New Year's Eve

Tonight's the night of lots of parties celebrating the start of the new year. I've got a bad cold, so I won't be going out, but I am certainly glad that 2011 will be over.

Friday

We've all heard the expression: "Thank goodness it's Friday", but what do you say when there isn't one? Today is Friday, December 30th, but that day has been eliminated in Samoa. They jumped to the other side of the International Date Line and thus skipped over Friday. Their primary reason was to make it easier to deal with their trading partners New Zealand and Australia. In other words, it was about the money.

Newt Gringich

Newt went over the top again yesterday when he compared his failure to get enough signatures to be on the Virginia primary ballot to Pearl Harbor Day. Amazing!

Merry Chrismas

Today is not one to discuss current events, but to focus on family and friends and avoiding the last minute shoppers at the mall.

New TV

This isn't exactly world news, but I woke up this morning to find out that my sister's  TV was dead. It wouldn't even turn on. Of course it was quite old, but still it was a surprise. In any event it required a trip to Best Buy and Costcos. The former won and we brought back a new HD TV and a blu-ray player, both of which are now installed and working fine. The biggest job turned out to be cleaning her entertainment center. The level of dust was unbelievable.

Iraq

There were several bombings in Iraq yesterday. Whether this is the start of increase sectarian violence isn't known yet. Only time will tell, but one fact still remains. The United States didn't just pull out it troops; they were told to leave. We didn't have a choice.

D.C.

I already knew that D.C. wasn't working, but today I saw it first hand. While driving from Washington to Richmond, VA, I got caught in a major traffic jam at 2:30 pm. I suspect that they were all government workers leaving early. Of course they probably work harder than the members of Congress, but that's not saying much.

What now?

Well the House did not pass the Senate bill to extend the payroll tax cut another two months. They say that they want a deal for a year. Nothing wrong with that, but a bill in the Senate for a year failed, so they comprised on two months. The senators have also said that they don't want to come back to DC. They're home for the holidays and want to stay there. Thus even if the House does pass something, the Senate won't. The only really interesting part of all this is that the disagreement seems to be amongst the Republicans, not between the parties.

North Korea

The death of Kim Jon Il has everybody wondering what will happen in North Korea. We knew very little about him, except that he seemed erratic and frequently used threats to get what he wanted. He also didn't seem to care much about his people as they starved while he drank cognac. Thus his departure would seem like a good thing, but nobody has a clue about what his son will do or even if the military will take over. Talk about uncertainty and this is a country with nuclear weapons. That's scary.

Another Congressional Failure

While we should be grateful that Congress at least kept the government from shutting down, the two month extension of the payroll tax cut passed by the Senate was a waste of time. All they wanted to do was get home for the holidays. Assuming the House passes it, they have to argue about it again in February. They accomplished nothing (as usual).

Massachusetts taxes

Yes I know that it's some times called "Taxachusetts", but the state did something yesterday to lower taxes here. Revenues have increased enough to trigger an automatic reduction in the state income tax rate from 5.3% to 5.25% starting January 1, 2012. That's not a lot of money for most residents, but it's certainly good news.

The End

It's now official. Leon Panetta announced today that the Iraq war is over. The U.S. Forces-Iraq flag was "cased". The USA invested 9 years, more than $800 billion, and over 4400 lives, so let's hope that it doesn't all fall apart.

Break through?

Researchers from Cern at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva announced today that they may have glimpsed the Higgs boson (aka god particle). I have no idea why they don't know if they saw it or not, but I guess when you are dealing with the fabric of the universe, it's tricky.

Linux Lives

Some of you may remember when Linux was all the rage back in the 90's. Then it seemed to fade away and very little has been heard since. Well it's still around and much improved. I just installed the latest release from Ubuntu this morning. My PC is configured for a dual boot until I decide to permanently pull the plug on Windows XP. So far it has found drivers for all my hardware, and it's free software, Office Libre, has been able to read all my Word and Excel files. It also comes with Firefox, so I'm no longer stuck using Internet Explorer. Nothing but good news, but I'm still learning.

Tebow Time

It's hard not to comment on the Tim Tebow phenomenon. According to the experts, he doesn't have the skills to be a quarterback in the NFL. He apparently however didn't get that memo. Since he became the starter for the Denver Broncos, which had a 1-4 record at the time, the team has gone 7-1. Virtually all the wins involved "miraculous" finishes and none were pretty. He just wins and is now being labeled "God's quarterback" for his strong Christian faith.

Baseball News

Albert Pujols just signed a new contract with the LA Anaheim Angels for $254 million over 10 years. Thus he will be leaving St. Louis where he has played his entire 11 year career and was adored by the fans (the best in baseball). Why would he do that? Easy, more money. St. Louis only offered him a little over $200 million. Thus he goes from being an idol to millions to just another example of a greedy, selfish athlete.

Lighter side

My last two posts were a little on the dark side, so I thought that I'd lighten it up today. On Monday I got a new energy efficient refrigerator. It's slightly smaller than my old one, but actually seems roomier. Thus I have more space to keep my vodka chilled. None for me tonight, however, as Fridays are reserved for single malt scotch. That's my favorite.

Dark Nights

Although we haven't reached the shortest day (and longest night) of the year, we have reached the earliest sunset. It's now 4:11 pm. That's early.

"Day of Infamy"

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor bringing the United States into World War II.

GOP Debate

Believe it or not, one of the biggest stories in the news is about the upcoming GOP debate scheduled for December 27 with Donald Trump as moderator. Of course almost any thing that he does is controversial, and this is no exception. Two candidates have declined to attend calling it a joke. "The Donald" has said that neither has any chance of winning the nomination and thus are insignificant. I say, who cares? The Republicans have already had several debates, and none have been worth watching. The news will show the biggest gaff or best sound bite the next morning.

Tiger Woods

Tiger won the Chevron World Challenge with birdies on the final two holes. He also played well at the Presidents Cup. So is he back? Time will tell, but it would certainly make golf more exciting if he were.

Vodka

Buying vodka used to be simple. If you wanted something really good, you got Stoli. If you wanted a price performer, that was Smirnoff. Then there was the really cheap stuff in plastic bottles. Now there are premium vodkas in fancy bottles that cost a fortune and all kinds of flavors. I can understand citrus and maybe vanilla, if the flavor is subtle, but there is also whipped cream, marshmallow, root beer, and many others. That's crazy. I just want a good shot of (unflavored) vodka in a glass.

Incredible inventions

I just read a Time magazine article on the 50 best inventions of the year. They were all amazing, but the one I really liked was a three dimensional transistor developed by Intel. They perform 37% better and use about half the power. That's impressive.

Windy in LA

The Santa Ana  winds were unbelievable in Los Angeles with gusts up to 80-100 mph. Trees and limbs are down all over the place causing widespread damage, schools were closed, and tens of thousands were without power. What a mess and more winds are expected this weekend.

Those in Need

Today I volunteered at the food pantry. The good news is that our shelves were full with all the donated food. The bad news is that we needed it.

Raising Cain

The news reported that Herman Cain is "reassessing his campaign." That's normally what candidates do just before they drop out. One reporter commented yesterday that he was in the "sixth sense" stage, where everybody knows you're dead except the dead.

The Naked Truth

This site is all about the truth. I prefer to deal with facts. Unfortunately the interpretation of them is subject to various opinions, which is one reason why there are so many Blogs. For example when the weather forecast predicts rain, is that good news or bad? That all depends upon whether you're in the middle of a drought or vacation. One thing however that is invariably true is: "It's always about the money."