We have a railroad bridge around here that’s 10’9″ above a four lane road. I don’t know when it was built, but it looks pretty old (it looks like something they made back in the good old days when they didn’t cheap out on material), and it certainly predates me. Every now and again, a vehicle that’s taller than that (typically a tractor trailer) tries to drive underneath it, which generally results in the top of the trailer being peeled back like the top of a sardine can, and the truck getting stuck, holding up traffic for hours as they try to pry the damn thing out.

Over the years, they’ve tried pretty much everything short of lowering the road (it’s right next to a lake, and would probably flood constantly if they did that) or raising the bridge (did I mention this thing looks awfully solid), including painting the edge of the thing fluorescent orange, adding flashing lights, and putting a humongous yellow warning sign across the road about a mile away, equipped with flashing warning lights. I get the feeling that drivers must think they’re kidding or something. Still, people keep hitting this thing (I think the score is something like Bridge: 47, Trucks: 0, and, as far as I can tell, the bridge hasn’t moved even a faction of an inch in all these years).

Anyhow, in the wee hours of Saturday morning, a “Mega Bus” (which is apparently what we call double-decker buses up here) sitting about 12 feet, 8 inches high and on its way to Toronto, got lost, missed a turn, missed all the warning signs, and slammed into the bridge and flipped over, killing 4 people sitting in the front of the top deck (whose heads, if you do the math, would be, well, not in a very good spot), and sending a whole lot more to the hospital where I work. Pretty nasty looking crash.

So, anyhow, while I’m sure the view is very nice from the top level of one of these buses, my advice is to sit on the first level (and toward the back).

The first Sunday of football season is in the books. The Bills lost, which is always nice to see, and I hope Eagles fans are happy now that they’ve finally gotten rid of Donovan McNabb, who didn’t have a spectacular debut with Washington, but at least beat the Cowboys (which is the team I most enjoy seeing lose – not that I saw the game, ‘cuz I go to bed pretty early these days). Speaking of games on too late for me to watch, the Jets play tonight. Let’s hope they manage to come up with a win, after a less than impressive (and fortunately meaningless) preseason.

Oh well, time to get going. I have a tractor to pay for.

It’s a big day today on Press the Meat, as Former Mayor NounVerbNineOneOne Ghouliani is set to regale us with tales of heroism about how he single-handedly saved the day back in 2001. Also on, White House PR man David Axelrod. Then it’s a roundtable with Dee Dee Myers (who, say what you will about her and/or her former boss, Bill Clinton, does not – unlike that twit that Bush hired, whose name escapes me at the moment – look like a Nazi chick), frequent Bill Maher (new season premieres next week, BTW) guest Reza Aslan, Republican creep (no offense to committees to reelect the president) Mike Murphy, and Ron Brownstein.

On CBS, Faze the Nation has Poppa John Boehner, House Representative Keith Ellison (on to represent Mooslams), and 9/11 Commission Co-Chair Tom Kean.

At Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has the totally irrelevant, yet for some reason omnipresent, Newt Gingrich, plus the new Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Austin Goolsbee (who I think is related to Sybil Gooley, the checker down at Ferguson’s Market). Plus, ‘Power Player of the Week’, Washington Redskins Head Coach Mike Shanahan.

Goolsbee also heads on over to the Goebbels network to chat with Christi Amanpour on This Weak. Also up, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, plus a member of the president’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships and founder of Interfaith Youth Core, Eboo Patel, advocate for reform in Islam, Irshad Manji and founder of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, Rev. Richard Cizik. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a rountable with George :jerk: Will, Arianna Huffington (who will hopefully update us on how her aunt Zsa Zsa is doing), Kate Zernike and Jonathan Karl.

At CNN, Fareed Zakaria has a 9/11 retrospective, plus an “exclusive” with the first high ranking official to leave the Obama administration – Peter Orszag, and a look at how to tell the Taliban that it’s been fun, but it’s time for them to go away.

Then it’s the first Sunday of football season. Hard to believe there are only 17 weeks left (plus the playoffs). February 6th will be here before you know it.

Later, it’s the season finale of True Blood (the season is over? Sookie, say it aint so!).

And, finally, in my quest to spend every dollar I have, here’s what I bought yesterday (I realize of course that, with the exception of my sister, nobody but me actually cares but, well, take away the beer and this is all that’s left in my life – except for the dogs, of course). No, it’s not a big honkin’ monster with a cab, cd player, GPS, and a/c, but I’ve no need to plow the back 40 before lunch, either.

It is, however, a 2004 with a brand new engine and only 320 hours on the rest of it, with a front end loader and a 60″ mower deck, and it should be exactly what I need to plow the driveway, cut the grass, do some landscaping work, and help me cut and clean up the trails through my woods.

By the way, here’s a shout-out to the good folks over in Osaka: if Kubota would like to start sponsoring this blog, I’d like to point out that I’m willing to work cheap (in descending order: a PTO-driven generator, a set of forks, plow shoes, or any item in your assortment of fine Kubota brand apparel). I will shamelessly plug whatever you want me to, and am willing to rename this the Kubota Happy Tractor Morning Fun Joy Blog (or, conversely, agree to pay me off, and I’ll keep your name out of it – whatever works for you).

Back to work tomorrow. That sucks.

At lunchtime yesterday, I decided to take a run over to the local “club” store (you know, the kind that sells toilet paper by the case – like Costco, but in this case it’s called BJs, which I think is an East Coast thing) to do enough grocery shopping to last me through to Sunday. Normally l go after work, but I figured I’d get it out of the way early, and, besides, how busy could it be on a Friday? Turns out, it was apparently prime time for the humongous among us to go shopping. I’m not talking about your typical bulk food shopper (let’s face it, a store that sells Ding-Dongs by the palette doesn’t exactly attract a health-conscious clientele – myself, sadly, most definitely included). These folks, however, were definitely the large economy size.

This had both pros and cons. On the plus side, though I’m not exactly svelte myself, being around these folks made me feel like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. The disadvantage, however, was that I was in a bit of a hurry, and, well, trying to maneuver though this group didn’t exactly make it easy to get in and out of the store quickly.

For one thing, they’re very hard to get around, since they’re nearly as wide as the aisle, and they tend to walk in a lumbering, side-to-side manner (reminiscent of Mongo’s ox in Blazing Saddles; all they need is ‘Yes/No’ tattooed on their asses), making frequent stops to admire the baked goods, and to contemplate whether or not Crisco is an acceptable dip for Nachos. Plus, when it comes to checkout time, being stuck behind them takes forever, since they have lots and lots of items (these people shop with flatbeds), and are apparently mystified by the intricacies of the self checkout system (though, to be fair, this disability doesn’t seem limited to plus-size shoppers).

Needless to say (so why say it?), I eventually made it out and back to work, but whilst standing around and waiting, I noticed that they were selling Keurig coffee makers for $129. Having led a mostly sheltered life up until this time, my first exposure to one of these things came at the training I took a while back in DC. You insert a little sealed plastic shotglass of coffee (called a K-cup or, more generically, a “pod”, which has a filter built into it), and the machine pierces the top and bottom, injects 204 degree water, and out comes a single cup of joe. In the commercial version, it even magically disposes of the pod. Total time, under 30 seconds.

I’ve toyed with buying one of these things since i saw it, because it seems like a great way to save on coffee, I’m an “on-demand” kinda guy, and, let’s face it, it’s really, really cool. I’m not into all the disposal of plastic, but they also make refillable pod so you can grind your own coffee. In the spirit of 9/11 (which, as I recall, was all about capitalism, consumer confidence, and the need to “keep on shoppin'”), I ought to buy one. But right now I’m supposed to be saving money, not spending it (and I now have to fire off a check for $200 so some company can do a “drive-by” appraisal of the house I’m buying for the bank). So, no new coffee maker for me.

Speaking of 9/11, I suppose I should try and summon up something touching and poignant in honor of the anniversary of the “day that changed everything”, but I guess I’m just not up for it. It was, obviously, a really shitty (and stunning) day, and a lot of people lost their lives and loves ones (the Burlington Coat Factory even lost one of its locations, which is better left vacant than to be used as a community center).

Sadly, it was but one of many shitty (and, unfortunately, not unusual) days in human history that have happened before and since, where people do horrible things to other people (typically in the name of religion). Instead of effecting change for the better as it might have, all that day really managed to do was give a group of powerful people the justification they needed to scare a whole bunch of sheep into allowing them to invade another country (or two) and foment hate and racism throughout our fair land.

And today some megalomaniacal “pastor” of some shitty little cult in Florida will burn somebody else’s word of God in the name of his own God as some sort of twisted protest against a group of people being allowed to build a house of God, because it isn’t his God, and our brave “Fourth Estate” has elevated this moron and his inbred idiot followers to a level of pseudo-importance that must be beyond even Pastor Numbnutz’s wildest masturbatory, balloon-boy fantasies.

Just what the world needed – more hatred and bigotry.

So, congratulations America. This is what you’ve come to. You must feel so proud on your special day.

It’s been a tough week, fire-wise. That gas line explosion out in San Bruno looks pretty scary. Vernon, I hope you’re OK out there. And now it appears that the wind fueled wildfires out in Colorado may sweep through Boulder. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Best of luck to everybody.

A federal judge has ruled that the military’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy is unconstitutional. Well, duh. My one question is, nobody’s figured this out before now?

The NFL season officially got under way last night, with the Saints beating the Vikings. Say what you want about Brett Favre, but, on behalf of all us Walter Mitty geezer types, I have to say there must be a little part of you that enjoys seeing the old guy out there playing. Since he’s already broken George Blanda’s interception record, you have to wonder if he’ll go ahead and switch to placekicker when he can no longer manage at QB.

Irish Fest begins today here. Why September? No idea. But it’s a time when those of Irish descent can gather and drink beer (as opposed to, oh, every other weekend of the year). Unless you happen to be an Irishman that gets high blood pressure from drinking beer, and you’re hoping to outlive your lovable but short-lived forebears. Then you have to content yourself with sobriety.

In order to watch the SU game tomorrow, I was forced to add the DirecTV SportsPack. In order to help mitigate the cost, I dropped the HD Extra package. I’m looking at other ways to save money as well. For instance, with True Blood ending on Sunday, I thought about dropping HBO. But then Bill Maher starts up again in a week or so, and of course the new Steve Buscemi show starts this month, too. I could drop Showtime, but I like Weeds and The Big C, and Dexter will start again soon, too. So, not much I can do there. Sucks to have to pay so much money for what amounts to a handful of shows, and I’m not really watching as much teevee these days anyway (have I mentioned I’m really digging the Kindle), but well, whattya gonna do? Maybe when I move I can make some changes.

Oh well, time to get this very long four-day week over with.

This whole burn the Koran thing has more or less escaped my detailed attention up until now. I’ve certainly heard of it, and, clearly it’s disgusting, but, like so many things these days, I just plain try not to look at this shit. I mean, there’s no point in giving up beer in order to lower my blood pressure if I’m just gonna let this shit get to me anyway. I can either drink and watch the news, or I can stay stay sober and read Isaac Asimov. The worst thing about it all is that this nutbag “pastor” is taking Terry Jones’ name in vain. But what really amazes me is that people seem to be so “surprised” that some pissant hate filled Kristian sect is acting all crazy. Shit, have you never heard of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and Fred Phelps (never mind “Saint” Augustine – who invented the notion that “thou shalt not kill” didn’t apply to collateral damage in warfare – Torquemada, and Adolph Hitler – yep, a good Roman Catholic boy who was never excommunicated, unlike, say, Martin Luther)?

These people are just as insane, intolerant, and impervious (to irony) as the radical Islamic fundamentalists who think it’s OK to kill people (even other Muslims) in the name of Allah. Or those who think “life” is so sacred they’re willing to walk into church and murder a doctor to prove it. So why be surprised? This nation has a long history of crazed religious intolerance that goes back to attempting to eradicate the people who were here before the white folks came in order to save them by killing them, and drowning “witches” to see if they would float, and were therefore made of wood. Or something.

It’s time to do what the Founders should have done 200+ years ago: ban all religion. Religion has been the single most destructive force in the history of the planet (even worse than Capitalism), being responsible for more death and destruction than the Christmas tsunami of 2004, the Great Chicago Fire, and the killer asteroid of 65 million years ago combined, and it’s time for it to go.

Begone. I cast ye out. If you wanna keep begttin’, you best begettin’ the f*ck out.

I’m not talking about busting into people’s homes to try and catch them praying, or even closing churches, mosques, and synagogues. Unlike “religious” people, I’m not interested in what people do in private. But as far as religious preferences and dogma go, it’s time to institute a policy of don’t ask, don’t tell. As long as you keep your yap shut and perform your voodoo rituals behind closed doors, fine. Do what you want. Go ahead and handle your snake incessantly, for all I care. I just don’t want to hear about it, and you’re no longer allowed to try and influence public policy with your bullshit hypocritical fairy stories. And no tax breaks. Render unto Caesar, bitches.

We tried to let you f*cking people have your way, and all you had to do was act responsibly (never mind consistently), but you just couldn’t keep your shit together, could you? So STFU, and we’ll start using all that new tax revenue to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, provide health care for all, and teach our children how to love and respect each others.

You know, like that Jesus guy would have wanted. Look him up. I think you’ll be surprised to find out what a Godless, bleeding heart, cheese-eating liberal he was.

I can’t think of many things worse than losing your home and everything in it. Certainly, the most important thing is to have your family and and all your critters make it out OK, ‘cuz stuff is just stuff, and most stuff can be replaced. A lot of stuff can’t, though, and even the stuff that can be replaced requires a lot of time, money, and hassle to get back again. So, to everybody in the Boulder who’ve lost their homes in the wildfire, our thoughts are with you. I’ve only been in the vicinity of Boulder/Denver once (well, twice I guess; once on the way out to Utah, and then on the way back), but it’s a beautiful area, and the loss of all that beautyl and wildlife is also a shame. I only hope the godless socialist government can provide at least some relief. Apparently the fire started as the result of a vehicle colliding with a propane tank, which is never a good idea.

Here, things remain the same. Yesterday was (predictably) one of the longest days I’ve had the misfortune of suffering through, and I was quite happy to get home and go to bed early last night. Unfortunately, a cold front came though in the middle of the night bringing thunderstorms and scaring the dogs. In other words, not much sleep for me. Oh well, at least it should be nice and cool today.

It was 44 years ago today – September 8, 1966 – that Star Trek premiered on NBC. Despite its premature assassination at the hands of witless network executives in 1969, the Star Trek universe has managed to live long and prosper, as several generations of characters have continued to explore strange new worlds, and to seek out new life and new civilizations.

Speaking of seeking things out, my search for a tractor continues, and I think it’s gonna involve a road trip to a used tractor place in Binghamton (which is about an hour south of here) on Saturday. None of the used tractor places around here seem to have what I’m looking for at my price range. I feel as if I’m hemorrhaging money at this point, and I haven’t even closed on the new house. It will, of course, only get worse.

Although a lot of kids actually went back yesterday (apparently they have this thing now where they bring the incoming freshmen in a day early to acclimate to high school; there was no such consideration back when I started 9th grade), today is what we always referred to as “Black Wednesday” – the first day of school. From what I understand, a lot of kids are excited to start school again after the summer. I never was. Oh, it was OK to see friends you didn’t see over the break, but, for the most part, I was always quite content to be on vacation, and I would be quite happy to win the lottery and retire right now.

That doesn’t seem likely, though, so I guess I’ll just have to slog through another day, and boldly go where I have mind-numbingly gone so many times before. To work.

As if the end of summer isn’t depressing enough (to be honest, I’m happy to see the hot weather go; I love the cooler fall temperatures and the red, orange and golden leaves against the clear, crisp blue autumn sky; not crazy at the prospect of it getting dark at 4:00 though), there was another very sad moment for me yesterday. I’d gone to the store, and needed some extra room for the frozen stuff I bought. So, in a very emotional moment, I took the beer mugs out of the freezer in what I used to think of as my beer refrigerator, and put – of all things – food in it. Food in my beer fridge. This is what things have come to. 😥

I know you’re all on the edges of your seats, so I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. The NYS Fair did not hit the one million mark yesterday – they fell 155 people short, which was still good enough for third place. Had they not fired all the union workers before the start, I feel certain they’d have crushed the record. As it is, f*ck ’em. And what the hell is it with all the goddamn country music? This is New York State, not Alabama, fer chissakes. The ‘entertainment’ this year consisted of country music, geezers (like Rush and Aerosmith), and teeny-boppers. That’s almost as bad as food in you beer fridge. Whatever happened to the good old days of my youth, when they had class acts like the Cowsills and Sonny & Cher?

I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but we’re really into the political ad campaign season here, and I’m already extremely annoyed with these things. The Republican Gubernatorial primary pitting perennial loser Rick Lazio against Buffalo “businessman” Carl Paladino (who looks like a cross between Danny Devito’s “Penquin” character in Batman, and Madeline Albright) is getting lots of play up here, at least as far as Paladino is concerned. He’s been on the air attacking both Lazio and “Liberal Elites,” in ads that appear to show him wearing a bowling shirt out at the company clam bake (Carl really puts the “goober” in Gubernatorial), and has claimed that Barack Obama isn’t a Christian, because he “worships himself” (well, at least he aint a Mooslam). I’ve yet to see any Lazio ads, but maybe he figures it’s a lost cause up here, and he’ll focus on his home turf downstate.

Speaking of election season, it seems that Republicans are poised to make huge gains in Congress this November, thanks to the “sucks” factor. The economy sucks, the Democrats suck, and the President sucks. That’s Sucks³, which is pretty hard to overcome. Even harder to overcome will be the second-coming of the Republican Revolution. I think it’ll pretty much do us in, and I’m just hoping I can continue to hang on and do my best to ignore everything that’s going on around me. Good thing I’m white, I guess, and while I don’t live in Canada, at least I live in a relatively progressive state (even if its government is corrupt and dysfunctional) and have a job that (for now, anyway) provides fairly decent health care.

I just need 15 years to pay off the mortgage and then retire. Hopefully then I’ll get a good 10 years or so to enjoy myself before I have a stroke or runaway global warming wipes everything out.

In the meantime, though, hi-ho.

Well, it’s here. Labor Day, and the unofficial last day of summer. All that shit you were gonna get done this summer? If you’re like me (you have my condolences), you got a few things accomplished, got a lot of things half-ass done, and left a lot of other things on the “to do” list. I now have a much longer list of shit to do, which includes everything that needs to get done (soon) around here, and a monster load of shit to get done at the new place.

Toward that end, I went out and bought $1,000 worth of goat fencing, gates, and posts on Saturday, which I’m storing out at my sister’s place until we close on the new place. I’m also eagerly perusing the used tractor listings (I’ve all but decided to buy a farm-type tractor with a front loader and a finish mower attachment instead of a plow truck and lawn tractor). By the time I close, there won’t be much lawn cutting left to do, but I’ll be needing something for snow removal in a hurry, and a shovel just isn’t gonna cut it (it’s about a 150 foot driveway into a pretty massive parking area and huge three-car garage). It’s very white out where I’m moving (not just the snow – they get quite a bit more of that out there than what we see here – but the demographics as well, with the population of 1,800 or so people being 97.5% White; according to the most recent statistics, there are 18 Hispanics, 6 Black folks, and 5 Asians).

The President is out on the road, touting his economic recovery plan. That’s a pretty tough sell, of course, seeing as the economy sucks, and the official unemployment rate is now up to 9.6%. What with it being Labor Day, I might suggest that the government need to invest massive amounts of money putting people to work fixing all the shit that’s gone to hell while the Republicans were out there cutting taxes. That won’t happen, of course, so mostly things will continue to get worse so that the Republicans can make the Democrats look bad (as if the Democrats needed any help), and then take the House and, possible the Senate. Then things will get even worse, as the Republicans will prevent Obama from accomplishing anything (again, not that he needs any help there – sorry, I just don’t see his “accomplishments” on HCR and Wall St. reform as being particularly accomplished, though of course some people will, in theory at least, be marginally better off) in an effort to get a Republican elected President. And then things will go from shitty, to really, really shitty.

Personally, I think I’ll start building a bunker and stockpiling weapons (legal weapons, of course) so I can keep those 18 Hispanics from taking over my land and working hard for slave wages.

Of course, today is also the last day of the NY State Fair, where we’re in sight of setting an all-time attendance record, and/or at least hitting the 1 million visitor mark (918,000 so far). I’m sure that doesn’t sound like much to you big city folks, and, well, it isn’t really all that interesting to me, either, but I guess it’s better than forcing you to read about SU football.

Anyhow, I reckon I’d better get busy and get some stuff done. Kinda sucks that a “day off” means a day to get work done.

Normally I wouldn’t bore everybody with this, but, since this is first time it’s happened since 2003, I feel obliged to mention that Syracuse has started out the football season at 1-0. It was far from perfect (some pretty poor special teams play – except for a blocked field goal attempt for a touchdown – two botched extra points and three turnovers – two deep in Akron territory that surely left points on the board, and one that gave the Zips the ball on the SU 18 that led to their only points), and the opponent wasn’t exactly a powerhouse (no offense, Kevin), but the offense gained 433 very balanced yards (over 200 rushing and passing), the defense held the Zips to 3 points and 166 yards of total offense, and SU wound up winning 29-3 on the road (plus we took a knee on the one yard line at the end of the game so as not to run up the score), and, well, we’ll take it. It’s good to get a win, and hopefully the first game mistakes will get taken care of before next week – a decidedly more difficult trip to Washington to play the Huskies. Anyhow, on to the boobleheads.

Let’s see, not much of interest on Press the Meat. L’il Lindsey Graham is on for whatever purpose it is he serves, plus Barack Obama’s campaign manager Daivd Plouffe. Then at the roundtable there’s Erin Burnett (whose at least easy on the eyes, if nothing else), Charlie Cook of the National Journal and The Cook Political Report (not so easy on the eyses), the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, and the National Review’s Rich Lowry (who has TWAMF written all over him). All-in-all, not worth setting your DVR for.

Then again, Faze the Nation makes Press the Meat seem fascinating, with guests like Laura Tyson, Former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Mark Zandi of Moody’s, Gretchen Morgenson, NYT Assistant Business and Financial Editor, CBS’s Nancy Cordes, and Jim VandeHei of Politico.

Things don’t get any more exciting on Fux News Sunday, as Weaselface Wallace hosts St. John McCain and DNC Chair Tim Kaine. There will be the usual fuxheads, of course, plus a little something for all you NASCAR fans out there with this week’s ‘classic’ power player, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Yee hah!

On the Goebbels network, it’s hard to tell, but it looks like Christi Amanpour has Tony Blair :yawn: and a roundtable with George :jerk: Will, Paul Krugman, Mary Jordan and flat head Tom Friedman.

Over at CNN, Fareed Zakaria has the story of William Browder, once the largest foreign investor in Russia, whose money made him a target. Then, despite Britain’s crackdown on radical Islamic activity over the last few years, homegrown jihadis continue to preach their message in the U.K. Plus, Zhang Xin grew up in the slums of Hong Kong and is now worth billions of dollars. Well goodie for her. And, finally, a golf course where the water hazards could be truly deadly. Ooh, scary.

You might note that, yet again this year, there seems to be not a moment devoted to Labor Day or the role that working people have played in making this country great (back when it was still great). Instead, they’re all about Wall Street, which has us rapidly circling the bowl on the way down and out to the sewer.

No new True Blood this week, as we’ll have to wait until next week for the season finale. At least there’s no work tomorrow.

Have a good one.

Well, it’s a big day today. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you all, because no doubt you’ve had this date circled on your calendars for the past nine months or so, but, lest you’ve forgotten, today is the first Syracuse football game of the season, and one where Kevin and I renew our bitter rivalry, as my alma mater takes on his – the Akron Zips – on the road in the Zips’ brand new “InfoCision Stadium-Summa Field” in Ohio. We have high hopes for the season here, but then we’ve had high hopes before. Terrible as we’ve been for the past few years, it’s not like we’re looking for a National Championship. A winning season would be just fine – and a trip to some minor bowl game (the inaugural “New Era Pinstripe” bowl would be cool – literally, since it’ll be played on December 30th outdoors at Yankee Stadium) would have us all ecstatic. But things could go into the shitter rapidly with a poor performance today.

Speaking of poor performances, if you’ve been looking forward to the second debate between the candidates for Governor in Arizona, you’re SOL, because the current Guv – Jan “Prune Puss” Brewer – says she won’t do any more. This is apparently because of her piss-poor showing in the first debate, and the fact that she only participated in that so she could claim over $1.7 million in public funds. Of course, Jan “Take the Money and Run” Brewer tells a different tale (actually, she tells lots of tales, like the one about headless bodies strewn about the AZ desert by illegal Mexican terrorists, which would be a good bedtime story, but isn’t exactly grounded in what, for lack of a better term, I’ll call “truth”). There will be no further debates because Jan “Washington Irving” Brewer says

“I don’t believe that things come out in proper context in an adversarial atmosphere….”

Not to worry, though, because I’m sure plenty of Arizonans (hey, spell check says that’s a real word; cool) still love Jan “I won’t fight for you, me or Arizona” Brewer for her righteous stance against evil Mexicans and their plot to take over America by working hard for slave wages (and no benefits). After all, it should be Americans (and white ones at that) working for slave wages and no benefits. And by God Almighty, as soon as we get rid of the goddamn unions (what with it being Labor Day weekend and all), that’s just what’ll happen.

Turns out you can’t go to the National Archives and ask them to hand over George Washington’s hand-written first inaugural address so you can put your oily paws all over it – not even if you’re the almighty Glenn Beck. Go figure. I mean, I thought you could just just get a Library of Congress card and check it out for a couple of weeks. It’s only a 220+ year old priceless piece of American history.

But Beck had a good reason for lying about it. Turns out, the truth would have been too awkward to explain to his legion of devotees, whose IQs are not exactly on the level of Einstein, and whose emotional maturity levels are somewhere in the three to five year old range. I think we can all relate to that. I mean, when a four-year old asks you where babies come from, you don’t get into the whole messy truth. You just tell ’em something simple and comfortable, like daddy put love in mommy’s tummy.