Yesterday was hot, humid, and miserable. At least until what looked like a hurricane blasted through. Then it was warm, humid, and miserable. Back to work today for a day of rest, which is a good thing, since everything hurts and I feel lousy. I hate doing plumbing. If things get much worse, I’ll be facing one of Obama’s death panels soon, to decide how I want to die. I’m kind of up in the air about that, but I’m pretty sure it involves lots of pot.

Speaking of death panels and whatnot, did you know that, according to this editorial in Investor’s Business Daily,

“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless,”

Um. Only one problem there. Stephen Hawking was born in the UK and has lived there for 67 years. Way longer than what anybody thought he would, and probably a lot longer that he would have here, and, even if he’d survived here, no doubt his insurance lifetime max would’ve been maxed out decades ago, and he’d have gone bankrupt and been consigned to some crappy rattrap nursing home, stuffed in a corner like a potted plant, waiting for the end.

Maria’s mom, Eunice, has passed away. She seems to have been pretty well liked, despite the fact that she supported Ahnuld’s run for Governator, was an abortion opponent (Catholic and all), and her work on behalf of the mentally disabled helped pave the way for the second Bush Administration.

Aw, bless poor dubya. Lazy, shiftless people such as he wouldn’t have had a chance in the US, if he hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth (and another up his nose).

I’m taking a rare day off today, not to recreate and have a good time (heaven forbid), but to attempt to recover from my weekend labor, and perhaps accomplish a few more things before abandoning the world of manual labor and returning to sitting on my ass in front of a computer for a few days.

Things aren’t even close to finished, of course (it would go a lot faster if I knew what I was doing, but I’ve never let that stop me before – it’s how I’ve gotten every job I’ve ever had. They ask if I can do something, I say “sure, no problem,” and then I have to try and figure out how the hell to do it), but it’s starting to look like a kitchen again, at least.

Well, depending on which direction you look, I guess. We’re a bit disheveled and nonplussed – especially the dogs, who aren’t happy with the noise and the change in routine (the cats, of course, remain unconcerned).

I get a bit irritated and frustrated, myself. But I try to do what I can, and remember the words of Neil Young:

“A little love and affection in everything you do, will make the world a better place – either with or without you.”

Like grandpa, I won’t retire – but I might retread.

Just time for a quickie today, what with so much work to do, and so little time.

On Press the Meat, it’s National Security Adviser James Jones, Mikey Bloomberg, Newark Mayor Corey Booker, asshole David Brooks, Erin Burnet, and John Meachem.

Jones makes a trip over to CBS’s Faze the Nation, to be joined by Carl Levin l’il Lindsey Graham.

Jones is a busy man today, as he also heads on over to Fux Nes Sunday with Weaselface Wallace. Also up, dickhead Mitch McConnell, and this week’s fuxheads are Paul Gigot, Mara Liasson, Stephen Hayes, and Ceci Connolly.

On the Goebbels network, it’s Newt Gingrich and Howard Dean, plus a roundtable with Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Peggy Noonan, Cokie “the hag” Roberts, Sam :omg: Donaldson, and Matthew Dowd.

Over at CNN, Fareed Zakaria talks to Hillary Clinton in Kenya (looking for Obama’s birth certificate).

Have a good one.

Ah, the weekend. Time to rest up from the work week, and do something fun. Here’s what I’m doing, how about you?

I went to the grocery store after work last night. No particular reason – just wanted to surround myself with ignorant, inconsiderate assholes and their screeching spawn. If I lived in Florida, I could have just gone to the Tampa Town Hall Meeting on Heath Care, which turned violent when “angry” protesters carrying racist signs whipped up to a frenzy by their leader, Glenn Beck, and the St. Pete’s Republican Party, started banging on things and getting into fights.

Had I been in St. Louis, I could have gone to the town hall meeting with Russ Carnahan. There, six people – including a Post-Dispatch reporter – were hauled off to the hoosegow.

I don’t know what these people are so “angry” about (and I’ll bet they’d be hard-pressed to articulate just what their problem is, too). If they’re afraid that the insurance companies won’t continue to make huge profits off the suffering of others, they ought to chill out. As Business Week reports, the fight for health care reform is over, and, not surprisingly, the insurance industry has won.

Mostly, I think they’re just terrified white folks, watching as the world changes around them. First a you-know-what gets elected President, and now a “wise Latina” is in charge of deciding their fate in the Supreme Court (though, don’t worry angry old white men, you’re still pretty well-represented on that front, and even the token schwarze is really on your side).

No matter how bad things get for even the trashiest of white folks, they’ve always been able to console themselves with the fact that they’re better than “those people.” Unfortunately (for them), that’s rapidly changing, and soon white people will no longer be better than anybody else. And not long after that, they’ll be in the minority. Now that’s scary.

But, hey, don’t worry angry white people. As far as health care reform goes, you’ve managed to teach “them people” a lesson, and have paved the way for insurance companies to make huge profits in the process. And that’s what it’s all about.

It was 64 years ago today that Uncle Sam delivered “Little Boy” to the city of Hiroshima, Japan, courtesy of a B-29 named after the pilot’s mother. :love: Aw. Mom, apple pie, and nuclear annihilation; that’s what America is all about. As we all know, Hiroshima and something like 140,000 of its citizens were sort of disintegrated. Makes 9/11 seem a bit timid in comparison, doesn’t it? Oh, I know, we considered ourselves at war with Japan, what with Pearl Harbor and all, so we were entitled to obliterate a city of limited military (yet tremendous religious, to them, anyway) significance, along with lots of civilian women and children. As opposed to 9/11, where we didn’t consider ourselves at war with the terra’ists, so they weren’t entitled (but now we do consider ourselves at war with them, so they would be entitled. Or something. :smack: I dunno, attempts at logical reasoning always seem to give me a headache. I’d be better off being a Republican; then I wouldn’t have to bother trying). As terrifying as the world’s first look at nuclear weapons was, we’d spent a helluva lot of money making two of the friggin’ things, and damned if we weren’t gonna use ’em both (give ’em hell, Harry, and whatnot).

On the Today Show this morning, Lester Holt (in for Matt the Rat, I guess) interviewed the sister of one of the shooting victims in the PA gym shooting. Her sister was an important victim, because she’d been a doctor. I was hoping he’d ask what her sister’s position on Single Payer Health Care had been, but instead Lester lamented that we were seeing lots of shootings “in places we wouldn’t expect to,” lately (by which I think he meant, “where you white people hang out”).

Meanwhile, here in the ‘Cuse, we eagerly await the start of football season. Nobody is expecting a national championship, of course, and we’ve been picked to finish last in the Big East (not exactly a bold prediction, given that we actually have finished last the past four years, winning a total of 10 games – including, I feel obliged to add, AT Notre Dame). But hope springs (and falls) eternal, and we have a new coach who played here and most certainly won’t dress up his players in those godawful all-orange uniforms of a couple seasons past (that’s what you get when you hire a touchy-feely West Coast coach; we got ourselves a no-nonsense New York City Irish boy now). We’re really just looking to not suck too bad.

Fortunately, we have a juicy little show trial in the area to take our minds off of football season while satisfying both our prurient curiosity, and our need to feel superior to others. A while back, some poor kid was killed in her home, and her stepbrother (or something) is charged with the murder. But that trial hasn’t started yet.

The one that’s taking up all our attention now is the trial of the girl’s father and stepmother, who are facing four counts each of misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child for locking the kid in her room with padlocks and chicken wire, and for living in a house with 60 cats, dead kittens in the freezer, and chickens (live ones) in the kitchen. One of the stepmother’s co-workers apparently complained to her that she “smelled like cat,” and she (the stepmother) said she kept the chickens in the kitchen because it was easier to clean up the chickenshit from the kitchen floor (as opposed to, oh, I dunno, outside, maybe? I reckon it is hard to wipe shit up off the dirt). Apparently, she didn’t notice the smell from the feces and urine infested carpets, furniture, etc. :cat:

Now, I feel bad for the kid, and there’s definitely something not quite right with these folks, but I’m getting a bit tired of what seems like 24/7 lo-cal coverage. I guess people just love to sit in their trailers in front of the teevee shoving bon-bons into their faces, a mist of crumbs spewing forcefully into the air with each “tut-tut” they utter at how terrible “them people” are.

I find the whole thing sad and depressing, but I just don’t get the entertainment value.

As opposed to Syracuse football, which I also find sad and depressing, but very entertaining (at least until the losing starts).

This is why I don’t work out.

A bevy of birthdays today, including the first human to walk on the moon (that we know of), Neil Armstrong, Selma from Night Court, Tawny Kitaen, Patrick Ewing (who I am forced to hate, since he played for Georgetown, though by all accounts he’s actually an OK guy), Rick Derringer, Loni Anderson, nurse Christine Chapel (though she won’t be born for another 173 years), my brother, Tim, and, last but certainly not least, my wife, who turns 29 today (and doesn’t have a copy of her birth certificate, I might add). It’s also the day Marilyn Monroe was found dead, back in 1962.

Dave Matthews was in town last night, playing a concert at our little baseball stadium, in front of 18,000 people. Nothing against Dave, but last month Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and John Mellencamp only drew 6,000. Doesn’t seem right, but then the only time I heard Bob Dylan was at RFK Stadium 23 years ago, when he was backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and was the “warm up” act for the Grateful Dead. He pretty much sucked, though I’ve heard his performance varied with how drunk he was (which I can neither confirm nor deny). I seem to recall being pretty drunk myself.

Anyhow, concerts are just too god-damned expensive these days (last night, prices were something like $85 reserved and $45 “festival” – plus all the tickemaster charges, of course – and those Dylan/Dead tickets were like, $12.50, I think), and I long ago decided that I wouldn’t be going to any more concerts at football (or baseball) stadiums. Must be getting old.

No word on what Oily Taints is up to today (hopefully she’s signing up for a Photoshop class or something), but I’m shocked and saddened to hear that Paula Abdul is leaving American Idol. Perhaps she’s preparing to run for President. Hope she’s got a birth certificate, ‘cuz she looks kinda a-rab to me.

Oh well, hi-ho.

It was 45 years ago today that little Barack Obama was born in Kenya, prompting his family to post a birth notice in the Honolulu Sunday Advertiser nine days later – exactly the number of days it would have taken back in 1961 for a check to be mailed from Mombasa to Honolulu, and then clear from the Mombasa branch of the Central Bank of Kenya. Coincidence? I think not. And never mind the fact that the Central Bank of Kenya wasn’t established until 1966, or that Mombasa was part of Zanzibar (not Kenya) in 1961.

Oh, I know you O-bots will never believe the truth, but I’m currently in confidential negotiations with Dr Altaka Yurmani, presently residing in Lagos, Nigeria, and formerly the head obstetrician at the Provincial General Hospital in Mombasa from 1957 – 1963. Dr. Yurmani is in possession of the original Obama birth certificate, bearing a seal and the official signature of the Kenyan Minister of Live Births, Simba Mufasa. Once the good doctor receives my checking account and routing numbers, he will be deducting a small fee to cover shipping, handling and other miscellaneous fees, and forwarding the document forthwith. Then I’m gonna sell it to Orly Taint (or whatever her name is), Lou Dobbs, or whomever is the highest bidder. Then we can overturn this past illegal election.

Sadly, as Chris Kelly points out, we may not be able to elect a new president unless we amend the US Constitution. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution states (quite unambiguously, given the founders’ penchant for comma splices) that:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

So, unless you were born in, and/or a citizen of, the United States on June 21, 1788 (when Delaware became the ninth State to ratify it), you can’t be President. Even John McCain isn’t that old (Kelly suggests that only Robert Byrd is qualified).

Until we find a 221 year old person (or change the constitution), I propose that we appoint Obama as US Ombudsman. Other than a small (but vocal) group of ignorant wingnuts, the Obama presidency makes us all feel better about ourselves here in the US, and the folks overseas seem to pretty much love him and his family. So, he makes a really nice goodwill ambassador. Congress appears unlikely to let him accomplish much of anything (anything that lobbyists aren’t willing to pay for), and his leadership is appearing less and less “bold” with each passing day of his failed presidency anyway, so this will let him off the hook for the failure of Congress to act on anything.

Then we can elect some long dead (nothing in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 says they have to be alive) white guy as President (maybe Franklin? Everybody loves Ben Franklin), with Dick Cheney as his VP, and get back to invading countries, torturing people, and blowing shit up. Maybe kill a few Indians for old time’s sake.

With Obama as our Ombudsman this time, though, the rest of the world will still love us while we do it.

Not much to say this morning, except that today’s Woot looks pretty tempting (though this USB cup warmer looks good, too, and it a lot cheaper). It’s the Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD – 12 Pack, including such classics as The Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy, Zombie Nightmare, and Manhunt in Space. Otherwise, I’m just caught up in the thrill of getting back to work again this morning. These weekends just seem to last forever. I wonder if we can get some Republican to sponsor a bill to make the work week six days instead of five.

Oh Lord, please grant me the strength to pretend to give a shit about what a bunch of people from the elite, nattering class – for whom I have no respect – have to say on Sunday morning shows which I never watch.

For instance, on Press the Meat, Gilligan Gregory has Dan Balz, a hack who joined the Washington Post in 1978 when I was a senior in high school. No Dan Froomkin, but a schmuck like Balz gets to retire there. Ironic, aint it, that even with Balz, the paper that broke Watergate has long since lost its balls. Also on is Balz’s bud Haynes Johnson, DLC chair Harold “where’re the white women” Ford Jr., and former Congressman, former CFL player, and one of that rare, odd breed known as “black Republican,” JC Watts of god’s country, Oklahoma. Oh, and Larry Summers is on, too.

More people I don’t give a shit about over at Faze the Nation, as Larry Summers humps his way over to CBS, along with Larry Summers, former reorter Bob Woodward, the always repugnant David Brooks, and syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, who is at least not too bad to look at.

But wait, there’s more! At Fux News Sunday, Charlie Rangel splits a segment with that traitor from South Carolina who wants our country to fail, Jim DeMint, then the chairman of the House GOP caucus, Mike Pence, gets a full segment before Weaselface Wallace trots out the usual fuxheads.

On the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus has Timothy Geithner and former Chippendale dancer, Alan Greenspan. But the real fun comes at the roundtable with batshit crazy (and basically just plain dumb) Michelle Malkin, Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Bloomberg’s Al Hunt and the Wall Street Journal’s Jerry Seib. Woo-hoo!

Over at CNN, Fareed Zakaria winder is a new president will help stop the deadly downward spiral in Afghanistan? Fareed talks with the two men who have the best shot at unseating Hamid Karzai in this month’s Afghan elections. Plus, is the U.S. government interfering in Iran? Spying? Supporting the opposition? Sending in radio and tv messages? I’d be shocked (shocked!) if that was the case. How ’bout you?

Have a good Sunday, y’all.