Best Tweet of 2010

Boehner's "joke" was this:

Remember when Ronald Reagan was president? We had Bob Hope. We had Johnny Cash. Think about where we are today. We have got President Obama. But we have no hope and we have no cash.

I don't know about you, but not only was this stupid, it was also in bad taste. Now, before you all start saying, "But dude, almost everything you write is in bad taste!"

Well, my friend, my writing may suffer from "bad taste," but at least I'm funny.

Right? I'm funny? Please tell me I'm funny.

Speaking of Etiquette and Respect

I'm quite embarrassed about my employer. A state agency, no less, that seems either unwilling to take any action without getting explicit instructions from the politicos in Austin, or unconcerned about displaying contempt for a United States Senator.

This is a photo I took this morning of the flags flying in front of the administration building here. Note the date -- Senator Ted Kennedy died yesterday morning.

I called the appropriate parties yesterday morning pointing out that the flag should be lowered in remembrance of Senator Kennedy. I was told our Police Department was waiting to hear back from Austin about what to do.

What to do? Do you really need to be told what to do?

Yesterday afternoon, as it seemed obvious that our employer was dragging its heels about lowering the flag, one of my co-workers (originally from Michigan or Ohio) asked me why they hadn't lowered the flag. "Is it because this is Texas?" she wondered.

I had to say yes, probably.

As of 10:30 this morning the flags were still fully raised (not at half-staff). They were only lowered some time before 11:15. I'm convinced that they would still be at fully raised if I hadn't been spotted taking these pictures.

A great light dimmed

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

-- Senator Edward M. Kennedy
1932 - 2009

You Get The Nails, I'll Find The Tree

It seems that the Supreme Court nomination process becomes more and more ridiculous each time a chair is vacated. Barely a day had passed after Obama's nomination of Judge Sotomayer and the pitchforks and torches were raised in opposition. Can this country do anything with out crucifying someone first? And the accusations of Sotomayer range from ridiculous to loathsome.

She's a racist!

She made a joke about legislating from the bench!

She's going to take all our guns and nunchaku away!

She might even make reasoned and rational arguments! AAAaahh. Dick! Rush! Karl! What we gonna do?

Maybe the whole white smoke/black smoke thing isn't such a bad idea after all.

Bastards don't even realize their pissing away their chance at a getting a fairly moderate justice. She saved baseball for gods' sake! The dems (those stupid bastards) should shove a real activist judge down their throats. Maybe put Ralph Nader on the bench. Declare the mute Clarence Thomas brain dead and put Jane Fonda in his seat.

Let's start throwing some goddamn elbows, people!

Dare I Hope?

Gods be damned! I can't believe the weird feelings brewing in me. Feelings of optimism, an apparent willingness to engage with people who may not agree with the things I believe. I thought I would be ready to push faces in the dirt while laughing my maniacal Bwah-ha-ha! and yelling, "Take that you-you-conservatives!"

But instead, I have this crazy optimism that maybe John McCain is right. Maybe our shared association as Americans is more important than a victory lap. Maybe now we can really find a common ground that isn't founded on the backs of those who have opposing views.

I tell you, it's crazy. Almost as crazy as the feeling I get when I say, "The president elect of the United States of America is Barack Obama!" I don't know how long this feeling will last, but I have made one decision. Instead of celebrating the end of this regime of terror, I will now concentrate on reveling in anticipation of January 20th. It will be a new chance for America and all her citizens.

Or maybe I'm just not getting enough sleep.

A Presidential Endorsement

This just in -- The Greatest President of this country has crossed party lines to endorse Barack Obama for President.

It's all in the numbers.

Since the government keeps talking about 700 billion dollars, I thought this site might be educational:

Whole Lotta Change

This site helps people to visualize large numbers. It starts with 1 penny and moves up. Go here to see what 100 billion pennies looks like.

This will show you that 700 billion pennies will cover three football fields with stacks 127 feet high and 127 feet wide. And that's pennies. To get to 700 billion dollars, you would need 300 football fields!

That's a lot of copper. There are only just a little more than two hundred billion pennies in circulation - $2,000,353,186.72 (Two billion, three hundred fifty three million, one hundred sixteen dollars and seventy-two pennies) to be exact. That means we are still short about 69,799,964,681,328 (sixty-nine trillion, seven hundred ninety-nine billion, nine hundred sixty four million, six hundred eighty-one thousand, three hundred twenty-eight) pennies.

Perhaps a better way to visualize this -- at least for you Chicago dwellers -- is that if we were to create a stack of pennies equal in size to the Sears Tower in Chicago (that's 53.4 million cubic feet), we would still only have $26,236,846,080.00 (Twenty-six billion, two hundred thirty-six million,eight hundred forty-six thousand and eighty) dollars. That's still pretty far short of our bailout. We will have to build about 26 more stacks of pennies the size of the Sears Tower before we would have 700 billion dollars.

For a little perspective, consider this -- so far, after more than five years, we've only (only?) spent a little more than 560 billion on our ill-advised venture in Iraq.

That's a lot of dough, dinero, green, moolah, dead presidents, cash, brass, coinage, capital, bread, change, clink, long green, coin, lucre, currency, lettuce, sterling, booty, legal tender, swag, wampum, loot, and scratch. And just consider these other ways to spend that money. We could pay for

• 51.6 million people with health care for four years OR

• 181.2 million homes with renewable electricity for four years OR

• 2.9 million elementary school teachers for four years OR

• 27 million four-year scholarships for university students

-- http://nationalpriorities.org/magnitude

Name This Post

I got a quick note from my buddy Chet.* It's total contents were:

You wanna bang Sarah Palin, don't you?
You hate her, but at the same time you find yourself wondering what she looks like naked.
Am I right?

I get lots of emails like this. Just because I have a dark sense of humor and call myself a liberal (Democrats are too conservative for me), people think they can send me anything, no matter how offensive.

Of course, I laughed my ass off. To be honest, even at this late date, I think I've seen maybe three pictures of the inexperienced celebrity. They did not stir my loins. In fact, she reminds me of a brunette Sally Jessy Raphael. When I first heard McCain had chosen this unknown, inexperienced woman from Alaska, I was certain the former POW had shot himself in his Vietnamese-tortured-foot.

Here was a woman no one had ever heard of, the former mayor of a town of less than 9,000, and governor of a state with less people than Wyoming -- I exaggerate -- Alaska is 48th in population -- it actually has18K more people than Vermont (49th) and 133K more than Wisconsin (50th)! Now, if you want to talk about population density, and figure in the size of the states, Alaska would have to be something like 54th. (When will they update the flag?)

Choosing her seemed like a cynical appeal to Clinton supporters. I doubted it would work, she may be female, but she is also anti-abortion, and far from being a feminist.

But I digress. There's a reason I don't often see pictures of any news-related stuff -- I am an NPR drone. That's National Public Radio (I said I was liberal - it's not a dirty word). So, while I only vaguely know what she looks like, I have heard quite a lot of her whiny, annoying voice.

Every time she stretches out her vowels in that nasally tone, "That's what's greeeat about this couuuntry, Charlie." I go just a little more crazy. At first it was really driving me nuts because I kept thinking, "I know I've I heard that voice before, but where?"

I thought she might be channeling one of the nuns from my youth. Her voice had that kind of instant visceral impact on me. It was like Sister Joseph Marie was sticking her fingers down my throat to induce vomiting.

I don't believe any of the nuns (mustachioed or not, and trust me, Sister Joseph Marie had a hell of a mustache) ever stuck their waxy fingers in my mouth, never mind down my throat, but that is the feeling I have every time Palin opens her big, fat, lying mouth. Instant retch-a-roni. We're talking the Spaghetti 500 and then some.

I thought of all the bullshit the catholic church tried to brainwash me with, but I still couldn't figure out where I'd heard such a school-marmie, condescending tone before. It turns out, the voice was the same, but I don't think the condescension was there in the original voice.

Sarah Palin sounds just like the chick on SNL that played Pat (or was it Patrick?) -- Julia Sweeney. Tell me you don't hear that.

So, if you're like me (and I doubt you are) you are hoping that you won't have to spend the next four years listening to that whiny sound and thinking of Pat in those overstuffed shirts saying things like, "Sorry if I'm a little grumpy, I have really bad cramps... I rode my bike over here, and my calf muscles are KILLING me!" But, knowing the way things seem to always turn out for me, you're probably thinking -- we're doomed.

But hell, her voice aside, you've got to admit that the idea of a gun toting beauty queen has its appeal.

Would you be able to say no to that? Get her in a muscle car, and there's no telling what might happen.

Of course, the whole idea is quite repellent, but that's the point of catholicism, right?

Hate yourself, do degrading and sinful acts, then entertain a guy in a dress with embarrassing tales of your misadventures. Once you do that, and if you hit all the right notes about being sorry and promising never to do it again, all you have to do is say a couple of Our Fathers, and you're set to start all over again.

That's what's great about this country.

And thankfully, the new TV season is just around the corner.