Big news here in NY, as our legislative heroes in the State Senate finally passed a budget last night on a strict party-line vote of 32-28. Since the Assembly passed a budget back in June, I guess we finally have a budget, and only four months and a couple days late. Special kudos to our Senate Republicans, whose obstructionist abilities to march in lockstep in objection to everything rivals even those of their big brothers in the US Senate. Good for you, guys. You’re a credit to, um, whatever it is you are.

Sometimes you just gotta give credit where credit is due. Lou Dobbs had this to say about the fake attempt to repeal the 14th Amendment:

“The idea that anchor babies somehow require changing the 14th Amendment, I part ways with the Senators on that because I believe the 14th Amendment, particularly in its due process and equal protection clauses, is so important,” Dobbs said. “It lays the foundation for the entire Bill of Rights being applied to the states.”

So, good for you, Lou. You’re not quite as crazy, stupid, and dangerous as Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Jon Kyl, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, and Lindsey Graham (to name a few).

Today is the President’s birthday. Or is it? As Rush Limbaugh said yesterday, we can’t be sure because we’ve never seen any proof of that (other than Obama’s birth certificate – but who you gonna believe, Oily Taintz or your lyin’ eyes?). Anyhow, on the odd chance that is really is is your natal day, Happy Birthday Barry. Put your feet up and have a smoke and a beer (and fer chrissakes, not a Bud Light, please – though I guess light beer would be quite emblematic of your presidency, which I am in no way disappointed in).

The aurora borealis was visible in the northern US last night thanks to a solar storm over the weekend. Or so I hear. I was in bed, and I think it was raining here. I guess I’ll just have to find a YouTube video of it or something.

I saw the Northern Lights here when I was a kid, though at the time I had no idea what the hell it was. I just remember seeing this weird light to the north, and all of us going, “what the hell is that?”

Oh well, off to bravely face another day. That’s the nice thing about doing something for a living you really don’t want to do anymore. It keeps you from fearing death.

Oh, and as for dinosaurs and oil, I think the relationship was made pretty clear by the TV show “Dinosaurs,” which featured Earl Sinclair, Ethyl Phillips, Roy Hess, and BP Richfield.

I must confess, I did not watch Christiane Amanpour’s debut on “This Weak” last Sunday, but had I know it would be so controversial, I might have tuned in. Wingnuts are outraged (which is so darn unlike them). St. John McCain even tweeted about his lament for the good old days with Jake “the mens room” Tapper. What was so vile, you ask? It seems that Christi had a new segment called “In Memoriam”, where she had the audacity to say

“We remember all of those who died in war this week, and the Pentagon released the names of 11 U.S. servicemembers killed in Afghanistan.”

I mean, how controversial can you get? Was she just trying to incur the wrath of all real Americans?

Now, just in case, like me, you don’t quite get what the frickin’ problem is here, I’ll let the inimitable (and sexy) WaPost, “style columnist” (style columnist?) Tom Shales explain.

“Perhaps in keeping with the newly globalized program, the commendable “In Memoriam” segment ended with a tribute not to American men and women who died in combat during the preceding week but rather, said Amanpour in her narration, in remembrance of “all of those who died in war” in that period. Did she mean to suggest that our mourning extend to members of the Taliban?”

Ah, yes, well. Shame on you Christi! But why stop with the Taliban, Tom?

“We remember all of those who died in war this week….”

That doesn’t just mean all those who died this week. No, it means that, this week, we remember all those who died in war (next week, we’ll remember what we did with our keys). And that means Nazis and North Koreans and Viet Kong and Confederates (oh, sorry, I didn’t touch a nerve there, did I?) and even Iraqis and Iranians (not to mention the Romans – who, contrary to popular opinion, are the ones who actually killed Jesus).

Yes, this week, we remember them all.

Shame, shame, shame on you Christi, you Taliban-Nazi-Christ-Killer sympathizer, you. Though I’m not sure that remembering actually equates to honoring. I mean, shouldn’t we remember the “bad people” too? If only so we can recognize them before it takes a global conflagration to deal with them?

Anyhow, this “amanpourism” not only shows that the media is a bunch of commie libruls (especially those foreign female types; what are they doing on regular American teevee anyway, with their snotty accents and big fancy words and high-class hairdos?), but that manufacturing isn’t dead in this country.

‘Cuz at least these wingnuts can still manage to manufacture faux outrage by the ton.

As you may have heard, Maxine Waters will apparently face a “trial” by the House Ethics Committee for requesting federal help for a bank that her husband owned stock in and had served on the board of directors (which she denies).

First Charlie Rangel, now Maxine (who’s next – Patty and Laverne)? Who knew that in the hallowed halls of Congress, only the black folks are ethically challenged?

Mitch McConnell has officially jumped on the “Repeal the 14th Amendment” bandwagon. That’s the one that says anybody born in the US is a US citizen.

In case you weren’t paying attention in Social Studies class (or “civics” for you old-timers), Amending the constitution is a rather involved process. There are actually four ways to go about it (though two have never been used, and only one method has ever been used more than once), but the usual way is for the proposed amendment to pass both houses of Congress by a 2/3 majority, and then ¾ of the states must ratify it. Of course, there’s not really a “usual” way, because it’s only been done 27 times since the Constitution was ratified by the State of Vermont in January 1791. And when you take into account that the first 10 amendments (aka, the “Bill of Rights”) all happened at once at the end of 1791, that only leaves 17 amendments in 218 or so years.

So, it’ll be a tough slog, but, since there’s really no other big issues to worry about right now, I think it’ll all be well worth the effort.

If you look through the Huffington Post, you’ve probably seen stuff by “Robert Lanza, MD” from time to time. He’s apparently a smart guy, but his posts, well, they never seem very impressive to me. He likes to ask questions and then use the questions (not the answers, mind you) as “evidence” to prove whatever his point is. His most recent – “Why You’re Alive and Can Never Die: The Larger Scientific Picture” – is no different.

Is it just a one-in-gazillion chance that you happen to be alive, now, on top of all time? Or is there a more rational scientific reason? Grade-school math tells us the probability of being on top of infinity is zero. If space and time are tools of the mind, then how can there be a time without consciousness?

OK, not being a “scientist and theoretician,” I guess I’m not smart enough to understand what “being on top of infinity” is supposed to mean (or what it has to do with the three questions he’s asking in that paragraph), but if it means there isn’t a number greater than infinity, then I reckon I did, indeed, learn that in grade school (of course, infinity isn’t really a number – it’s more of a theory that can never be proven). But Lanza’s first poser, which I suppose is meant to imply that there’s such a tiny chance of you happening to be here as the person you are at exactly this time and place that, golly, it just can’t be an accident, reminds me of the “intelligent design” people.

Gee, in order for you to be you, everything had to happen exactly the way it did, or you wouldn’t be here. So it had to happen for a reason. I guess it doesn’t occur to these people that it works the other way around. Thing didn’t happen the way they did in order for you (or the universe) to exist the way you (and it) do. You exist they way you do because things happened the way they did. If things had happened differently, then everything would be different. But they didn’t so they’re not.

Now, if choose to believe that an unseen hand (either God’s or Adam Smith’s) guided everything to happen a certain way, well, OK. Personally, if there is some sort of creator, I suspect they were just f*cking around to see what would happen. Mix this, that, and that other shit up, heat it for a while, and see what grows on it. I kinda doubt there was some sort of master plan designed to create me.

And if it all was a bug plan, then I’m pissed my plan didn’t include having enough money to keep me from having to go to work today.

It’s ugly old white man day on Press the Meat (OK, pretty much every day is ugly old white man day, but still…), as Mike Mullen, Mike Bloomberg, Ed Rendell, and perhaps the ugliest old white man in the whole wide world, Alan Greenspan all make an appearance on today’s show. Then it’s a roundtable with Doris Kearns Goodwin and Mark Halperin.

Mullen also stops by CBS’s Faze the Nation, along with angry, crazy, old white guy Jon Kyl, the President of the Council On Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, and Thomas Saenz, President of the Mexican American Legal Defense And Education Fund (Thomas, I’ll give you a buck if you say, “screw you, Kyl!“).

On Fux News Sunday, mustela meets ursa as Weaselface Wallace gets some exclusive one-on-one action with the mama Grizzly herself, Sarah Palin. Perhaps they’ll talk about Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, and how those despicable people raised a no-good kid who didn’t even bother to get knocked up before she got married (librul trash probably learnt about the evil birth control and never even took a chastity pledge, I betcha). Or maybe Sarah will discuss Bristol’s upcoming (maybe) on-again, off-again marriage with what’s his name, assuming he can stop knocking up his other girlfriends long enough to set a date to rent out the Wasilla Knights of Columbus hall for the reception (and they’ll do it up right, with a couple kegs of PBR and them fancy colored plastic cups). I bet Mama Bear will go out back and show the guys how she can write her name in the snow, too.

As if that wasn’t enough, they’ll also have that ugly old white guy with the waxy embalmed look, the chinless wonder himself, Ferret Face Mitch McConnell. But wait, there’s more! Also up, the man whose hue does not exist in nature (and even Sherwin Williams can’t duplicate), John Boehner (do you think that’s mascara he wears, or is he part raccoon?). Oh, and I’m sure the usual fuxheads will be around, too.

Over at the Goebbels network, it’s the debut of the much anticipated, long awaited, “This Weak with Christiane Amanpour.” For her first show, Christi has SecDef Robert Gates, who is shocked and appalled at the WikiLeaks documents (not that they show what a worthless waste of time Afghanistan is, but that the public found out). Bob will also tell us that whole July 2011 troop withdrawal thing really isn’t gonna happen (gee, now it’s my turn to be shocked). Then Christi asks Nancy Pelosi if Afghanistan has been “worth it” (silly woman; of course it’s been worth it. I mean, look at all the great shit we’ve gotten out of it). Plus, there’s a “powerhouse” roundtable with George :jerk: Will, political mastermind Donna Brazile, Paul Krugman and journalist Ahmed Rashid.

Over at CNN, Fareed Zakaria talks to Senator John Kerry about the WikiLeaks and the war in Afghanistan, Iran and politics.

Then it’s the Pakistani Ambassador to the US’s turn to be shocked and appalled at the WikiAllegations that the Pakistani intelligence service has been colluding with the Taliban. Also, Hugo Chavez is threatening the US again (is he? What’s he threatening to do?).

I’d like to see Hugo and John Kerry appear together – what a contrast that would be: a fiery Venezuelan and a guy who looks (and sounds) like an Ent from Lord of the Rings. Then, a panel of “experts’ featuring Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker, Reuters’ global editor-at-large Chrystia Freeland, and Ross Douthat of the N.Y. Times on the Obama’s administration’s handling of the crises that seem to keep coming at them.

And finally, a $35 iPad? Oh, Steve Jobs won’t like that one little bit.

Personally, I just can’t wait to see what happens on True Blood tonight (I hope Bill and Sookie will be OK). They really left us hangin’ last week.

Have a good Sunday, y’all.

I don’t know if it’s a guy thing or not, but I’ve never given a crap about weddings. I didn’t care when Luci Bird married whoever the hell it was she married, or when Tricia married that Cox guy, or when Diana married Prince Jughead or even when Jen married Brad. If I hear that somebody I actually know is getting married (though, at this phase of my life, people I know are a lot more likely to die than get married), my first thought is usually, “oh Christ, I hope they don’t invite me” (my second thought, of course, is “I hope they have an open bar at the reception”). So it should come as no surprise that I really don’t give a flying frack about Chelsea Clinton getting married today.

I don’t care where it’s gonna be, or how much it’s gonna cost, or who’ll be attending. I don’t need to see “live shots” of “downtown” Rhinebeck or footage from helicopters flying over the site.

Now, don’t get me wrong, by all accounts she turned out to be a very good, smart person in spite of her rather odd family and childhood and being publicly called names by ignorant, venomous blowhards like Rush Limbaugh. So good for her and all, but geez, to waste all this time and money reporting on her “secret” wedding in Rhinebeck today is just plain nuts. Can’t they just leave this kid alone?

No, I guess not.

Is “busted” now an acceptable news term? As in “BP’s busted well in the Gulf.” ‘Cuz I’ve heard them refer to it that way several times now, and it just sounds odd (and if you do a google search for ‘busted well’ you’ll get a plethora of hits from all sorts of news sources). I mean, I never heard them say that “the driver of the Toyota Prius lost control of the vehicle when his accelerator busted” or “building has begun on a memorial at the site of the busted World Trade Center” or “New Orleans flooded when the levees busted.”

Just don’t seem like high-class English to me.

45 years ago today, LBJ signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, creating Single Payer health care for the 65 and over crowd. At the bill-signing ceremony, Johnson enrolled Harry S. Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary (Bess was second), and presented him with the first ever Medicare card. Among other things, this means that I’m older than Medicare, which is a somewhat somber realization. Even more somber (downright depressing, even), is the fact that, in four and a half decades, we never bothered to extend Medicare to everybody as a “perk” of being an American. Because trying to ensure the health of our citizens is decidedly un-American, I guess (very European, though, like legislated vacation and subsidized child care. Friggin’ commies). Much like unemployment benefits only encourage people to be drug-ingesting coach potatoes, health care benefits only encourage people to be slackers. Or something. I dunno. All I know is we’ll never get Single Payer in my lifetime, because, as Illinois Senator Barack Obama once said, “first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.” And that aint gonna happen, ‘cuz “we” won’t ever get the Republicans and Democrats out of the government. But, hey, Happy Birthday to Medicare anyway!

A bit of a surprise in the vote for the new troop surge in Afghanistan (or to Afghanistan, I guess), as my congresscritter, who – though I knew he was no Dennis Kucinich, and although he is better than the Republican turd he replaced – has been a disappointment thus far, voted against the $33 billion in new war funding. So, good for you, Dan. But your stance on Net Neutrality and your failure to push for Single Payer still sucks, so no more money from me.

Uran Outfitters is opening a store here. This is apparently a big deal (to be honest, when any business moves into the area instead of out of it these days, it’s good news), as they only build a few stores every year. I’m not really familiar with them, but taking a quick look at their website (which is pretty ugly, IMHO), it doesn’t seem to be my kinda place. For one thing, the “mens” section has categories called “tops” and “bottoms” (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and most of their merchandise looks, well, crappy. To me. It’s no doubt very hip and appealing to the younger folks. As for me, I seem to be spending my money on tools these days (if you’re wondering what to get me for Christmas, the DeWalt 12″ dual bevel sliding compound miter saw would be a nice choice to complement my 10″ Makita miter saw and my DeWalt 12″ single bevel miter saw, though I’ll also be needing a stand for it, which would be a good second choice).

I had some pretty f*cked-up dreams last night, which I don’t have time to get into the details about, but it involved dead twins in a water tower (that I think I had something to do with) discovered by Steve Buscemi, who alerted the police. Pretty creepy, though I’ve always liked Steve Buscemi.

Oh well, time to make the donuts.

The reprieve from the hot and humid weather we’ve been having ends today, as it’s expected to get back up into the 90’s. I’m really not looking forward to the new climate patterns that are coming, though I suppose being beach front property will be good for tourism. Still, I may have to get more serious above moving to Canada before I get so old they won’t take me. Either that, or quit my bitchin’.

The WikiLeaks release of tens of thousands of documents detailing what a pathetic waste of time (and money, and lives) our presence there has been has forced Congress to take a step back and reconsider things. And by reconsider, I mean pass a massive Afghanistan war spending increase of $33 billion.

Sssh! You hear that? That’s the cry of Republican deficit hawks demanding that this $33 billion must be paid for with spending cuts or tax increases in order to make it deficit neutral. Oh, wait, never mind. My bad. That was actually some mocking birds out back shrieking at the cat. They don’t seem to like her (might be related to the mutilated bird and mouse bodies I keep finding in the back yard).

Speaking of Afghanistan, PA Gov Ed Rendell (who, as far as I know, has never thrown out the first pitch at a T-ball game) predicted on Tuesday that if the president escalates the US military involvement in Afghanistan, he could face a primary challenger in 2012. Really Ed? Is there an RFK out there willing to buck the party? I mean, other than, like Dennis Kucinich (who, much as I like him, we all know he has no chance of winning the nomination, let alone the general election).

A recess appointment for Elizabeth Warren? Oh, “no, no, no” says Chris Dodd. That would be an icky Republican kinda thing to do, and she certainly can’t get confirmed. And I respect Dodd, because he’s a man of the people and untainted by Wall Street. And by “untainted,” I of course mean “in the pocket of.”

Looking at Senator Dodd’s “lifetime achievement” score, I see that his top five contributors include #1 Citigroup, #3 Bear Stearns, and #4 the Royal Bank of Scotland (really?). As for contributions by industry, the Securities & Investment sector is by far his biggest contributor which, at $6.1 million nearly doubles his runner up (Lawyers/Law Firms). Dodd’s top five is rounded out by Insurance, Real Estate, and Commercial Banks.

Of course, not everyone believes Obama’s reluctance to appoint Warren is due to Congress being in the pocket of the Financial industry and the Administration’s financial advisers being loaded with Wall Street insiders. Nope, it’s clearly a case of sexism according to NOW.

“If confirmed, Warren would protect consumers from further economic meltdowns caused by shady loans and credit,” NOW wrote in its e-mail to supporters. “She would also demand accountability and consumer-friendly practices from Wall Street banks. But she’s not part of the old boys club, so NOW asks: Could sexism be at work in denying her this position?”

Um, OK. I suppose that’s possible. But, you know what? I think it has a whole lot more to do with the “protect consumers,” and “demand accountability and consumer-friendly practices from Wall Street banks” parts. Maybe it’s just a lot harder to find a woman willing to shill for Wall Street. Just my opinion, of course.

I mentioned the other day how Obama seems to be cyber-stalking me, and it’s getting kind of embarrassing, so I’ve been kind of ignoring him. Now he’s put his wife up to e-mailing me, asking me to “sign Barack’s birthday card.” Geez, dude, have you no shame?

Oh well, it’s about that time, I guess. I’m getting tired of all this. Maybe I should move to Oakland and open up a pot farm.

In a move certain to bring the wrath of Jobs down on him, the Librarian of Congress – James H. Billington – yesterday announced a new ruling on US Copyright law, declaring that it’s OK to hack your iPhone to run non-Apple approved apps, or even use a different wireless provider.

The decision on a practice known as “jailbreaking” was one of several key changes in U.S. copyright law filed by the head of the Library of Congress, which also ruled that short clips can be legally copied from movie DVDs to make videos for purposes of comment or criticism.

The rulings were “a major victory for consumers,” said Corynne McSherry, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco digital rights organization that pushed for the clarifications. “Copyright law should be supporting fair use and not getting in the way of it.”

Apple, for its part, says it’s just trying to protect its poor, pathetic (some – but not I – might even say “sheep-like”) customers, who aren’t capable of deciding for themselves what apps to use, and need the not-so-invisible hand of Apple to guide them in the right direction. I’d guess only a handful of iPhone users have both the skill and desire to jailbreak their phones, but expect to see frequent iPhone OS updates designed to circumvent the process and brick any jailbreaked (jailbroken?) phones. Hopefully they won’t inadvertently brick any non-jailbroken phones in the process.

Here in NY, our very lame duck Governor is once again making noise about laying off state workers, despite a pledge (which may or may not be binding, depending on who you listen to) not to lay anybody off until at least January 2011.

Gov Blinky then proceeded to throw out the first pitch at a T-ball game, which is kinda funny on a couple of levels. First, the Gov is legally blind, and while they pointed him in the right direction, his pitch was (to put it kindly) a wee bit high. More importantly, though, there is no first pitch in T-ball. There are no pitches period. They put the ball on a tee (hence the name “T-ball”), and the kid whacks away at it. Even the Governor could probably hit the ball (though they’d have to make sure they pointed him toward first base).

I typically expect people to be self-centered assholes, but I ran into a new example yesterday afternoon. I was back a bit in a line of cars waiting to pull out of the grocery store parking lot. Since it’s a busy street, I wasn’t really surprised that we weren’t actually moving – until I happened to notice there weren’t any cars coming. Then I saw why. Some jackass in a fancy convertible (didn’t really see what kind it was, but it looked pretty snazzy) had decided to put his top down, so the rest of us had to wait. Never mind he could have put his goddamn top down before he pulled out of the parking lot, and f*ck the peasants behind him. I have no doubt this guy made out very well from the Bush tax cuts.

Oh well, time to go.

Some blessed relief from the heat and humidity that’s not as bad here as it is in other places so I won’t complain about about it but it’s really sucked this summer. Yesterday was a beautiful day, and today is supposed to be just as nice (which will bring me great comfort as I sit in my windowless office all day). After a humid (though not quite a horribly hot) and rainy Saturday, I finally got to try out my new electric lawnmower yesterday. I really like the fact that it’s incredibly light and really, really quiet, and there’s no farting around with gas or oil or trying to start it, but there’s no getting around the fact that the cord is a pain in the ass. Especially in the front yard. The big problem is when you change direction. The cord stays on one side, so you have to figure out how to step over it and let it shift over and not run over it. I finally settled on putting it across my shoulder and around my neck. You just need to turn the same way every time to avoid getting strangled. I reckon I’ll get it figgered out (or winter will get here – whichever comes first).

Big debate in store for us today in Congress. The god-fearing Republicans want to preserve the Bush tax cuts for rich people, while the godless Democrats want to let them sunset. Here’s how it works: Republicans are “deficit hawks,” and didn’t want to pony up $33 billion to help out unemployed folks unless it was “deficit neutral,” but think the tax cuts should be preserved at a cost of $678 billion (and some $3 trillion over 10 years) with no strings attached. This is because Republicans are fiscally conservative and Democrats are tax and spend liberals.

Here in NY, there are something like 250,000 Canada geese. The government wants to kill about 165,000 of them by trapping them and putting them into turkey crates, and then gassing them to death. I, personally, find this abhorrent, but others are apparently quite proud of the plan.

A high-level official of the United States Department of Agriculture who is familiar with the proposal called it a “one-of-a-kind plan.”

“New York is leading the way,” he said….

Ah, well, good for us. We don’t have a budget, and half of our legislators are under indictment for something or other, but when it comes to murdering geese, by golly, we’ve got our shit together.

Speaking of getting shit together, I guess it’s about that time for me.