Common Sense

Ring in the New Year

Coming to you live from a kick-ass New Year's Eve party... OK, I'm actually at home and I just woke up. New Year's isn't that big a deal to me so I don't really like to put any effort into celabrating it.

But I know you heathens do, so have a Happy and safe New Year from all of us here at Common Sense Blog.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to sleep.

Since I haven't done mine, yet

The People's Republic of Seabrook has a post for you, and I haven't writen my Best and Worst of 2005 post yet, so I link to their's.

2005 DUMB@$$ of the Year Awards

You know you've reached bottom

I spent my night with a girl. But it's not what you think, I totally didn't get any.

A friend who was in town visiting family called me up to see if I wanted to hang out last night. I said of course and we ended up back at my house to watch movies. She fell asleep and I stayed up because I'm all obsessive compulsive about how my bed should be and I just couldn't sleep with the knowledge that she was bending my pillows and putting my bedspread into all kinds of disarray.

Plus there was no room on the bed. My rug really ties my room together, but it is not comfortable to sleep on.

All night I couldn't help but wonder how in the world I could ever get married if I had to live with the knowledge that my wife was going to put things wherever she wanted and not where I have designated they should go. Maybe if I label everything and just follow her around our house for a few years constantly clearing my throat when she makes a mistake will help.

Or I'll just live alone with an AIBO robot dog as my companion.

As promised by me

Here is the Trib story on Judge Jim Lewis' flip to the dark side, the Republican party. Star Wars references are good for any occassion.

'If I were king of the forest'

It's early, my brain isn't working and that was the only bell that rang when I tried to think of a headline for a John Courage post.

He's a popular guy these days, and I just found out he is going to be on Agonist Radio tonight. He will be live and held captive for one hour, forced to take your calls and and answer your questions. If you don't live in San Antonio, you can livestream the show at ktsa.com and you can still call in at 599-5555 or 800-299-KTSA.

My good friend and blogger extraordinnaire Charles Kuffner will be on before that, so check it out.

Cry me a river, bitch

Why can't we have a normal democracy where the people elect the best leaders we have to guide us through treacherous times? Why God, why can't we have that instead of a total turd for a president?

I'm going to tell you that the veracity of this story is suspect until I see more evidence, but our "leaders" are far enough out there and have lied about everything else concerning the NSA domestic spying that it is totally believable to me.

Rice authorized National Security Agency to spy on UN Security Council in run-up to war, former officials say

President Bush and other top officials in his administration used the National Security Agency to secretly wiretap the home and office telephones and monitor private email accounts of members of the United Nations Security Council in early 2003 to determine how foreign delegates would vote on a U.N. resolution that paved the way for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, NSA documents show.

Two former NSA officials familiar with the agency's campaign to spy on U.N. members say then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice authorized the plan at the request of President Bush, who wanted to know how delegates were going to vote. Rice did not immediately return a call for comment.

It's just depressing how much like a stupid movie supervillain these people are. They make us look like inept assholes and nobody is doing anything about it. I'm just going to curl up into a corner somewhere.

New calendars, new hope

We're still arguing about the next primary calendar? For God's sakes, lets just agree that front-loading got us a consensus nominee too early and that we shouldn't do that again.

I think the problem lies not in that we picked a bad candidate, but we picked him too soon and he spent the spring windsurfing instead of campaigning to conserve his warchest. I don't see how having several caucuses before New Hampshire solve that problem. I don't see how pissing off any of the states solves anything.

And everytime we complain about New Hampshire and Iowa being too white, it just causes more problems. We're talking about Democrats that are white, not old, white Republicans. I would think that they are open to progressive and dare I say liberal ideas. Just because they are white doesn't mean they are any less Democrat and any less committed to nominated the best Democrat to do the job.

Trying to set up a quota system so that the blacks get their state, then the Hispanics, then the whites only does one thing: it divides us. At a time when we should be trying to come together to elect a progressive person, we can get past the color of each others' skin. That's shameful.

The suspense is killing you

I mentioned the other day that rumors about McLennan County Judge Jim Lewis switching parties was rampant around here. This morning, Waco residents read in the Tribune-Herald that Lewis was going to announce his intentions.

Are you ready for it? He's running as a Republican!

Now, I was extremely lazy and didn't go to the announcement. There were too many Republicans there anyway. The important thing is that I know what's going on and I've already read the story we're running tomorrow. You're just going to have to wait until I send it to the Web.

I can tell you that Linda Ethridge is probably pretty perturbed at having a primary challenger and that the Democrats have been expecting this, so hopefully we're ready. The only person I know in the running is John Mabry, who I like. I just don't know if he can win, yet. And informal talks have happened with at least two other Democrats. I guess we'll know Jan. 2.

Rachel Ray is hot

The food diva has got it going on. She has a quirky, happy personality that I'm attracted to.

But, according to The Superficial:

Ray dropped out of college and returned to her family in the Adirondacks, in the process leaving behind angry creditors, some of whom “were threatening her,” a family insider told PAGE SIX.

“Her mom gave her money for tuition, but she never paid,” the source said. “She spent the money and then she didn’t want her mom to find out, so she borrowed money to pay her tuition, and then she couldn’t pay it back. She was bouncing checks, and some people were threatening her.”

I don't know about you, but knowing she's a deadbeat just makes her even hotter. You know what they say, a lady in the streets a freak in the credit card application? Besides, it's not like I can say shit; I dropped out of community college. I can see how she learned to live on $40 a day in a new city now, though.

Oops! We didn't mean to do that.

From today's press conference:

CIA Director Porter Goss: Thank ladies and gentlemen for coming today. I have some bad news to report and this administration feels it is important to admit our mistakes and correct them openly.

Unfortunately, it appears that we here at the CIA may have accidentally sent some prisoners under our watch to Syria to be tortured for intelligence purposes. I know what you're thinking: how could this have happened? Rest assured, we're looking into it, but early reports show it was because a temp was working the desk during the holidays.

If these reports are accurate, then blame rests squarely with her. Eighty words a minute my ass!

I'll be happy to take your questions now.

Or at least that's how it could have happened. Instead, we just sort of pick people off the street and send them to another country to be tortured. And the CIA's inspector general is looking into fewer than 10 cases where we picked up the wrong person and sent them to other countries to be beaten and tortured.

But 'we' do not torture.