So, I mentioned yesterday that they were doing a poll on whether or not adultery should be illegal. It wasn’t until later on in the day that I found out why. Seems a woman in Batavia, NY (famous for its turf farms) was charged with adultery and public lewdness for doing some guy on a picnic table bench in a public park (only the 13th person to be charged with adultery in NY State history, going back to 1900 when it became illegal; makes you wonder what was going on at the end of the 19th Century that made NYS feel compelled to enact that legislation). And she’s not even a politician.

OK, I can understand the public humping charge, but adultery? Was that really necessary? Her rather understanding husband says he’s “sad and hurt, but he forgives his wife.”

“I’ve got 40-some more years to spend with my wife, [and] I’m not going to throw it away over one incident,” he said. “I wish that the charges were dropped and that we could resolve this as man and wife. It’s more of a private matter.”

Uh, yeah, dude. It was just this one incident. I mean, who hasn’t been sitting in the parkm minding their own business, when suddenly they find themselves having sex? It happens (at least, in certain movies I used to run back in the day). My only advice would be to suggest that your wife not to tend to her private matters at public picnic tables. But then my wife never listens to me, either.

We found out yesterday that the SU Basketball program had the dubious distinction of falling below NCAA academic standards (them, and Colorado). That’s mostly because three kids decided to quit school a year ago and turn pro, which counts against you somehow. Now, I could give a shit about academics (I mean, lots of people go to college so they can get a job, so if you can get a job w/o graduating, then good for you; hell, I dropped out and got a glamorous job in a foundry), but they didn’t even win the National Championship. The sooner we drop this whole “academic” pretense and admit these kids are just money-makers for the colleges, and the programs are just farm teams for the pros, the better.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t let them take classes if they want to, but in the end, it’s all about the money. Better to go through life fat, rich, and stupid than, um, just fat and stupid. That’s the American Way, isn’t it?

Lots of primaries yesterday. Blanche Lincoln won, which sucks. Her opponent got lots of support from Organized Labor, but unions in the motherland of Wal-Mart don’t really have a lot of pull these days. The chicken lady went down, and Harry Reid will get to run against a teabagger and “oath keeper” in Sharon Angle. Nikki Haley won by a large majority, but didn’t get 50%, prompting a runoff in SC (so there’s still plenty of time for more people to come out and claim they had an affair – or at least a quickie – with her and call her a f*ckin’ rag head). Of course, the big news from last night came in baseball.

Former Syracuse Chief (OK, he was only here for like a month, but still, I’ll be able to say I saw him when he was in the minors. Not that I actually went out to see him, but I can still say it) Stephen Strasburg had his Major League debut with the Washington Nationals. Although he gave up a 2-run homer in the 4th (welcome to the bigs, Steve), he also struck out 14 batters with no walks in 7 innings, getting the win. Not too shabby.

The lo-cal news is running a poll this morning on whether or not adultery should be illegal (which it is in NY State, though I don’t think there are enough jails to actually enforce it). So far, it’s running 61-39 against it being illegal. I guess they couldn’t think of anything else to poll. They ought to try asking if the Israelis ought to get out of Palestine, as the late Helen Thomas suggested. That would get everybody all riled up.

More spending cuts from our Governor, whose latest emergency spending bill (still no budget here, in case you were wondering) includes $775 million worth of cuts to health care. Where I work, that means $1.5 million less from NY State, plus about the same amount in matching Federal funds. Next week, the Guv is expected to announce a $1 a pack cigarette tax (which would be fine with me, personally), but our hero and Senate Majority Leader Pedro Estrada (who acquired his position, you may recall, for his role in the rather short-lived coup that allowed Republicans to briefly take control of the NYS Senate. He was the one who didn’t assault his girlfriend – or at least hasn’t been charged and/or convicted of it) is saying he’ll vote against the next spending bill, so either we’ll get a budget or NY will shut down.

Estrada, by the way, is being sued by NY AG Andy Cuomo for embezzling some $14 million from a network of nonprofit health care clinics he founded, as well as for vastly underpaying janitors at his Bronx health clinics – some getting paid as little as $1.70 an hour. Which means you’d have to work for 4 hours and 42 minutes to pay the toll to cross the George Washington Bridge (on the bright side, it’s free on the way back).

NOAA says there’s – get this – oil in the water in the Gulf of Mexico. BP CEO Tony Hayward is positively gobsmacked at this news. Still, despite what appears to be oil gushing out rather profusely, BP is confident that the gush will be reduced to a “relative trickle” soon.

On the bright side, BP engineers are developing a car engine that runs on seawater. Assuming the seawater comes from the Gulf of Mexico, of course.

A former Citibank employee in NYC is claiming she was fired because she’s “too hot” and was a distraction to the other employees. Now, she’s certainly not ugly, but assuming she wasn’t coming to work in a halter top and Daisy Dukes, I think it’s pretty clear that it’s the “other employees” that have the problem, and not her (I think this sort of thing was also responsible for Helen Thomas’ retirement; she was just too hot), but the boys at Citibank apparently couldn’t handle it, and told her she needed to start wearing baggier clothing..

“I don’t have the money to buy a new wardrobe,” she says, referring to her work outfits. “I shop where everyone else shops—at Zara!” Lorenzana recalls leaving the meeting feeling humiliated. Other female employees “were able to wear such clothing because they were short, overweight, and they didn’t draw much attention,” she later wrote in a letter describing the meeting to Human Resources, “but since I was five-foot-six, 125 pounds, with a figure, it wasn’t ‘appropriate.’ ” She was also furious. “Are you saying that just because I look this way genetically, that this should be a curse for me?”

Yes, sadly, the curse of the good-looking people strikes again. I pity them all – men and women alike. Never getting the good jobs, never special treatment, never getting out of speeding tickets. Not everyone is blessed the way we short fat people are.

After a four-day weekend, it’s back to work again today. That sucks. Hopefully nobody will complain that I’m too sexy for my shirt.

In somewhat fitting fashion, a storm with high winds tore through the village of Chittenango yesterday, putting a premature end to this weekend’s Oz-Straveganza festivities. No, this wasn’t an homage to Ozzie Osbourne. Chittenango is the birth place of L Frank Baum, who wrote the series of books made famous by the Wizard of Oz. You’ll be glad to hear that, although there was a bit of damage, the Munchkins are all OK (and, yes, there are still a few of them left, though they’re definitely getting up there in years, if not inches).

Of course, Chittenango wasn’t the only place with bad weather this weekend, as tornadoes tore through the Midwest in typical tornado fashion. As I’ve learned from televangelists over the years, this is apparently because God hates the Midwest. In fact, just based on weather patterns, I’d have to say that God is really f*ckin’ pissed at the entire bible belt, ‘cuz between floods, droughts, hurricanes, and tornadoes, God’s pretty much throwing everything He’s got a these people. Except earthquakes, but we know He saves that shit up for the Godless State of California.

If you’ve checked in on the ‘Oil Cam’ lately, you might think the cap BP put on their hole in the ground (is it a hole in the ground if it’s under water?) isn’t doing a damn thing. That’s because you’re stupid. The folks at BP assure us that not only is it doing something, it’s capturing a ‘vast majority’ of the oil spewing out. Uh, OK. They’re the experts, so I trust them. I mean, who you gonna believe, the oil industry, or you’re lying eyes?

It’s odd. You remember the outcry from the wingnuts about “free speech” and stuff when that bimbo with the fake boobs made her proclamation about ‘opposite’ marriage? Well, I figured they’d all start yammering again in defense of Helen Thomas’ right to say that the Israelis ought to all go back to Germany and Poland. Shockingly, they appear to have remained silent. Well, not silent so much as ‘outraged’ (sorry, did I say outraged? I meant to say OUTRAGED!!!). And of course Ari Fleischer says she ought to be fired. And when Ari speaks, I listen. I mean, I respect him almost as much as I do BP CEO Tony Hayward.

In a refreshing act of contrition, Illinois Republican Mark Kirk sat down for an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, and apologized for slightly exaggerating (also known as outright lying about) his military record.

“I simply misremembered it wrong,” Kirk said….

Ah. Understandable. If only he’d misremembered it right.

Kirk also apologized for claiming that, in the future, he’ll move his family to Riverside Iowa and eventually become the GGGGGGG-Grandfather of James T. Kirk.

In preparation for the upcoming Football World Cup, South African soccer fans practiced rioting over the weekend. Only 15 people were injured and none were killed, but it’s still preseason, so we expect their stats to improve dramatically once fans get into full World Cup form.

Oh well, another day off, so I guess I’d better do my laundry or something.

Sorry to disappoint you, but there’s no Press the Meat today. Instead, commie pinko NBC will broadcast the Cheese-Eating-Surrender-Monkey French Open. Tennis. Not even a regular American sport.

It’s an oil leak kinda day over at Faze the Nation, with Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, Florida’s Bill Nelson, Sharyl Attkisson and Jan Crawford of CBS News, and the WaPost’s Dan Balz.

Over at Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace also has Thad Allen, plus the rather oily GOVERNOR from Mississippi, Haley Barbour. Also, Israel’s capture of the humanitarian aid flotilla: great, justified military operation, or thethe greatest, most justified military operation ever? A fair an balanced debate with Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren.

Thad Allen hits the trifecta as he heads on over to the Goebbels network along with John Kerry and Krazy John Cornyn. Plus there’s a roundtable with George :jerk: Will, creepy little Markos Moulitsas, Arianna Huffington and spawn of evil, Liz Cheney.

Over at CNN, Fareed Zakaria tells us what he thinks of Israel, and he’ll also talk about Afghanistan, asks if you’d like a nuclear reactor in your back yard, and also talks volcanoes.

Have a good day.

Yesterday was kind of a crappy day off. Nothing wrong with the weather or anything, though, in a sign that global warming is for real, the deer flies were out in force at the park. They normally aren’t this annoying until July. The bigger problem was with my 1998 Chevy Astro van. Turns out another brake line blew out, and the fact that it doesn’t get driven much caused the brakes to rust all to hell, and one caliper is frozen. Plus, turns out they added leaky gas tanks to the list of things that make it fail inspection. So, it’s big bucks for me, at a time when I really would just as soon not have to shell out big bucks. Then, even worse, I get an e-mail this morning from AARP (which is bad enough in and of itself) with a subject of “Your Sex & Relationship Questions Answered!” I don’t actually have any questions on those fronts, and even if I did, AARP wouldn’t my first choice for advice. I didn’t read it, but I can only imagine it has tips for how to have an active sex life with a catheter, and ads for a new line of thong Depends®.

Other sad news yesterday, as Himan Brown passed away about a month and half short of his 100th birthday. My condolences to Melina and her family. As a fan of old time radio, Hi’s shows have brought me a lot of enjoyment. Especially the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, which ran from Jan 1974 through the end of 1982 – taking me from 8th grade through dropping out of my second college. Hi and company managed to crank out something like 1,400 original episodes over those nine years, which is pretty amazing.

Then we had thunderstorms go through in the middle of the night last night. They don’t bother me, but they scare the hell out of the dogs, and when the dogs are scared, there’s no sleep for me. And there’s a big Frisbee – oh, excuse me – Disc golf tournament going on at the park today (yeah, they take this shit really seriously), so I can’t take the dogs there, and I can’t take them to visit their country cousins this week, either.

Well, let’s hope this weekend starts getting better from here on out.

The differences between President Obama and President Bush Jr are pretty clear. As Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast, Bush played guitar with country singer Mark Willis. As oil gushes into the Gulf of Mexico, Obama sings ‘Hey Jude’ with Paul McCartney. I mean, some country singer I never heard of vs. Sir Paul? No contest. Obama’s VP is way better, too. I don’t blame Obama for not wanting to think much about what’s going on down there. I can’t bear to look at the pictures of oil slathered critters either. But I guess his handlers (who are doing a pretty shitty job of handling these days) are making him go back down today so he can look presidential and concerned.

Some people seem to think he needs to show more emotion. Personally, I don’t give a shit whether he “shows emotion” or not. I’d just like to see a little action. I don’t expect him to personally put a cap on the well (which means big bucks for BP, so we’re hopeful this last trick will work – at least a little bit), but how about a “moratorium” that actually stops new drilling, and regulations that require a relief well to be drilled along with the original well (the way those crazy Canadians do) instead of having to wait for months to drill one after the damn thing blows up?

While we’re at it, how about an Apollo-like program to get us off oil in the next decade or something? I’m no ‘Long Island Genius’, but it seems like that’d not only be cheaper than invading and occupying other countries, but also create a lot of jobs. Of course, that would take a bold leader with courage and vision, and not some typical politician cutting deals and compromising good ideas to death while protecting corporate interests.

OK, Congress sucks and Obama/Biden aren’t nearly as evil and stupid as Bush/Cheney, but, shit. I knew he wouldn’t be great, but I thought he’d be better than this.

It’s funny, sometimes shit happens that you think is so obviously wrong, that you figure any thinking human would have to denounce. A far-right conservative government boarding a ship carrying humanitarian aid in international waters and killing a bunch of the people on board would seem to qualify. Yet there’s Anthony Weiner (whom we all know from being an intelligent, articulate liberal, outspoken voice for single payer healthcare, and having a schnoz that could open an oil can – assuming you’re old enough to remember oil cans) out there doubling down on Israel’s actions, and calling Turkey a “former ally”.

Oy.

Well, I’m off today (you can tell by how I’m “sleeping in”), which means I get to see how many seconds of the Today Show I can stand to watch before I switch to reruns of Law and Order. Enjoy your Friday.

Apparently there’s a new thing that’s all the rage amongst the young people called “vodka eyeballing.” Basically, you pour vodka into your eye to get drunk faster. Odd, because I was always able to get plenty drunk, plenty quick by drinking vodka the old fashioned way. The thought of pouring the equivalent of rubbing alcohol into my eye is really rather unappealing. In fact, I’d have to be pretty drunk to stick a bottle in my eye, which begs a chicken-and-egg type question. Do you stick vodka in your eye to get drunk, or do you have to be drunk to stick vodka in your eye? Today’s youth: geniuses.

Speaking of young geniuses, the NY Post ran a story on one from Long Island who came up with an idea to stop the BP oil leak. Her plan is to shove a bunch of deflated tires into the hole, and then inflate them, thereby stopping the leak. Voila. Genius!

Now, I’ve never claimed to be a genius, but, as we mentioned yesterday, the pressure of the water down a mile or so is over 2,000 psi. Seems like a bit much to expect your basic set of all-season radials to be able to hold that kind of pressure, doesn’t it? I mean, I think the depth record for a submarine (with, like, air and people in it, as opposed to a submersible) is like 4,000 feet. And they’re made out of something a little more substantial than rubber.

But, as I said, I’m no genius (one might wonder whether there are lower standards for the “genius” classification on Long Island), so what do I know?

I guess I’ll go for the “Nuclear Option” where they set off a nuke down there to stop the leak. Not only would the leak (maybe) stop, but the resultant radiation might help to create a new super race of Gulf residents that can breathe underwater, and live off a combination of oil and seawater – think of it; in a generation or two, New Orleans will be filled with a species that can thrive in any hurricane and clean up oil spills, all while playing Jazz. It’s a win-win.

Oh well, time to make the donuts.

As promised, our Governor has announced plans to layoff up to 10,000 NY State public employees. In typical brave fashion, these layoffs will take place on Jan 1, 2011 – the first day of the next Governor’s term, and the day that Paterson’s pledge to not lay off workers expires (which he agreed to when the unions agreed to a deal to reduce pension costs). Of course, both the likely Republican candidate, Rick Lazio, and Democrat Andrew Cuomo have already said they intend to cut the State workforce, so I suppose they’re down with whatever Blinky comes up with. What the hell – they can always just blame it on him. I can think of a lot of layers of unnecessary management that could easily be done away with, but my guess is it’ll be the little guys (and gals) that get axed.

Folks in Pensacola, FL may be seeing a little oil on their beaches today. They ought to ask Obama to come down for a photo-op this weekend so BP will bus in a few hundred cleanup workers for the day.

BP is now moving into the “cut and cap” phase, where apparently they plan on cutting through the bad pipe and putting a cap on it. All at a depth of about 5,000 feet, which I think – and Andy will probably be able to tell us the exact number – is at a pressure of over 2,000 pounds per square inch. I’m guessing that putting a cap on a pipe that’s gushing oil under those conditions (I mean, since the oil is coming out of the hole, rather than sea water going in means it’s got more than 2,000 psi behind it, but then I don’t really know how all that works) is a little difficult. I mean, threading pipe is kind of a pain in the ass under normal conditions (but then, I don’t reckon they’re doing it by hand).

Now, I’m a bleeding heart, big-government, tax and spend socialist librul, so it should come as no surprise that I’m OK with Robbie Reich’s plan to have the feds take BP into temporary receivership until the leak is plugged and everything’s all cleaned up (twenty, thirty – fifty years, tops). But I’m not quite sure why so many teabaggers and redneck Republicans seem to be clamoring for government intervention in all this. I mean, I know the golden rule is that the taxpayers assume the risks and a handful of corporate executives get the profits, but I thought the teabaggers wanted all that to stop. It’s almost like they’re a bunch of, oh, what’s the word? Hypocrites.

Well, so yesterday sucked, and I don’t see today being any better.

They always make us put an “away” message on our e-mail at work if we’re gonna be out of the office for a while. What I’d like to do today is put an “I’m back – don’t f*ck with me” message on, telling people that this is my first day back after a few days off, and I need a day to deal with it, so leave me the hell alone. The people I deal with tend to be needy and whiny, and having a holiday weekend just seems to charge up their whine batteries, getting them all gung-ho to come in and want, want, want. Well, screw them. I need a day to chill out and try to finish all the shit I was doing last week before they add more of their crap to my pile. No such luck.

The curse of the “Number 3” strikes again, as a predator drone supposedly killed some guy they’re calling the Al Qaeda #3 dude. I don’t know – beard, turban…. Would it be wrong of be to suggest that these guys all look alike? For all I know, they keep killing the same guy over and over again. Which only seems to piss off the people who want to blow up buildings a little bit more (like they needed any extra motivation).

Speaking of people who didn’t need any extra motivation, expect to see a new rash of impotent, random rocket launches from Gaza into Israel, thanks to the Israelis, um, whatever you want to call what they did over the weekend. This of course will lead to attacks in Gaza by Israeli helicopter gunships, which will no doubt lead to suicide bombings, which, well, go on and on and on. In other words, business as usual.

I was thinking that our Peace President ought to send US ships in to escort another flotilla ships carrying humanitarian aid and see if Israel wants to fuck with the US Navy, but, then again, one of the people aboard this weekend’s flotilla was a USS Liberty survivor, so maybe we already know the answer to that question. Besides, doing anything beyond mindlessly mouthing “the US recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself” is political suicide in this country for some reason. It’s kind of like saying we ought to just kiss and make up with Cuba already, or that pot ought to be legal.

Oh well, time to get ready to go back to work. This is gonna suck.