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.