Hey, shouldn’t you be out buying useless crap from China that you don’t need? I have no idea why anybody would fight the crowds when you can throw you money away from the privacy of your own home in the Internet. Speaking of which, do UPS and DHL deliver today? My new showshoes and “Dead Space” have made it to town. One for if we get snow, and one for if we don’t.

Oops, gotta go. There’s a Blue Light Special in aisle #3.

I don’t have a whole helluva lot to say today, except that, like most people, I have a lot to be thankful for today. And – also probably like most people – I spend way too much time bitching about shit that for the most part doesn’t matter, and not enough time being grateful for the shit that does.

So I’ll just wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving for you and yours, and thanks so much for having become a part of my life. Have a good day, y’all.

I had a dream last night that Barack Obama was riding into a small Western town on a horse. In the town, the people were preparing to welcome their new president by presenting him with a laurel, and hearty handshake. Problem is, they didn’t realize he was black, except for this Gabby Hayes-looking guy up on a rooftop with a spyglass, speaking authentic frontier gibberish (I think it was dubya wearing a fake beard). He saw Obama approaching, and was trying to yell out, “the President’s a n…” but the town’s church bell kept ringing, and they thought he was saying, “the President’s a-comin’!”

Then I woke up, and my bed was filled with Howard Johnson’s ice cream.

So I guess President Obama won’t be wanting me to work in his administration. Not that I’ve heard back from him since I filled out his ‘long form’ application. Apparently there’s an even longer form required for aspiring Obamites, who are expected to provide an unprecedented amount of information.

In 63 questions over seven pages, prospective White House employees are being asked — in addition to questions about finances, gun ownership and, possibly, flossing habits — to list “all aliases or ‘handles’ you have used to communicate on the Internet,” everything they’ve written, “including, but not limited to, any posts or comments on blogs or other websites,” links to their Facebook or MySpace pages and any potentially embarrassing “electronic communication, including but not limited to an email, text message or instant message.”

Oy. Why not add Google image searches and web browsing history to the list, too?

Well, sorry ‘O’ but I don’t think I’d be willing to do all that. It’s not like I’ve been palin’ around with terrorists or have some wacko former preacher of mine on videotape screaming ‘God damn America,’ (sometimes it pays to be a godless heathen) but you can kiss my ass if you think I’m going to list every ‘potentially embarrassing’ freakin’ e-mail and text message I’ve ever written.

I pretty much only have one online ‘persona,’ and I’m pretty sure all you’d have to do is spend a couple minutes poking around this blog to find some disqualifying thought crime. Lots of them, no doubt (I do have a tendency to say ‘fuck’ on occasion, which ought to do it right there). Hell, my baby photo alone is probably enough to keep me out of your inner circle.

I guess I’m not too surprised, what with Obama ‘caving’ on FISA and Teleco immunity (although, in retrospect, it doesn’t look so much like caving on principles as much as clarifying them).

Too bad, too, since the NY State Comptroller is predicting a loss of as many as 225,000 private sector jobs here (175,000 in NY City, but we’ve lost so many jobs upstate over the years that I don’t know where another 50,000 will come from), which translates into a huge loss of tax revenue, which aint good for those of us in the public sector. So I coulda used that job as your Telecom Czar there, Barack, and I dare day I’d have been a good fit, too.

Except I reckon I’m way too Liberal for you.

Another day, another bailout. This time taxpayers are chipping in $320 billion or so to save Citigroup. Not the auto industry, of course, because it’s the goddamn unions that killed the auto industry. Banks, though, they’re the bastion of god-fearing, anti-union Republicans, so we need to keep them up and running. Besides, high unemployment keeps labor costs low, and that’s good for everybody, right? Except, I dunno who’s gonna buy all this crap from China if nobody’s working, but then I’m not an economics expert. Fortunately, it looks like the rich folks might get to keep their Bush tax cuts – for a while, at least. That’s good. I’d hate to stop getting trickled down on.

On Press the Meat today, it’s the man who helped give us eight years of dubya, James Baker, former Clinton Commerce Secretary and Obama transition adviser William Daley. Then Joe Lieberman will be on to talk shit about Obama and taunt the spineless Democrats in the Senate. Plus a roundtable withh financial ‘expert’ Erin Burnett, former WSJ hack Paull Ingrassia, the WaPost’s Eugene Robinson, and Chuck Todd.

On Faze the Nation, it’s Nancy Pelosi and Obama Chief Economic Adviser Austan Goolsbee.

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, Steny Hoyer, and Papa John Boehner, along with the usual fuxheads.

Axelrod also trots on over to the Goebbels network to chat with George Snufalufagus, who also has dickhead Alabama cracker Richard Shelby and NY’s Chuck Schumer.

CNN’s Late Emission consists of Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, famous male model Mitt Romney, Carl Levin, wingnut Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, famous son of a rich guy, Steve Forbes, famous friend of MS, Robert Reich, and washed up losers Ed Rollins and James “cupie doll: Carville.

Later, on 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley investigates an assault ever on a facility containing weapons-grade uranium (still-unsolved), Bob Simon reports on foreign-born widows of US citizens (and their US born kids) being “asked” to leave the country because their husbands died, and Lesley Stahl catches up with blind and mentally impaired musical savant Rex Lewis-Clack.

Even later than that, it’s the season finale of True Blood on HBO.

Have a good one folks, ‘cuz it’s back to work (for me, anyway) tomorrow. At least it’s a short week.

It has been 45 years.

There is not enough one can say about this day if you are my age and were in the US in 1963. I was 11-1/2 at the time. Nothing much bad had ever happened to me as things went back then. Shortly after I was born we went into the eight Eisenhower years. When JFK was elected it was like all was great in the world. Not that the Ike years were so bad in retrospect but it seemed like we were moving into a whole new direction, the future, full of optimism.

Suddenly on one crisp, sunny autumn afternoon it all ended and everything changed. My sweet little innocent world was altered forever. Hell, two days later I saw the suspected ‘assassin’ gunned down on live TV. It was all cruel doses of reality delivered before I got through my ‘wonder years’.

For better or worse, I never really got over it.

Another crappy day on Wall St. yesterday (so, what else is new). Norm Coleman is hanging on to his lead in the MN Senate recount, ahead by 136 votes with 46% recounted. Both have challenged about the same number of ballots, which, from what I’ve read, will mostly all be counted given the standard in MN is the ‘intent of the voter’ (as it should be).

Here, we’ve got a couple of inches of snow on the ground, with more expected today and tonight (all weekend, really). Depending on how the wind blows, we could wake up to anywhere from a couple of inches to more than a foot by tomorrow morning. So, it looks like I’d better figure out where the shovel is, ‘cuz Granny’s gonna need it.

At least it’s Friday, finally.

Another day, another low for the stock market as the Dow Jones opens below 8,000 for the first time since 2003. This should usher in more dire news for NY State, and probably another round of cuts for where I work. We’ve had to absorb three rounds of cuts so far, and, as we’re a public hospital and the last refuge for the sick and poor (not to mention we’re the only Level 1 Trauma Center in the region), we get screwed from multiple directions (and not in a good way).

First, we don’t turn anybody away. In fact, other hospitals turn the poor and uninsured folks over to us. So if the Governor cuts Medicaid payments, we have to bite the bullet and treat those people for less money (not that Medicaid was paying a whole hell of a lot to begin with). And as more and more people are out of work or just unable to afford health insurance, they also can’t afford to self-pay when they or their kids get sick or are in a fire or a car accident or whatever.

We’re also a teaching hospital, and part of the State University of NY (SUNY) system. SUNY is another favorite target of the Governor’s, so we’re getting cut to death on the academic side as well. According to our Governor, times are tough, so State employees need to forget about their lawfully negotiated pay raises for a while. Jobs are frozen, but since times are tough, there isn’t the amount of turnover there used to be, so we aren’t saving enough money. While they say no plans are in the works, it’s only a matter of time before the layoffs start. Oh, and with the loss of all the manufacturing jobs over the years, we’ve become the #1 employer in the region, too. So times will get even worse for those businesses that depend on our employees, which means even more people out of work and without health insurance.

In other words, the worse things get, the worse things get.

Now, I understand the Governor inherited a pile of shit from Pataki, but, in lieu of raising taxes, he says cuts need to be made in public services, healthcare, and education. Seems like there ought to be something else to cut, doesn’t there? And, really, if we can bail out Wall St. (and maybe now the auto industry) with billions of taxpayer dollars, can’t we have a buck or two to bail out schools and hospitals?

So I completed the Obama administration employment “long form” yesterday. Now the ball is in their court. They did advise me that they were focusing on senior positions first, and to not exactly hold my breath waiting to hear back. I’m hoping for something that will allow me to be involved in making Federal Telecom policy. Me and every other swingin’ Ethernet cable out there, no doubt.

Pending my appointment, I guess I’ll have to drag my ass out into the cold and go to work. Whoopdie-doo.