Thursday, January 29, 2009

As if we needed further evidence...

...of our impending financial doom.

Financial Times January 28, 2009
"The US financial sector's new political masters began exercising their influence yesterday...."
Folks, there are none who have fewer qualifications to run our financial sector (or the energy sector, or the farming sector, or the manufacturing sector, or any other sector) than a "political master", and especially this current crowd.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

USA Today...

You know, I don't really decry the loss of American print media. They have spend the last couple of decades peddling a patently biased product. They haven't figured out how to make money from providing their product in the internet. For these reasons (and more), we gave up our subscription to the Arizona Republic.

But I have always really, really, REALLY (!) hated USA Today. It epitomizes the dumbing down of America. Nothing they write is of substance. Most of their viewpoints are wrong. They are only good for the Suduko, and that isn't even all that good. I get a better puzzle off my cellphone.

And they fail to ask themselves the most basic of questions.

Case in point: [And damn my poor intertubes skillz: I cannot find this online to post here.] USA Today posts a "USA Today Snapshot" on the front of every section. Here is a very old list. It is a small graphic which, I guess, is supposed to tell us a story.

Today's Front Section includes this question: "Most adults ride without helmets. There is no federal law requiring bicycle helmets, but 36 states have local laws. How often adults wear helmets when they bike:...."

Does USA Today even wonder if we would want a federal law on bike helmets? Who would enforce this? Would we have the FBI begin looking for unhelmeted bikers? Would our prisons fill up with bike scofflaws?

Morons. Media morons.

A couple of gun videos...

Via Glenn, we see that the British have called and they want their guns back.



...and its hard not to admire this guy.



Anyhoo. It can happen any time. You can lose your rights, or you can lose your life.

Monday, January 26, 2009

OK. Lemme get this right....

...All the opposition the Democrats showed to the Bush policies for the last 8 years were principled objections, speaking Truth to Power, or something....

...And it is today that we find that "Partisanship is officially back"?

Bush's Real Sin....

...Was Winning in Iraq.

Ok. I'll play....

Bold=Yeah, I've done it.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars.
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland (not Disney World, though)
8. Climbed a mountain (Mt. Lassen)
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped (no way in hell)
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (It was closed when we visited.)
18. Grown your own vegetables. (Routinely)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon (I've thought about a half-marathon. But thinking doesn't get one across the finish line, now does it.)
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person (Does from the air count?)
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant (One of my greatest joys is to buy a soldier a meal in an airport food court. I do it all the time.)
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted (Daughter #1 is an artist)
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (We are counting the Eiffel Tower at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas, arent' we?)
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies.
62. Gone whale watching (Maui, '08)
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (I've been a routine donor--2 gallons--but my last experience was awful and has me rethinking whether I'll go back)
65. Gone sky diving (Sort of. Paragliding training in the AF.)
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check (Unwittingly, of course.)
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square (All the damned time. Central Park, too.)
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job (I'm counting that I quit--actually walked out--one, though.)
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person (Hiked Havasu Falls, too!)
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox (Had shingles in my '30s. Hurt like hell.)
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury (I've got a summons for next month too.)
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby (Being a father counts, I guess)
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone (Felt prisoner to a cell phone, too.)
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

h/t Exurban League

Yes We Can....

Surely, this is a sign of our coming Apocolypse.



Yes, that's right: You can buy your very own Chia-Obama. Choose between two versions--the "Determined Chia Obama" and the "Happy Chia Obama". Fun for the whole family. Get yours here.

h/t: The Art of Obama via Darleen at Protein Wisdom.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Hannity and Rush on Obama...

In preface, I really don't like Hannity much. He, like Rush, is a conservative more than a Republican, and that's great, but I tire of his continual selling of his books/concerts and the "You're a Great American" schtick. Rush is great, but I don't often give him my attention for his whole show.

That said, these two videos are worth watching. Found over at Theo's place, but many other places too.



Connecting Two Dots....

Dot One...



Via John at Powerline, we see this chart of the measure of our money supply, and in which he suggests that no one has "any idea what the medium-term consequences of these extremes of fiscal and monetary policy will be". (See also this additional Powerline question.)

This chart ought to alarm the most casual observer of our monetary policy. Simply put: Never in the history of the Fed have we seen such a spike.

Dot Two...

Via Glenn, this post asks: "Who will bail out the Fed?"

OK. I'll admit the obvious: The title to this post isn't connecting anything. The point here is that no one--not you, not me, not Ben Bernanke, and certainly not the Congressional luminaries or Zero or his minions--knows if this approach will work either.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Good Lord...

Three words.....

Victor. Davis. Hanson.

Read them all.

h/t: Gerard, out on walkabout, and looking fine for it.

A Small chapter...

...which "says volumes about our new president and the direction he is taking us".

"Every inaugurated president for the last 56 years has attended the Salute to Heroes Ball. Except one."


Thursday, January 22, 2009

Gawd. This is going to be worse than I thought.

"...He got a fist bump from me."

[But I am pleased to see that Zero's evasiveness and irritation at substantive questions is drawing the media's notice.]

IDPA Range Report....

After my disappointing results at the State match last April, the summer's escalating gas prices (25 miles one-way at 15mpg and $4/gal was $13 just to get there) and my general busy-ness with our wedding last year, I ended up with months and months away from my IDPA habit.

So, after all that, when I finally got back into the game last week, I came through in the middle of the pack.

One word: Wow.

I have to give credit to this observation: I ditched my range safety glasses and shot in my prescription glasses. Actually being able to--you know--focus on the front sight does tend to get the shots closer to where I had intended them to go. Who knew?

I've been thinking I may change....

....my nom-de-internet to: The Patriot.



'Cuz, you know, (and a point I made very recently on That-Forum-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named), dissent is patriotic.

Geithner's Excuses.....

"A common mistake. I didn't know."

"Turbotax made me do it."

[Turbotax: "Oh no we didn't."]

Up next: The dog ate my homework. Really.

Hey! Lookee that!....

It appears that I'm in good company!

"Its getting a little 'cult-y'..."

Really? She's just now noticing this?



h/t Glenn. Of course.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Wow...

I'm getting a great number of hits today to my humble blog ("great" for my largely unread blog, at least), most of which are coming in via that Radar "What's So Scary about Michelle Obama" picture I used a while back.

For those that stay around a while: Welcome. You can read the broad outline of who I am in the sidebar. Other than that, I don't share much personal information.

I am particularly proud of this post, written a while back, but now perhaps something we will be addressing again. Also, a more recent post on the USAirways "Miracle on the Hudson" can be found here.

I hope you enjoy the place.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Shipping rates hit zero....

Via Glenn, I see this story. I know I commented last fall--somewhere--on the Baltic Dry Index, and think I blogged about it here, but now can't find it.

Shipping is in trouble. In a global economy, this means trouble. Obviously, we've got our troubles here. But others are being pinched too. The Baltic Dry Index has fallen off a cliff.



How we get out of this--peacefully--is a large question.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

More on the Cult of Personality....

H.J.RES.5

Whoooo Hooooo! A Permanent President! What could possibly go wrong?

h/t: Purple Avenger over at Ace's Place.

Required Reading Not Yet Read....

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

[Admitting the obvious here....I don't read as much as I used to and no where near as much as I should. I have two correspondence courses laying mostly untouched, and a related, and very technical book only just begun. I am finding at this stage in my life that my interest in viewing the political world through the intertubes combines with my concerns over the continuing damage to the economy (and the social implications falling from this) which leave me with little time and/or energy for reading. I really ought to read Atlas Shrugged, but I should really finish all sorts of things. So much to do; So little time.]

What prompted this, however, was this Stephen Moore article which I've seen referenced:

'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years

FWIW, I was born the same year that Rand published Atlas Shrugged.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Obama-mania....

Today I write about the mania focused on Barack Obama.

I have written earlier about the cult of personality surrounding him. Oprah called him "The One", Farrakhan called him The Messiah. The Grecian columns at his inauguration. His logo. The Stalin-esque imagery. His fake "Office of the President-Elect". The coins. And more coins. The T-shirts. The thongs.

Today on my New Orleans walkabout, I saw Obama buttons, placemats, refrigerator magnets.

The media has fallen head over heels for him. They're covering his train-ride like it was Armstrong landing on the moon.

This cult of personality is a very bad thing. Not looking at our leaders critically is a huge mistake.

Thoughts on USAirways 1549.....


While it may be interesting to a number of people, I've never thought of my life as an airline pilot as particularly interesting (and certainly not heroic). I don't often write of my airline life because in many ways, it is just a job, and if I do it well, it is a very boring job. An exciting day at work usually means something bad has happened. More exciting=More bad.

Obviously, Captain Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III did everything perfectly. What is only now becoming obvious to most is that so did his crew.

The World assumes that I know how to fly my airplane within the envelope that it can be flown. My FAA and my company assume this; My passengers assume this; My crew assumes this; and most importantly--I assume this. Like everyone else in your own work, I have my good days and my bad days, but I always know that everyone assumes, at a minimum, that I can operate the machine.

However, the biggest job an airline captain has is not with operating the machine, but rather in leading his crew.

I work with some of the most capable First Officers I can imagine. "First Officers" is really a misnomer. A more apt title would be "Co-Captain". With very few exceptions, these guys are capable of making each decision that I am called on to make.

But I don't always agree with these guys. Some of them are liberals and want all the things that liberals want. Some of them are bitter about all the changes we have seen in our profession. There are those who walk around with "baggage" (no pun intended). I don't even like some of them.

However, I always have to find a way to work with these guys. It is up to me to form The Team.

A couple of anecdotes...

When I was in the military flying C-130s, I had one of my last trips as a copilot with an Aircraft Commander (the guy in charge) with a guy named "Steve". Steve was a nice enough guy...a little "different", but not overtly unpleasant. I went to college with Steve. However, Steve was fairly regimented. If there were five acceptable techniques to accomplish a given task, most guys will watch another perform that task and think: "OK. That's not the way I might have done it, but it worked none-the-less." Not Steve. If Steve had a technique, it meant that he wanted you to use it. It didn't matter to Steve if you wanted to do things another way. It was his way or the highway.

Anyhoo, I launched off on this six-day trip with Steve, and we weren't airborne 20 minutes and he had the entire crew alienated. Each of us spent the next 6 days doing our jobs and no more. There was little conversation, and there was no way I was going to cover for a mistake that Steve was about to make. Likewise the Nav (navigator) and the Flight Engineer and the Loadmaster. We were on the same airplane, but we were not a crew.

This was all Steve's fault.

Second anecdote....

I am not tooting my own horn here. Really.

On one of my last Tactical flights as a C-130 A/C, I picked up a load of Navy SEALs to bring them up to our dropzone for some parachute practice for them and us. We got to practice delivering paratroopers--they got to practice jumping out of a plane. For a number of reasons, the dropzone was located right next to the runway at Clark AB--as in less than a mile from the end of the runway. Our procedures had us calling the tower for entry into the airport area before the airdrop. The plan that day was fly a low level to get to the dropzone and then to make about 4 passes over the dropzone, each time dropping out 4-6 SEALs. After each drop, we'd make a left hand turn to fly a "race-track" pattern to set up for the subsequent group. The run in for the airdrop was on a heading converging with the runway centerline at about 30 degrees.

Anyhoo, seconds after the first group was clear of the left troop door, my #2 engine (inboard engine on the left wing) just quit. And quit hard. This was my first airborne engine failure, and I had always expected that an inboard engine failure would be felt as a loss of thrust, but not that much of a yaw. This failure came to me as both.

An engine which fails will often fling parts of itself all over the place. The engines are designed to spew those parts into the airflow which will take the exploding parts aft of the plane. One of my initial concerns (which, thankfully, turned out to be baseless) was that parts of this failing engine might have injured the SEALs who had just jumped out the door only feet from the engine that had just failed. There really wasn't much I could do about it, but it was a concern none-the-less.

My next concern was getting this airplane on the ground. As it turns out, we were less than 2 miles from the end of the runway.

And I'll tell you folks, it was simply amazing to watch my crew work.

The Loadmaster got the remaining jumpers back into their seats and ready for landing. Once we had "caged" the engine, he scanned it for any other issues. The Flight Engineer and Co-pilot were the busiest. They had emergency checklists and normal landing checklists to run in a very, very compressed time frame.

And they got it done. All of it. For me, it was a piece of cake. All I had to do was fly the plane. It was they who were doing all the work. They were the real heros.

Prediction: When we do finally hear what "Sully" has to say about his water landing, I predict he will say much the same thing. I know that his crew--the now named First Officer
Jeff Skiles, and the Flight Attendants--did far more than the public is now aware of to make this episode into a "Miracle on the Hudson" the miracle that it was. "Sully" will get the credit, but if I'm right, it is the crew which deserves it.

Water landings....

Gawd, I hate that term. [And Double-Gawd, do I wish Blogger had a strike text feature.] The end of USAirways 1549 was not a "water landing". This is a "water landing".



What "Sully" did was "crash-an-unpowered-airplane-on-the-water-and-have-everyone-live". That doesn't fit well into a newspaper column, but it is far more the truth than "water landing".

Birds...

As the public is now becoming aware of, birds are a problem in aviation. They have been since Orville Wright first flew a plane.

As a professional pilot, bird strikes are part of my life. They don't happen every day, but neither are they unheard of. Most bird strikes are benign events which require little more than an inspection by a mechanic who will then send us on our way. The .gov does keep records on these things, so there is a birdstrike form which facilitates this.

I can't tell you how many bird strikes I've had. As I said, most are benign. My most eventful bird strike was on a C130 takeoff from Pohang during Team Spirit '85. I took a duck in the #2 engine on takeoff roll, and it took us out of the Pohang Air Races.

However, as US1549 illustrates, birdstrikes do occasionally create significant, and sometimes catastrophic damages.

A couple of videos....









Preparations for emergencies...

A long, long time ago, I wrote a Small Cautionary Note on the need to be ready to evacuate a plane. That Caution still stands.

Folks, if you've read this far, I don't care how experienced a traveler you are, the same basic recommendation applies: Pay attention to the safety video/demonstration. Pull out the safety card in the seat pocket and look at it. Look around for the nearest emergency exit. Count the number of rows to that door. Then do the same for the exit in the opposite direction. Take a moment to touch that flotation device under your seat. Is it in a box or a pouch?

Before you get dressed to go to the airport, ask yourself: "If I were in an emergency today, would these clothes/shoes help me or hurt me?"

For as rare as airline accidents are, you have to assume that it can happen on any day.

Be Prepared.


Thursday, January 15, 2009

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

If McCain had won, this would not stand....

Look, folks. I am a conservative libertarian. I don't apologize for that. There is far too much about Bush's Compassionate Conservatism that I did not like. But as a wartime President, I think--and disagree with many other conservative libertarians on this point--that Bush's foreign policy has been nearly perfect. Churchillian.

Of course, there is almost no topic for me to agree with Obama.

That said, I do not wish him to fail. While I may disagree with his every decision, for the sake of the country, I don't want him to stumble.

But had a Republican tried this stunt, it would never stand.

Obama has already lost Richardson (rightly). On her merits, Clinton should have probably gone too, but because of her name, she will be confirmed. I'd like to see Holder go too.

Some may say that Geithner's tax problem is no big deal, and that in the interest of allowing Obama to get on with his administration, and especially for a SecTreas in the middle of a horrible economy in recession, after the Senate touches him up a bit, they should confirm him.

I disagree.

We're talking about a tax problem from the Secretary of the Treasury, for chrissakes. And not just a SecTreas-nominee. A former Governor of the Federal Reserve. Of New York--center of the financial world. Imagine a nominee for head of the EPA having a "forgotten" arrest for polluting or a draft dodger named to be Secretary of Defense.

Outside the serious misgivings I've had about Obama--Ayers, Rezco, Wright, Marxism, the Chicago Way, etc.--Geithner's tax problem should be enough to cause serious questions about his fitness for the office.

Update: John, over at Powerline, in an addition to a post begun by Paul, which makes this exact point.
"[I]f Geithner were a Republican with the same tax-scofflaw record, there is not the chance of a snowball in Hell that he would be confirmed."

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Biden in Iraq....

Beyond my view that Joe Biden is one of the biggest idiots on the planet, he is, none-the-less, the Vice President-Elect.

He recently went on a tour with some other Senators of the Mid-East. [The trip itself was of some small controversy.]

But what really got me was this question: Since when do those who represent us--either as a Senator or a VP-Elect--to foreign governments wear slacks and a sport coat vice a suit?

Monday, January 12, 2009

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Friday, January 09, 2009

Oh. Great.

Today, I got a blog hit from Nigeria.

[Note to my Nigerian reader, if you come back: No. I'm not sending you any money.]

Oh, that we could always have....

....such problems.

h/t: The Blog-faddah, although it passed through a number of others first.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Gawd.

You just gotta love Matt Drudge.

"We'll spend our way out of this."

Who knew? Democrats are opposed to Zero's plan!

Yes. That's what is desperately needed here. An "exit strategy".

Drudge also notes that the spokes may be coming off the wheel (to use a favorite term from an internet friend). I can't find it now, but I ran across an article yesterday making the point that the US consumer is tapped out on taking on more debt, and that others in the world (China, primarily) aren't willing to buy any of it.

Trouble approaches. Gotta get the new toy up and running, before The Apocolypse hits.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

This is what is wrong with this country.....

Click here. I ran across this at Powerline, and it was an ad that leads here. I don't really know how these blog ads work (I suspect that they change moment-to-moment), but it gave me pause.

Think about this: "...[A] free government grant that you don't have to pay back."

Folks, there is no such thing as "a free government grant". If you believe that there is, you also have to believe in a perpetual motion machine.

"A free government grant" gets paid by someone. It may be free to you, but its not free to us. We are taxed to provide the funds for these grants. And when you become wealthy enough to become one of us, you too will be taxed to provide a "free government grant" to someone else. And if we aren't taxed, then the Fed. or somebody will be printing money out of thin air.

Friday, January 02, 2009

"...Obama's economic team...."

"... is still working out the details of the [Stimulus] package."

Prediction: The Stimulus package (sic) that he campaigned on will not be the one he sends to Congress.

Count this as yet another....

Thursday, January 01, 2009

So, anyhooo...

On that Forum-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, a question was asked as to why the Politics conference had become so boring post-election. After letting the question sit for about a week (taking a break from the place for Christmas), I posted the following....

Oh, I am far from bored. In fact, I can hardly keep myself in my bunker, clinging bitterly to that to which I bitterly cling.

This thing has become such fun entertainment that I am surprised that I did not send money earlier to The Prophet Obama (PBUH). Its like your first trip to see the Three Ringed Circus...you're enjoying everything you see, and its hard to keep your eye on it all.

But to recap...

As [redacted] mentioned, in one ring we have The One's Appointments. We've got Zero's vanquished opponent (who kindly introduced us to Tony Rezko) now named as Secretary of State. Lost in the circus are the questions of how a SecState will represent this country when her husband's "...organization [has] accepted multimillion-dollar gifts from a variety of foreign governments, companies and individuals who might have an interest in United States foreign policy." Our interest then shifts to his choice for Secretary of Commerce--Gov. Bill Richardson. Richardson, as it turns out, is about to be embroiled in his own "Pay to Play" scheme. [Noooo. Say it ain't so!] And then, we see O's nominee for Attorney General, Eric Holder. Holder, you may remember, was up to his eyeballs in the Marc Rich pardon scandal. A Congressional investigation found that Holder had "played a major role, [in] steering Mr. Rich’s lawyers toward Jack Quinn, a former White House counsel.". The confirmation hearings for The One's Cabinet promise further entertainment.

And in the other ring, there is the magic act using a version of Three Card Monte entitled "Obama's Change From The Change That I Promised". Watch him shuffle the cards labelled "A Betrayal on FISA", "I Won't End The War That I Promised I'd End", and (by extension) Guantanamo Policy. Try to keep your eyes on the cards, as the Change has a habit of Changing, if you know what I mean.

But then in the center ring, we see the continuing saga of "Who to pick for the vacant Senate Seats?" The Delaware vacancy, open due to Joe Biden's new role as Vice-President Elect, will go to--get this--Biden's Chief of Staff. He, however, will only act in that position until Biden's son will return from Iraq. [Is there no one in Delaware not named Biden qualified for that seat?] But a larger drama is found (naturally) on Broadway, or, if you must be precise, on the Upper East Side. There, we find one Caroline Kennedy asking to be named to the soon-to-be vacated Clinton seat based on no qualifications what-so-ever beyond having a va-jay-jay (Stranger things have happened. Look what happened with Zero.). The woman frequently has not voted, and despite her wealth, has a very meager history of political donations. She has never been elected to anything and has a habit of losing articles of clothing while in public. The poor woman can barely complete a sentence without interrupting herself. [The Mainstream Media, exhausted as they are after searching All of Alaska for everything Palin (including, if you can believe it, 1.9 million stories on "Palin's daughter's boyfriend's mother".) cannot manage to ask the last vestige of Camelot "What ever happened to that Schlossberg guy?"]

However, the star of the center ring is none other than "HotRod" Rod Blagojevich. He, of course, has been accused of blatantly attempting to sell the Senate seat that The One is vacating. The alleged buyer of this seat was none other than Jesse Jackson, Jr., he of the Chicago Jackson's. But the bartering for the naming rights to this seat went through PEBO's Chief of Staff, Rahm "Rahmbo" Emanuel. After an indepth look at what went on, PEBO's White House Counsel, Greg Craig (Yes. There is a reason you recognize that name.) adopts a version of The Jedi Mind Trick to proclaim "There is nothing to see here. Move along." (Why didn't Scooter Libby try this?) This announcement comes on the afternoon of Dec. 23, whereupon Obama and Emanuel are immediately available for questions, if the questioner wants to go to Hawaii and Africa--but whatever you do, don't question the timing. While the Illinois legislature is still working up the nerve to impeach the scoundrel, Dingy Harry Reid has announced (in tandem with The Messiah) that the Senate will not seat whomever Blago appoints. [Stand by for a Constitutional Crisis, folks. They don't have that power.]

Oh. And as if this weren't enough, Rep. Bobby Rush--he the former Black Panther--pronounced the Obama Senate seat as "The Black Seat" in a defense of Blago's appointment of Burris.

And just who is this Roland Burris character anyway? Turns out, he, like the Chicago-based Rep. Rush, Rev. Jackson and Rev. Wright is racist too (What is it about Chicago and racists?). He's also a former lobbyist [Gasp!] and--this is delicious--once "headed a commercial group that covered government guaranteed loans and minority business banking" and is a former "National Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer for Operation PUSH" (same citation). He named both of his children--a son and a daughter--after himself. And he has erected this crypt as his entryway into the Hereafter. My, oh my. What a guy.

So, to sum up, a white governor is going to be impeached (but may not be convicted and removed from office) and probably is going to jail because he tried to sell a Senate appointment. The Democratic Senate leadership (and the half-black President) is put in the position of refusing to seat the black appointee. The Democrat-led Illinois legislature desperately wants Blago to resign so as to avoid impeachment and the exposure of all the political skeletons. Blago, absolutely the dumbest, slimiest politcian from that cesspool that is Chicago has outsmarted the whole lot of the others--his appointment will stand on his terms. And out of this whorehouse, we're lead to believe that arose one virgin. Identity politics, anyone?

No. I am not bored. The Messiah has not yet even taken office yet, and already I've had more entertainment out of this whole thing than I could have had in ten movies. I'm making popcorn.

An update to my "Center Ring": I had forgotten that the "legitimate" contender to the Clinton Senate seat was none other than Andrew Cuomo--another pol's son--who comes complete with his own Kennedy-fueled drama.

But what really is the attention-getter, and what prompted this update, is this little nugget of sunshine.

Better than a Three-Ringed Circus!

/Update.

Another Update: I oughta sue. P.J. O'Rourke steals my meme. Of course, he does it far better than I did, but that's beside the point.

/Another Update.