Fishguy sent this, via, the Contact Form:

Boehner Response to Obama’s Package : “It’s Huge”

Minority Leader John A. Boehner (r-ohio) …expressed concerns about the size of the package…..

Maybe they can get Larry Craig to work on Obama’s package for them?

Poor, ineffectual, Senator Arlen Specter is afraid that Eric Holder will be another Alberto Gonzales. This is only a bad thing when there’s a Democrat running the show, of course.

Joe Biden and Barack Obama have done what they can to kiss Diane Feinstein’s ass over the Panetta kerfuffle. Not a pleasant image, that.

And, of course, former MN Senator Norm Coleman has vowed to go to court to try and, well, pay off his lawyers’ mortgages and yacht loans, I guess, because he doesn’t appear to have a chance in hell of overturning the election results. You folks out there in Minnesota will just have to make do with only one Senator. On the bright side, Larry Craig has offered to fly in (as soon as he’s done with Obama’s package, of course).

Here, we got a couple inches of ice overnight, so I guess I’d better go put the ice skates on the car and get ready for what should be another miserable ride in to work. Hey, at least it’s hump day.

Poor DINO Diane Feinstein has has her knickers in a twist over the Leon Panetta appointment. Aw, poor Di, nobody groveled before her to find out who she wanted. I hope this is just the first of many things where DiFi and her ilk are out of the loop, though I’m sure that means they’ll make things difficult for anything Obama wants to do. But they would anyway, so fuck ’em. They have their own agendas, and what’s good for the country doesn’t factor in. They’re a lot like Republicans that way.

Monday, and the start of the first five-day week of 2009. Bleh.

On Press the Meat today, it’s an exclusive with perhaps the least impressive person to have ever held the title of ‘leader,’ Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Then it’s a roundtable of smarmy Richard Engel, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, BBC World News Katty Kay, Al-Arabiya’s Hisham Melhem, Andrea “boy did I marry a schmuck” Mitchell and the NY Time’s David Sanger.

On Faze the Nation, Bob Schieffer wants one last chance at some dick. Dick Cheney, that is.

Weaselface Wallace has Steny Hoyer, Poppy Bush, and the regular fuxheads on Fux News Sunday.

On the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus has maybe (maybe not) the next US Senator from Illinois, Roland Burris, Dick Durbin, and dickhead Mitch McConnell. Plus a roundtable with Katrina vanden Heuvell, and George :jerk: Will, Jonathan Karl, and Cokie “the hag” Roberts.

Later, on 60 Minutes, Bob Simon does a piece on drunken driving fatalities, Lesley Stahl reports on the ability of neuroscience to read a person’s mind, and Scott Pelley reports on Texas Tech coach Mike Leach.

Enjoy your Sunday.

It’s Saturday. The day to get the wash done and all those mundane things that need doing. Ugh!

We got back to the City yesterday. The snow had completely disappeared so it musy have rained. Thus we were spared that uniquely urban landscape of dirty black snow. Instead it was cold and windy. The nice thing is all the people here who are really happy that we will soon have a new president. We ran into complete strangers who wished us a Happy New Year and said they were waiting for the real celebration on January 20. Now all we have to worry about is how much damage Dicky and his friends can do between now and the inauguration. They can and will do as much as they can.

I watched Chris Matthews’ special recapping the year yesterday, in the middle of the night. (No, there was nothing else on.) They said all the usual pap and nonsense. But, Pat Buchanan said that neo-conservatism is dead. I don’t think I’ve ever said this before, but I hope Buchanan is right. The Retugs still left in the Senate are fighting to maintain their “vision” though. I can only hope that their antics will get them ridicule and malice.

Have a good Saturday. Monday will come soon enough.

Back to work for me today. It’s been a long week, so I’m glad today is Friday. Now I have to wait over two weeks for another day off.

Happy New Year everybody. Time to get back to a partial list of those who passed away last year, beginning where we left off, in July.

July

Jul 1: Tim Russert, still dead.

Jul 3: That Bozo Larry Harmon died of heart failure at the age of 83. Seriously. He was one of the Bozos the Clown.

Jul 4: NC asshole Senator Jesse Helms kicked the bucked at the age of 83.

July 11: Heart surgeon Michael E. DeBakey died. He was 99.

July 12: Fox News and Bush Administration shill Tony Snow died at the age of 53 from colon cancer.

July 21: Eric Dowling, who helped plan “The Great Escape” from Stalag Luft III in WWII died at the age of 92.

July 22: Actress Estelle Getty of Golden Girls fame died from Lewy body dementia. She was 84.

August

Aug 8: 1969 US Open champ Orville Moody died at 74.

Aug 9: Comedian Bernie Mac, died from complications of pneumonia. He was only 50.

Aug 17: Dave Freeman, author of ‘100 Things To Do Before You Die’ fell and hit his head. He was 47.

Aug 18: 1980 Kentucky Derby winner Genuine Risk died at the age of 31.

Aug 20: Stephanie Tubbs Jones, 58, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. It was the same day that former Oakland Raider and NFLPA head Gene Upshaw died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 63. Pancreatic cancer also took Buddy Guy’s brother Phil that day. He was 68.

Aug 31: CBS journalist Ike Pappas, who broadcast murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, died of heart failure at the age of 75. Country music singer and actor Jerry Reed died at 71 from emphysema.

September

Sep 1: “Thunder Throat” voiceover man Don LaFontaine died of complications from pneumothorax at 68.

Sep 7: My uncle Bill joined my aunt Mary Lou and my mom and dad. He was 82.

Sep 11: Joan Winston, co-founder of the Star Trek convention, died from Bendii Syndrome Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 77.

Sep 15: Pink Floyd keyboardist went to the Great Gig in the Sky at the age of 65, courtesy of cancer.

Sep 26: Legendary actor Paul Newman died of lung cancer. He was 83.

Sep 30: Henry Adler, who taught Buddy Rich how to play the drums, died at the age of 93.

October

Oct 1: “Mr Clean,” House Peters, Jr. died of pneumonia at 92.

Oct 17: The Four Tops’ Levi Stubbs, died from complications of cancer and stroke. He was 72.

Oct 18: Dionne Warwick’s sister Dee Dee died at 63.

Oct 24: Keyboardist and all around good guy Merl Saunders died at the age of 74.

Oct 31: We lost Studs Terkel on Halloween. He was 96.

November

Nov 1: Jimmy Carl Black, drummer and founding member of the Mothers of Invention, died at the age of 70. Lung cancer got him.

Nov 4: Global warming denier and author Michael Crichton died at the age of 66 from throat cancer. It was the same day that John McCain’s presidential aspirations officially died as well.

Nov 8: Florence Wald, “mother of the American hospice movement,” died at her home in Connecticut at the age of 91.

Nov 12: Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell died at 61.

December

Dec 2: American folk singer and human rights activist Odetta passed away at the age of 77 from heart disease.

Dec 5: Beverly Garland, who finally snagged that longtime bachelor Fred MacMurray in My Three Sons, died at the age of 82.

Dec 6: Sunny von Bülow finally slipped away at the age of 76, after having spent 28 years in a persistent vegetative state.

Dec 11: Pinup model Bettie Page died at 85, from complications of a heart attack.

Dec 12: Actor Van Johnson died at the age of 92.

Dec 16: Apocalypse Now surfer dude and bother of Timothy, Sam Bottoms passed away at the age of 53.

Dec 17: Slingin’ Sammy Baugh died. He was 94.

Dec 18: Deep Throat, W. Mark Felt, died at the age of 95. The voice of Star Trek’s computer fell silent the same day, as Majel Barrett went to joing her husband Gene at the age of 77 from leukemia.

Dec 19: Republican political strategist Michael Connell died in an “accidental” airplane crash at the age of 45. Cancer took Noam Chomsky’s wife Carol the same day. She was 78.

Dec 25: Colon cancer took Eartha Kitt on Christmas Day. She was 81.

Dec 29: Jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard died of complications from a heart attack at the age of 70.

Enjoy the day, everybody. Let’s hope 2009 is a much better year than 2008 was.

This is the time when it’s nice to look back and remember the people we’ve lost in the previous year. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, so feel free to add your favorite dead person of 2008.

Anyhow…

January

Jan 1: Salvatore Bonanno, son of Mafia boss Joe Bonanno, died of a heart attack at the age of 75. And the last known German WWI vet, Erich Kästner, died at the ripe old age of 107.

Jan 7: “Competitive Eater” Bozo Miller passed away at the age of 89, from natural causes.

Jan 11: Sir Edmund Hillary, first white guy to reach the top of Mt. Everest, dies of heart failure at the age of 88.

Jan 12: Anti-violence activist Terrell Rogers was murdered at the age of 39.

Jan 17: Chessmaster Booby Fischer died from kidney failure. He was 64.

Jan 19: Syracuse alum (well, one semester, anyway) Suzanne Pleshette died of respiratory failure at the age of 70. John Stewart of the Kingston Trio died of a stroke the same day. He was 68.

Jan 22: Heath Ledger died of an accidental prescription drug overdose. He was only 28 years old.

Jan 29: Harry Truman’s daughter Margaret passed away at the age of 83.

February

Feb 1: Speaking of Harry Truman, former Secret Service agent Floyd Boring, who helped foil a plot on Truman’s life, died at the age of 92.

Feb 5: Bluesman Schoolboy Cleve passed away at the age of 82.

Feb 17: 1988 Kentucky Derby winner Winning Colors was put down at the tender age of 23.

Feb 25: Jackie Chan’s father Charles Chan (honest), died of prostate cancer at the age of 93.

Feb 27: William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away from emphysema at the age of 82.

Feb 28: Dave Clark 5 keyboard player Mike Smith died of pneumonia. He was 64.

March

Mar 2: Guitarist Jeff Healey died way too young of lung cancer, at the age of 41.

Mar 16: Hogan’s Heroes star and accomplished director Ivan Dixon passed away at the age of 86.

Mar 19: Author (among other things) Sir Arthur C. Clarke died of heart failure at the age of 90.

Mar 25: The inventor of the Egg McMuffin, Herb Peterson, died at 89.

April

Apr 16: One of my mom’s favorites, Irish tenor from the Lawrence Welk Show Joe Feeney died at the age of 76.

Apr 30: Ling Ling, the oldest Giant Panda in Japan, passed away at the age of 22.

May

May 4: The inventor of the Pringles can, Fred Baur, died at the age of 89. Another inventor – Colin Murdoch, who invented both the disposable hypodermic syringe and the tranquilizer gun – died of cancer. He was 79.

May 8: Country music singer Eddy Arnold died at the age of 89.

May 15: Composer Alexander Courage (among his many accomplishments is the theme to Star Trek – and damn near every other film and teevee show theme that WG Snuffy Walden didn’t do), died at the age of 88.

May 26: Film director Sydney Pollack died from stomach cancer at the age of 73.

May 29: The great Harvey Korman passed away from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was 81.

June

Jun 1: French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent died of brain cancer at the age of 71. Anti-gun activist Pat Regan (age 53) was stabbed to death.

Jun 2: Bo Diddley passed away from heart failure at the age of 79. Actor Mel Ferrer also died. He was 90.

Jun 7: Whether it was the final agony of defeat or the ultimate thrill of victory, I don’t know, but Jim McKay passed away at the age of 86.

Jun 11: Former Buffalo Bill Mitch Frerotte had a heart attack and died at the age of 43. I would say that, being a Bill, it’s surprising he didn’t choke to death, but that would be inappropriate.

Jun 12: Speaking of Buffalo, Timmy Potatohead, Tim Russert, dropped dead at the age of 58.

Jun 22: The great George Carlin passed away from heart failure at the age of 71. Wait, no, he didn’t “pass away,” he fuckin’ died. Dody Goodman died the same day. She was 93. Oh, and Tim Russert was still dead.

Well, that takes care of the first half of 2008. I’ll do the second half of the year (including anybody who dies today) tomorrow.

If you’re going out to whoop it up tonight, stay safe!

Bleh. Back to work today after damn near a week off. Even worse, I have to sit through a meeting. And winter is back again, with 40-50 mph winds, more snow on the way, and just general suckiness. Oh well, at least I have the Twilight Zone Marathon to look forward to.

The dogs are lucky today. Since I don’t have to work, they get to go the park and don’t have to spent the day alone. In fact, I think they get somebody home every day this week as we head into 2009. Assuming there is a 2009, that is. Things are (once again) looking pretty bleak in the Middle East. Oh well, at least gas prices are low.