Big day in the “occupy” movement, as the folks down there in NYC will see if they can muster up enough of a protest to “shut down” Wall Street (whatever that actually means). Mayor Bloomers has no doubt put a call into the NYPD to sharpen their plungers and give all non-compliant protesters the “full Sandusky.” You might say OWS is like the Titanic, about to slam full-speed into a Bloom Berg. Should be exciting, and I’m sure the majority of the 1% will be hanging around their big screen teevees watching Erin Burnett tsk-tsk the demonstrators, and giggle at every pepper spray-faced protester.

We, of course, don’t have the massive numbers up here (being just a barn in the woods and all), but, as far as I know, there’s no plan to send in the Carabinieri to evict them. But we’re just a bunch of hicks up here, and not suave like they are in Manhattan or hipster-types they way they are in Portland. Probably ‘cuz the Mayor’s a woman, and not a toughie capable of standing to those street thugs the way Bloomers is.

Happy 73 to Gordon Lightfoot. Martin Scorsese hits 69 today. And Vernon’s Gravatar turns 67 (which, for some reason, makes me feel old).

Sad news, as the world wakes up one Munchkin short this morning. Karl Slover – lead trumpeter of the Munchkin Band – passed away at the age of 93 yesterday afternoon. On a bright note, he died in Georgia, so he’s almost surely in a better place today. Among the hardest hit by the news was Gerry Sandusky, who for some reason felt a special connection to the Wizard of Oz and Munchkins.

“Those Munchkins really touched me as a kid, and I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to touch them back,” Sandusky was quoted as saying.

As you know, we have a special connection to Munchkins and the Wizard of Oz in theses parts too, because, like pretty much anyone who’s anyone, the author of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum – was from here (or went to school here, or lived here for a while, or drove through here on the way to somewhere else).

At any rate, this is very disturbing news because, guess what? We’re down to three Munchkins here, folks, and these little buggers are irreplaceable. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna live in a world without Munchkins.

Gerry Sandusky speaks! Turns out, he isn’t a child rapist after all. Thank goodness for that. He merely engages in naked “horseplay” in the shower with children after a workout. Well, who doesn’t do that? It’s a shame Peter Graves passed away – he’d have been great as the lead in the Gerry Sandusky Story. Gerry’s wholesome-sounding – and clearly believable – explanation should be the end of the story, but I’m sure all those witch-hunting liberal academic and media types will continue to drag this poor man through the mud. I’m afraid the only thing that can restore his reputation as the great man he is would be if his doctor gives him an overdose of surgical anesthetic. Hey, Gerry, why don’t you save us all a lot of time and money and go for it?

The crackdowns on the “Occupy” movement continue, with Mayor Bloomers moving to clear out Zucotti Park in Manhattan. Finally. I just despise all this class warfare stuff. Not the class warfare that has the police giving a beat down to the 99%, of course. It’s the class warfare where some suggest that the 1% ought to pay their fair share and go to jail for screwing everybody else that I can’t abide.

As everybody’s heard by now, SCOTUS has agreed to decide upon the constitutionality of Health Care Deform (in particular, the “mandate” to buy insurance). I think we can all expect a fair and impartial decision based purely on the law, and unadulterated by the stench of political ideology.

Right?

Ironic, isn’t it, that had they enacted single-payer health care reform, there wouldn’t have been a question. No wonder that was off the table from the git-go. Oh well, half-a-loaf and whatnot.

Happy 82nd birthday to Ed Asner, who not only breathed life into one of the most memorable characters on teevee (twice), but who is also a full-fledged Progressive activist (and single payer supporter, I might add).

Live long and prosper, Ed – we need your full loaf to balance out the loafless that walk among us.

Did you know there was yet another Republican debate last night? On Sunday. Shouldn’t these people be in church or at home reading by candlelight or whatever it is that good Christians do on Sunday evenings? Well, except for Romney. Tell me why it is, exactly, that we need these things. Are there actually some undecided teabaggers out there that are gonna be swayed by something they hear? “Well, gosh, now that I know Herman Cain opposes Dodd-Frank, I’m gonna have to rethink my position on his candidacy.” It’ll really be interesting if one of these yahoos wind up becoming President – and it’s pretty fortunate for President HAL that you have to be an idiot to get the GOP nomination these days, because that’s the only prayer he has of getting reelected at this point.

A lot can change between now and next year, of course. Holy crap, can you believe there’s still a year of this nonsense left to go? Now Crazy Michele and Spermin’ Herman have jumped on the water board bandwagon. Do they really figure that’s a winning issue? I mean, torture is so last decade.

What they need to do is get on the whole child abuse thing, and blame Obama for not doing enough to protect children (though – and I mention this only for the purposes of irony and not because political affiliation has anything to do with child abuse – Joe Paterno and Gerry Sandusky are both registered Republicans). Here in NY, the knee jerk reaction to the whole Penn State thing is to add college coaches, athletic directors, professors and administrators to the list of “mandated” reporters of child abuse.

Um, here’s a suggestion, how about we add EVERYBODY to the list? I mean, maybe you’re not in a position to physically stop it, but can you not pick up the goddamn phone (unless it’s an iPhone and the battery is dead) and at least call the cops? Send a text? Something? Anything?

I’m not the hero type, but I’d like to think I’d do something more to stop it than tell my dad if I saw something like that. Even when I was “only” 28.

Could be I just don’t get it.

Hey, whatever happened to repealing the 14th Amendment? Weren’t we gonna do that so Arnold Schwartzenbuggerer could run for President? You don’t hear much about these days. I wonder why that is. I mean, if we can have a Nigerian terrorist for President, you’d think an Austrian Nazi would be OK.

So I’ve been seeing lots of “Ron Paul Revolution” signs around our little town these days. Except they spell Revolution with the EVOL written backwards and highlighted, so it looks like “LOVE.”

Why is that? I don’t know about you, but when I think of Ron, “love” is pretty far down on the list of things I associate with him. But then I’m sure you ladies probably feel differently.

Oh well, I guess I better get going. There’s a story coming up on the lo-cal news about the best women’s razors, and I don’t wanna miss it. Could be good water cooler discussion later on. Except I bring my own water ‘cuz they actually expect me to pay to join the “water club.”

What are they, nuts?

The season finale of Bill Maher started off well enough with the guy I wish was my Representative in Congress, Barney Frank. He’d get me out to vote. My dream Presidential ticket would be Barney Frank and Bernie Sanders. Bernie and Barney, Barney and Bernie – either way. In fact, both ways. For sixteen years. Alas, that will never happen. But, hey, anybody who’s better than Bush.

Unfortunately, it was downhill from there as I had to suffer through the interminable Andrew Sullivan. What a f*cking Coulter (euphemism for a different “C” word) that guy is. It’s rare that I find myself cheering for Tweetie, but Sullivan had me doing just that. In fact, I was hoping Matthews would just punch the asshole in the mouth and be done with it.

Oh well, time to get this weekend over with.

To those of you who are Veterans, I salute you. To everybody else, happy binary day. Yes, 111111 – which, if my binary math is correct, adds up to 63. Don’t forget to glance at the clock at 11:11 today, and say, “wow.” I could have purchased tickets to tonight’s SU game for a mere $11 if I’d wanted to. But I don’t have anybody who’d be willing to make the supreme sacrifice of sitting through a football game with me (this is where having a kid would’ve come in handy), and, anyway, the last Friday night football game I went to wiped me out for about a week.

Many people have the day off, but I’ll be working because, well, because I’m not a vet, and I get an extra day off for working (which means I earned two this week, because Election Day is a holiday for me, too – a vestigial holiday left over from the days when public employees in NY were key players in elections). Today is also the final day of my “support” duty rotation, which is mostly a pain in the ass. It’s difficult to get all my other work done when I have to drop everything to answer some stupid call. We have a lot of PEBCAP and 1D10T errors where I work.

Yet more proof that there are, indeed, such things as stupid questions.

The nice weather is supposed to turn to shit today, which can only mean one thing: the weekend is nigh. Having given up my early day on Wednesday (the day it was sunny and 70° – which may be the last one of those we see for a while) so that a co-worker could take the day off and play golf, I get to leave early today, since the weather will suck. Of course, knowing the guy I did the favor for the other day, I’d say it’s even money that he calls in sick today (after I show up early so that I get to work an unexpected 10 hour day).

Oh well, one way or another, it’ll be over with.

Oh well, o

I’d never have thought that you could make me feel sorry for Rick Perry. The maple syrup thing came close. I didn’t feel sorry for him over that, but I did feel kinda embarrassed. Last night’s debate did it though. Or, rather, the clip they just played from last night did. As the lo-cal news anchor just remarked, “dude, write it down!” In fairness, I guess he would so cut the Department of Energy that it’s already dead to him.

I also never thought you could make me feel sorry for Joe Paterno, but, well, I can’t help it. Whether you think he deserved to be fired (or worse) for what he failed to do, and even if you’ve spent a lifetime “hating” Penn State the way I have (not a real hate, but a “Sports” hate; I do, however, really hate Notre Dame and Georgetown), I don’t see how you can’t feel sorry for this sad old man who probably should have retired a few years ago, and who should be remembered for many other things, but will now be remembered for about the worst thing you can possibly be remembered for.

Talk about retire and die – I don’t see Joe Pa living for very long after this.

The Senate will be debating the repeal of Net Neutrality rules today. It shouldn’t be a worry, as President Half-A-Loaf’s administration made the strongest statement it’s capable of making, saying he’d “likely” veto it.

“Likely” is, after all, a full notch above “evolving” on the Obama “take a stand” scale.

I’ll believe it when I see it, and won’t be surprised if he doesn’t cave when push comes to shove. Because, let’s face it, cave is what he does.

Oh, sure, while it only takes a simple majority to control the House (not a majority of people who pretend to be Democrats, of course, as many of them are just Republicans who figured they’d have a better shot of getting elected with a ‘D’ after their name), you need 60 people willing to vote as they’re told to in the Senate. And Obama has never had that.

So, of course, he pre-caved on every issue that came up.

My big disappointment with Obama is not that he isn’t liberal enough or that I don’t agree with him on every issue, or that I don’t think McCain/Palin wouldn’t have been a disaster, or that he could have pushed for a debt increase back when Democrats were in the “majority” in both Houses of Congress (but, yeah, that one could have happened), or that I think it’s guaranteed that he could have gotten a better deal on, say, health care reform had he not offered the Republicans everything they wanted and then negotiated down from there, or even that there haven’t been some good (ish) things that have happened during his term.

No, my disappointment is more that some people rise to the occasion, and some don’t. And he hasn’t. I always used to think that that whole “leadership” quality thing was a bunch of bullshit, but now? Not so much.

It’s one of those things I might not be able to define, but I can sure tell when it’s missing. And with Obama, it’s definitely missing. Except when it comes to shooting Somali pirates or “getting” Osama. When it comes to using drones to kill people, he’s pretty much down with that – no wishy-washy qualms about civilian casualties or international borders or assassination laws. I’ll give him credit there.

Frankly, it seems like so much of what “good” Obama has actually accomplished has been as a result of being forced (or shamed) into doing it (after analyzing poll results, no doubt) – and not by the people who apologize for him and make excuses, but by the “ideologically pure” unreasonable people who have been saddened by what they see as a missed opportunity that may be a long time in coming again – if it ever comes at all. Not that I count myself among those people, of course (shit, if I thought anybody was paying attention to what I say – never mind cared about my opinion – I wouldn’t say half of it. And I’d proofread the other half).

I don’t do much of anything but complain and try to pay my bills and run out the clock on what’s left of my life hoping I can keep my mind-numbing job so I can go sit in a windowless office all day (70 degrees yesterday, and I saw none of it) and get a couple days off every week and maybe retire a few years before I die. For the most part, I try not to pay attention anymore.

Sorry, but I seem to have developed an inability (for the most part) to care about politics or Climate Change or Wall Street or – especially – the 30% of the 99% who are stupid enough to vote to slit their own throats. I think it’s because I don’t sleep any more and I’m just too damn tired all the time.

So, yeah, Obama hasn’t had a reliable caucus in Congress, and the media is against him, and the Republicans are obstructionists, and he inherited a huge pile of shit both at home and around the world, and in some respects I guess it’s amazing anything good has happened during his administration.

I guess there are a million reasons why Obama has been ineffective.

Unlike Rick Perry and Joe Paterno, though, I’m not feeling particularly sorry for him this morning.

OK, to be honest, I’m not really feeling sorry for Rick Perry, either.

Joe Frazier has passed away. If you’re a guy may age, you certainly can’t help but remember Smokin’ Joe and his heavyweight fights against, um, some guy whose name escapes me at the moment (I believe he used to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, though). Back in those days, if you wanted to watch the fight live, you had to go see it on “closed circuit” teevee. In fact – as I recall – you couldn’t even listen to the fight on the radio live. I seem to recall they’d read the summary of each round over the air after they got them “off the wire.” Ah, those were the days. Of course, a few weeks after the fight, you’d get to see a replay on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Ah, those were the days. So long, Joe.

So, it’s Election Day. The campaign signs are everywhere, and I’m sure the candidates’ well-intentioned supporters will be on every corner. This makes me wonder if anybody actually votes for somebody because of a sign. “Oooh. I’ll vote for Joe Smith, because he has the biggest, bestest sign.”

I know I don’t. I also don’t vote because of slogans, commercials, bumper stickers, or that goddamn waste of paper they send in the mail. Not even for schwag – and the schwag has gotten pretty crappy over the years.

All signs (so to speak) are pointing to my not voting for the first time in years. I just don’t feel like it, and this may set a trend. Somebody’s gonna have to give me a reason to vote for them from now on. No more nose-holding and then feeling resentment because the asshole I voted for turned out to be an even bigger disappointment than I thought they’d be.

I even feel stupid for voting for Governor Snotball. Maybe if Paladino had gotten in, he’d have been so goddamn loony the people would have rallied against him and we’d have gotten an actual Democrat for Guv next time around. Or not.

I sure don’t see myself voting for Obama next time around. Or Cain/Romney/Perry/Whatever. I think I’ll write in Gus Hall (so what if he’s dead?). Can you still write somebody in with the new voting machines?

Funny, that “extra” hour didn’t seem to make the weekend last any longer than usual. I expect it will be carried over into today, though (with interest), making today last longer than a Monday after a two-week vacation. To make matters worse, I have the “support” (or, as I like to think of it, “schmuck of the day”) duty this week. At least today is an early day for me, which means I’ll be able to get home before dark (but not by much). And our stretch of nice weather is supposed to continue (and get better, even – 68° on Wednesday), which is always an unexpected bonus this time of year.

I decided to get a Roku thingie this weekend, and I’m pretty impressed so far. I can stream HBOGO on it, and with Amazon Prime, we can stream everything they have. Plus there’s a ton of free content available. As long as the Internet doesn’t crap out, of course.

I may just subscribe to Hulu Plus and drop down to the cheapest Dish package.

Speaking of teevee, you’ve probably heard there’s a big test of the Emergency Alert System coming up. Wednesday, I think. They’re very worried that people will flip out because, I guess, they think people are really stupid and won’t understand what “test” means (after that whole Orson Welles thing and all). So FEMA has an infomercial or something running about it, and it’s got a black woman in a little box in the lower left corner doing the sign language thing.

All I could think of was Garrett Morris on Weekend Update.

They should have an interpreter in the other corner for Teabaggers. Somebody with big hair using very simple, monosyllabic language explaining that this is only a test, Jesus isn’t actually coming yet, but in the event of an actual Rapture, you’ll be instructed to turn to EWTN for further instructions.

Well, the Rapture may not be here, but it’s still time for me to go.

My other brother Darrell, ex-Guv Blinky, and Bill Engvall. What a waste of hard drive space that panel was last night. At least Engvall isn’t a Climate Change denier, I’ll give him that (not that it would stop him from voting for Rick Perry). It wasn’t as bad as listening to John Fund or Grover Norquist, I guess, but still pretty lame. I was in such a hurry to delete it from my DVR, I forgot to see who’s gonna be on next week. Oh well – somebody will let me know, I’m sure.

I actually feel kinda bad for that Rapture predictor dude (can’t recall his name). I guess he’s admitted he was wrong and is now going into retirement. Since he was always wrong, it was rather comforting to know he was still out there predicting the end of the world, ‘cuz you knew that meant we were safe. But now that he says he was wrong, it might mean he’s actually right. But he can’t be right, ‘cuz he’s always wrong. But if he’s always wrong, he can’t be right, but….

At any rate, now that he’s retired, it shouldn’t be long before he croaks, what with that whole temporal compression thing.

Speaking of “retire and die,” it appears Andy Rooney is yet another example. So long, Andy. I hope, someday, to become a miserable old bastard, too (but you don’t see a lot of Irish guys make it into their 90s – maybe I’ve got enough Kraut in me to give it ago, though, based on family history, it doesn’t seem likely). I bet he used to take the train over from Colgate back when they were the big rival for Syracuse.

So, it’s Saturday, which means the weekend is just about over. There must be a shitload of things I ought to be doing, but my brain is too scrambled to think of them. Plus it’s still dark out. And I should probably get dressed first.

Oh, I know. I can make a list of all the clocks I need to set back tomorrow morning.