Other than watching these miners come up out of that hole in the ground in Chile, there’s not a whole lot going on this morning. While I don’t normally approve of freeloading, I did download and listen to the latest (I think it’s the latest) WTF yesterday. It was the one with Ray Romano and Mike Royce. I couldn’t resist, because not only am I a man of a certain age, but Mike Royce actually went to the same high school I did (though he graduated four years after I did). I was a little disappointed that they didn’t talk about Syracuse, though. I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s the topic everybody out there wanted to hear about. Oh well, maybe next time.

Back to work again today, but not until after a trip to the dentist. It’s a toss-up as to which is worse – work, or the dentist – but at least my dental date is at 8:00. I really hate waiting around to go (it’s kind of like being on death row – except you know a pardon is out of the question), so it’s much better to get it out of the way first thing. Plus I get to stay home a half hour longer. Still, I’m not really looking forward to the pain (aint got time for the pain).

Speaking of pain, here’s something from the “ouch” files.

Virginia Tech left guard Greg Nosal…postpon[ed] the reattachment of a torn-off tip of his left pinkie to keep playing.

…Nosal lost the finger tip when it got caught between two helmets in the first half Saturday against Central Michigan. After a brief search, team doctors found the severed piece inside his glove and determined that it could be reattached.

They gave 6-foot-6, 293-pound reshirt junior the option to do it right then or have the tip put on ice.

He chose going back in the game, received some pain medication and went back in.

The finger tip was reattached in the fourth quarter, after the pain medication had started to wear off and when the Hokies were substituting liberally in a 45-21 victory.

Ouch.

“Hey, where’d your finger go?”

“Beats me, dude. Did you look in my glove?”

“Oh, yeah, there it is. Let me put that sucker on ice for ya.”

A family in the Buffalo area has had a Jesusy painting behind the sofa for 30 years or so. Turns out, it appears to be a lost Michelangelo – worth perhaps as much as $300 million. Damn, that would be nice. Anybody know if da Vinci ever painted dogs playing poker?

Apple has decided to trademark the rather stupid catch phrase, “There’s an App for That.” I’m getting awfully tired of Apple, but, like politics, it’s all about the marketing, and you can’t argue with that. They ought to trademark, “my fucking wireless connection dropped out again” (as the one on my MacBook Pro does constantly – while I’m doing nothing more than sitting in one spot on the couch). Or maybe, “Christ, I’m sick of that stupid spinning pinwheel.” Or how about, “Why doesn’t the stupid red X close the freakin’ program down instead of leaving it running in the background.”

Well, I reckon I’d better go make myself some breakfast so I can hose out my mouth and make it presentable for the dentist.

You may have heard that Bank of America has decided to halt foreclosures in all 50 states (good news for me if I ever close, because that’s who my new mortgage is with – and now I won’t have to bother repaying it). With the revelations of “robo-signing” mortgage documents without review and outright mortgage fraud allegations against financial giants BOA, GMAC, and JP Morgan Chase (including forged documents, fake Social Security numbers, phantom titles, disappearing paper trails, “robo-signers” and mortgages split, combined, and split so many times that nobody can figure out who really owns them), many people – like Debbie Wasserman Schultz – are backing a moratorium on all foreclosures until this mess can be straightened out. Of course, you have the usual suspects defending banks.

The No. 2 House Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, said a national moratorium would remove the protections that lenders need.

“You’re going to shut down the housing industry” with a national stoppage, Cantor said. “People have to take responsibility for themselves.”

Sadly (but not unexpectedly), the list of those defending the banks also includes the White House, with Obama spokesslut David Axelrod declaring the Administration’s opposition to a foreclosure moratorium.

It is a serious problem,” said David Axelrod…. But he added, “I’m not sure about a national moratorium because there are in fact valid foreclosures that probably should go forward”

Of course, the White House knew what these financial institutions were up to and decided to look the other way, so it comes as no surprise they wanna make sure the banks are protected now.

But, hey, at least they’re not Nazi reenactors. I think that’d make for a good 2012 re-election slogan: “Obama: Not a Nazi Reenactor.” They can put it in the rotation with, “Obama: Not as Bad as Bush.”

Speaking of “not a Nazi,” what would Monday be without an entry from the”teabaggers – they say the darndest things” files? Today, it’s Carl Paladino, though I’m not quite sure if it’s what Carl said, what Carl didn’t say, or what Carl says he didn’t say (which, technically, he didn’t – but what he did say wasn’t all that great, either) in front of a group of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn.

In a version of the speech distributed by a rabbi, the rant went further, charging there is “nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual.”

Paladino, who’s running for governor, winced as he got to this section of the text, and he never spoke the line.
[…]
So Paladino was reading from a speech that was prepared for him by his hosts? Not that pols don’t often solicit and accept quite a bit of input from potential supporters about what they want to hear. But this would seem to take things to a new level entirely.

It leaves me wondering: did Paladino just read the speech cold? He and his campaign had never seen this text before? Or did the campaign in fact approve this text but when it came to that line it was just too much even for Paladino?

Like I said, this version of the story seems even weirder than the original.

[ed.note: It is worth noting explicitly that while this one sentence may have been the stand-out, the gist of the rest of Paladino’s remarks were quite similar, if perhaps not quite as bald.]

Paladino’s remarks also came more or less at the same time that 8 NYC men were being arraigned on charges of torturing three gay people.

Eight gang suspects arrested in the torture of two teenage boys and a man in an anti-gay attack in New York City earlier this month have been arraigned on charges including robbery, assault, sexual abuse and unlawful imprisonment as hate crimes.

Police are looking for a ninth suspect.

Police say the nine members of the Latin King Goonies gang went on a rampage Oct. 3 after hearing a rumor one of their teenage recruits was gay.

They say the gang members invited a man to a house by telling him they were having a party. They say the suspects burned, beat and tortured him for hours and sodomized him with a miniature baseball bat.

Not that Carl would condone such a thing, of course. He’d just be happy to pander to people that would (or at least people that would think it’s funny).

Of course, no Autumn Monday would be complete without a recap of the important stuff that happened in the world of sports (and by important, I of course mean what’s important to me). And it was a pretty good sports weekend at that.

We all know that Syracuse beat South Florida for the first time ever (a fact that truly epitomizes the shame that Greg Robinson brought to the SU football program – and has now brought to Michigan as the Wolverines DC) in Big East play. What we’re unable to fathom is how a school in Tampa can call itself “South” Florida. I’m no expert on the geography of Florida, but, by my reckoning, Tampa isn’t even halfway down. If anything, they ought to be Western Florida or something. Oh well, no point in quibbling.

In the NFL, Washington managed to beat Green Bay in OT, which is a good thing. And the Giants won (easily, even), which is always nice. Sadly, Philly also won, which is too bad, since I Was kind of hoping that they’d never win another game, but that was somewhat mitigated by the fact that Dallas lost (and lost in a marvelously stupid fashion), so that’s good. Oh, and speaking of Carl Paladino, Buffalo was looking good for a while yesterday. And then they lost. Like Carl, the Bills suck.

Hopefully the Jets can win tonight.

No “work” work today, but plenty of work to do around the house while I wait for a closing date, which may or may not come some time this week. Then there’ll be much more work to do over there.

So I guess I better get going.

Too busy basking in the glory of SU’s win over USF yesterday (not exactly a powerhouse, but we’re 4-1 for the first time in the 21st Century, so we’ll take it), so this will have to be a quickie.

Today on Meet the Press, Illinois Senate candidates Alexi Giannoulias (D) and Mark Kirk (R). Plus an annoying roundtable including Peggy Noonan and Joe Klein.

Faze the Nation has David Axelrod and Ed Gilespie.

Fux News Sunday has VA Republican Eric Cantor, Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Nazi Reenactor Karl Rove, and Joe Trippi. Plus the Fuxheads.

On the Goebbels network, “This Weak” with Christiane Amanpour has Senatorial candidates Linda McMahon (WWF) and Richard Blumenthal (D), plus Pervez Musharraf and Christine Lagarde.

At CNN, Fareed Zakaria talks Taliban, Tea Party, unemployment in South Africa, and more.

That’s it. Carry on.

I’ve certainly heard of Civil War reenactors, and I can kind of understand it. I mean, as a kid, I was always interested in the Civil War, for some reason. I even memorized the Gettysburg Address (it’s pretty short, so I’m not patting myself on the back or anything – and I don’t remember it any more, of course, though I can get as far as “…can long endure”). I even saw some woman one time (a psychic or a past-life regressionator or whatever) who worked with people – wrote a book, I think – about people (pretty much guys, I think; women have better things to do with their time) who were driven to reenact Civil War battles because, in a past life, they’d fought there. So, anyway, that I’ve heard of.

What I hadn’t heard of (perhaps I’ve just led a sheltered life) is “Nazi Reenactors.” I mean, don’t get me wrong, Lugers are neat looking (though not terribly reliable, from what I understand, though I know nothing about guns), and the Nazi’s – especially the Gestapo – had the coolest cars (I always liked the one Major Hochstetter had in Hogan’s Heroes), but dressing up like a Nazi on weekends never really occurred to me as a hobby.

But if somebody was gonna be a 21st Century Nazi wannabe, it certainly doesn’t surprise me that it’d be a teabagger from Ohio. And, in fact, that’s exactly what Tea Party (and Republican) candidate (and millionaire, worthy of having his Bush tax cuts extended) for Ohio’s 9th District – Rich Iott – apparently likes to do on the weekends.

Aside from the rather obvious, um, drawbacks of a hobby like that, doesn’t it seem kind of, oh, I dunno, un-American? I mean, I know it was that godless Roosevelt that got us into that war and all (over the objections of brave American heroes like Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, and Prescott Bush), but, still. They were the enemy, after all. And – unlike in Iraq – we actually did find some pretty nasty shit when we invaded Germany.

But, to each his own, I guess.

As many New Yorkers suspected, it turns out that “Democratic” candidate for Governor, Andy Cuomo, is a Koch sucker. David Koch, that is. Yes, the man who founded and funds the teabaggers, and is also the founder of the wingnut group “Americans for Prosperity” (which, among other things, “trains” teabaggers on how to be ignorant, uninformed, and obnoxious) donated $50,000 to Andy’s election campaign. Andrew, being the whore he is, gladly accepted. At least I’ll be able to say “don’t blame me – I voted for Howie.”

Speaking of voting, today is the last day to register and be eligible to vote in the November election here in NY (or at least in the county where I live). Since a closing date is not yet in sight, I guess that means I’ll be voting one more time where I live now.

My polling place is at an old elementary school that was turned into a Jewish Community Center (fun fact: the actual voting takes place in the “Schayes Family” gym, the money for which was donated by Dolph Schayes who may possibly be the greatest Jewish basketball player of all time – in fact, he was voted one of the top 50 NBA players – Jew, Shiksa, or Schwartze – of all time; and, yes, a Jew named Adolph is, indeed, somewhat ironic). And for those of you who remember Dolph’s playing days, may I congratulate you on still being alive.

I mention this because, when I voted in the primary, I happened to notice that the Center was flying the Israeli flag.

Now, far be it for me to give a shit, but imagine if this had been at a (gasp!) Islamic Community Center, and they were flying an Iraqi flag or something? Oh, the outrage! Not that we’re at ground zero, but we do have a 9/11 Memorial less than a mile and a half away that features a twisted, 100% certified World Trade Center I-beam, so I’m pretty sure that qualifies it as sacred ground.

On a side note, this is my favorite story on the former Burlington Coat Factory “Terror Mosque.” Not because of the story content, but because it’s quite prominently labeled as being written by Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, whose name evokes rather disturbing images of Michael Richardson and that bubble-headed chick from the comics caught in an intimate moment.

Did you know that in Nazi Germany, you could be thrown in prison for refusing to recite the oath of allegiance to the Nazi flag? I’m not sure that’s actually true, but it certainly has an air of truthiness about it.

In Tuplelo Mississippi, however, it’s more then truthy – it’s true, and it happened to attorney Danny Lampley in a Mississippi courtroom.

When a Mississippi judge entered a courtroom and asked everyone to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, an attorney with a reputation for fighting free speech battles stayed silent as everyone else recited the patriotic oath. The lawyer was jailed.

Attorney Danny Lampley spent about five hours behind bars Wednesday before Judge Talmadge Littlejohn set him free so that the lawyer could work on another case. Lampley told The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal he respected the judge but wasn’t going to back down.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: how could a thing like this happen in Mississippi, of all places (personally, I think the judge was trying to over-compensate for his last name)? I mean, not only is it (probably) a bastion of teabaggers and free-thinkers (or is that being redundant), it’s the most fun-to-spell state in the Union. I, for one, am shocked. Shocked, I say!

A bit of sad news (assuming the pummeling of the Constitution isn’t sad enough). For a host of reasons, mostly related to not wanting to deal with the hassle any more, I decided to pull the plug on Sedition Radio last night. The MS archives are still there, but that’s about it. With it being nearly five years since the last MS show aired, I guess it was just time to move on.

Speaking of moving on, it’s time to get out there and get this week over with. It’s supposed to be a beautiful day today, which won’t do me much good, since I’ll be stuck at work. The big question is whether or not to make it a three-day weekend (Monday is Columbus Day, doncha know?), and right now I’m leaning toward “yes.”

We’ll see how I feel over the weekend.

As for now, though, I’ve gotta go start my day by pledging fealty to a piece of cloth.

Not that I pay much attention to baseball, but Philadelphia’s Roy Halladay threw only the second no-hitter in playoff history last night against the Cincinnati Reds. Not that this should really count as the playoffs, of course. Back in the day, you could kinda justify the ridiculously long baseball season (162 games), because only the top four teams (two from each league) would make the playoffs. But now there are all kinds of divisions and wildcard teams and whatnot. Oh, it’s not as bad as the NBA or NHL, of course, where 82 game seasons serve to eliminate, like, two teams, but still. Anyhow, throwing a no-hitter (and, if I can read a box score – which isn’t certain – being one walk away from a perfect game) is big news at any time of the season, let alone the playoffs. Yes, it’s true. Baseball is the kinda game where the less action there is, the more exciting the game is considered.

In other news, more bad tidings for Uncle Carl Paladino. Not that an endorsement by the Onondaga Country Executive is gonna make or break the Governor’s race, but our Republican CE endorsed Democrat Andy Cuomo yesterday. Local teabaggers are, predictably, incensed. Poor teabaggers. The more people get to know Carl Paladino, the more they think he’s nuts. And it appears that Cuomo’s lead is increasing – back to double-digits. Not that I’m exactly thrilled at the prospect of Uncle Andy being Governor either, but Crazy Carl would be a disaster (though it would probably make for a pretty entertaining 4 years), but a double-digit lead means I can safely vote for Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins.

Speaking of teabaggers and nuts (can’t have one without the other, I guess – in more ways that one), Rand Paul is more or less standing by his statement that there ought to be a $2,000 deductible on Medicare. In fact, he says everybody 55 and under ought to pay that deductible. Good for you, Rand, that ought to…. Hey, wait a minute. I’m under 55.

Keep you dirty hands off my Medicare, asshole!

Speaking of health care related stuff, “Obamacare” is kicking in big time. Now, many of us thought that the version of HCR that passed was pretty lame and insufficient, but, hell, at least it was something, right? And something Obama can be proud of. Not proud enough to actually allow being put into place, though.

…Obama administration officials put into place the first major wave of changes under the health care legislation…by granting dozens of waivers to maintain even minimal coverage far below the new law’s standards.
[…]
Among those that administration officials hoped to mollify with waivers were some big insurers, some smaller employers and McDonald’s, which went so far as to warn that the regulations could force it to strip workers of existing coverage.
[…]
Several leading insurers, including WellPoint, Aetna and Cigna, have also objected to new rules requiring them to cover even those children who are seriously ill, warning that they will stop selling new policies in some states because the rules do not protect them from having to cover too many sick children.

Sounds great. Let me be the first to tip my hat to Max Baucus, Rahm Emanuel, the President, and everybody else who made reform possible. Bravo, gentlemen.

Fortunately, my health insurance remains the same (so far), so I really don’t care.

Speaking of me, due to some issues that the sellers need to address, it looks like we won’t be closing on the new place until the end of next week at the earliest (and maybe not ’til the week after). If this was, say, June, I really wouldn’t care. But I need to put up about 600 feet of fencing, fix two chimneys, install a pellet stove (or two), and do some other outdoor-related activities (not to mention just plain moving a lot of shit), and the weather can get nasty at just about any time now around here. I recall trick-or-treating in the snow on more than one occasion, and an Election Day blizzard or two.

Of course, it could also stay nice and warm right through ’til Christmas. You just never know, and I’d really like to get a start on the outside stuff. And being up on the roof working on the chimney is really no fun in the cold rain and snow.

It’s Super Dirt Week here in Syracuse, and you know what that means. No? Well, neither do I. But it’s apparently a big deal, and it’s been going on for 39 years (based on all the Roman numerals they’ve got after the name). Something to do with stock cars going around in circles on a dirt track at the fairgrounds. Well, whatever it is, I think it means people will be coming here to spend money. And we need that money. Big time.

It’s also the first day of the Major League Baseball playoffs, from what I understand. I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to baseball, but was glad to see Boston will be watching the playoffs on TV. I’m pretty sick of Boston, whether it’s baseball or football (or basketball, for that matter; I’m still worked up over the rivalry we had with the Celtics back before I was born). My team, of course (to the extent that I have one), is Washington. Parent club to the Syracuse Chiefs, and last place team in the NL East (but not the worst record in baseball, which belongs to Pittsburgh). I always feel more comfortable rooting for a last place team. It just feels natural.

In other exciting news, we got a new coffee maker yesterday. We’d been using the trusty Mr Coffee with a thermal carafe that I’d gotten for my summer in exile in DC. The pot was fairly small, but I’d been limiting myself to one giant cup of coffee lately anyway (it was making me feel kinda crappy if I went over the one cup), so it was cool. Then Granny made a crappy little half pot one day, saying we’d been throwing out a lot of coffee. So, rather than make a half pot (I have the mix down for a full pot; a half pot doesn’t get it), I decided to up my caffeine intake a bit.

Surprisingly, two giant cups were no longer making me feel shitty (something about no longer drinking beer, I think – though you’d think it would have the opposite affect).

Anyhow, Now that I was drinking more coffee, we suddenly didn’t have enough. I guess it’s one thing to throw it away or make less, but if I drink it, then everybody wants more.

So, anyway, I bought the largest thermal carafe one I could get, and Granny took charge cleaning it and getting it ready for use – and she did a great job (much more than I’d have done; one time through with water only would have sufficed for me), other than setting it to Central Time (but I was up early enough to get it going before I took a shower, so that was OK).

Granny has an odd sort of way of measuring out the beans. Rather than putting all the beans in the measuring cup and then dumping the beans into the grinder, she kind puts some in, and then some more. Or something. Not sure what her technique is, but, what with us needing to get the bean proportions down (always a hassle with a new coffee maker), Granny made some high-grade, extra octane coffee this morning. So, I gotta go.

Big time.

Still no goddamn closing date, so I guess I’ll have to cancel that trip to Europe. Just as well with the big travel alert or whatever it is, I guess. I heard Mike Chertoff yesterday saying Americans shouldn’t go traipsing around Europe with American flag patches on their stuff. I think that ship sailed about seven years ago, Mike. I haven’t actually been to Europe since ’04 or something (that reminds me, I really need to cash in my Euros and Pounds), but my ‘Canada’ clothes are still ready to travel if need be. As long as I don’t have to fly to get there. Flying sucks.

Unless you have your own broom, of course. Then it might be fun – except for picking the bugs out of your teeth. Speaking of flying around on brooms, just in case you missed it, here’s Christine O’Donnell’s new campaign ad.

Some of you out there have no doubt experienced the “empty nest” syndrome. You know, the one where the kids move out and you finally have the house (and the teevee) all to yourself? It’s an experience that engenders mixed feelings. On the one hand, there are feelings of peacefulness, serenity, and privacy. But those are tempered with feelings of ecstasy and euphoria.

So, it takes a while – approximately three to five seconds – to completely adjust to the lack of pitter-patter (more like clop-clop-clop) of big fat feet pounding across the floor, the faucets no longer drip-drip-dripping because now they get shut off all the way (is that really so hard?), and the silence of doors not being slammed repeatedly because how many goddamn times I gotta tell you not to slam the freakin’ doors, all you gotta do is pull ’em until they click and the more you slam the goddamn things the more everything wears out and breaks and the harder they are to close, fer chrissakes! :slap:

Some of you may have also experienced something not so nice: having the damn kid(s) move back in. This sad state of affairs is something we were forced to endure this weekend. Seems that somebody decided to start a fire in the laundry room of the apartment building where my stepson lives at about 4:00 Sunday morning. The short story is that he’s homeless for up to three weeks, and therefore has invaded our space for the duration. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad he’s OK (and thank goodness it’s only temporary), but I very much prefer the empty nest thing. He better remember this when I’m old and feeble and need a place to crash (and somebody to change my diapers).

Otherwise, it was a fairly good weekend. Sportswise, SU didn’t lose (because they had the week off), the Jets kicked the crap out of the Bills (who really, really suck), so that’s kind of a two-for-one, Donovan McNabb returned to Philly and won, and the Giants even won last night.

On the productivity front, I put in some quality tractor time on Saturday, and managed to finish off two more windows yesterday while getting my laundry done. Not bad. Two more windows to go.

Unfortunately, that all leads us to today, which, sadly, is Monday. Bleh.

But maybe I’ll get a closing date some time this week. That’d be cool, ‘cuz I’m looking for a quiet place to crash for the next few weeks.