Yesterday, my friend that’s also my hired helper stood me up, complicating my life somewhat, because I need her to do some of the things that I cannot. I did most of the research for these articles early yesterday morning, before exhaustion set in . Tomorrow is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, but I don’t get to meditate, because Comcast provided me such terrible service.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:48 (average 5:08). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From NY Times: …As the sun rose on Friday, senators had worked through a second straight late-night session — called by Democrats as a way of retaliating for Republicans’ delaying tactics on confirmations. They held their first vote of the day at 7 a.m., confirming Deborah James to be secretary of the Air Force. And absent a compromise, they may still be voting through Saturday, a prospect that has thrilled no one.
…Republicans, furious that Democrats last month stripped away most of their power to filibuster presidential nominations, are using every procedural barricade available to them in the Senate’s two-century-old rule book, forcing it to run the clock as long as possible while they vote on a series of President Obama’s nominees…
…Democrats, hoping to make the situation so unpleasant for their colleagues across the aisle that they eventually break, are scheduling votes at all hours of the day and night. Mr. Reid is threatening to refuse to let anyone go home until a backlog of dozens of nominees is gone — even if that means spending Christmas Eve in the Capitol.
Mr. Reid has votes planned through Saturday afternoon and will push through another battery of nominations next week, including some that would each require 30 hours of debate, like that of Janet L. Yellen to lead the Federal Reserve…
Awww… The poor widdle Filibastards have their panties in a bunch, because they are being prevented from sabotaging America. If they don’t like the hours, let them take a long flying ____ off a short pier into a toxic waste dump.
From Alternet: Jon Stewart has had enough of Fox News’ ongoing fake War On Christmas. On Thursday night’s show, the Daily Show host slammed Fox News’ Megyn Kelly for her obsession with the race of both Santa and Jesus.
Stewart first mocked Fox host Gretchen Carlson for losing her temper over a Festivus pole, before laying into Kelly for her provocative reassurance to children that Santa is white.
These Faux Noise idiots from the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda are dead wrong. SantaCat has both black and white fur.
From Raw Story: An American who went missing in Iran six years ago worked for the CIA and was not in the country on a business trip as US officials had claimed, US media reported.
In a case that had long been shrouded in secrecy, the Associated Press and The Washington Post published lengthy reports revealing how retired FBI agent Robert Levinson had been paid by the CIA to gather intelligence.
Levinson flew to an Iranian resort, Kish Island, in March 2007 to investigate corruption in the country, with hopes of also gleaning information about Tehran’s suspect nuclear program, the reports said.
But he vanished, and US officials have publicly said that he was a private citizen traveling on private business.
In violation of CIA rules, a team of analysts had hired Levinson — a seasoned FBI agent with expert knowledge about Russian criminal circles — to gather intelligence, the AP and the Post wrote.
When Congress finally learned what had taken place, the agency sacked three analysts and seven others faced disciplinary action.
No doubt Republicans will be claiming that President Obama ordered him to Iran in 2007.
Cartoon:
16-year old Ethan Couch was driving drunk at THREE times the legal limit and had Valium in his system. He plowed into four people going 70 miles per hour in a 40 mile per hour zone, killing them. Other victims are severely injured; one has severe brain damage. Even after he killed and maimed those people, he was uncooperative and combative with the emergency services and walked away from the police saying 