Last night, millions of Americans put down aside their personal feelings and sat down in front of their televisions for a farewell from the man who, right or wrong, we’ve been living under since the end of 2000.
Wherever you go from here, Gil Grissom, happy trails.
Oh, and Bush resigned or something, but we forgot to tape it.
In other news, a US Airways jetliner with 155 people aboard lost power in both engines after colliding with a flock of geese. The pilot ditched in the icy Hudson River and all on board were rescued by ferries and emergency boats. Is it OK to laugh about air travel again? We like to think so.
Can’t make it to the inauguration next week? Attend one that is not quite as historic but a hundred times more adorable by going to Legoland!
President-elect Obama once again brought up Social Security and Medicare, pledging to shape a new “bargain” with the American people. It will be just like the old Social Security and Medicare, but this one will come with the rust-proofing at no added charge.
This post is a little flippant– here is some Krugman.
The President’s trip to Afghanistan and Iraq this weekend designed to highlight security improvements in the region only ended up highlighting the throwing arm of an Iraqi journalist, who threw both of his shoes at the President during a press conference. In the Arab world, throwing your shoes at someone is a serious insult. The sole of the shoe is considered dirty because you step in all kinds of mud and crap during the course of the day. Another facet of this is when you see members of Arab and Asian cultures taking off their shoes before they enter their home or a place of worship. When this story comes up at work, I suggest a joke about how quickly the President ducked, the odds of David Gregory doing the same thing next week or how the Yankees are looking to sign the journalist as a middle reliever for $161 million over 7 years. Be careful though, every office will have one wet blanket who will say that even though they don’t like the President they find it incredibly disrespectful.
Throw your shoes at them.
Blagojevich , Ponzi Schemes and Krugman after the jump.
A lame duck congress is when Congress gavels back into session after the November elections but before the new Congress is sworn in in January. The majority of the Congress and Senate live pretty far from Washington and like to go home for the holidays, so they don’t tend to call these sessions unless there is something pretty important going on. Like, say, the collapse of the US Economy.
Democratic Congressional leaders way that they want to pass emergency legislation to aid the imperiled auto industry during the lame-duck session that begins next week. President Bush, predictably, has said that he doesn’t favor tapping the $700 billion bail out fund to help automakers. Don’t these factory workers understand that there are employees at Goldman Sachs who need to sell their second houses in the Hamptons? Thank god we have a President who looks out for the little guy.
GM plant employees are not the only one’s looking at the prospect of unemployment checks. The nation’s top two intelligence officers are not to happy about the indication that they are going to shown the door by President-elect Obama. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael V. Hayden today clearly leaked to the Washington Post that they want to remain in their current posts and that they feel early departures could be seen as politicizing their offices and keeping them could help stabilize the intelligence community. These are good points, but Hayden was in charge of the White House’s warrentless wiretapping program and both of them have publicly defended torture. Guys, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Unemployed autoworkers and senior intelligence officers will both but unable to afford prescription drugs. Monthly premiums for Medicare’s prescription drug coverage will increase on average 43% next year. So, uhh, don’t get sick.
You know who has had it for too easy for too long? Whales. You know, the big lazy fuckers just swimming around out there, getting in the way of our submarines, eating our krill. Thank God the Supreme Court is here to put them in their place.
Apparently no one in the Treasury Department has any friends who are habitual gamblers or drug users. If a friend asks you for money, they ALWAYS need more then they ask for and they ALWAYS end up coming back for more. Fannie Mae and AIG, both of whom received massive government loans in September, have reported billions more in losses and have requested more support to the tune of $150 billion from the Federal Government. If you give a mismanaged and hemorrhaging company a glass of milk…
Apparently, President Bush and President Elect Obama did more than just measure the drapes yesterday. The two discussed the financial crisis and Obama pressed the President to provide emergency aid to the auto industry. Hard to say where to come down on this one and you can make your own arguments. Automakers are failing now because of their own lack of foresight. However, something like one in 12 people in this country is employed by the auto industry.
NASA has officially ended a six-month mission at Mars’ north pole after they lost contact for more than a week with the Phoenix Lander. The mission was a resounding success; the lander discovered water and soil that could support life. More whimsically, Phoenix’s weather relay also discovered that it snows on Mars. The lander became famous when a NASA communications staffer set it up with a twitter account which was shot around the internet. The tweets were fun and informative (that is where NASA broke the news of water on Mars) but as the lander has powered down they just started bumming me out.
Four days left, you can tell me that as much as you want, but I still don’t believe it. Obama is on the air in a bunch of new states and people are beginning to blame Sarah Palin for, well, everything. USA Today has interviews with both of the candidates which are relatively generic, but not bad. If you want to get into obsessive levels of detials, head over to TPM election central‘s morning roundup.
A new poll by the AP says that 1 in 7 voters are still persuadable. I met one guy last weekend in New Hampshire who was certain Senator Obama was going to take away his guns and Senator McCain is going to get rid of his social security. I guess that does make it a tough choice, but then again, he was also clearly batshit insane.
Crazy old Bush is still trying to deregulate, sex offenders need to cancel their Halloween plans and get back Loretta, there’s some special Rock Band news after the jump.
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