, the end of my 27 year pursuit for an undergrad degree, and a masters (which my mother would have been pretty impressed with; a lot more than I am, that’s for sure), all three of my siblings retired (wish I could say the same for myself)…. A hell of a lot of water under the bridge. At least they buried her with her brain (as far as I know, anyway; who really knows what these ghouls do with you), unlike Michael Jackson. Apparently they have to wait two weeks for it it get hard enough to slice up. Gee, Emeril just puts it in the freezer for a few minutes.

Oh well, back to work again today.

Today, instead of Press the Meat, it’s Wimbledon. I guess we’ll have to make do without their stunning insights.

CBS’s Faze the Nation this week has Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff, and a pair of Senator Chucks: republican thug Grassley, and NY’s Schumer.

Mullen makes his way over to Fux News Sunday, along with Steny Hoyer and John “Poppa” Boehner. Weaselface Wallace also has the usual fuxheads.

At the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus is in Iraq with VP Joe Biden, and there’ll be a roundtable with George :jerk: Will, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker, the Moonie Times’ Tony Blankley, Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum, and former Bush-Cheney man Matthew Dowd.

At CNN, Fareed Zakaria asks British Foreign Secretary David Miliband why Iran is so mad at Great Britain. Plus, aid in Africa: are celebrities throwing money at the problems or making an actual difference? If celebrities could just adopt every African, I think they’d be all set.

Have a good one.

OK, so what scandal is about to emerge about Sarah Palin? My bet is it turns out she has a mistress in Argentina. It seems pretty clear something happened, and I don’t see how you could quit before the end of your first term as governor of what amounts to a medium-sized city (population-wise) – its Russian surveillance role aside – and then run for President. So, the GOP search for a bright shiny new penny continues. It looks like they’re gonna have to settle for the Mormon at this point, although Mike Huckleberry Hound is looking to be the sharpest tool in the Republican shed these days.

Silly Republicans. They ought to just invite Obama to join the GOP. He shares most of their corporate values, with only a few minor differences. He certainly seems to be as secretive as the previous administration at this point, and if he isn’t sufficiently supportive of torture, he’s at least up for permanent imprisonment without benefit of trial. Hell, if Joe Lieberman, Diane Feinstein, et al, can call themselves Democrats, Obama can certainly call himself a Republican. He doesn’t seem to want to call other countries evil and insinuate himself into their politics (he apparently isn’t shy when it comes to NY’s US Senate seat, however), though, which is apparently a deal-breaker.

Did you know that July is Cankle Awareness Month? Me neither. Apparently it’s a pandemic.

The schedule for Marc Maron’s “Scorching the Earth” at the Montreal Comedy Festival is finally available. He’s doing a bunch of shows between the 16th and the 25th. Montreal is only about 4 hours from me, and the tickets are only $18.80 (Canadian) each, so I was definitely thinking of attending. Unfortunately, I’m no longer skinny, and, listening to Marc this past week on BRL, it seems pretty clear he’d be thoroughly disgusted with the sight of me. I guess I’ll just sit in shame in my basement, and try to avoid forcing people to look at me.

It’s cheaper that way.

Looks like we got us a new war to watch on the teevee. Well, not really a new one, but President Obama’s got his first “major military operation” in the works in Afghanistan. This, of course, is a big moment for a president. Kind of the equivalent of a bar mitzvah or something. Makes you feel proud, in a Red, White and Blue Fourth of July kinda way, doesn’t it? And word just in is that one of our soldiers was captured. That aint good. But I’m sure Obama can expect oodles of support from our GOP friends, what with anything less than complete support and subservience to the Commander in Chief being tantamount to treason.

Speaking of pride-inducing developments, the ACLU says the Obama administration is using confessions elicited through torture to justify the continued detainment of Mohammed Jawad, who was something like 12 years old when he was first captured and thrown into US gulags in Bagram and Guantanamo.

More pride, but of the gay (or, rather, anti-gay) variety locally. You may have seen Lt. Dan Choi on Rachel Maddow. In case you missed the news Tuesday, a military board right here in my fair city recommended that Choi be the first person kicked out of the NY National Guard for tellin’ when nobody was askin’. As I understand the board’s decision, it appears that, because Choi weighs the same as a duck, he’s made of wood and therefore…. “Burn him! He’s a witch!”

I could have that wrong though, since I don’t understand all the nuances of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The NYS Senate continues to meet and do no work. It’s somewhat difficult to tell this apart from business as usual, except for these sessions are a lot shorter. Unfortunately, the failure to pass any of the basic housekeeping, end of session type of legislation is a real hassle for local governments, who can’t sell bonds, collect sales tax, and don’t know what sort of state funding they can include in proposing next year’s budgets. But it’s all OK, ‘cuz Pedro “Erik” Espada is feeling mighty important these days, and that’s all that counts.

We have things pretty much straightened out at work, which is a good thing (we’ll see what further problems develop today, of course). No sleep for me, though. Between what has become rather excruciating neck (and now back) pain, and the fact that something’s wrong with one of the dogs, causing the other dog to freak out, I don’t think I got any sleep at all last night, though I may have accidentally drifted off once or twice.

All’s well, though. Matt Lauer is live at Neverland Ranch.

This just in, Al Franken refuses to take the oath of office on a bible, and is insisting on using the Torah instead. OK, not really, but I figure it’s a good rumor to start, what with the whole Keith Ellison Koran thing. Interesting story on the creature from Wasilla in Vanity Fair. The poor Republicans are all in a tizzy over it.

They seem to be in a bit of a tizzy over Al Franken, too. Their new meme is that the Democrats can push anything they want through the Senate, and the Republicans can’t stop ’em. If only that was actually true. It should work out well, though. The Democrats will allow them to poison anything that actually passes so that it doesn’t have a prayer of actually working, and then the Republicans can just say, “see, they had total control, and they screwed up all our good work during the Bush era.”

So, it appears Mark Sanford was a serial diddler.

Sanford also said that he “crossed the lines” with a handful of other women during 20 years of marriage, but not as far as he did with his mistress.

“There were a handful of instances wherein I crossed the lines I shouldn’t have crossed as a married man, but never crossed the ultimate line,” he said.

The ultimate line? What’s that, anal?

A new ban on texting while driving takes effect where I live today. It’s a county law. The State is looking at one as well, but of course we don’t have a state government anymore in NY. On the plus side, the NY Senate standoff means Mayor Bloomberg no longer controls NYC schools, since that’s on law that was allowed to expire due to inaction.

Well, that’s about all I can manage today, I guess. With all the lack of sleep and stress over the past few days, my neck is seized up tight, and is really killing me. No relief in sight, either. Sucks.