I caught the last third of an episode of an ‘NPR’ show that I do not remember hearing before called Hearing Voices.

Christmas Mashup (with various links and description) 52:00 (((Hearing Voices))), Jay Allison, Barrett Golding, Todd Melby & StoryCorps

An HV Hour: Holy Days & Silent Nights

A mix of lotsa holiday stories, found-sound, and sprinkling of sampled song (

Broadcast: Dec 10 2008 on NPR Hearing VoicesSeries: Hearing Voices from NPR

It seemed like a good kick-off to the final week countdown.

Great hearing that Kristapea nails that job, a merry Kristmas gift. Of course she benefited from some of the greatest job counselors/cheerleaders going.

But we also hear that Chrysler will shut down for a month. No Chrysmas there. Sadly another friend of mine lost his music biz job yesterday and thanks to the ‘no new taxes EVER’ repugs in the California legislature my new career in university temp work has dried up almost as soon as it began.

Happy 65th to Keith Richard(s)! :cake: :cake:

And so it’s back to the war on xmas for me.

Taking a page out of Hillary’s playbook, Caroline Kennedy is coming to town today, to meet with local Democrats. That’s encouraging, I guess. I’m still not sure what qualifies her to be our next Senator, but, then again, I’m not sure what qualifies most of these people for the positions they’re in. Mostly, I’m worried about what’s going to happen with our economy (in the country as a whole, of course, but specifically where I live, as another 200+ people are getting the axe from New Process Gear – which manufactures truck transfer cases). I’m also worried about the special election in 2010, and losing the Senate seat to a Republican. I guess whatever happens, happens.

So, it looks like Caroline Kennedy is the frontrunner to replace Hillary Clinton as our Senator here in NY. Apparently our Governor, “Blinky” Paterson, has become quite enamored with her. I’m not sure how to feel about that. I’d been hoping it would go to Louise Slaughter, who is both a woman (which is apparently a deal-breaker, to appease the angry PUMAs), and from Upstate NY (Rochester). But she’s apparently thrown her support behind Kennedy. Well, I guess Caroline is at least a better alternative to Andrew Cuomo. There’s at least a possibility that she’s aware that NY State extends north of New York City. One can hope, anyway.

The weather roller coaster continues here. I woke up Saturday, and it was 4 degrees. Right now, it’s almost 50. Of course, over in the Midwest, it’s colder than hell (and that should make it’s way over here in a couple of days). It’s no wonder everybody’s sick.

The Gilligan Gregory era of Press the Meat begins today with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, plus Chicago Sun-Times’ Mary Mitchell and Chuck Todd. and a discussion on the Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, undewear model Mitt Romney, disgraced former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, Lee Scott, CEO of that wonderful corporate citizen, Wal-Mart, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Faze the Nation has Carl Levin, Tennessee cracker Bob Corker, Sherod Brown, another appearance by Lisa Madigan, and Michael Eric Dyson.

Fux News and Weaselface Wallace have Cracker Corker, Illinois House Republican dickhead Tom Cross, and Micigan’s Debbie Stabenow. And the usual fuxheads, of course.

At the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus has a big exclusive with, um, John “loser” McCain, plus a round table with PBS’ Gwen Ifill, Paul Krugman, WSJ hack Gerald Seib, and (of course) George :jerk: Will.

Later, on 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl talks to the always entertaining Barney Frank, Scott Pelley tries to find the bottom of the mortgage meltdown barrel, and Byron Pitts foolishly profiles USC football coach Pete Carroll, when he really ought to be doing a story on Syracuse’s new head coach, Doug Marrone.

Have a good one.

Take Action: Ask President-elect Obama to Ban Torture and Close the School of the Americas
Yesterday the US Senate released a report confirming that Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior US officials are responsible for authorizing torture at Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay. Similarly, the torture manuals used at the School of the Americas/WHINSEC – made public in 1996 – were also authorized by the highest levels of the Pentagon in the early 1980s. Read the Reuters article here: www.soaw.org/rumsfeld

TAKE ACTION: Please Call the Obama transition team and share the below message at 202-540-3000 – after instructions, press “2” to speak with the transition team.

“President- elect Obama, as a member of the School of the Americas Watch – I ask that after you are inaugurated President that you issue executive orders to ban torture – no exceptions, close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC and close Guantanamo Bay.”

Please also take a moment to Contact President-elect Obama via his website to paste in the above message at: http://change.gov/page/content/contact

I think Bush himself authorized this too. Didn’t he torture frogs as a young lad?

So, banks get bailed out, but autoworkers are too evil, so screw them. The worst part is that this will probably kill the GM-Volt electric car – if not all of GM (and Chrysler, too). I’m sure the CEOs, board members, and other executives will walk away with millions, though, so that’s OK.

Looks like there’s a storm coming up the coast. We’re only getting the fringe of it here (they say), with some freezing rain and maybe up to 5 inches of snow. To the east of us, though, there are blizzard warnings. I could live with a blizzard here, I guess. If things are bad enough, nobody can go anywhere, and you can just hang out and shovel the driveway every hour or so. With this mess scheduled to hit at quittin’ time tonight, though, it could make for a nasty commute home. Maybe I’d better bring a sleeping bag and snowshoes with me.

It’s 54 degrees outside right now, but that’s not supposed to last long. Drizzle is supposed to turn to snow by 10:00, and it should be in the 20’s by the time I get home from work. In other news, the owner of Syracuse China (Libbey), is closing the plant. And they’ve got the audacity to keep the “Syracuse China” brand, though they won’t even be making it the United States, let alone Syracuse.

It’s yet another in a long line of successful local businesses (they’ve been around since 1871, and I’ve eaten off their dinnerware in places as far away as Ireland, and in ‘high class’ joints like the Mayflower Hotel in DC) to be bought out and closed, radically downsized, or moved away. Not because they weren’t making money, of course, but because they weren’t making enough money.

So, another 275 jobs will be gone from here in about four months. The way things are going, there’ll be nothing left here but shopping malls – and I don’t know who’s going to have enough money to do more than wander around zombie-like and look at all the empty stores. Not to worry. I’m sure our government officials will fix everything as soon as they’re done bailing out the financial services industry.

Only Tuesday? It’s been a long week already. Yesterday’s single-digit temperatures have turned to mid-twenties and freezing rain, on the way to a highs near fifty for a couple of days before getting cold again some time on Thursday. Personally, I’d prefer that it just settle down to winter and knock this roller coaster stuff of already. Oh well. It beats having a fighter jet crash into your house.