I guess if I knew it was so much fun to be a Republican, I might have become one a long time ago. I never realized they had more going on than propositioning guys in mens rooms. Go figure. In other surprising news, as Sue posted yesterday, the Florida dick doc who hates Obama and health care reform really has no idea what’s in the health care reform bill. He doesn’t exactly strike me as being the sharpest tool in the shed, so I hope he’s got a got a map of where to stick his finger when he does prostate exams (I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he spends a lot of time with his finger up his own ass). If you’re one of his patients, you might wanna grab a Sharpie and have your significant other mark the spot with a big ‘X’ or something.

In other surprising news, Jesse James checked out of sex rehab. Never fear, though, he checked back a few days later. I’m sure he just wanted to go to church for Easter, and maybe hook up with a couple of Easter bunnies. Speaking of guys I feel really, really sorry for because they got caught being philandering jerks, Tiger Woods faced his fans and the press yesterday, and is reportedly seeking to renew his wedding vows. This time around, I think they’ll include footnotes and asterisks.

Tiger might want to saty away from Heidi Montag, though. I have no idea who she is, but, at 23, she has apparently had so much plastic surgery done, she can no longer jog (her implants are too big) or hug people (her body is too fragile from double-digit procedures, including a “back scoop,” which sounds pretty creepy). What’s a back scoop?

“I actually didn’t know,” she said. “I might be the first one to try it. It carves out your back a little bit.”

Oh.

Well, as long as she’s happy.

From what I understand, today is a State Holiday in Germany. Maybe this whole separation of Church and State thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You’d think if a schmuck like Columbus gets a holiday, they could come up with a little something for a combined Easter/Passover day off. One of the planks of my platform when I run for office will be finding at least one holiday (and by holiday, I mean paid day off) every month. President’s Day to Memorial Day is an ungodly stretch of no days off, and it’s time for this national shame to end. Of course, I’ll also be pushing for a three-day work week (though I might be willing to compromise on four), and then there’s my flexible daylight saving time plan, where we fall back every morning and then spring ahead every afternoon.

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Mexico yesterday could be felt in Arizona and California. Great, now we’re even outsourcing our earthquakes to Mexico.

I managed to make it through the weekend without buying or ordering an iPad. Sure, I feel like an underprivileged, third-world person, but it’s the first 48 hours that are the most difficult. It gets easier from here on out. It’s just fortunate that I have no desire to pay $4 for a cup of shitty coffee, ‘cuz I’m sure all the cool kids at Starbucks will be flashing their pads today.

Damn, where has the morning gone? Time to make the donuts.

OK, gotta make this quick before I head out to church and whatnot.

Press the Meat has White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairwoman Christina Romer (who looks kinda like Chaz Bono, no?), and those two stalwart champions of the people, Jane Harman and Joey Lieberman, plus Mike “Skeletor” Chertoff.

Faze the Nation has a bunch of CBS talking heads, all talking.

At Fux News, Weaselface Wallace has Arizona asshole (I hope that’s not being redundant – no offense, KP), Jon Kyl, plus and Arlen Specter and congresscritter Kevin McCarthy (who has a fine Irish name, but is a Republican, so odds are he’s a douchebag).

The Goebbels Network’s ‘This Weak’ will be hosted by Jake “the mens room” Tapper today. The Tapmeister has Larry Summers, Director of the National Economic Council and Alan Greenspan, plus George :jerk: Will, Matty Dowd, Democratic Strategist Karen Finney and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich

At CNN, Fareed Zakaria lowers his standards by having Thomas Friedman, plus prissy little Republican “blogger” Andrew Sullivan, and India’s mega movie star, Shah Rukh Khan.

Khan!

OK, it’s Jesus time.

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! It’s iPad day! The iPad is a magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price! I know, ‘cuz Apple told me so. They told me, ‘cuz I asked them to notify me when the iPad was available (because otherwise, I might not have heard about it). And now it’s here, and I have an (almost) overwhelming compulsion to get one, even though it’s rather lacking in a lot of ways. I mean, first off, the price is only “unbelievable” because Apple had everybody thinking it would be about a thousand bucks, and then came out and said it was “only” gonna be half that. Pretty good, eh?

Of course, that’s for the 16-gig one. 16 gigs seems pretty lame to me, but I guess you can always plug in a USB drive or a memory card.

No? No. Apple says no. No external storage for you.

I have an alarm clock with a USB port and a cell phone with a micro SD card slot, but not on the Apple iPad. Sorry. Guess I’ll just have to upgrade to a model with a little more storage. So I guess I’d go with the 64-gig model, which pops the price up to $700. Unless I want the one with 3G, in which case it’ll be $829, but at least I can buy any data plan from any provider I want. As long as I want either the 250 meg/month ($15 a month) or “unlimited” plan ($30 a month), and as long as I only want it from ATT. But at least if I already have an iPhone with a data plan, I can just swap the SIM card, right?

No? No. Apple says no. No SIM card swapping for you.

Oh well, I don’t have an iPhone anyway, so I’ll just use my Verizon cell phone and USB cable as a modem if I’m out of WiFi range. Oh, wait, no USB. I forgot.

So, anyway, along with my $829, 64-gig iPad, I think I’ll want the iPad case ($29), the keyboard dock ($69), oh, and I better get Apple Care for $99, ‘cuz I kinda don’t trust their hardware not to break. So that gets me up to $1,036 – more like $1,121 with tax – plus $30 a month, ‘cuz, let’s face it, I need unlimited data; too bad it has to be ATT, though, which kinda sucks.

But for that, I get something that will run any software I want (as long as I only want software approved by Apple and available at the App Store). That means no Flash, of course, and no Flash video. Oh, and I’m required to use iTunes, which, frankly, I can’t stand. And I can’t have more than one thing running at a time, so I have to switch between apps, but I’m mostly gonna just be using Firefox anyway, right?

No? No. Apple says no. No Firefox for you.

I read one of many glowing iPad reviews that kind of sums things up. The iPad, this guy wrote, isn’t much good at creating stuff, but it’s really good a consuming stuff. And isn’t that what it’s really all about?

Just do what Apple says to do, and use what Apple tells you to use, and nobody gets hurt.

As for me, much as I want to be one of the trendy boys, I think I’ll just have to pass (though I’ve been trying to convince my boss that I need one for development purposes). While it looks like a nice toy, I’m afraid it just doesn’t do a thousand dollars worth of stuff. Maybe when somebody comes out with an open source version that isn’t crippled, I’ll go for it. Until then, I won’t be one of the cool kids, I guess. But that’s OK.

iPad or not, It’s tough to look cool when you walk with a limp.

The decision to open up large areas of the nation’s coasts to oil exploration and drilling got the big headlines, but that’s not all the Obama Administration was up to. A Bush-era policy known as the “millsite” provision allows the hardrock mining industry to use unlimited amounts of public land to dump toxic mine waste and tailings from large-scale industrial mining operations. A group of tree-hugging liberal commie socialists filed a lawsuit to stop the practice, hoping that the Obama Administration would support their efforts. Alas, the administration has decided to support the mining industry instead. Suck on those rocks, liberals!

There is some good environmental news this morning, as the lo-cal news twit just informed me that Sun Chips now come in a fully “composable” bag. I’m not sure if that means the bags are fully composed, or can be fully posed. Or it may mean that the news chick’s brain is pretty well composted. Wouldn’t surprise me, as she’s kind of a skinny blond who’s always complaining about the cold, and I’ve long been convinced that the first place people lose weight is their brain.

As our NY State legislature heads into its well-earned 10-day Easter holiday without doing perhaps the only thing their jobs actually require of them (passing a budget), our Governor has fallen back on the tried and true refrain of bashing State workers, calling for them to forgo the pay raises which took effect yesterday. I don’t recall the State ever proposing to increase raises when times were good and all that Wall Street money was rolling in, but it’s always good PR to bash public employees. The State’s unions responded to the Governor with a hearty “fuck you.” On the bright side, the State’s non-union, “Management Confidential” employees won’t be getting a raise this year (the second year in a row), demonstrating the consequences of being rat bastards.

I’m not sure who named today “Good Friday,” but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Jesus. I don’t see a whole lot of “good” in being beaten, tortured, and hung on a cross. On the bright side, I’m sure the Romans got a lot of actionable intelligence out of it. From what I’ve read, before it was over, Jesus confessed to killing Jimmy Hoffa and plotting the 9/11 attacks.

Oh well, it’s getting late, and I want get in some self-flagellation time before work.

It’s April 1st, which means I have about two weeks to find all my tax return stuff. Additionally, it means that the NYS budget is officially late once again. It also apparently means we’re getting a preview of summer, as it’s supposed to be about 30 degrees warmer by this afternoon than it is now, and into the 80’s tomorrow. In other words, it’s gonna be too damn hot. I guess I’d be happy to see the warm weather come if I could actually walk, but seeing as things seem to be getting worse rather than better in the whole foot department, so I really don’t care.

Normally, I’d be looking forward to the weekend (such as it is), but this is the worst kind of holiday weekend – where you don’t get an extra day off, but are stuck doing “family” related things that screw up your Sunday. In this case, it means sitting around watching my wife get irritated by her parents while my mother-in-law insists I that I eat more (and anything I eat while she’s futzing around in the kitchen – which is pretty much the whole time that we’re eating – doesn’t count), and my father-in-law asks me questions about politics and gets pissed when I don’t agree with him.

Here’s an interesting statistic: by apparently standing for more or less nothing, Barack Obama has managed to have his approval ratings drop more or less equally amongst Liberals, Moderates, and Conservatives. Nice job.

Like Tiger Woods, David Duchovny, and Jesse James, I’m thinking I ought to check myself in to sex rehab. My only question is, can you consider yourself a sex addict if there aren’t really any women willing to have sex with you? And, if you happen to be a rich, famous, good-looking guy that has sex with lots of women, does that make you a sex addict, or just, like, a guy with options?

Oh well, it’s about that time, I guess.

When you get home tonight, eat your supper like it’s your last.

Here’s a little news item that made me want to vomit when I read it: Obama uses his BlackBerry to get “prayers” e-mailed to him.

Obama is the first president to carry one of the mobile devices, and said that he uses it to read prayers sent to him by several pastors from around the country who prayed with him during the 2008 campaign.

Really? I guess one of those prayers must have been about humans having dominion over the Earth, and they should go ahead and exploit it for everything it’s got, ‘cuz the President has decided to “drill baby drill,” and open up the East Coast and the coast of Alaska to offshore oil drilling. All that and more nukes, too? Outstanding.

It’s Springtime here in NY, which means the annual tradition of having no budget by the April 1st deadline. Over the past 25 years, the budget has been late 23 times, and this year will be another late one, as legislators have already left Albany for their 10-day Easter/Passover holiday break without a budget deal in place. We here in NY are filled with pride.

And now, a brief inspirational prayer to start the day.

Shocking news this morning: Ricky Martin is gay. I know what you’re thinking: Ricky who? I’m not quite sure who he is either (the name conjures an image of some sort of Ricky Ricardo/Billy Martin hybrid), but I’m pretty sure he used to sorta be famous in a ‘Selena’ kinda way, except he apparently wasn’t shot by the president of his fan club (kinda like having Kathy Bates as your #1 fan). I’ll have more on this development as soon as I figure out why I should give a shit.

In other news about people I neither know nor care about, Padma Lakshmi says she no longer wants anything to do with her baby’s father. Apparently she’s on some show called ‘Top Chef.’ The only cooking show I’ve ever watched (besides the ‘Galloping Gourmet,’ back in the day) is ‘Emeril Green’ on Planet Green, and that’s only ‘cuz I like the way he says ‘gollick.’ As in, “youzuv gotta putta lota gollick in dere.”

The only Lakshmi I’m familiar with is Lakshmi Singh, who’s a newsreader on NPR. But this one doesn’t look too shabby and apparently used to be married to Salman Rushdie, so good for him. I’m more of an Indira Varma fan, personally, but to each his own.

The US Post Office is looking to save something like $3 billion by ending Saturday mail delivery, which I guess makes sense (though they plan on dumping 40,000 employees, which I hope comes mainly from attrition, and not layoffs; we do not need 40,000 angry and unemployed postal workers wandering the streets). We only get useless crap on Saturdays anyway (we get mostly crap Mon – Fri, for that matter), so I guess I can wait for Monday to get my junk mail. Oh, it’ll be a little confusing at first (like when you keep checking the mailbox on Columbus Day, wondering why the damn mail is so late), but we’ll get used to it.

Hell, once upon a time there was both morning and afternoon mail delivery (and, no, I’m not old enough to remember that), and I think everybody managed to get by on “only” once-a-day delivery.

People love to piss and moan about the USPS, but how much do you think FedEx would charge to get a letter from NY to LA in a couple days? Well (since you ask) I just looked it up, and to ship an envelope from my zip code to a residential address in LA by Friday, April 2 at 7PM would be $19.14 (if I drop it off). If I drop an envelope in the mailbox at work on my way in, it would probably get to LA by Friday for 44 cents. And if not, it would be there Saturday for sure (at least for as long as they keep delivering on Saturdays).

Plus, when you take into account the tremendous volume of mail that I’ve received in my lifetime, the percentage that’s been misdelivered is infinitesimal compared to the percentage of packages that FedEx has sent god knows where (hope you’re enjoying that Buddy Jesus Bobblehead, ya bastids).

Sadly, like most people, I have no real reason to send letters any more. It’s too bad. When I was a kid, getting the mail was a big deal (hell, I still get a small but palpable thrill at beating my wife to the mailbox and being first to see the duplicate copies of the NYSUT newsletter and pleas from Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden for money).

The kids in my neighborhood would sometimes follow “Joe the Mailman” around, and he’d talk to us like we were regular people, hand us a stack of mail, and let us “deliver” it to the appropriate mail box (which was probably highly illegal, but nobody cared; these were simpler times). He read our post cards, too, and nobody really cared about that, either. Hell, if we went somewhere and sent post cards home, we’d write “Hi Joe” on ’em.

Joe brought us our birthday and Christmas cards and delivered the notice from the US Government informing my borther that he’d been selected for the honor of serving his country in Vietnam. That one made my mom cry. He also brought the letters my brother wrote home from there (which I still have).

When the neighborhood kids took their road tests, Joe would call before school while he was sorting his route down at the Post Office to let them know they’d passed (based on how thick the envelope was; this was back when they didn’t tell you right away – for fear of the Brownie getting shot or something).

Joe eventually started bringing my dad’s pension and Social Security checks, and of course delivered the life insurance payment to my mom after dad died too damn soon.

Everybody knew Joe the Mailman (and his predecessor, Joe the Mailman), and everybody loved him. He got a free lunch at the Retired Teacher’s Home down the street (the old ladies loved him most of all, I think), and would hustle through his route on Saturday if the SU football game was on, so he could watch it on the TV that the guy had down at the Esso station (four pumps – three that worked), and he was up on all the neighborhood gossip. Even the neighborhood dogs loved him (not the guy that came on Saturday, though, who never stopped to bullshit – on the bright side, the mail came a helluva lot earlier when he was working – and never really looked you in the eye; we used to keep the dogs in on Saturdays until after the mail came). When Joe finally retired, they took up a collection and had huge going away party for him.

Ah, those were the days.

Now, of course, it’s all e-mail, direct deposit, UPS, and instant gratification. And I have no idea what my mailman’s name is.

Big weekend for our War President Nobel Peace Prize winning President, who stopped off in Afghanistan to rally the troops, grab a quick photo-op or two, and in general complement his health care reform victory on the home front with a bit of commander-in-chiefin’. I think he should have waited until Easter and popped over with plastic ham (assuming secret Muslims are OK with plastic pigs). Obama told the troops that “the US doesn’t quit” (other than, oh, Korea, Vietnam, Beirut, and Somalia). The President also told our military men and women that “we can’t forget why we’re here.” Well, you’re there for a photo-op, and I’m not really all that clear just why they’re there (other than you ordered them there), but you got to leave after a few hours, and they’re still stuck there. Anyhow, between the HCR “victory,” the new nuclear arms reduction treaty with the Rooskies, and this quick jaunt over to Kabul, the President is looking mighty presidential. Maybe we can get real financial reform, a real jobs plan, and some real progress toward reversing global climate change now? No? OK, I’ll settle for some good speechifyin’ then.

Looks like insurance companies are balking at one of the centerpieces of the great legislation that provides health insurance to every single American (give or take 15 million, assuming they can afford to buy it from a private health insurance company, which can still triple rates based on age or on health condition, limit annual payouts until 2014, and deny adults coverage based on preexisting conditions until 2014). Apparently insurers are of the opinion that they can deny coverage to children with preexisting conditions as well.

Just days after President Obama signed the new health care law, insurance companies are already arguing that, at least for now, they do not have to provide one of the benefits that the president calls a centerpiece of the law: coverage for certain children with pre-existing conditions.
[…]
Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions. But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the “availability of coverage” for all until 2014.

And the ink’s not even dry on the parchment yet. I can’t wait to see what other loopholes industry lobbyists wrote into the bill. So just try not to get sick until 2014, I guess, and hope that Republicans can’t make a crappy law even crappier.

Two female suicide bombers are suspected in an attack on a Moscow subway that killed at least 35 people. I didn’t even know they had Subways in Moscow. I thought all they had were Blimpies.

The Huffington Post has an homage to Eric Massa. It’s a good way to take the edge off Monday.

First off, congratulations to West Virginia for making Ashley Judd cry while punching a ticket to the Final Four in Indianapolis. Just watch out for the shit bubbles. Speaking of shit bubbles, on Press the Meat, it’s Mr. Armageddon, Papa John Boehner, Steny Hoyer, DNC Chair Tim Kaine, Bozo the token black Republican, Michael Steele, former Obama WH Communications Director (for like six months) Anita Dunn, and out old friend Ed Gillespie, who comes out of whatever closet he’s been in lately.

Faze the Nation has Jim Clyburn, and Chris Van Hollen, plus ferret face Mitch McConnell, and Dick Durbin.

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has Republican Paul Ryan and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, plus Texas cracker John “Cornhole” Cornyn.

On the Goebbels Network, it’s Eric “they’re shooting at me, too – honest” Cantor, John Larson, David Plouffe, and the Pillsbury Dough Nazi, Herr Karl Rove

CNN’s State of the Union has Orrin “Big Love” Hatch, Dianne Feinstein, John Larson of CT, and Indiana shit bubble Mike Pence.

Speaking of CNN, Fareed Zakaria has a debate on health care between Paul Krugman and sad sack piece of crap Robert Samuelson (seriously; tell me this guy doesn’t have douchebag written all over him).

Also, Fareed travels to Mexico City to speak with the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon.

Have a good one.