I've Encountered This, I Think

Fox News Channel: "Today President Obama goes to work full bore."

That's the politics I know......

You Can't Top This

Now we have another of those pieces of back-door legislation that sneak in and fulfill Harry Truman's dicum that one bad law breeds contempt for all law. There may be trace amounts of lead in printer's ink, so now we're going to test The Grinch for lead, or he goes in the fire. Ribbentrop and Goebbels approve, and I'll have a double helping of Cat in the Hat and some Little Red Hen on the side, please. With mustard.

.....which leads to the question of the day: What would be symptomatic of an entire nation suffering from mass psychosis? Ten minutes, no talking among yourselves.

We're News, Too!

Even if you didn't know that The Weather Channel had been bought by NBC, you could guess. They're already making the move to reporting pure news, with some sop to "-it was 20 degrees!!!" This was already in the works with all the "weather history" filler stuff they were doing, references to Hurricane Katrina nearly on a daily basis, etc. The latest example would be the US Air Airbus 320 ditching in the Hudson River. So- would it not have been "weather-news worthy" if the temperature had been 68° F?

They're already gearing up for next Tuesday- the Inauguration references have become incessant. Part of this may be the report (comically delivered with positively long faces) that the weather for the rest of the week is going to be uneventful......

The Chump Factor

The outgoing Governor of Illinois, "Little Rod," and his appointee to the Senate, former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, have succeeded in making chumps of a considerable fraction of the top national Democratic, uh, "leadership," and this before the games truly begin in 2009.

Harry Reid qualifies as Top Chump for announcing a priori that Burris would not be seated if he was appointed because Blagojevich is "tainted." Funny how that word doesn't appear in the Constitution.

President-Elect Obama qualifies as Fellow Traveler Chump for his knee-jerk endorsement of Reid's pronunciamento.

Rules Committee Chair Feinstein is nominated Craven Folding Chump for whining to Reid that he had to back down the moment some obscure Illinois politician flipped over the race card in the matter.

Dick Durbin, Illinois' other Senator, simply played Follow-Along Chump, but he was a chump already.

Ten minutes' reflection at the start of this whole episode would have shown anyone with a grain of common sense that Burris' appointment needed to be considered on its merits- but noooooo. These are the people heading the majority party running this country. But I'm not worried........

At It Again

As I recorded in this journal in December, the moves by government officials to circumvent or maneuver the Constitution (or just make stuff up) to avoid impeaching Illinois Governor "Little Rod" are despicable and cowardly enough, but the current announcement of Donk "leadership" in Congress that they will refuse to seat former IL Attorney General Roland Burris in The President-Elect's Senate seat is worse....they show that they can't even understand the difference between ex opere operato and ex opere operantis, if I may borrow a comparison from the early Church.

One. More. Time. Just because Governor Blagojevich is impossibly corrupt, false, fleeting, and perjured -which he is- it doesn't invalidate his actions as Governor, because he has neither been impeached nor convicted yet. Therefore, his appointment of Mr. Burris is within his powers as the sitting Governor of Illinois. Congress has no choice, therefore (except a wrong one) to refuse to seat Mr. Burris based on their opinion of Blag-O, they must debate Burris on HIS merits, not Blagojevich's.

The Eighth Sin

The History Channel, having covered all possible significant subjects, as well as a myriad other topics such as "Hitler's Women," (an hour's narrative over some old black & white photos and interviews with a few octogenarians) "Crash: The Next Great Depression," (reaching for some Recessionsploitation here, folks), "Cities of the Underworld" (digging around in the sewers while recounting what we think people might have done there), we now have -wait for it- "The Seven Deadly Sins." I note that tonight's episode is "Greed." Given all this, I think that there is a definite call for an episode on the Eighth Sin: "Producing Cable Shows To Fill Up A Vacuous Schedule."

Fashionable Catastrophe

I love reading this type of science article.....but then I have to stop and reflect that there's not all that much science in it. Right now, it's quite the fashion to blither on about catastrophe and Armageddons of all sorts and stripes, but this article -in a putatively respectable "journal of record," is typical of much of what one reads and/or views. A theory built upon linked hypotheses, all resting on very limited and even tenuous physical evidence. The problem is that once the "fashion effect" takes hold, and the theory begins to appear on multiple web sites, then The Hysteria Channel takes over, or The Discovery of a New Disaster Channel, The Learning about Lahars and Tsunamis Channel, or The All Weather is a Disaster Channel....and suddenly a fringe theory has become a sort of "fact" in the common wisdom, a mountain of speculation with only the most tenuous base of support in fact. But facts are such dreary things......