You'll shoot your eye out, kid.

It wouldn't be the holidays without the hype of some sort of must have gaming console. Yesterday's Big O ran a front page story on a college guy who is paying people to wait in line with him all this week at Best Buy so he can purchase a bunch of Playstation 3s as soon as they go on sale. He plans on flipping them for at least $2000.00 profit on each on ebay.

The article posited that this sort of thing was just adding to the cynicism of the holidays. I think that's true but I don't think it's fair to blame those that are taking advantage of the situation such as that enterprising college student. If there's a real bad guy here it's the manufactures of these systems; Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo that intentionally ferment scarcity in order to elevate the hype and sell more systems. Not sure what can be done about that business practice but they're all weasels just the same.

Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA?

General Abizaid seems to be channeling Goldilocks. In a Senate hearing yesterday he told Democratic Senators that withdrawing troops from Iraq would increase sectarian violence. Then, in response to questioning from Maverick John McCain about increasing troops by about 20,000 men (as he's been pushing on the Tim Russert circuit,) Abizaid answered that our "troop posture needs to stay where it is" in order that the Iraqi government stands up and fills the gap on it's own. Apparently the porridge is just right.

Which is odd because most of us find this administration's Iraq porridge recipe nauseating at any temperature.

Here's a thought: when you are occupying a country that has an unemployment rate with estimates ranging from 28% all the way up 70% then the level of troops you send in to help administer order might be wholly meaningless. That's a heck of a lot of dissatisfied people who have nothing to do but sit around, get angry and look for somebody to blame. The leap towards violence isn't so great when you take that into consideration.

Which is why our economic policies and aid to Iraq following the war was at least as important, if not moreso, as our military strategy. Those of you who have some sense of U.S. policy in the twentieth century and recognize the genius that was the Marshall Plan are probably breathing a sigh of relief. Don't. You'd be forgetting that this is the Bush administration formulating our policy here. They don't learn from history they MAKE history. Or some other such nonsense.

Conservatives have waited decades for an opportunity like that presented in Iraq- a chance to demonstrate to all that conservative economic principles work. They looked at Iraq like Dr. Frankenstein staring at a slab of recently exumed body parts. "Finally a chance to show the world I'm not crazy!"

(Insert evil crazy laugh here)

The dust from the defeat of the Iraqi had hardly cleared before the conservative mad scientists snapped on their surgical gloves, got out their scalpels and got to work. They implemented a flat tax of 15% (exempting foreign companies doing contract work in Iraq,) made sure organized labor was deterred by making all of Iraq a "right to work" state, employed the cheapest labor possible (read: non-Iraqis) and pretty much sent blood and body parts flying as they worked deep into the night.

Is it any wonder they wound up creating a monster? Now their creation is advancing on the town, leaving the bodies of villagers and constables in it's wake and they want to quibble about how many torch-wielding townspeople we're going to send out to meet it?

Did you see that movie, "Night of the Living Dead"?

Be sure to check out Overdroid's hysterical "Night of the Zombie" which he wrote and starred in.

Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it.

Sigh. I don't really expect this to get better.

Pelosi may have another problem. As the crop of freshly elected Democrats — including many younger ones who campaigned to the right of the party line — came to Capitol Hill for orientation Monday, they encountered a leadership dominated by mostly liberal, old-school Democrats.

A couple of questions for the LA Times reporter: what exactly is the Democratic "party line" and what is your evidence that newly elected young Democrats "campaigned to the right" of it?

So much of what seems to be accepted as benchmarks to political discussion these days seems wholly seperated from reality. This model of the political breakdown of the two major parties is thirty years old. Old and busted: Democrats are hippy, liberal whackos. New hotness: Democrats represent the mainstream of American values.

Also, if I should fall, remember what you see here.

With the dedication of the Martin Luther King Memorial here is just a reminder of his greatest speech, the most famous parts delivered off the cuff.

You're hanging around my fuckin' neck like a vulture, like impending death.

Who gives a rat's petutie what Joe Lieberman says has to be done about Iraq? Follow-up question: when will the media do the Senate math and recognize Joe represents only Joe at this point?

Speaking in Hartford last Wednesday, Lieberman remained unwavering in his opposition to Democrats' calls for withdrawing troops from Iraq. "What we are doing now there is not working, but that doesn't mean in any sense that it is time for us to retreat," he said. "This is a test in a very difficult and dangerous hour in our history."

But his victory also was something of an aberration, and whatever the fate of Lieberman's proposed bipartisan group, which he pledges to introduce in January, his continued support of Bush's stay-the-course approach places him well outside the Democratic mainstream.

"The voters spoke on Tuesday that they're unhappy with the status quo," Lieberman said. However, he added, "I don't believe they want us to pick up and leave."

Since upwards of 60% of Americans support a withdrawal from Iraq I'd say that Joe's support for the war doesn't just put him outside of the "Democratic mainstream" but out of the American mainstream.

I know Joe did great by pretending he wasn't a Bush lapdog during the general election and fooled enough Dems/ Moderates to make his almost overwhelming Republican support signifigant enough to get him re-elected but that doesn't in any shape or form mean we should take Joe seriously now. He is not a serious man.