As Steve notes, now komodo dragons have joined the War Against Christmas.

Scaley bastards!

I am heartened by this New York Times story. As we have found out, often painfully, Republicans can't govern. Yet, Democrats, at least up until this past cycle, had been having an equally tough time winning since the 90s ended.

So the fact that Democrats are shoring up potentially vulnerable House members for 2008 before they are even sworn in this year, by giving them good committee assigments and the like, is good news that Dems are finally understanding how this game is played.

I don't believe that old saying "good policy makes good politics" always to be true (sadly, see segregation in the 1960s, for example), but it certainly can be. And it should be, in the case of furthering progressive interests by passing meaningful legislation, but also making sure our members continue to hold their seats.

Bob gets it exactly right here, except maybe he's a bit too kind for my taste :)

I'll be hosting a book salon over at Firedoglake this Sunday at 5PM EST, where my friend Jen Abrahamson will be live to answer any and all questions regarding her new book, Sweet Relief: The Marla Ruzicka Story. I know, it's Christmas Eve. But you will find no more inspiring tale for the holidays.

So if you are one of those people who really ticks O'Reilly off around Christmas time--you know who you are, you non-merry-Christmas-uttering-animists--or even if you plan to celebrate this holiday, but can get a moment off from the egg nog, please come by and join us.

And, as I said in an earlier post here, it makes a great gift, so buy Jen's book!

Ok so now I'm procrastinating on book proposal edits...But I digress.

Much like with the Judith Regan V. Rupert Murdoch saga, who do you root for in this one?

You wanna know how far Republicans will go to distance themselves from this pathetic, failure of a president/person? Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, one of the Republicans trying to establish himself as a conservative in next year's Republican presidential primary field, just actually called himself a "Jeb Bush-type conservative."

I guess he doesn't even see the irony there, that he has to reach down to a governor to ignore the member of this family, who is, you know, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

Man it must hurt...Still can't mesaure up to your littl bro, can ya W.?

Posting here is always a bit spotty, but will definitely be so from here on in throughout the HOLIDAYS (take that O'Reilly).

I'll be on the road starting early tomorrow. But will post when I can.

Happy Holidays All!

Don't look now but penguins are again making people gay.

I don't know how the institution of marriage will survive yet another asault on its very fabric (especially if they are soy-eating penguins)...

USA's Top Crop = Weed.

Our drug policy works about as well as our catching Osama policy...Except we actually throw pot users in prison, unlike drunks like our president until age 45 or so...

Wow, it's amazing, we're winning in Iraq!

Let's send more troops, Sir McCain!

Your kids have their defective body armor ready to strap on and go forth for your presidential ambitions?

Just go read this piece by Cenk Uygur, a good friend and A Young Turk, about Iraq and the Democrats' continuing "plantation mentality."

It is absolutely correct. Spot on. I will have more to say about this myself sometime soon.

My friend Joshua Holland, over at The Gadflyer (where I do also post sometimes), has a great piece on how somebody is making robocalls to members of Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army in Iraq. Go give it a read.

As Joshua points out, you may remember that these annoying calls, replete with insults, hangups, slander, you name it, were made in at least 20 districts to thousands of voters by Republicans with the goal in mind of suppressing votes and stemming their losses at the polls.

And sadly, their sleaziness probably paid off, as somewhere around 10 Democrats lost by 1 point or less, with two Democrats in Ohio alone losing by razor-thin margins.

Well, we said we wanted to bring our Democracy to Iraq...

Great profile at The Nation of Rockie Anderson, the populist-progressive Mayor of Salt Lake City (yes, in that state that gave Bush 70%+ of its vote) who stood up and called President Bush "the worst president ever" among other things in a huge rally last August...

Sadly, he ain't gonna win statewide, because, well, it's Utah (he has locally adopted the Kyoto Protocols and believes in gay marriage, for example, and stands up for other controversial things he believes in too--crazy stuff, like preventing drug abuse through education and treatment as opposed to throwing everyone in prison). And obviously he also couldn't win his own state as a national candidate.

But I hope that there's a Congressional seat for him to run in (there could be, as I understand it, a potential future deal in the works to give Utah an extra House seat and give DC a voting seat too--with Republicans expecting to claim that extra Utah seat to make up for a sure loss in DC--wouldn't it be fantastic if Rocky could win the Utah race if part of the district is in Salt Lake City?).

This man is a true Profile In Courage

Judith Regan was fired. Now that's a gosh darn shame.

I guess at least she'll have more time to reunite with long lost love Bernie Kerik and put together her next book by Mark Foley: If I Touched It.

Rick Santorum Alert! You'll understand if you read the headline.