December 2005 Archives

First off, a couple of cuddly animal rescues of a cat and a dog to warm your heart.

Plus, humor. Bush's New Year's resolutions, plus Steve Martin's impression of Bill O'Reilly getting - what else? - pissed off about nothing. In this case, the leap second.

The BBC has some year end stories, covering things such as Bush's very bad year and assorted oddball stories. Plus a holiday safety quiz.

This is also the year that neo-cons made Arriana Huffington not only relevant again, but even kind of admired with her Huffington Post becoming a daily reading stop for me. Here are her lists of things she wants to forget from 2005.

We're going to avoid politics for the most part, but focus on a couple things this year. Bush is on vacation - again - at his "ranch" in Texas. A milestone has been reached in this recent visit. He's only been president for coming on five years now; this marks his 365th day on vacation at his ranch. It's mind-numbing when you think about it. More than 20% of the time this guy is on vacation from what is arguably the most important job in the world. I couldn't even take that kind of time off without getting fired, and I doubt any of you could too. In any case, he's busy clearing brush, whatever the hell that means.

Since our leader is out to lunch, why don't you guys step away from the keyboard and go have a good time. Happy New Year folks.

Well, we figure out who Bush is working for. I mean, we already knew, but now we know. Understand?

In any case, it seems that oil prices have increased 40% over the past year. Gee, I'm glad somebody is profiting from this idiot's disastrous policies. I mean, an oil man who can't control the oil industry. Makes even less sense than a horse wrangler in charge of disaster response. Oops..

Well, I've been having a very good day, so for those of you who celebrate it, Merry Christmas. For those beginning Hannukah or Kwanzaa tomorrow, best wishes to all of you.

I've been reading a lot of year end retrospective articles lately, some of which I'll pass along later this week. For now though, let's let reality and negatively rest for today. Be thankful for what we have and for what we can do to make things better.

As the only downer story I will link to today, here's one about the dire situation that still exists in the Gulf Coast. They have their lives, which I'm sure they are thankful for, but things could certainly be better.

As one other thing to add, click here for a bit of Christmas cheer. Enjoy.

Alright, here's the deal. Ever since I started the irregular update revamp of the site a few years back, I have been getting pestered by our more technologically inclined visitors (Kevin, Robert, this means you especially) to go out and get a blog. I have and it's online (kinda) over here. I was going to double post for awhile and then found out how damn easier it is to post entries on the fly. Case in point: I made an entry today based on something I heard on the radio on the way to work. I looked it up, used a quickposting hook from my browser and "ta-da!," new entry.

I'm entering the old posts in retroactively and this will take some time so the archives will remain for the time being. I eventually plan of taking them offline and leaving them categorized on the blog. It's tedious (code issues) so it will take a few weeks or more to fully accomplish. Bear with me.

I will probably use the blog template to revamp the entire site structure...just so you know. Otherwise, there will be occasional notes here but probably just a place for some dynamic widgets for me and links to everything else. Enjoy the blog and let me know what else I can do to accommodate you all.

On the way into work I was listening to NPR again (it's a hard commute without Stern on the air). Anyways, the Pulse of the Planet excerpt came on. It's usually about animals and ecology, but today's entry was about Christmas. More importantly, about the historic enemies of Christmas.

Was it pagans? No.

How about non-Christian religious types? No.

Gays? No.

Playwrights and other entertainment types? No.

Was it a pack of religious fundamentalists? Bingo.

Apparently, for a few years in England in the 1600s you could be imprisoned for celebrating Christmas.

Don't believe me? Read the story here.

Alright, to all you Kevin McAbee's of the world, here you are. I've finally gotten my hands on a blogging system. It's Moveable Type driven and I'm really just getting the hang of it...so be patient. I'm going to double enter on both the main page and here until I get enough of the old posts archived (And wow, was I freaking dull back in the day. Not to say I'm a wealth of entertainment value now.). After that is near complete, I plan on rolling to regular posts here on the blog and redo the site for other purposes. So, don't exactly update your bookmarks now but it's coming.

And yes, Kiption, it's got a RSS feed. It's Atom but I think you can still use it. If not, let me know.

Been away for awhile. Mostly became of the stupidity coming from the GOP hegemony. Anyway, roll up your sleeves and let's dive into the muck.

Spying has come up lately. A lot. Bush thinks he has carte blanche to spy on American citizens. Indeed, he seems to enjoy doing it. A lot. Enough to threaten The New York Times not to print it. You know, acting like the despot he is.

But hey, he isn't alone. The FBI is busy secretly spying on activist groups. And the Pentagon is illegally spying on peace activists and counter-campus military recruiting groups. I mean, how serious of a military threat are Quakers for God's sake?

Bush is also trying to save his precious PATRIOT Act, aka the Ignorance is Strength Law, from those misguided souls who worry about civil liberties disappearing.

Bush is actually taking responsibility for the Iraq war. Sort of. He blames the poor intelligence he was given. You know, the stuff he actually had read to him as opposed to all the warning memos that said "THERE ARE NO NUKES IN IRAQ,!" for instance. As for the war, it is costing us half a TRILLION dollars and the lives of over 2,100 American soldiers (not to mention the 30,000 Iraqi civilians killed by even the most conservative of guesses).

Bush almost gets points for finally backing down and agreeing not to veto an anti-torture bill. Then again, he got McCain to bend over again and water the bill down, plus was able to ram through some pet budget crap. Score this round: -1 for democracy.

In sports, we are banning Cuba from play in the World Baseball Classic because, well, they're Cuba. Which is a horrible political ploy and the only way to take out the team best able to beat our's. The flip side of this is FIFA's spineless decision to let Iran play in the World Cup next year. This is the country whose president recently declared that Israel shouldn't exist, calling for all but the extermination of the Jews. But, though FIFA once banned South Africa from play for decades over apartheid, it apparently finds anti-Semitic genocide statement to be just fine. Idiots.

Let's talk about the "War on Christmas" for a moment. Here's a blog story related to the whole sordid issue, plus some of the recent history of Scrooge impersonator Bill O'Reilly's connection.

Let's face it, Christmas should be about celebrating the birth of Christ. More importantly, it should be about setting an example of how to live every day of the year. Instead, we have loudmouth, angry, mean-spirited, phone sex crazed adulterer "defending" Christmas on a white-washed conservative news network.

I mean, we have a supposed (warmongering) evangelical in the White House. We have a GOP-controlled Congress and the most conservative Supreme Court and Federal court system in the nation's history. If these asshats are incapable of pushing their fanatical agenda on us, i.e. if they are truly "at war" with those of us who just mean well by wishing others "Happy Holidays", then why the hell are they even in power? They have all the cards, you'd think that would give them an advantage. If not, I really urge them to go back to what they are good at doing, which apparently is draft dodging and driving companies into bankruptcy.

And if that doesn't depress you enough, here's somewhere where religious fanatics actually are getting an advantage. Early returns show that religious groups are gaining ground as the ballots from the Iraqi elections are being counted. Oh joy. We invaded and created a democracy theocracy. We are exporting our values abroad. Just not those of the Founding Fathers.

Just to be weird, I've added my ThinkGeek wish list to the sidebar. If you have extra disposable income, you know, send some of it my way. Not that I'm expecting anyway, but, hey, why not try?