It was a very frantic and upsetting start to the morning today, as I woke up to find no Internet connection. Of course, my first inclination is to reset the router, and when that didn’t work, I looked at the router DHCP settings, and knew something was wrong, since the router was getting some caca IP address from the cable company. So, I released and renewed the IP address a few times, and finally reset the cable modem, too, in the hopes that that would do some good. Alas, it didn’t, and there was nothing left for me to do but sit on the futon and ping, waiting to see some signs of life. It’s not just that I couldn’t get to Internet, of course, but that Sedition Radio would also be unreachable from the outside, and I feel a responsibility to “the people.” As you may have guessed by now, things finally did come back up.

A new law goes into effect this month in NYS, requiring all homes (almost) to have carbon monoxide detectors. This is because somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 people die annually (in the entire United States of America) from CO poisoning. 450 out of, what, about 300 million? That’s something like .00015%. You’d think they’d have something more important to worry about (like, oh, I dunno, the 45,000 or so people that die annually from lack of health insurance). They won’t be sending the CO detector police out to your house, but if you die from CO poisoning and don’t have a detector, you’re gonna get fined. Frankly, our house has so many holes in it, I can’t see any significant amounts of CO building up anytime soon, though I think we actually have a detector someplace. It used to be on the ceiling in the basement, but we took it down to paint, and who knows where the hell it is now.

Big snow storm heading east for the weekend, and it’s going to stay well south of where I live. That means I get to laugh at people who live where a few inches of snow shuts everything down, without having to break out the shovel myself. Sounds like a plan.

Oh well, this whole Internet access kerfuffle has shortened my morning prep time, so I better get going. Let’s get this week over already – after all, it’ll be Monday soon.

OK, I give in. John Edwards is a dirtbag. You just can’t go around punching out your wife, even if you are really, really rich (and even if she hit you first). Too bad. I wonder if he was an asshole all these years, or if he just kinda went nuts somewhere along the line. Must be that mistress of his; I think she must have put one of those Heather Mills, witchy woman spells on him. Or something. Whatever the deal is, I don’t see anybody (other than Dennis Kucinich, who I’m pretty sure won’t be trying to beat up his wife, ‘cuz she’s a lot bigger than he is) out the ready to pick up the mantle of populist hero, so I guess I’ll just have to hope that the scales have fallen from Obama’s eyes, and he’s now going to turn into that closet liberal I keep hearing he is. Sounds like he may be getting ready to kick Larry Summers to the curb, which would be a good start, but I really think it’s time for him to tell Rahm Emmanuel tat it’s time for Rahm to spend more time with his family.

I have no idea who the Lady Gaga person is (a singer, I take it), but it’s apparently big news that she isn’t a dude. Or, it’s big news at the HuffPost, where it has to compete with such earth-shattering news as Snooki’s big makeover (yet another apparently famous person I’ve never heard of), Michelle Obama’s latest outfit, and the “7 Weirdest Things Women Do With Their Privates.” Now, maybe I’ve just led a sheltered life, but this seems kinda odd to me.

Jennifer Love Hewitt appeared on ‘Lopez Tonight’ Tuesday to hawk her new dating book. One of her tips: glue shiny things on your vadge.

“After a breakup, a friend of mine Swarovski-crystalled my precious lady,” she said. “It shined like a disco ball so I have a whole chapter in there on how women should vagazzle their vajayjays.”

I’m not sure what’s stranger – gluing things to your naughty bits, or having a “friend” do it. Maybe it’s just a guy thing, but not only to I have no idea what “Swarovski Crystals” are, but I also do not now – nor have I ever – had a desire to glue “shiny things” to any part of my my anatomy, and even if I did, I can’t think of a single friend who I’d be wiling to have do it. Then again, I don’t parade around wearing mini-skirts and no underwear, either (something I think the world can be grateful for).

I’m not one to tell anybody how to live their lives, but if you want my opinion, guys and gals, leave that stuff alone. It’s fine the way it is, and nothing good can come from mixing “glue” and your private parts.

Speaking of dicks (and shiny stuff, at least in the case of one’s head), Harold Ford and Michael Steel are going to discuss “America’s future direction,” and they’re actually getting paid to do it. Why anyone would pay these two creepy clowns to offer their worthless opinions is beyond me. Frankly, the only future I’m interested in is one with neither of those two in it.

That, and me winning the lottery.

OK, to everybody out there thinking about getting married, I just wanna say one thing. If you’re going over what your vows are gonna be at the ceremony and your soon-to-be spouse insists that you take out the part where you promise to be faithful to each other, you have no excuse for being surprised when he goes off to “hike the Appalachian Trail.” Now, I don’t honestly remember if my vows contained a fidelity clause or not (I might have kind of assumed it was implied by the whole “getting married” part – I mean, I understand shit happens, but why the hell get married if you’re not gonna at least start out with the goal of not screwing around), but when they go out of their way to say, “nope, uh-uh, no friggin’ way am I agreeing to that,” let’s face it: they’re really just not that into you. If you plan on marrying the bastid anyway, I think it’s time to take up drinking.

Speaking of drinking, times being what they are, Americans are officially drinking the cheap stuff now.

An industry report shows Americans’ love affair with top-shelf booze cooled last year as the recession took a toll on high-priced drinks.

The report shows shows people drank more but turned to cheaper brands. They also drank more at home….

Yep, we’re hanging out on the couch drinking rot gut, and we’re drinking lots of it. And good for us. If you’re going to hell, there’s no point in showing up sober.

If you’re one of the few people out there still looking for a good reason to start drinking, consider this: there are Republicans living among us, and a new DK/Research 2000 poll tells us what they’re thinking:

39% want Obama to be impeached. For what, I don’t know. I’m not sure being a “you-know-what” qualifies as a high crime or misdemeanor. More than six in ten Republicans think Obama is a socialist (for once, I wish they were correct). A minority of Republicans – 42% – believe Obama was born in the United States (the rest, presumably, either think he was born in Nigeria or aren’t sure whether Hawaii is part of the US or not – and you have to admit that them there Hawaiians don’t really look like regular Americans). A majority of Republicans – 53% – think Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama to be president, and almost a quarter of them want to secede from the United States.

Fine, y’all can have Texas and elect Sarah as your queen (she can keep an eye on Hugo Chavez, ‘cuz I’m pretty sure you can see Venezuela from Houston – you better tell her he isn’t the President of Mexico first, though). Now shut up and leave us alone so we can have electric vehicles and universal health care out here in “real” America.

Nearly three-quarters of Republicans don’t think gay people should be allowed to teach in public schools. So what are all those unemployed teachers supposed do? Become republican Congressmen? I guess they can enlist in the military, too, once we get that whole “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” thing cleaned up (except I’m sure Republicans overwhelmingly disapprove of that, too).

And nearly a third of Republicans want contraception to be illegal. Not, “not taught in school,” but outright outlawed. The poll doesn’t say, but I’m guessing 99% of those would oppose taxes to pay to feed, house, and educate all those extra kids, and they damn sure wouldn’t want sex education taught in school – unless it’s “Abstinence Only,” of course. After all, “just say no” won the War on Drugs for us; it should work great for eliminating unwanted pregnancies, too.

Oh well, time to head out for work. Gotta pay my booze bill somehow.

Has anybody ever done a study on the affects of being constantly exposed to the sound frequency of an electronic beep? I mean, if they could come up with money for a study to see if dogs get jealous or cats only purr to get you to do what they want you to do, then you’d think somebody somewhere would pony up a few bucks for a study to see if incessant beeping is detrimental to your physical or mental health. I wonder, because it seem like everything around me beeps, and sometimes I feel like it’s driving me freakin’ crazy. My refrigerator beeps if I leave the door open too long, my stove beeps when the oven is done preheating (among other things), the microwave beeps for all kinds of reasons, the touchpads on all the appliances beep whenever you touch them – as do the buttons on my cellphone, the tv remote, and my Chumby touch screen – my cordless drill battery charger beeps (though I haven’t quite figure out why), and sometimes I hear shit beep, and I don’t even know what the hell it is. But whenever something beeps, I feel compelled to respond in some way shape or form (if for no other reason than to shut it the hell up; the microwave is particularly insistent on attention). Pavlov must be salivating in his grave.

I wonder if the iPad will beep at you, too? I signed up to be notified when the iPad is ready to ship, though I don’t think I’ll be picking one up anytime soon. They have some work to do on it before I’d buy one. For one thing, there’s no USB port, and with a meager base memory of 16-gigs, I think not having a USB port for plugging in an external storage device (or non-proprietary keyboard, etc.) is a deal breaker. I’d also want an SD (or mini-SD, or even micro-SD) card slot in it. I know Apple wants you to pay more for the extra storage space, but still. The iPad would also be a lot more appealing to me if it ran the Mac OS. Sadly, you’re stuck with an oversized iPhone/iPod Touch device, and locked in to Apple-approved applications. That’s fine for people who are happy to take what Apple is willing to give them, and it might even be fine for a phone (though I think I’d prefer my wife’s Droid – both for what it does now, and the future potential it has), but for what amounts to a “net-tablet” it doesn’t cut it for me. And, of course, if you want a 3G model, you’re stuck with ATT. I don’t care what the guy on the commercial says, the ATT network blows, and coverage (in my area, anyway) is pretty spotty.

I’ve been using a Macbook Pro pretty much exclusively at home these days, and I definitely like it – but more for the hardware than the OS. Frankly, I don’t find the Mac OS to be some crazy big improvement over Windows. I often hear people say they got all kinds of viruses and whatnot with Windows, but that’s never really been a problem for me. While I’ve always had some sort of AV stuff installed as a backup, I tend tro practice “safe computing,” and have never had the virus and spyware issues that other people do (especially people who let their kids use the company laptop at home).

As for the Mac, I’ve had the thing lock up on me two or three times. You don’t get the BSOD, of course. You get a message in several languages saying, “sorry, Charlie.” There are also times when the damn thing sits there and hesitates, too. Again, you don’t get the stupid hour glass – you get the stupid little multicolor pinwheel. And the patches! Holy crap, there are more patches for this thing than Windows has (and the patches are huge in size). I also don’t like that when you click the little red close thing, it doesn’t actually close the application you’re in. Granted, you can hit Command-Q, but if you’re not careful, you can leave a lot of shit open w/o realizing it. There are a few other annoyances with it as well, but nothing too major (no forward delete button, for instance – you have to use fn+delete instead – and the mouse gestures – or whatever they call it on these things – sometimes are annoying; anybody know if there’s a keyboard equivalent of Windows alt+tab?).

As for things, I like, I really like that it isn’t plastic, and is carved from a solid block of aluminum. The touchpad is great – very large, and I like that it does different things based on how many fingers I give it. Battery life is good, too (which it better be, because you can’t just pop in a spare). The maglock power cord is good, but can be annoying at times. And, while there aren’t as many things available for Mac as there are for Linux and Windows, you can find alternative apps to what for most things.

Well, time to get ready to go. Soon, they’ll be pulling that poor, drugged woodchuck out of his hole. I never really got that whole thing. Why don’t they just say if it’s sunny on Feb 2nd, then there’s gonna be 6 weeks of winter (or the opposite; I always forget which way that works).

Oh well, it’s tradition, I guess.

I didn’t actually watch “This Weak” on the Goebbels network yesterday, so I was spared the ordeal of looking at Roger Ailes in HD. There was one Tweet (that’s what you call it, right?) that said “Roger Ailes on “This Week” looked like he wanted to enslave Arianna in his harem and freeze Paul Krugman in carbonite.” I thought that was pretty funny (I guess you either get that one or don’t). Speaking of Jabba the Hut, I watched “Embedded” last night. It was very well written and staged, and Tim Robbins looked great in his Rush Limbaugh fat suit.

According to the teevee, the Grammy’s were last night. Has it been a year already? It seems like just yesterday that some guy I never heard of beat the crap out of some woman I never heard of (though I think she was named after a song Stevie Nicks wrote), which was somehow related to the Grammy Awards. This year, Beyoncé (who I have actually heard of, though I’m totally unfamiliar with any of her songs (that’s what they call ’em, right?) except for the one the one that goes “lemmee lemmee lemmee up-up-upgrade upgrade ya,” that they used for a DirecTV commercial (it was kind of annoying, really) set a new Grammy record for winning 6 Grammies. Seems like the Beatles should have won more than that – but I reckon maybe there were fewer categories back then (when, as my mother used to say, music was music). I have no idea what else went on, except I heard that Taylor Swift (actually heard of her, too; saw her on SNL one night. Not bad for a white chick) won album of the year (can’t have been a very good year for albums), and I guess they weren’t quite done exploiting Michael Jackson and his kids. Hopefully, “this is it.”

What with all the uppy downy temperature-wise this weekend, my poor old knees are killing me. I’m walking around like Fred Sanford here (fortunately, thanks to the place where I cut myself with a hacksaw, whatever the hell it is I stepped on that now seems to be stuck in my foot, the place where I slashed my palm with a ple, and the plywood splinter that seems to have embedded itself a few inches down into my finger, my knee pain is much less noticeable this morning). I’ve been considering installing Zerk fittings so I can shoot some grease in there. Or maybe just a hypodermic full of Teflon spray. I guess I need to spend a little time in the schwitzer and cook ’em up a bit.

Not now, though. Now it’s time to go.

Is it really Sunday already? Really? God, that sucks.

Speaking of sucking, it’s Laurel and Hardy day on Press the Meat, as David “Ollie” Axelrod and John “Stan” Boehner (because Laurel and hardy were in black and white, most people don’t realize that Stan Laurel was a funky shade of orange) visit with Gilligan Gregory. Then it’s a roundtable with “Douchebag Dave” Brooks, CNBC’s David Faber, the WaPost’s Eugene Robinson, and U.S. News & World Report’s Uncle Mort Zuckerman.

Over at Faze the Nation, Bobby Scheiffer has creepy Mississippi Gov Haley Barbour, icky SD Senator John Thune, PA Gov Ed Rendell, and Michigan Gov Jennifer Granholm.

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has Evan Bayh, Wisconsi Republican Paul Ryan, Chris Van Hollen, and wild and crazy Tennessee cracker Lamar Alexander. Plus this week’s fuxheads Bill Kristol, Mara Liasson, supreme douchebag Charles Krauthammer, and Fux token Juan Williams. Plus “Power Player” Daniel Lippman.

At the Goebbels networks, BaBa WaWa talks to nude male model Scott Brown, plus on what ABC is calling a “spectacular” roundtable, it’s the only person who can out-Goebbel Goebbels, Roger Ailes, George :jerk: Will, Paul Krugman, and Arianna Huffington.

On CNN, Fareed Zakaria has Obama’s economic advisor, Larry Summers, plus Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki defends –in English– the disputed presidential election and the precipitating violence.

Have a good rest of the weekend.

There’s a full moon tonight. Not just any full moon, though – the biggest, brightest full moon of the year (and not just the year so far, but for the whole year). That’s because the moon’s orbit around the Earth is elliptical, and tonight its perigee (or low point – closest to the Earth) happens to coincide with the full moon. If you have a decent extension ladder and one of those telescoping roof brush thingies, you might even be able to touch it. Well, not quite, but it will be about 14% wider and almost a third brighter, so it ought to be pretty impressive (assuming it isn’t cloudy). Plus, Mars is in opposition (meaning it’s on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun), so it’ll be big and bright and red, right there to the left of the Moon. What I ought to do is get my telescope out and look at it. But it’s, like, really freakin’ cold out (about ten below at the moment), so that’s probably not gonna happen. I went out last night to knock the snow off the dish (and, no, that’s not a euphemism), and the moon looked really bright then, even though it was cloudy and snowing. And cold.

CBS has rejected an ad by the gay dating service “ManCrunch” that the company hoped to run during the Super Bowl. Even though you’ve probably seen plenty of ads for eHarmony, the ManCrunch ad doesn’t meet CBS’s “standards.” However, an ad by James Dobson’s homophobic and anti-choice group “Fuckus in the Family” starring Timmy Tebow (who NFL scouts say has been pretty unimpressive so far) and his mommy (and apparently based on a bullshit story), is just fine and dandy with CBS.

F*ckin’ liberal media.

To show my solidarity, I’m resolving to not give a shit about the Super Bowl this year, and to even go to bed before it’s over. Unless it’s a really good game. But I’ll be skipping the ads.

I just got done watching the John Oliver thing from last night. Marc got three segments, and was very funny.

This whole Danny Goldberg (who still sucks, by the way) thing on Down with Tyranny and the reaction to it has really sparked a surge in visits to Sedition Radio. Yesterday, there were 66 unique visitors (and that doesn’t count anybody who just goes directly to the audio link, which I can’t track). There’s almost always at least a few people tuned in at any given time. Pretty amazing for a show that’s been off the air since December 2005 – more than four years now. Ah, what might have been.

Oh well, time to bundle up and shovel the driveway, I guess.

It’s difficult to communicate with people when they don’t speak the same language. As an “IT” guy, I go through this all the time. When you say, “do you see an icon in the toolbar,” and they reply with “what’s a toolbar,” you know you’re in for a tough time. But that’s not nearly as bad as when you think you’re speaking the same language, and it turns out the same words mean something completely different to the person you’re talking to. For instance, there’s the word “organized.”

To me, organized means you know where stuff is, and it’s easy to get at. Ideally, it’s even more or less in the vicinity of where you need to use it (which is not to say that I’m always successful at being organized, because, between being basically lazy and struggling with what I can only assume is early-onset Alzheimer’s, I’m not). To others, however, the word “organized” represents an unattainable state of Nirvana where everything is underneath 50 other things in a box at the bottom of a stack of ten boxes in a closet somewhere. Oh, and the boxes are labeled.

For instance, to me, putting, oh, say, my keys and BlackBerry on the kitchen table (a mere one or two steps from the door to the garage) when I come home at night is pretty gosh darn organized. There they are, right where I can see them, ready for me to pick up on my way out the door in the morning. Walk in, put the keys on the table. Ready to leave? Pick up the keys on my way out. A simple yet elegant solution.

To others, however, this is the antithesis of organization – preventing us from reaching Nirvana. This atrocity can only be rectified by the act of hiding my shit somewhere else so it “doesn’t get lost” without telling me “I’m hiding your shit over here so it doesn’t get lost.” I do, of course, appreciate the sentiment and concern for me losing my shit (which I do – all by myself – quite often). However, not only does this not match my definition of organization, but, when you’re running late in the morning, it can lead to an unnecessary level of annoyance, angst, aggravation, and anger (plus a great deal of throwing shit all over the place). Not a good way to start your work day.

Another example would be the coffee filters and little cup I use to measure the amount of beans required to make a decent-tasting pot of coffee. To me, being organized means keeping the cup and filters together on a shelf in the cupboard. To others, however, this isn’t good enough, because, while they are in the cupboard, they aren’t inside of something else. So they must be placed inside a stack of bowls in the same cupboard, thereby rendering them inaccessible without pulling out the entire stack of bowls first (turning a two-step process – pull out the filters and cup, then put them back – into a four-step process – pull out the whole stack, grab the filters, put the bowls back, then, finally, put the filters and cup back). In other words, my way is more efficient.

I try and keep my life simple and efficient (especially in the morning, when even simple things seem complicated). To that end, I multitask whenever possible. For instance, I’ll floss my teeth and/or put on deodorant while sitting on the crapper. This – for obvious reasons – requires that the floss and deodorant be within arm’s reach of the toilet. An “organized” solution is to have them both sitting out in plain sight on the vanity (where they take up next to no space), not hidden in the medicine cabinet amongst the 427 jars of moisturizer, skin tightener, Spackle, and whatever the hell else that stuff in those expensive-looking little jars is.

Now, I’m not saying one way is the “right” way and the other is wrong. That would be judgmental, and I, for one, am anything but judgmental. Nor am I implying that it’s a male/female thing (though I might postulate that women have a “nesting” instinct that make them want to put shit inside of other shit, and then take that shit and put it inside of something else, and don’t seem to mind having to take everything out of the cupboard to get at the one goddamn thing you need in the the back, whereas men – due to their basic plumbing – have become accustomed to things being convenient located and easy to access).

All I’m sayin’ is that when two otherwise reasonable people have completely different definitions of certain basic concepts, life can get a little complicate.

Oh well, I guess I better get going. Gotta find my keys.

I wasn’t planning on watching the State of the Union address last night, but I happened to return to live TV right when he was walking out, so I figured, WTF. I didn’t make it through the whole speech, but I saw quite a bit of it. Maybe it was the mood I was in, but to me, he really seemed to be just plain full of shit. Let’s face it, I’ve heard his schtick before, and, to date, he’s been all hat and no cattle. As the late, great, Clara Peller asked, “where’s the beef?” Oh, he gives good speech, and the address was well received, for the most part. Heck, Chris Matthews even forgot (for an hour) that Obama’s black. Good for you, Tweety. I almost forgot you were an asshole for a while there. Almost.

Speaking of the SOTU, I got an e-mail from Barack Obama this morning (he seems to still have my e-mail address, even though I thought I unsubscribed the other day), with the subject, “I Can’t Do It Alone.” I thought, “sure you can, Mr. President. There are plenty of sites on the Internet to get you started.”

Turns out he was talking about all the hard work ahead of us here in this country, and he needs my help to get ‘er done (I’m reluctant to remind him that I signed up to work in his administration even before he officially took office).

Well, OK, Mr. President, you blew me off for a job, but what the heck, I won’t hold it against you. Good of the country, spirit of public service and all that. After all, I’ve got some big (and pretty darn good, if I do say so myself) ideas, and I’m eager to get started.

The President writes:

So tonight, I’m asking you to join me in the work ahead.

OK, whattya need?

I need your voice.

I’m with you, brother. :nod:

I need your passion.

You got it man! :nixon:

And I need your support.

YES WE CAN!!! YES WE CAN!!! :yippee:

Can you help…with a monthly donation of $15 or more?

Oh.

Didn’t I already tell you that I’m done giving you money (at least until you stop throwing me and everything that’s important to me under the bus)? And $15 a month? Hell, NetFlix is only $9 a month, the WTF podcast is only $10, and they’ve done me more good this year than you have.

Like many of you, I’m sure, I get these CNN “breaking news” alerts. So I get an e-mail when Tiger Woods goes to sex rehab or a big Jiffy pop bag gets loose in Colorado, or Paris Hilton gets a speeding ticket. Yesterday, I got three: one, when Apple announced its rather poorly named “iPad,” another when it was leaked that Obama would call for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and a third informing me that, during the SOTU address, Obama had said “the worst of the storm has passed.”

What CNN apparently didn’t consider newsworthy was the fact that Howard Zinn had passed away.

Too bad, ‘cuz maybe if somebody over there at CNN had ever read “A People’s History of the United States,” CNN wouldn’t suck so bad – and maybe we’d get some real news out of them. And maybe if a few of these rightwing war mongers had actually served in the military – the way Zinn did – or at least read “The Politics of History,” we wouldn’t have gotten into the messes we did in Iraq and Afghanistan (they could use a copy of it at the White House, too). But then we’d probably miss out on the Octomom’s bikini photos.

In other news that CNN would no doubt find “breaknewsworthy” it’s been reported that Anderson Cooper bought a firehouse in Greenwich Village for $4.3 million (what is it with gay guys and firemen, anyway). I was just remarking to somebody yesterday that it would be awfully nice to be rich. Coop’s new digs are a little tight, at a mere 8,240 square feet, but have their “original spiral staircases, brass fire poles, overhead beams used to dry hoses and walls covered with murals marking the fire patrol’s history” as well as a “bust of Mercury, the Roman god of speed, atop the firehouse’s main door.” Hmm. Just imagine the parties.

Uh, I know I’m just a no-class, low-brow jerk, but are face zippers and a hairdo that looks like “Mother” from “The Wall” really the epitome of “Haute Coture?” Some days I’m just really happy to be a beer-swilling, non-firehouse dwelling, average Joe. Though those face zippers might keep me from losing my keys all the time. Could be tough getting through the airport scanners, though.

Hey, Midwest, no offense or anything, but would you keep your goddamn cold weather to yourself? We’ve kinda gotten used to the relatively warm weather here, you’re about to ruin everything by sending your frigid air our way. Just don’t start sending us your tornadoes.

Sadly, I guess it’s time for this average Joe to get ready for work. Gotta save up $500 – $800 to buy an iPad. God, that’s a crappy name, though.

Polling has completed, and the results are in. The most trusted name in news isn’t CNN, it’s…um…Fox? Yep, Fox.

Respondents were asked whether they did or did trust the various news outlets. Fox turned out to be the only one with a positive score, at 49% yes to 37% no. CNN was at 39%-41%, NBC 35%-44%, CBS 32%-46%, and ABC 41%-46%. The pollster’s analysis finds a high level of polarization, with 74% of Republicans trusting Fox, and no more than 23% of Republicans trusting anybody else. Smaller majorities of Democrats trust all the other outlets and distrust Fox. Independents register negative ratings for all the news outlets, but Fox comes the closest at 41%-44%

It doesn’t surprise me that nobody trusts any news outlets (can’t say as I trust them either). Nor does it surprise me that Republicans overwhelmingly trust Fux News, ‘cuz, as we all know, Republicans are idiots. But the fact that it’s more or less a push as to whether Democrats trust Fux, well, I have to admit that seems a little surprising.

Claire McCaskill says John Edwards is disgusting and has no soul. I guess I won’t argue that point, but Claire isn’t really on my list of the most virtuous of politicians either. If you’re going to start making a list of the most disgusting and soulless “Democrats” out there, Claire, I think you ought to start with Joe Lieberman, and work your way down from there. I think it’ll be while before you get to Johnny.

Speaking of disgusting Senators, a bunch of “gonzo conservative journalists” attempted to bugger Mary Landrieu. Oh, wait, sorry. They tried to bug her phones. Apparently they were part of the “Pelican Society.”

Of course, the big story for tonight is President Obama’s State of the Union address, which starts at about 9:00 Eastern time. I’d tune in, but I have “The Good Shepherd” coming from Netflix today, and I just don’t think I can fit the President into my schedule (I only have the one-out-at-a-time plan, and I like to turn ’em around in a hurry to get my money’s worth). Plus Friday Night Lights is on at 9:00 (if you have DirecTV; if you’re relying on NBC, you’ll have to wait until spring to see it) and if I’m gonna watch something live, it’ll be that.

There’s not much reason to watch, anyway, since they’ll tell us what Obama is gonna say all day today, and they’ll tell us what he did say as soon as it’s over (and for the next couple of days thereafter). Unless he throws out a wildcard like a mission to Mars or something (and Obama doesn’t go for all that NASA and space shit, which is too bad, ‘cuz he’d make a great Spock), I don’t expect anything interesting. Even Joe Wilson says he won’t be jumping up and calling Obama a liar this year.

Oh well, time to get out there and face the day.