So, apparently Kevin and I are the only ones at work today. It’s dead here, and I find myself in the curious position of having time to browse.

Found this list of New Year’s Resolutions at Zulkey and it got me to thinking.

I don’t usually make resolutions, but if I did here’s what they would be:

I’ll unashamedly admit that John and I are known to watch the “reality” TV programming. Survivor, Joe Millionaire, Rich Girls, The Simple Life, I’ve pretty much seen em’ all. (I did skip the Bachelorette wedding thing — watching someone else plan a $5M wedding gives me a headache.) But not all reality shows are created equal.

Well, there’s so much to talk about, but nobody’s talking around here. Must be at a wedding or something… ;-)

No spirit for discussion of current events at the moment, so how about some poetry?

Your life will not be complete until you check out AdAge.com’s 10 ADS AMERICA WON’T SEE — be sure the see #1, the blasphemous take on the virgin birth, and #4, a daddy remembers his 4-year-old daughter asking where babies come from.

I’ve been more than understanding, Trey, in letting you leave your decrepit Cut-Dog parked in front of my house. I have called the City and if you don’t come get it soon they will impound it as an abandoned vehicle.

Wednesday night (Christmas Eve) as I was getting the ham on the smoker and prepping the ingredients for my famous pineapple-upside-down cake-in-a-skillet I realized I would use up all the butter and brown sugar in the house — leaving us in the lurch for Christmas Day. So, I ran over to HEB…which was already closed, so I had to go to Fiesta which was open for 25 more minutes. I gathered my items, including more non-alcoholic beer for my father-in-law, and headed to the front register with a crowd of others.

Ah… Here’s an article that brings back the Christmas spirit. These items should have been on my wish list:

• 2004 PRIUS … Actress Lucy Liu; she just ordered one.
• INMOTION SPEAKERS … These battery-powered, paperback book-sized speakers are the iPod’s dream home.
• $20 BILL … The subtle peach and blue hues, the ghostly second image of Andrew Jackson, and the Lilliputian yellow 20s drizzled across the back make this the best-looking—and most secure—greenback ever.
• SCANJET 4670 … It’s the first transparent scanner (both sides are made of clear polycarbonate). And because it can scan standing upright, it takes next to no room on your desk.

p.s. My birthday is only 4 months away, people!

Now that the holidays are over, it’s time to continue the slash and burn.

The formerly secret documents reveal the Defence Secretary travelled to Baghdad 20 years ago to assure Iraq that America’s condemnation of its use of chemical weapons was made “strictly” in principle.

Has anyone in the current administration (many/most of whom were in W’s daddy’s administration) admitted that the U.S. has a history of supporting evil people? that the real revolution of the war in Iraq is that it’s a 180-degree about-face in U.S. policy (that looks to some people to just be hypocrisy)?

Earlier this year, Mr Rumsfeld and other members of the Bush administration regularly cited Saddam’s willingness to use chemical weapons against his own people as evidence of the threat presented to the rest of the world.

Sigh. My Christmas spirit is all gone, now.

From me and mine to you and yours.

Courtesy of NPR and Art Carney

Merry Christmas to all!

Not all soldiers support the Bush Doctrine, and plenty of people who know what they’re talking about still think that our war on Iraq wasn’t above-board.

Washington Post profiles Anthony Zinni today

Shockingly enough, looks like that Medicare bill was passed with good old-fashioned “elbow grease” in the House. I’m sure LBJ would be proud.

Yamaha’s .jp website has a collection of paper craft models that let you make your own table-top motorcylces, animals and more.

Pull up this java app that maps all the US zip codes. As you type a zip code it narrows it down to a single dot.

Here’s a couple BPB related zip codes to try for fun:

• 78722
• 71060
• 90067
• 20009

And even went so far as Tomahawking Sudan (Where Al Quaeda was headquartered at the time).

“We know for a fact, physical evidence, soil samples of VX precursor—chemical precursor at the site,” said Richardson. “Secondly, Wolf, direct evidence of ties between Osama bin Laden and the Military Industrial Corporation—the al Shifa factory was part of that. This is an operation—a collection of buildings that does a lot of this dirty munitions stuff. And, thirdly, there is no evidence that this precursor has a commercial application. So, you combine that with Sudan support for terrorism, their connections with Iraq on VX, and you combine that, also, with the chemical precursor issue, and Sudan’s leadership support for Osama bin Laden, and you’ve got a pretty clear cut case.”

(From the The Weekly Standard)