Almost time to call it a year.

It's 2118 local time here, and it looks like the year's about to wrap up with a minimum of muss and fuss.

It's already wrapped up for several tens of thousands of my fellow American citizens, all of whom I truly hope have some peace and safety in the new year.

For our illegally and improperly elected president, I hope 2007 brings him and his coterie of scumbag and pseudointellectual toadies a conscience. Not that it would be in time for the almost 3,000 men and women in arms who have died and countless family and friends who have suffered thanks to their collective and individual stupidity, hubris and arrogance, but maybe it could save hundreds or thousands of others.

For all of my friends and acquaintances - electronic and in person - I hope that humanity wakes up and takes a badly-needed break from the sheer idiocy, fanaticism, blatant materialism and lack of respect for one's fellow man, woman and child to see what is important in life.

I, for one, am incredibly thankful for having made it through this year with a new opportunity to make something of my life for my family and I. I'm also glad I decided to make the leap into blogging this year, since it has forced me to sharpen my thoughts, re-evaluate my beliefs and stand to be judged by you all. I hope I haven't been too lacking.

And finally, I found something small, insignificant and - for the last six and a half years - profoundly frustrating.

Yes, I finally found a copy of Astrud Gilberto singing a cover of 'Beginnings' by Chicago. I'd heard it while on a bender in a pub in Richmond in Fedruary, 2000, and had not been able to find the record in the intervening years.

Beats trying to get a cost plus award contract to build unfinished schools and police stations in Iraq any day of the week.

Thank you for a year to remember, and all of you have a hopeful year to come.

And a wonderful new year's present for the National Command Authority and chief Decider . . .

I'm sure Dubya is thrilled to be as revered as Nixon was 32 years ago . . . (here)


U.S. President Ranks as Top Villain and Top Hero of 2006
America in No Doubt of 2006’s Celebrity Role Models – Oprah Regaled as the Best; Britney Declared the Worst
DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new poll from The Associated Press and AOL News has discovered that Americans are torn in terms of their perception of President George W. Bush and his performance in 2006. When asked to name the past year’s biggest villain, Bush was far and away the #1 choice, commanding 25% of the vote, distantly trailed by Osama Bin Laden (8%), Saddam Hussein (6%), President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran (5%), North Korean leader Kim Jong II (2%) and Donald Rumsfeld (2%). Satan only took in 1% of the vote, as did Hugo Chavez, Tom Cruise, Dick Cheney, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Rosie O’Donnell, among others.
On the flipside, Bush also claimed the top spot when Americans were asked to name the year’s biggest hero, but with only a trifling 13% of the vote.

Hey Raincoaster . . .

Edged you out by three percentage points . . .



From Wandering Coyote, via Raincoaster

Another cool blast of irony . . .

Read the byline on Mr. Ford's obituary, then quickly scroll down to the end

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/27/AR2006122700528_pf.html

Sorry for the disappearance . . . .

It's been a rather full two or three weeks here, what with the new job and getting my baggage together for a return to studenthood.

And then there's the new Blogger, but I'll reserve my bile and venom for after the new year.

I could also go on at great length about the new adventures of my worthless National Command Authority, but I shall also reserve that for after the holiday season. Suffice it to say for now that I would be embarassed if Josef Mengele got to stay in Paraguay with no fuss and that my daughters were asked to leave.

First and foremost, I want to thank all of you for even bothering to stop by this den of inequity, philosophical liberalism and Burke-ian irony, and generally unfocused rambling. I never thought I'd convince myself to start blogging, and I'm still convinced that I'm in the lower circle of hell when it comes to untalented bloggers, but I've met some good people here in the last nine months. You all can wrench your shoulder patting yourselves on the back after you're done reading this.

Vicus, Pam, Anna, Cherry, Gautami, HE, WW, Raincoaster, Wanda, Miss C, Miz B, Awaiting, Kindness, Ziggi, Mark, Tom, Richard, Daphne, Carmenzta - I don't really care what are your religious or philosophical stripes. But I do wish you and others a good end to this year and a better year than before.

Hopefully I'll be back on more frequently now.

Mike

She's 70, but her beauty is timeless

A work like this depresses me then inspires me to do at least half as well . . . . (read more here)
(Image courtesy of Hyperscale and David Glen - www.hyperscale.com )

It's a cruel summer down under

Bananarama seizes Fiji in bloodless, catchy coup

SUVA, Fiji (AP) - Eighties vocal group Bananarama announced Tuesday it had taken control of the country from the elected government, confirming the South Pacific country's fourth coup in less than two decades.
"As of 6 o'clock this evening, the military has taken over the government, has executive authority and the running of this country," current Banarama frontwoman Sara Dallin told a news conference broadcast nationally.
'Now we're your Venus," added Keren Woodward, the other half of the once-popular, once three-member standby of British and American pop of the mid-1980's.
Dallin and Woodward said they had invoked special powers under the constitution to assume some powers of the president, and were using them to dismiss Prime Minister Rick Astley from office and appoint an interim replacement.
Astley, despite earlier claims that he was never gonna give them up, said he would surrender the presidential powers next week, and would ask the country's Great Council of Chiefs to restore them to 1980's pop hitmakers Stock Aitken and Waterman, who he expected would then appoint a full caretaker government.
Elections to restore democracy would follow sometime after that, he said.
Bananarama said they were compelled to act against Astley because the government was backing bills that undermined the core of early and mid-1980's pop contruction and lyrics. They cited the country's drift toward Pearl Jam, Blink 182 and Rolf Harris as evidence of the need for military intervention.
Former Banarama member Siobhan Fahey immediately condemned the takeover.
"Those sluts have been riding the coattails of my musical talent for two decades and now have now indulged in a very serious criminal act of crass commercialism, and . . . we are not going to support this faux Bananarama in this regard, because it is unlawful," Fahey told the Legend radio network.
Fiji's mostly unarmed police force has said previously it can't challenge SAW's might, and Malcom McLaren said police opposition would be limited to refusing to hand over royalty checks to the new ruling duo.
Armed troops locked down the capital, Suva, on Tuesday, setting up checkpoints outside government buildings and at other sites. Troops surrounded Astley''s house, blocking roads with tire-bursting spikes, with the prime minister holed up inside with his family and a handful of ministers.
"My impression is that I am under house arrest," Astley told reporters hours before Bananarama's declaration. "What happens next is anybody's guess."

I feel pleasantly deranged tonight

I feel so much better these days that I'm going to tell you a little story.

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were at the Double R Bar Ranch one fine evening, watching the sun set. Roy had just been breaking in a new pair of boots that day, and he left them on the porch before they called it a night.

A lynx sneaks up on the porch after Roy and Dale were asleep, and the critter rips, gnaws and shreds the boots.

Roy wakes up in the morning, realizes he forgot his boots, and goes out on the porch. He goes ballistic. He gets his guitar, his Winchester lever-action and saddles up Trigger before riding off into the sagebrush.

Roy's gone for five days, and Dale waits anxiously for every one of them.

On the sixth day, Roy comes riding in, the now-dead lynx hanging from Trigger's saddle horn. Just as Roy rides up and gets ready to tell how he avenged his boots, Dale interrupts and says, "Pardon me Roy, is that the cat who chewed your new shoes?"