On Press the Meat today, you think flying is a pain in the ass now? Secretary of Fatherland Security Janet Napolitano will be on to tell us how much worse it’s about to get now that Obama’s failure to torture people has led to terror in the skies. Don’t say Dick Cheney didn’t warn us. Then Robert Gibbs will be on tell us how great this whole Senate health care bill is, and to reassure us that the White House will put the screws to those goddamn liberal sonsabitches in the House who are trying to make it not suck. Oh, but that’s not all. There’s also a roundtable with the NY City’s second greatest mayor of all time, Mike Bloomberg, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (I guess Tom Delay was unavailable), Mass Gov and Obama speech writer Deval Patrick, and Mrs. Alan Greenspan.

Robert Gibbs heads on over to CBS’s Faze the Nation, to be joined by James Clyburn of SC, Peter King (sadly, not the Sports Illustraterd write, but the Republican goon from NY’s 3rd district (he looks like kinds of a cross between Jimmy Hoffa and Paulie Walnuts), CBS News Chief Armenian Correspondent, Armen Keteyian, and former Bush Deputy Assistant and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism, Juan Zarate (on to tell us “Dick Cheney told ya so”).

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has Chris Van Hollen on to tell us how the House and Senate will reconcile their health care bills. Then Jersey Senator Bob Menendez PA “Democrat” Arlen Specter, the aptly named Dick Shelby, and, vying for the “biggest asshole in the Senate” award (but facing very stiff competition) SC cracker Jim DeMint. Plus a fair and balanced panel of Fuxheads – the fairly stupid spawn of an original neo-con, Bill Kristol, his intellectual and ideological equivalent, piece of crap AP “reporter” Jennifer Loven (she should’ve married Don Hewitt; then she could have been Jennifer Loven Hewitt) token Juan Williams (they thought they were getting a Hispanic, but must’ve been thrilled to find out he’s a twofer) and the crazy and evil Ann Coulter wannabe, Laura Ingraham – grades Obama’s first year in office. Let me guess: more war, good (but not good enough), everything else, very, very bad. Oh, and partisan. And he hates white people, too.

Over on the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus hosts a pair of assholes from the Senate, as Jim DeMint slithers over from NBC to be joined by “Democrat” Kent Conrad. At This Weak’s roundtable, political mastermind Donna Brazile, NY Times resident douchebag David Brooks, lost Gabor sister (no, not Oily Taints) Arianna Huffington, guy who actually knows stuff, Paul Krugman and – of course – the man who has nowhere else to be, George :jerk: Will, will talk about cars, car repair, and, uh, this week’s puzzler. Oh, wait. Wrong show. They’ll talk about politics or something. Actually, they’ll probably just talk.

On GPS with Fareed Zakaria, it’s an encore showing of an interview with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (didn’t he used to be on The Daily Show?). Plus, author Malcolm Gladwell, on how Art Garfunkel has inspired his hairstyle.

Later, on 60 Minutes, it looks like at least on rerun. Probably the rest are, too. But there’s one segment with Lara Logan, and she’s always worth watching (hey, if she’s good enough for Mick Ware, she’s good enough for me).

Now, go out there and have lovely Sunday.

OK, well, that’s over for another year. Yesterday was a nice contrast to x-mas eve. The streets were all but deserted, no stores were open (even the Delta Sonic was closed; good thing I didn’t need gas – or a car wash), and everything was nice, quiet and devoid of humanity. Other than a severely stiff neck, I seem to have gotten through yet another holiday unscathed. Today is gonna be one of those days where much is planned, yet little will be accomplished. Sort of a microcosm of my entire life, actually. Big plans, lots of potential (OK, to be honest, probably not really all that much potential), and little to show for it. But, screw it. I’ve always thought having “ambition” was just never being happy with what you have. Good thing I was born without it. Well, guess I’d better go and try to remember just what it is I was supposed to accomplish today, so I can think up some excuses for not getting it done.

As I may have mentioned in the past, I’ve never been much for the whole “God” explanation of the universe. Not that I have a better idea, and I certainly don’t begrudge anybody else their right to believe whatever they want (though I’d just as soon they wouldn’t feel compelled to tell me I should live my life based on their supposed sense of morality). It’s just always seemed a little silly to me that there’s an all-powerful being that loves us, but allows bad things to happen to good people. Not to mention the fact that, if there is such as thing as God, we’re so vain as to think we were created in Its image. I mean, humans have been around for, what, a few hundred thousand years (depending on what you want to count as human)? The dinosaurs were around for a few hundred million. Hell, we haven’t even been around long enough to see how we’ll turn out – let alone make a case for being the embodiment of God on Earth.

But, yesterday morning, as I was out trying to do some grocery shopping amidst throngs of “the people” (slack-jawed people picking their noses idling at green lights, people leaving their carts in the middle of the aisle while they ponder the intricate mystery of which brand of canned corn is the best, people cutting in line in front of me, groups of people having conversations in the store entrance as if they were the only beings on the planet) at this most special and joyous time of year, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there isn’t a God after all.

Here I was, surrounded by the annoying crush of humanity that I typically do my best to avoid, all showing absolutely no signs of common sense whatsoever, and I thought, how in the hell could these stupid fucking idiots make it through life without some sort of divine intervention? Clearly, these people must be capable of tying their shoes, feeding themselves – even holding down actual jobs – all while being seemingly brain dead. How is this possible?

We humans seem to survive (and thrive) in spite of ourselves. We crap in the water we drink, spew toxins into the air we breathe, and poison our food supply, all in the name of profit (profit being more sacred than the life we pretend to revere). And we seem to be driven to kill each other (in fact, the one thing we’ve always been really good at is devising new and better ways to do it on ever more massive scales) all while pretending to celebrate the birth of the “Prince of Peace” (which we do by buying each other crap).

A species this stupid should have vanished from the face of the Earth a long time ago.

So, I guess maybe I’m willing to consider there really is some invisible man in the sky keeping us around (probably just for laughs) despite the fact that we’re a bunch of corrupt, murderous, mouth-breathing morons.

But Intelligent Design? No fuckin’ way.

Oh, and Merry Christmas.

The final vote on the Senate health care bill is taking place as I write this (the first Christmas Eve Day vote since 1895 or something). Assuming they can wheel poor old Robert Byrd out there one more time, the bill can then go to conference, where we can hope that whatever emerges doesn’t suck quite as much as it sucks now (don’t count on it, though, since President Obama says he’ll now be taking a “hands-on” approach to merging the two bills, and, based on everything he and his sidekick Rahm Emanuel have done and said so far, I’d expect all the bending over to be done by progressives; I think Obama has been channeling two former Democratic Presidents – Health Care is his NAFTA, and Afghanistan is his Vietnam).

Speaking of sucking, all that sucking up to Olympia Snowe sure did a lot of good, didn’t it? She voted in favor of a resolution introduced by John Ensign (who has said the government doesn’t have the “moral authority” to enforce this mandate – he’s a fine one to lecture anybody about morality) to declare the bill unconstitutional, on the grounds that the mandate part violates the Fifth Amendment of the Commerce Clause, which (in part) states,

“…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

OK, well, I’m not a legal expert or anything, but I always thought that was more for eminent domain kinda stuff (you know, they wanna put in a highway or a Wal-Mart or something else that would serve the “greater good,” but your house is in the way, so, while they can take it away from you, they have to pay you something for it). Seems like Republicans just voted to declare all taxes on private citizens unconstitutional, which I reckon I could support. I suppose you could consider all the wonderful things the government does with your tax dollars to be “just compensation,” but then that would apply to health care, too, right?

About 15 minutes into the workday yesterday, I realized that going to work today would be absolutely unbearable, so I quickly decided to burn a vacation day today and sleep in a little bit before heading out to pick up the things I need to make it through the holiday tomorrow (and by that, of course, I mean beer). I neglected to let the dog in on the plan, though, and he made sure I didn’t oversleep. Oh well, at least it gives me a chance to check Santa’s progress.

Speaking of Santa, he’s supposed to deliver the plywood clamp attachment for my new jawhorse today, though the jawhorse itself won’t be showing up until next Tuesday, so I won’t be able to play with it on Christmas day, which is kind of a bummer (busy delivery week next week; the refrigerator that they neglected to deliver a month ago is supposed to finally be delivered on Monday – though I’m still trying to figure out how the hell it’s gonna get through the door).

I finally got to shovel a little snow last night when I got home from work, as we had about five or six inches in the driveway. It’s been an awfully lame season so far, with a total of barely over a foot of snow (last year at this time, we had over five feet already).

For some reason, this whole thing with the kid in Brazil is a big huge deal for the folks at the Today Show. I’m not sure why. The kid’s mother apparently went to Brazil for vacation with the kid and never came back, got divorced, remarried, died in childbirth, and now dad wants the kid back. They’re tsk-tsking over the fact that the “Brazillian Family” is horrible and doesn’t care about the kid, but is trying to make this all about them, is making a big dog and pony show out of all this looking for publicity, and that the kid, obviously, should be with his dad. Now, far be it for me to point out any irony or hypocrisy, but can you say “Elian Gonzalez?”

Have a good day and don’t forget, you’ve still got time to show how much you love Jesus by buying shit.

First it came for the pigs, but I’m not a pig so I didn’t care. Then it came for the Mexicans, but I’m not a Mexican, so I just ignored it. Then it came for the young people, and I figured, “screw the young! And get the hell off my lawn!” Next it came for the cats, and I have to admit that that didn’t really bother me much, either. But now, well, now it’s gone just too goddamn far! The first case of Swine Flu in a dog has been confirmed in White Plains, NY (which is Upstate, if you live in NYC, but Downstate if you live in the real Upstate). Enough is enough! I admit to not taking the whole H1N1 scare seriously before, but if it’s infecting dogs, then it’s picking a fight with the wrong damn guy. I mean, some spokeswoman for an animal medical center was quoted as saying, “don’t play kissyface with your dog….” Oh, why don’t I just go shoot myself, then? I refuse to change my way of life. The flu hates us for our kissyfaces, and if we give up our kissyfaces out of fear, then the flu wins. Especially now that kissyface season is upon us.

While the Senate health care bill sucks, they have found a way to stick it to House Minority Leader John Boehner a little bit by sneaking in a 10% tax on the use of tanning beds. The Senators were reportedly looking at either that, or a tax on Botox treatments, but they gave up on the whole Botox thing after a personal appeal from Nancy Pelosi.

With the Botox tax officially dead, the House now prepares to roll over for the Senate. There may be a few meaningless concessions to make “progressives” feel better, but no serious opposition is expected. So, as far as I can tell, nothing much changes for me, except I think my work insurance benefits will now be at least partially considered taxable income, and as I get older, insurance companies can charge me up to 300% more. There will be no more lifetime cap on benefits. Instead, there will be an annual cap on benefits, which, to my admittedly puny and ignorant mind, kinda seems like the same thing (unless I die fast, in which case it would seem to benefit the insurance company). Win-win.

Of course, should I lose my job, I’ll be able to pay a fine for not having the insurance I’ll no longer be able to afford (and hope like hell I don’t get sick). As a famous former presidential candidate once said, “[i]f a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody buy a house….” Good idea. If I lose my job, no doubt I’ll be homeless before too long, so let’s go ahead and pass that, too.

Just don’t tax my Botox.

Some very scary news this morning out of Dublin. There was a fire at the St James’s Gate Brewery brewery. Fortunately, while two firefighters were injured, it appears that the fire occurred in an empty storage building, so no beer was harmed. Likewise, the Guinness Storehouse tourist center was unscathed. Thank goodness for that. Everybody know that Santa stops off at the Gravity Bar for a pint or two when he’s done delivering presents on Christmas Eve.

Yesterday was our office Christmas Party, which we have at a nearby “Pizza Pub.” I’m generally not much for parties, I did see an infomercial (couldn’t hear it, but I could see it) for the Rockwell Jawhorse, which looks pretty nifty, and would come in very handy for trying to work alone (especially if you add the “Plywood Jaw”). So, I may have to order one of those suckers.

I’m pretty beat this morning, having gotten almost no sleep last night (which seems to be more the norm these days than the exception). One of the dogs apparently pulled a muscle or tweaked something yesterday, with the result being loud yelps when ever he tries to move. So, every time he rolled over or moved last night, he squealed. Not only did that keep me up, but it freaked out the other dog, who was panting and shaking like a leaf all night. I’m definitely running on empty this morning, and this promises to be one helluva long day.

So the Democrats managed to get a cloture vote on their health care bill in the wee hours this morning (not a single Republican voted for cloture, so tell me again why the Democrats spent so much time kissing their asses). There are some more delaying tactics by Republicans in store, but that was the big one, and unless Joe Lieberman decides he wants to feel Harry Reid’s lips on his ass one more time, the bill should pass later on this week. It’s a piece of crap, but maybe something less crappy will come out of conference (but probably not), and then the President will sign it with much fanfare. Insurance companies will pretend to be all bummed out as they count their profits, Republicans will slam Obama and the Democrats from now until 2012, and Joe Lieberman will smile that stupid fucking smile of his as he cashes his insurance industry bonus check.

Winter officially begins today (at about 12:46PM where I’m at). That means we lose another couple seconds of daylight today, and things start improving (slowly) tomorrow. Seems like the days get shorter a lot faster than they get longer.

I’m doing my laundry yesterday, and I get informed that I’m doing it wrong. You’re supposed to put the water in first, then the detergent, and then the clothes. This is clearly ridiculous, of course. It’d be awfully hard to judge how big of a load to choose, and then you’d have to, like, sink all the clothes. What a pain that would be. I mean, maybe back in the olden days when you had to use soap chips or something, but with liquid detergent there’s just no need to “premix.”

For you folks who are digging out from under all that snow this weekend, good luck. We got a few snow fluffies overnight here, but nothing worth getting the shovel out for. Have a good Monday.

I’m kinda beat from ongoing kitchen renovation (yeah, I know, it seems like it’s been going on forever), so I’m only gonna look at what my be interesting today. Believe it or not, Press the Meat could be very interesting, with White House shill David Axelrod and Howard Dean. Sadly, it doesn’t look like they’ll be on together, and that’s too bad ‘cuz I’d like to see Dean ream Axelrod out over health care. Tavis Smiley is also on, and I’ve always liked him, even though we don’t get his radio show in my market. I suppose I should mention that Mornin’ Joe, closet queen Ed Gillespie, and creepy little Markos Moulitsas are also gonna be on.

Faze the Nation has Sherrod Brown, who’s OK, but also three people who make me want to take a sledge hammer to my my teevee: Lamar Alexander, Olympia Snowe, and Mary Landrieu. They all nauseate the hell out of me.

Fux Noise has Amy Klobuchar, who’s OK, but also St. McCain and that piece of shit from North Dakota, Kent Conrad,

Nothing worthy of note on the Goebbels network.

At CNN, Fareed Zakaria has the former scientific brain of Microsoft, Nathan Myhrvold, who claims to have a new approach to solving global warming. Plus, Vali Nasr, advisor to the Obama administration, discusses a new way to fight Islamic terrorism – with capitalism. I guess he figures the capitalist version of health care would kill all the terrorists faster then our military can.

We’re trying not to laugh (too much) at all the places that don’t usually get snow having a couple of feet dumped on them, while we get nothing. There’s enough snow on the ground to make things look pretty, but so far this season we’ve gotten a piddly seven inches – way, way, way below what we usually get. Maybe this will be the winter without snow for us. I can live with that.

The President announced a “major breakthrough” on Climate Change yesterday. As far as I can see, it doesn’t actually do anything. And that’s fine, I guess (if it’s not too late already, nobody’s gonna actually do anything to make a difference before it is too late). I think we’re missing out on creating a lot of jobs in the Green Sector, but what the heck. I’ll be dead before it all gets too awful bad, I guess. And Syracuse might even become a seaside tourist resort if ocean levels rise enough. At least for a while. For a long-term idea of what’s in store for the Earth, you only have to look at or sister planet, Venus. Venus is about the same size and mass as the Earth, and was once thought to be a lot like our planet, with oceans and everything.

For whatever reason, though, CO₂ levels rose to a point of no return (about where we’re at right now), and a “runaway greenhouse effect” resulted in the planet growing warmer and warmer. Now, Venus’ atmosphere consists of about 97% carbon dioxide (and shiny clouds of sulfuric acid), with an average temperature of about 460 degrees Celsius (almost 865 degrees F, making it even hotter than the planet Mercury, even though Venus is twice as far from the Sun). The oceans have long since evaporated, and the water molecules dissociated into hydrogen (which was carried off into interplanetary space by the solar wind) and oxygen (which helped to make even more CO₂). The planet’s surface is basically desert and rocks. With no vegetation to absorb the carbon, the atmosphere is so dense that the surface pressure is 90 times higher than it is on earth (which would make walking around a little difficult – even if you didn’t mind the 800 degree temperatures).

I don’t know how long it’ll take for the oceans boil away (hell, we haven’t even finished melting the polar ice caps yet), but it sounds like a pretty miserable future, so I guess I’m glad I won’t be around to see it (other than for curiosity’s sake; I hate to miss the end of the movie). I feel bad for the kids and grandkids and their kids and grandkids though.

That’s all assuming we don’t manage to kill ourselves off some other way first (or get hit by a meteor or something).

Happy Holidays!

Complicated stuff like politics and health care reform and Jesus and stuff can be pretty hard for simple folks like me to understand. So, when I want something explained in more detail, I go to the experts – like Chuck Norris. And Chuck explains that had King Herod been an evil Mooslam like Barack Obama, there might have been universal health care in Judea. And Mary, armed with an affordable health care plan, clearly would have sought an abortion (I mean, do you really think Joseph bought the whole “I’m a virgin, Joe. I swear I don’t know where this thing came from” line?). So, Jesus would have never been born (because, while God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and could magically impregnate a human woman, he couldn’t have prevented an abortion), and the world would have missed out on the last 2,000 years of peace, love, and understanding (not to mention the Crusades). Even worse, we wouldn’t be getting a day off next Friday (holy crap! It’s next Friday?), and there would be no Black Friday and economy-stimulatin’ holiday shopping season. So, clearly, health care reform is very bad, and not the sort of thing Jesus and his dad would ever get behind. Thanks, Chuck. You da man!

Not that God needed the push, but the Family Research Council held a “prayercast” last night, and prayed to God that the health care filibuster be a success (they had to to all pray together, because, when it comes to health care, God doesn’t support “single prayer”). The usual pious and mentally sound congresscritters were on hand, including crazy Michele Bachman, Jim DeMint, Sam Brownback, and even one Democrat, Rep. Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, who, in a pre-recorded video message, told the crowd:

“You know, the power of prayer knows no bounds,” said McIntyre. “The true source of power is not found in the halls of congress or the chambers of the Supreme Court or the Oval Office of the west wing, but rather on our knees at the throne of grace.”

The “throne of grace,” of course, is located in a mens room at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.

Fortunately for God, Jesus, and Chuck Norris (not necessarily in that order) Ben Nelson is doing the big work on their behalf, threatening to filibuster health care reform if he doesn’t get a “Stupak-like” amendment – even though there seems to have been some sort of “secret” compromise.

In other abortion-related news, a judge in Oklahoma could decide today on whether to allow a law to go forward that requires the posting of information online about women who get abortions in the state. Hey, what could be wrong with that? No word on whether Oklahoma is considering a law that would post information about men seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction or not. I’m guessing no.

Well, it’s pretty damn cold out there this morning – in the single digits and still dropping a bit – so I reckon I’d better get it in gear and get going. The good news is that the mass of cold air that’s hovering over us is supposed to block that big storm heading to the Northeast, so we should miss out on all the action. I can live with that.