Plain ‘ol Republican? Or national villain?

It’s 3am. I just got back from my Thursday-night show, enjoying a bowl of Apple-Cinnamon Cheerios in front of the kitchen PC, sobering up more and more by the second (but waiting until I was sure I was sober enough before driving home, thank you very much!). And POTUS, the XM channel I listen to most these days, was all ablaze about Obama’s speech last night.

But not about his speech, per sé.

No, what has the media’s panties in a virtual wad is that Senator Joe Wilson shouted “You Lie!” during Obama’s schpiel about the health care issue facing our nation.

To be fair, I was hoping to watch C-SPAN’s replay of the speech on Friday, hiding in my office trying to recover from my inevitable hangover. But it seems that the kitty is out of the burlap: the most exciting part of the speech is scarcely a a quarter of a second long and is plastered all over the national (and perhaps international) media: I must’ve heard a dozen times, by now, Senator Joe Wilson shout “You Lie!” across the Senate floor at President Obama.

And here’s where I have the big problem.

If you’re a loyal reader of The Corsair Journal, then you know two things about me already: One, I’m a lifelong Democratic Liberal, as is most of my family. Second, I’m all for a national health care system that solves the huge injustices and denials of basic health care services that only American citizens (when seen from the perspective of industrialized nations) seem to suffer, at the hands of the large insurance companies.

What you might not know is the fact that I’m pretty selective as to where I get my news nowadays. I had, until recently, subscribed to only one news outlet–CNN–but decided, rather, that C-SPAN and POTUS on XM Satellite Radio were far more balanced places to obtain my news about this topic than the mainstream news media outlets.

But even POTUS and C-SPAN couldn’t help but over-cover Senator Joe Wilson’s microsceond, off-mic outburst.

You idiots.

To say I’m incredibly disappointed is an understatement. I wasn’t feeling well on Wednesday night and went to bed before Barack Obama’s address; I was hoping to hear all about his talking points on my lengthy commute into work on Thursday. But no: all I got to hear about is that blithering asshole Wilson and his disruption fo the President’s speech and his disrespect for the Presidential office. Even my good buddy Greenacres, himself a lifelong Republican, agrees with me, at least on this one point–and it is from him I learned, many years ago: “You may not respect them man, but you must respect the office.”

I sincerely hope that Wilson is completely ostracized by whatever political circles he once traveled in in Washington, suffering the political equivalent of discomendation from the Klingon Empire, afraid to even be photographed next to a building inside The Beltway lest it crumble to the ground from residual entropic resonance–and not because he is a Republican opposed to heathecare reform (and doubtless firmly in the pocket of some insurance provider), but, rather, with his one microsecond outburst, has managed to draw the national focus away–albeit temporarily (and hopefully briefly)–from what is perhaps the most important political issue of the fledgling century and certainly the defining issue of Obama’s young presidency.

I have yet to hear anything about what Obama had to say Wednesday night.

I still plan to watch Obama’s speech on C-SPAN Friday and struggle to stay awake through it whilst simultaneously trying to keep down my bowl of Apple-Cinnamon Cheerios.

Shamelessly ganked from The Boston Diaries:

Fire chief shot by cop in Ark. court over tickets

JERICHO, Ark. – It was just too much, having to return to court twice on the same day to contest yet another traffic ticket, and Fire Chief Don Payne didn’t hesitate to tell the judge what he thought of the police and their speed traps.

The response from cops? They shot him. Right there in court.

Hear that? Pay your tickets or we’ll bust a cap all up in yo ass, yo.”

I posted this on Facebook, but it just wasn’t the same.

One day, a little less than a year ago, I took some video with my phone while I was commuting to work on a beautiful Florida autumn morning. I edited the clips together, set them to music, and here are the results:

So, for those of you who were ever curious as to what it’s like to be in the saddle of a 1,200cc high-performance touring motorcycle while it zips along Florida’s Turnpike on a beautiful Autumn morning, here ya go.

Oh. My. God…. What a game… What a game.

There’s never a dull-moment in the rivalry, is there?

Miami won a nail-biting heart-stopper at Doak Campbell stadium in Tallahassee against rival Florida State in their season opener on Labor Day, handing FSU head coach Bobby Bowden his first opening-day defeat in 15 years and his first ever at Doak Campbell Stadium.The game was not decided until the final second had ticked off the game clock, and even then the final play–an end-zone pass by Christian Ponder to wide receiver Jarmon Forston–turned out, after review, to be incomplete.

I swear, Bowden must have nightmares about the Miami Hurricanes. I’m sure he knew in his heart of hearts that if any program were to hand him a loss at home on Opening Day, it’d be the ‘Canes.

Brilliant performances were to be found on both sides of the gridiron, but fledgling Miami quarterback Jacory Harris grew up on national television in a sometimes-shaky, but otherwise mesmerizing performance on the field, racking up 386 passing yards and two touchdowns.

This is one of the very best college football games I have ever seen.

Good job, Canes!

I have taken home the ultimate BlueBehemoth souvenir: an actual cubicle!

When BlueBehemoth first closed its site here in South Florida and moved its personnel to several leased buildings in the area, they had to buy all new furniture for the refugees newly-moved employees. This Knoll cubicle is part of that original shipment.

Used by BlueBehemoth from 1996 to 2001, it changed hands when my current company was spun off from BlueBehemoth, and has served the spin-off for years. However, over those years, my company steadily shrank and headcount dwindled;  consequently, this particular cube had been sitting unoccupied at my office for several years–ultimately becoming a home for wayward marketing materials.

Now, with my current office consolidation, this cubicle became surplus–and given the glut of office closings due to the economy, brokers who deal in used office furniture and fixtures have found themselves with a huge surplus on their hands. Consequently, we have several cubes that we can scarcely give away.

So I decided to snag this one.

Here it is in my loft on the second floor of my house.

Aah, these were the days.

Even when I worked at BlueBehemoth, I only sat in a cube for less than a year–I moved into the lab shortly after my hiring, and now I have my own office.  However, I sat in one remarkably similar (and across the way) when I contracted for my current company with Thyme back in 2006.

Now that my oldest stepson has moved out and gone up to college, we moved T-Rex into his very own room (something he’s absolutely thrilled about), making way for me to move this cubicle into the loft. Believe it or not, dis-assembly and re-assembly of the cubicle was actually not at all difficult. The only two tools I needed were a Phillips-head screwdriver (for the desk), and a 5/16th Allen wrench for the walls. Everything else was snap-on, including the power, which I was able to wire into a neat 110v knife-plug and plug into the receptacle in the floor of the loft. And it was a one-man job, to boot: I dismantled it, loaded it into the truck, got it home, brought it up the stairs, and reassembled it–almost completely solo. About the only help I got was from Butterfly, who helped me wrestle the long-side desktop out of my truck and into the garage. I took it from there.

Before I acquired this primo piece of office real-estate, my “office” was relegated to a 6×6-foot walk-in closet in my bedroom–which I had to share with my wardrobe. Hardly the place to build and maintain computers, which I do at home on a semi-regular basis.  Now I have room to spread out and build machines to my heart’s content.

It should be noted that as much as Butterfly loves me, she hates this gray-and-green monstrosity in the house. But she is happy that I finally have an actual office that isn’t the size of a phone booth.

Many conservatives enraged over Obama school speech – CNN.com.

The latest controversy to swirl around our Commander-in-Chief’s head is the one where all the conservative folks are up-in-arms about Obama delivering a pep talk to kick off the school year

“‘Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me,’ suburban Colorado mother Shanneen Barron told CNN Denver affiliate KMGH. ‘I’m an American. They are Americans, and I don’t feel that’s OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now.’”

God forbid our leader should exercise his First-Amendment rights, or schoolchildren should hear a message from their president.

“Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer released a statement this week accusing Obama of using taxpayer money to “indoctrinate” children.

‘As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology,’ Greer said.”

Say–wasn’t Bush reading “My Pet Goat” to a classroom full of kids in Sarasota, Florida, when the attacks of September 11th took place? I suppose he was trying to indoctrinate them into the seedy underworld of animal husbandry.

“In November 1988, President Ronald Reagan delivered more politically charged remarks that were made available to students nationwide. Among other things, Reagan called taxes ’such a penalty on people that there’s no incentive for them to prosper … because they have to give so much to the government.’

Once again, I guess if you’re a Republican, it’s okay to make political statements to our nation’s schoolchildren? Is that the message I’m getting here?

“‘As far as I’m concerned this is not civics education — it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality,”‘ said Oklahoma state Sen. Steve Russell, a Republican.

Well. You really gotta work hard to make a Republican so mad he’ll quote a song by Living Colour. You mean to tell me that Dubyah didn’t have his own “cult of personality,” as Senator Russell so indelicately puts it? Well than how did a complete and utter moron manage to get elected to the highest offiice in the land, not once, but twice!?

In washington, of couse, it’s all about spin; I reckon if you’re party’s leader is in power, he has a “strong following.” If the other guy’s party’s leader is in power, it’s because they have a “cult of personality.”

Really, when you boil it down, this is just a bunch of political grandstanding by embarrassed conservatives grasping at any straw, no matter how ridiculous or absurd, to distract people from the fact that their party had complete and total carte blanche for eight years and in that time have managed to drive this country to the brink of complete ruin.

…before I had those two shots of Jager.

By the way, the show is much easier to cope with when the host has a couple of Jager shots in his system.

I tried to tough it out. I really did.

They’re installing new carpeting in our offices, and the adhesive they’re using had given me the most ginormous headache I’d had in a long time. It’s still full-on string, even though I left the office at 1 and took a couple of Naproxin Sodium in an attempt to banish it.

I was feeling so rotten that I ended up getting to my show about a half hour late. I’m so ready to call it quits on the Thursday show–it’s at a smokers’ bar and I’m sick to death of smelling like an ashtray afterwards.