And so, the first decade of the 21st Century (and 2nd Millennium) comes to an end. Oh, I know, there are some smarty-pants types out there who will insist that, no, the decade actually ends next year, and the millennium didn’t begin on Jan 1, 2000, but actually on Jan 1, 2001. This is because certain people like to be contrarians and need to feel superior to others. Then it gets picked up by the wannabe smarty-pantses who think it sounds good, so then mindlessly repeat it with an air of smugness (as if they thought of it first). The most common reason given for this point of view is that “you start counting with one, not zero” – that you count from 1 to 10, not from 0 to 9. That, of course, is nonsense. Zero is most definitely where you start, even if it’s so obvious that it’s kind of implied. I mean, count all the honest Republicans in Washington, and tell me what number you start with. One? I don’t think so.

More important, though, is that we’re not counting the number of apples in a bushel or something. I mean, yeah, if you pay for ten apples, I don’t give you apples zero through nine. But we’re talking about spans of time (you don’t ask me for a decade of apples now, do you?). I mean (setting aside the gestation period), when does your first year of life begin? On your first birthday? Of course not. It begins the day you’re born. Your first birthday marks the beginning of your second year of life, just as Jan 1, 2010 is the first day of the second decade of this century. So don’t listen to those other people who think they’re so damn smart. They’re just being pains in the ass.

So, anyway, has it really been 10 years already? Where has the time gone?

2000

Remember all the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) generated by the whole “Y2K” thing? The power grid was gonna collapse, financial institutions would crumble, your microwave would stop working, and there was a pretty good possibility of the Apocalypse. I’d just embarked on my new career as a Web Administrator, having somehow managed to get hired with my web portfolio consisting of my personal web page, and one I’d one for my CSEA union local (which actually got a lot of attention, I must say, what with it being the first CSEA local with a web page, and the fact that it vastly outclassed the statewide one), and we had to make sure we applied all of our Y2K patches to everything.

Of course, turned out there were no real Y2K-related problems to speak of, though what we didn’t know at the time was that the Clinton Administration was “running around with their hair on fire” preventing the Millennium Bomb Plot. Thanks to good police work, lots of luck, and Clinton (whatever else you want to say about him) not being asleep at the wheel, terrorist attacks at a hotel in Amman Jordan and LAX were thwarted.

On Memorial Day, SU beat Princeton 13-7 to win their sixth Lacrosse National Championship. Other than that, I don’t recall much else going on that year – at least not until the election in November. Here in NY, we elected our first female to the US Senate – former First Lady Hillary Clinton – to fill a seat that had been held for 24 years by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who would go on to teach at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs after retiring from the Senate). Sadly, Moynihan would pass away just three years later.

More infamous, of course, was that year’s Presidential election, when Al Gore defeated George W. Bush by a small plurality of the popular vote. Thanks to the shenanigans in Florida and the non-precedent setting precedent set by the Republican controlled Supreme Court, Dubya was eventually declared President.

2001

On Jan 31 2001, Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in Scotland for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. On Memorial Day, SU lost to Princeton in the Lacrosse National Championship game 10-9 in OT. Other than that, and a little incident in April when a US spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet, the first eight months of the year 2001 were fairly quiet (and not at all like the Stanley Kubrick movie). Our new president mostly laid low and did a lot of brush clearing on his “ranch,” where he all but ignored a daily briefing titled, oh, gee, I dunno, something like “Bin Laden determined to attack inside the US.”

About a month later, Bin Laden attacked inside the US as our brave President sat, paralyzed with terror, in a classroom in Florida.

There were some anthrax attacks, as I recall, and then we invaded Afghanistan in order to “smoke out” Bin Laden. We got bored with that pretty fast, though (nothing really good to bomb there), and decided to gear up to attack Iraq instead.

2002

On Memorial Day of 2002, SU beat Princeton 13-12 in the Lacrosse National Championship game.

2003

In February 2003, the Space Shuttle Challenger burnt up on reentry, killing all 7 aboard. In March, the US invaded Iraq with the Army it had, rather than the Army it wanted to have. On April 7th, Syracuse won the NCAA Basketball National Championship at the Super Dome in New Orleans, and on April 8th, everyone in Central New York happily nursed their hangovers at work (except for my wife, who said “oh, was there a game last night?”). On April 9th, the US military seized control of Baghdad, paving the way for our glorious President and his magnificent codpiece to land on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declare “Mission Accomplished” on May 1st.

In July, US forces killed Uday and Qusay Hussein, and then proudly displayed their bodies on international teevee (a practice that the US loudly howls about when the dead are Americans). And in December the US finally pulled a very scruffy-looking Saddam Hussein out of his hidey hole.

2004

2004 saw the CIA admitting that the whole Iraq WMD thing was bullshit, and we broke ground on the “Freedom Tower” at Ground Zero in New York, which now towers 1,776 feet above former World Trade Center site. A new “progressive” radio station went on the air on March 31st, with comedian Al Franken locking Ann Coulter (played by Bebe Neuworth) in a closet. On April Fools Day, “Morning Sedition” made its debut at six past six AM. Then, on Memorial Day that year, SU beat Navy 14-13 to win the Lacrosse National Championship. On the morning after another close Presidential election, John Kerry – who had vowed to make every vote count – rolled over and quit, consigning us to a second Bush term. The day after Christmas that year, an earthquake measuring 9.3 on the Richter scale caused a Tsunami that killed something like 300,000 people (though we’ll never know exactly how many).

2005

In May of 2005, we found out who Deep Throat was, and he turned out to be somebody most of us had never heard of. In August, I started grad school on the same weekend a hurricane named Katrina made its way up the Gulf of Mexico, heading for New Orleans as George Bush vacationed. New Orleans was drowned and Americans were, at first, shocked at the lack of response to the emergency (except for Bush, who thought his FEMA Chief was doing a heckuva job). The President’s mother, Barbara, saw all the colored folks sleeping on cots at the Astrodome in Houston, and declared that this whole hurricane thing “…is working very well for them.” By October, most Americans had pretty much forgotten about New Orleans. On December 16th, Marc Maron “landed” Morning Sedition for the last time.

2006

The Marc Maron Show began its short run on Feb 28, 2006. It wouldn’t last long enough to see the the Super Dome in New Orleans reopen in September. I spent most of that summer in a sweltering dorm room at Catholic University in DC. I wasn’t crazy about it, but of course I never complained. 🙄 In October, the US population hit the 300 million mark, and in November, Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate, a feat which allowed them to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein was executed on December 30, 2006. Thanks to cell phones, video of his hanging is still available on the Internet.

2007

Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House in January, 2007, and Bush countered by escalating the war in Iraq. By the end of the year, the nation was obsessed with much more important matters, as the Mitchel Report on Steroids in Baseball is released.

2008

In 2008, Michael Phelps won a lot of medals at the Olympics (later, the world would be shocked – shocked, I say – when a photo of him doing a bong surfaced on the Internet), in a very mavericky move, John McCain chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as a running mate, and Bush crams a $700 billion Wall St. bailout through Congress. On Memorial Day, SU beat Johns Hopkins 13-10 to win the Lacrosse National Championship. In November, the US elects its first-ever African American President, Barack Obama (though some doubt the “American” part). With Democrats in control of the House, Senate, and Presidency, they can now end the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and enact Single Payer Health Care.

2009

In March of 2009, SU beat UCONN 127-117 in a six overtime game that ended at 1:22 AM. The next day, all of Syracuse stumbled around half asleep, but happy (except for my wife, who said, “oh, was there a game last night?”). In April, the Tea Baggers began to hold Barack Obama responsible for the Wall St bailout, and protest taxation with representation, while warning politicians to keep their dirty hands off their Medicare. On Memorial Day, Syracuse beat Cornell 10-9 in OT to win its 11th Lacrosse National Championship, which is a record; Johns Hopkins is in second place, with nine (just in case you were wondering, in the 29 years there’s been an NCAA Division I Lacrosse tournament, SU’s tourney record is 54-18, with 11 first-place finishes, 5 runners-up, and a total of 26 final four appearances).

Anyhow, by summer, Swine Flu had all but eradicated the US and World populations (all but 6.7 billion or so). Towards the end of June, SC Governor Mark Sanford goes MIA for a few days, and a new euphemism for having sex – “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” – is born. In July, invoking the famous cliche “winners always quit and quitters always win”, Sarah Palin resigned as Alaska Governor, having served half a term. This half-term as Governor of a state with a population roughly equivalent to that of Charlotte, NC, as well as her two, three-year terms as Mayor of Wasilla, AK (whose population is roughly 1,000 less than the number of employees where I work), makes her the darling of the Teabaggers, and presumptive 2012 GOP nominee. Michael Jackson died somewhere in there, too (not from Swine Flu, though), but Abe Vigoda is still alive. On Aug 20th, the Scottish Government released convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi on compassionate grounds that he had less than three months to live. Like Abe Vigoda, he’s still alive.

A family of morons launched a helium-filled Jiffy Pop bag as a nation of concerned morons watched it over and over again on a loop, thinking it was a live feed (“damn kid must be gettin’ awful dizzy, the way that thing keeps spinnin’ around in circles”).

In November, Sarah Palin’s support for Doug Hoffman in the NY 23rd special election helped win that seat for a Democrat for the first time since the Civil War, and SU’s basketball coach – Jim Boeheim – became just the eight coach in Division I history to win 800 games. As most of us were sleeping off our Thanksgiving dinners, Tiger Woods was getting “rescued” by his 7-iron wielding wife, after she finally caught on to what he really meant when he told her he was going out to play 18 holes.

On Christmas Day, some idiot tried to blow his balls off on an airplane headed to Detroit. As if Detroit didn’t have enough problems. Wingnuts all over the nation are appalled by President Obama vacationing outside of the United States in Hawaii while the US is under attack from underwear bombers, as wingnut in chief Rush Limbaugh is rushed to the hospital with chest pains – in Hawaii.

The last ten years seem like they went by in a blur for me. In some ways, New Years Eve 1999 seems like yesterday, and in other ways, it seems like it was a lifetime ago. Hell, it seems like we’ve been working on our damn kitchen for more than ten years already.

Oh well, I guess it’s time to head out for the last work day of 2009. Have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve. See ya in 2010 (is this the year we make contact?).

My new Jawhorse came yesterday. I haven’t ordered anything else, so I guess that means Christmas is really over now (interesting how, when you get older, you have to buy your own presents). Now it’s back to reality, which for me means having to take my car in to get it inspected. I usually wait until the last minute for these things, but this year I’m actually a couple days ahead. As far as I know, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s still a hassle to deal with. I think my van (which is probably filled with snow at this point, since the side windows were left in the pushed-open position) is overdue, too, so I’ll have to deal with that one of these days. I really need to drive it more.

Yesterday was kinda nasty: cold, windy, and snowy. Not that we had all that much snow, but I think we were all kinda thinking this would be the year with no winter. The dream is over. Fortunately, we’ve got basketball to keep our minds occupied. Both the Syracuse mens and womens hoop teams are undefeated and ranked in the Top 25 so far this season. In the case of the women, their 11-0 start is a new record for them (which they’ll hopefully add to tonight when they play New Hampshire). The boys are 13-0 after traveling to New Jersey to play Seton Hall last night. They played lousy but managed to pull out a win in the end. Their best start ever is 19-0, but after watching a documentary the other night on John Wooden, I’m kinda hoping they can go on an 88 game winning streak.

Speaking of sports, the Tiger Woods saga has now entered the obligatory “rehab phase,” following in the footsteps of David Duchovny, and Eliot Spitzer. I still don’t get why anybody (other than his wife, of course) really cares, but my hope is that he’ll lay low until August, and then make his return to the tour at the 2010 Turning Stone Resort Championship (which gets its first summer date this year, but is forced to share that weekend with the World Golf Championship-Bridgestone Invitational). We could use the publicity (tourism dollars), and he’d steal the spotlight from the other tournament. Plus, rumor has it he already has a few babes lined up in the area.

Oh well, I’ve just been informed that it’s time for me to go. So here I go.

Far be it for me to sympathize with a terrorist, but I’m forced to admit that I’m pretty amazed by the dedication of anybody who would sew explosives into the crotch of their undies and try to detonate them. By dedication, of course, I mean freakin’ insanity (and by them, I mean, well, you know what I mean). Oh, sure, on paper, if you’re gonna blow yourself up, it doesn’t matter what part blows up first. But as Umar Fuckedup Abdulmentalcase has clearly demonstrated, you really need to plan for all contingencies, and if there’s only a partial ignition and fire, it damn sure does matter what part of your anatomy the explosives are under. I see that “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” has taken credit for (and seems to be rather proud of) the “underwear bomber.” What is that, a franchise? Is that how far things have fallen, that we don’t even get attacked by the home office anymore, but it gets farmed out to the Al Qaeda equivalent of the Scranton branch? God only knows what kind of twisted screening processes they’ll come up with at the airport after this one. I hope there isn’t anyplace I ever have to fly again, but for those who do, I foresee many crotch-sniffing dogs in your future (and not in a good way).

No failure to launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome last night, though, as the Russkies successfully delivered the newest DirecTV satellite to orbit. Now it’s a month or two of testing and repositioning, and then hopefully we’ll get more HD programming to go along with the February price increase.

Speaking of successful deliveries, our new refrigerator was successfully delivered yesterday afternoon. It took me about an hour to peel off all the tape and protective wrap, but I not only got it in place and loaded, but also managed to get the old one down to the basement and loaded with beer (and water, and the five bottles of Champagne – actually sparkling whatever it is, ‘cuz it comes from NY, not France – that were left over from the past couple of holiday seasons), and of course I unmounted the bottle opener from the kitchen wall, and mounted it downstairs. Turns out I put it in the wrong place, but that was to be expected (what with my inability to do anything right). I’m not sure why it gives me such a feeling of comfort to know that my beer is just a few steps away from the teevee, but it does. It should come in darn handy for New Year’s Eve.

Max Baucus yelled at some asshole Republican, and now Mark Foley is absolutely outraged at Max’s indecent behavior. Yes, Mark Foley, who until recently could be found hanging around outside the Congressional Page Dormitory wearing black rubber boots and a trench coat, carrying a six-pack of Budweiser and a box of chocolate chip cookies, disapproves of Max Baucus. And good ol’ Mark knows indecent behavior when he sees it.

I saw the headline this morning, Ambulance Dispatched To Obama’s Home In Hawaii, and I thought “oh, great, he drove into a fire hydrant and Michelle ‘rescued’ him by smashing out the rear window of his SUV.” Turns out it was just a neighbor kid or something who got slightly hurt. Not much drama there.

Speaking of headlines, here’s one that has “duh” written all over it: “Metallica drummer struggles with ringing in ears.” He probably listens to too much AC/DC or something.

Oh well, it’s in the single-digits, very windy, and snowing this morning, so I reckon I’d better get moving early. I just hope I don’t have to shovel to get out.

See ya.

Today started out great. The showerhead had been left in “blast” mode and not properly seated in its little hook, so when I turned it on, it promptly rose up, spun around (not unlike Linda Blair in “The Exorcist”), and blasted me in the face, soaking the walls (and floor) behind me. As I was trying, in my half-sleep stupor, to shut the stupid thing off (or at least aim it away from my face), I somehow managed to pull the muscle in my ribs that always seems to go into spasm at the most inopportune of times (not that there’s a good time for it to happen, come to think of it). Of course, I couldn’t soak up the water on the floor, ‘cuz there was only one towel in the bathroom, and the little throw rug that’s supposed to be on the floor in front of the tub has been MIA for weeks now, so I figured the next thing that would happen was me slipping on my way out of the shower and smashing my head on the corner of the vanity or something (thanks to the grab bar I installed when my mother was with us for a short time, I managed to avoid that fate; I really don’t want to be found naked and dead in a pool of my own blood on the bathroom floor, like a beached and harpooned white whale).

I’ve started close to 18,000 days in my life – enough to know that when they start out like this, it’s best to just go back to bed if you can. Sadly, that’s not an option this morning. The good news is that Christmas is over. The bad news is that it’s back to work again today. What a bummer that is. The good news is that my new refrigerator is gonna be delivered today (gee, and only a month after it was originally supposed to have been delivered). The bad news is that my wife scheduled it for a day when she was working, so I have to deal with it. The good news is that I could have avoided heading out into this snowy morning by working from home until it got delivered this morning. The bad news is that it isn’t coming until between 2 and 4 this afternoon, so I have to go in to work this morning after all.

I was listening to a podcast in the wee hours of the morning the other night. I don’t know who or what it was (it just happened to be on where I could hear it while I was trying to get some sleep). The premise of the show seemed to be that Obama was the anti-Christ, and the Copenhagen Climate Conference was actually a ruse to implement One World Government (which of course is a harbinger of the apocalypse). Yes, in case you didn’t realize it, international treaties – especially those involving the reduction of carbon emissions – are a threat to the American way of life. As proof, they cited the really cool spiral lights in the sky over northern Norway. The light – according to these folks – was clearly a Star Gate or worm hole or something like that presaging the coming of the end times. And, surely, it was no coincidence that this sign appeared above Copenhagen while Obama was there.

Of course, there are one or two little holes in that story. First, the light was visible over northern Norway. Sightings were reported as far south as Sør-Trøndelag, which is about 800 miles north of Copenhagen (which is just a tad south in latitude of Glasgow). So, as a sign of the second coming, it was off a bit. The other problem is that it appears to have been a failed Russian missile launch from a submarine in the White Sea. Looks like the first two stages worked OK, but the third stage failed, lost guidance, and started to spiral around spewing fuel in a couple of directions.

Of course, you’ll only believe this fake missile launch story if you’ve been duped by the Illuminati. The rest of us are way too smart for that. I mean, 2012, Star Gates, One World Government…. It’s just too damn obvious. And now all these Nigerian terrorists, following the lead of their secret commander, Barack Hussein Obama. The end times are nigh, indeed.

Speaking of Nigeria, if you’re planning on flying anywhere, I recommend you watch what you eat, ‘cuz if you get the shits and spend too much time in the airplane crapper, you’re liable to find yourself under arrest when the plane lands. Sounds reasonable to me. I’ve been in those airplane bathrooms and remember thinking somebody ought to go to prison.

Oh well, I guess it’s about that time.

On Press the Meat today, you think flying is a pain in the ass now? Secretary of Fatherland Security Janet Napolitano will be on to tell us how much worse it’s about to get now that Obama’s failure to torture people has led to terror in the skies. Don’t say Dick Cheney didn’t warn us. Then Robert Gibbs will be on tell us how great this whole Senate health care bill is, and to reassure us that the White House will put the screws to those goddamn liberal sonsabitches in the House who are trying to make it not suck. Oh, but that’s not all. There’s also a roundtable with the NY City’s second greatest mayor of all time, Mike Bloomberg, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (I guess Tom Delay was unavailable), Mass Gov and Obama speech writer Deval Patrick, and Mrs. Alan Greenspan.

Robert Gibbs heads on over to CBS’s Faze the Nation, to be joined by James Clyburn of SC, Peter King (sadly, not the Sports Illustraterd write, but the Republican goon from NY’s 3rd district (he looks like kinds of a cross between Jimmy Hoffa and Paulie Walnuts), CBS News Chief Armenian Correspondent, Armen Keteyian, and former Bush Deputy Assistant and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism, Juan Zarate (on to tell us “Dick Cheney told ya so”).

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has Chris Van Hollen on to tell us how the House and Senate will reconcile their health care bills. Then Jersey Senator Bob Menendez PA “Democrat” Arlen Specter, the aptly named Dick Shelby, and, vying for the “biggest asshole in the Senate” award (but facing very stiff competition) SC cracker Jim DeMint. Plus a fair and balanced panel of Fuxheads – the fairly stupid spawn of an original neo-con, Bill Kristol, his intellectual and ideological equivalent, piece of crap AP “reporter” Jennifer Loven (she should’ve married Don Hewitt; then she could have been Jennifer Loven Hewitt) token Juan Williams (they thought they were getting a Hispanic, but must’ve been thrilled to find out he’s a twofer) and the crazy and evil Ann Coulter wannabe, Laura Ingraham – grades Obama’s first year in office. Let me guess: more war, good (but not good enough), everything else, very, very bad. Oh, and partisan. And he hates white people, too.

Over on the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus hosts a pair of assholes from the Senate, as Jim DeMint slithers over from NBC to be joined by “Democrat” Kent Conrad. At This Weak’s roundtable, political mastermind Donna Brazile, NY Times resident douchebag David Brooks, lost Gabor sister (no, not Oily Taints) Arianna Huffington, guy who actually knows stuff, Paul Krugman and – of course – the man who has nowhere else to be, George :jerk: Will, will talk about cars, car repair, and, uh, this week’s puzzler. Oh, wait. Wrong show. They’ll talk about politics or something. Actually, they’ll probably just talk.

On GPS with Fareed Zakaria, it’s an encore showing of an interview with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (didn’t he used to be on The Daily Show?). Plus, author Malcolm Gladwell, on how Art Garfunkel has inspired his hairstyle.

Later, on 60 Minutes, it looks like at least on rerun. Probably the rest are, too. But there’s one segment with Lara Logan, and she’s always worth watching (hey, if she’s good enough for Mick Ware, she’s good enough for me).

Now, go out there and have lovely Sunday.

OK, well, that’s over for another year. Yesterday was a nice contrast to x-mas eve. The streets were all but deserted, no stores were open (even the Delta Sonic was closed; good thing I didn’t need gas – or a car wash), and everything was nice, quiet and devoid of humanity. Other than a severely stiff neck, I seem to have gotten through yet another holiday unscathed. Today is gonna be one of those days where much is planned, yet little will be accomplished. Sort of a microcosm of my entire life, actually. Big plans, lots of potential (OK, to be honest, probably not really all that much potential), and little to show for it. But, screw it. I’ve always thought having “ambition” was just never being happy with what you have. Good thing I was born without it. Well, guess I’d better go and try to remember just what it is I was supposed to accomplish today, so I can think up some excuses for not getting it done.

As I may have mentioned in the past, I’ve never been much for the whole “God” explanation of the universe. Not that I have a better idea, and I certainly don’t begrudge anybody else their right to believe whatever they want (though I’d just as soon they wouldn’t feel compelled to tell me I should live my life based on their supposed sense of morality). It’s just always seemed a little silly to me that there’s an all-powerful being that loves us, but allows bad things to happen to good people. Not to mention the fact that, if there is such as thing as God, we’re so vain as to think we were created in Its image. I mean, humans have been around for, what, a few hundred thousand years (depending on what you want to count as human)? The dinosaurs were around for a few hundred million. Hell, we haven’t even been around long enough to see how we’ll turn out – let alone make a case for being the embodiment of God on Earth.

But, yesterday morning, as I was out trying to do some grocery shopping amidst throngs of “the people” (slack-jawed people picking their noses idling at green lights, people leaving their carts in the middle of the aisle while they ponder the intricate mystery of which brand of canned corn is the best, people cutting in line in front of me, groups of people having conversations in the store entrance as if they were the only beings on the planet) at this most special and joyous time of year, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there isn’t a God after all.

Here I was, surrounded by the annoying crush of humanity that I typically do my best to avoid, all showing absolutely no signs of common sense whatsoever, and I thought, how in the hell could these stupid fucking idiots make it through life without some sort of divine intervention? Clearly, these people must be capable of tying their shoes, feeding themselves – even holding down actual jobs – all while being seemingly brain dead. How is this possible?

We humans seem to survive (and thrive) in spite of ourselves. We crap in the water we drink, spew toxins into the air we breathe, and poison our food supply, all in the name of profit (profit being more sacred than the life we pretend to revere). And we seem to be driven to kill each other (in fact, the one thing we’ve always been really good at is devising new and better ways to do it on ever more massive scales) all while pretending to celebrate the birth of the “Prince of Peace” (which we do by buying each other crap).

A species this stupid should have vanished from the face of the Earth a long time ago.

So, I guess maybe I’m willing to consider there really is some invisible man in the sky keeping us around (probably just for laughs) despite the fact that we’re a bunch of corrupt, murderous, mouth-breathing morons.

But Intelligent Design? No fuckin’ way.

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

The final vote on the Senate health care bill is taking place as I write this (the first Christmas Eve Day vote since 1895 or something). Assuming they can wheel poor old Robert Byrd out there one more time, the bill can then go to conference, where we can hope that whatever emerges doesn’t suck quite as much as it sucks now (don’t count on it, though, since President Obama says he’ll now be taking a “hands-on” approach to merging the two bills, and, based on everything he and his sidekick Rahm Emanuel have done and said so far, I’d expect all the bending over to be done by progressives; I think Obama has been channeling two former Democratic Presidents – Health Care is his NAFTA, and Afghanistan is his Vietnam).

Speaking of sucking, all that sucking up to Olympia Snowe sure did a lot of good, didn’t it? She voted in favor of a resolution introduced by John Ensign (who has said the government doesn’t have the “moral authority” to enforce this mandate – he’s a fine one to lecture anybody about morality) to declare the bill unconstitutional, on the grounds that the mandate part violates the Fifth Amendment of the Commerce Clause, which (in part) states,

“…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

OK, well, I’m not a legal expert or anything, but I always thought that was more for eminent domain kinda stuff (you know, they wanna put in a highway or a Wal-Mart or something else that would serve the “greater good,” but your house is in the way, so, while they can take it away from you, they have to pay you something for it). Seems like Republicans just voted to declare all taxes on private citizens unconstitutional, which I reckon I could support. I suppose you could consider all the wonderful things the government does with your tax dollars to be “just compensation,” but then that would apply to health care, too, right?

About 15 minutes into the workday yesterday, I realized that going to work today would be absolutely unbearable, so I quickly decided to burn a vacation day today and sleep in a little bit before heading out to pick up the things I need to make it through the holiday tomorrow (and by that, of course, I mean beer). I neglected to let the dog in on the plan, though, and he made sure I didn’t oversleep. Oh well, at least it gives me a chance to check Santa’s progress.

Speaking of Santa, he’s supposed to deliver the plywood clamp attachment for my new jawhorse today, though the jawhorse itself won’t be showing up until next Tuesday, so I won’t be able to play with it on Christmas day, which is kind of a bummer (busy delivery week next week; the refrigerator that they neglected to deliver a month ago is supposed to finally be delivered on Monday – though I’m still trying to figure out how the hell it’s gonna get through the door).

I finally got to shovel a little snow last night when I got home from work, as we had about five or six inches in the driveway. It’s been an awfully lame season so far, with a total of barely over a foot of snow (last year at this time, we had over five feet already).

For some reason, this whole thing with the kid in Brazil is a big huge deal for the folks at the Today Show. I’m not sure why. The kid’s mother apparently went to Brazil for vacation with the kid and never came back, got divorced, remarried, died in childbirth, and now dad wants the kid back. They’re tsk-tsking over the fact that the “Brazillian Family” is horrible and doesn’t care about the kid, but is trying to make this all about them, is making a big dog and pony show out of all this looking for publicity, and that the kid, obviously, should be with his dad. Now, far be it for me to point out any irony or hypocrisy, but can you say “Elian Gonzalez?”

Have a good day and don’t forget, you’ve still got time to show how much you love Jesus by buying shit.

First it came for the pigs, but I’m not a pig so I didn’t care. Then it came for the Mexicans, but I’m not a Mexican, so I just ignored it. Then it came for the young people, and I figured, “screw the young! And get the hell off my lawn!” Next it came for the cats, and I have to admit that that didn’t really bother me much, either. But now, well, now it’s gone just too goddamn far! The first case of Swine Flu in a dog has been confirmed in White Plains, NY (which is Upstate, if you live in NYC, but Downstate if you live in the real Upstate). Enough is enough! I admit to not taking the whole H1N1 scare seriously before, but if it’s infecting dogs, then it’s picking a fight with the wrong damn guy. I mean, some spokeswoman for an animal medical center was quoted as saying, “don’t play kissyface with your dog….” Oh, why don’t I just go shoot myself, then? I refuse to change my way of life. The flu hates us for our kissyfaces, and if we give up our kissyfaces out of fear, then the flu wins. Especially now that kissyface season is upon us.

While the Senate health care bill sucks, they have found a way to stick it to House Minority Leader John Boehner a little bit by sneaking in a 10% tax on the use of tanning beds. The Senators were reportedly looking at either that, or a tax on Botox treatments, but they gave up on the whole Botox thing after a personal appeal from Nancy Pelosi.

With the Botox tax officially dead, the House now prepares to roll over for the Senate. There may be a few meaningless concessions to make “progressives” feel better, but no serious opposition is expected. So, as far as I can tell, nothing much changes for me, except I think my work insurance benefits will now be at least partially considered taxable income, and as I get older, insurance companies can charge me up to 300% more. There will be no more lifetime cap on benefits. Instead, there will be an annual cap on benefits, which, to my admittedly puny and ignorant mind, kinda seems like the same thing (unless I die fast, in which case it would seem to benefit the insurance company). Win-win.

Of course, should I lose my job, I’ll be able to pay a fine for not having the insurance I’ll no longer be able to afford (and hope like hell I don’t get sick). As a famous former presidential candidate once said, “[i]f a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody buy a house….” Good idea. If I lose my job, no doubt I’ll be homeless before too long, so let’s go ahead and pass that, too.

Just don’t tax my Botox.

Some very scary news this morning out of Dublin. There was a fire at the St James’s Gate Brewery brewery. Fortunately, while two firefighters were injured, it appears that the fire occurred in an empty storage building, so no beer was harmed. Likewise, the Guinness Storehouse tourist center was unscathed. Thank goodness for that. Everybody know that Santa stops off at the Gravity Bar for a pint or two when he’s done delivering presents on Christmas Eve.

Yesterday was our office Christmas Party, which we have at a nearby “Pizza Pub.” I’m generally not much for parties, I did see an infomercial (couldn’t hear it, but I could see it) for the Rockwell Jawhorse, which looks pretty nifty, and would come in very handy for trying to work alone (especially if you add the “Plywood Jaw”). So, I may have to order one of those suckers.

I’m pretty beat this morning, having gotten almost no sleep last night (which seems to be more the norm these days than the exception). One of the dogs apparently pulled a muscle or tweaked something yesterday, with the result being loud yelps when ever he tries to move. So, every time he rolled over or moved last night, he squealed. Not only did that keep me up, but it freaked out the other dog, who was panting and shaking like a leaf all night. I’m definitely running on empty this morning, and this promises to be one helluva long day.