WTF?!?!?! Our National Championship

…and she sings…America the Beautiful?!?!?!

Oh, we are PISSED.

UPDATE: There IS no prettier song than the Nation Anthem. But there’s been a save ~ Josh Groban and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are doing a killer job on it right now. KILLER.

Bravo.

UPDATE Redux: Oh noes! Colt McCoy back to the locker room! I’d love for ‘Bama to win, but not THAT way. C’mon COLT!!!

What A Cool Photo

The story is here.

Rob ~ Cover Your Ears and Look Away

Roll Tide

Perhaps The Slight Fever I’ve Had…

has affected me more than I thought. I was making myself some curried macaroni and cheese the other day and when I saw this

I immediately interpreted it as a sign from the divine of this

maybe I should have saved it and sold it on eBay?

Well, Gosh I Feel Safer Already!

Just knowing that New Jersey’s Senatorial Dynamic Duo is on the job

NEWARK – This morning, on the northern end of Newark, Gov.-elect Chris Christie attended the North Ward Center’s Three Kings celebration at the Cathedral Basilica, while U.S. senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez took turns at a podium in front of the ticket counters at Newark Liberty Airport and called for beefed up security measures at the site of a holiday breach.

“This can be attributed to a management failure,” Lautenberg said of Sunday’s incident, when a man walked through an exit door and left undetected and unidentified.

But I thought the system worked?

And once again, it was not the exceedingly expensive Government Agency that responded to the incident

On Sunday in Newark, a bystander waiting for relatives noticed the unidentified man who bypassed security and entered Terminal C, a “sterile area,” through an exit door.

The bystander notified the officer assigned to guard the exit, who hadn’t seen the man enter.

The guards have other, more pressing tasks.

Like asking Michael Yon what his income is.

So Here’s the Headline and the Bad News:

New, Colder Weekend Freeze Looms for the Gulf Coast

Another, potentially colder outbreak of arctic air will threaten the fruit and vegetable industry beginning this weekend in the South.

The upcoming outbreak will hit in southern Texas first Friday night, then it will expand eastward across the Gulf Coast into Florida later in the weekend.

Temperatures could drop into the teens and lower 20s for a number of hours in southern Louisiana. Approximately 40 percent of U.S. sugar production comes from from the state.

AccuWeather.com Expert Agricultural Meteorologist Dale Mohler warns that temperatures this low could cause significant damage to Louisiana sugar cane. Record-challenging, wet weather this fall has also slowed the harvest.

…and all I can do is hope and pray for the day when BIOfuels are our primary energy source and we finally defeat Al Gore’s Weirdness once and for all. Woohoo!!

Lord, ain’t it GREAT have a plan!

What Were All Those Cost Revenue Projections Again?

I think we may come up even shorter than this:

…Tax receipts for calendar 2009 will be about $2.04 trillion. That’s down about $530 billion, or 20%, from calendar 2008 (after adding back that year’s stimulus payments). The steepness of the decline in collections in an economy that contracted less than 4%, and where average employment declined by less than 5%, is proof positive that the “going Galt” phenomenon was very real in 2009.

Let me use a gaggingly familiar repetitive phrase from my favoritest broken record guy: “As I’ve said repeatedly”…so. While what we owe is all part and parcel of their projections, it’s pretty damn hard to sh*t Uncle Sam’s remaining portion of your taxes when you’re unemployed ~ especially if your former employment was of a variable income nature (with your final reckoning/liability calculated/payable at tax time), leaving you with a hefty wad o’cash due. Where do you come up with Caesar’s tribute?

Not to mention what 14 million plus people unemployed/under-employed will now do for 2010’s receipts.

Good luck projecting that.

Quote of the Day

“I absolutely loved having bigger boobs, but I don’t want to short-change Australia either.”

The end.

Why WORSHIP at the Altar of False Gods

…when you can eat them?

Touch and be touched by His Noodley Appendage.
(THIS is what constitutes “true” genius. While simultaneously feeding the hungry and contributing to world peace.)

Divine indeed, n’est pas?

Dodd Won’t Seek Re-Election

On one hand it’s great, of course, as the more of these corrupt politicians who get pushed aside the better. I would have preferred, of course, for him to have run and then lost in the general election, as that would take the seat out of Democratic hands. We’ll just have to see what sort of candidates are fielded against Blumenthal, assuming he runs. While in theory he is “popular” he is also a self-serving AG in the style of Eliot Spitzer, and I think that those comparisons will be played up over the coming months.

The Democrats clearly see that they have a lot of blood in the water, and there’s a lot of strong-arming going on to get their weaker incumbents to bow out now so the Party Machine has time to get the replacements anointed.

This is going to be a very interesting, nasty and expensive election cycle this year.

And a vitally important one.

In A Spirit Of Patriotic Fervor

Claude has decided to volunteer for the TSA at Newark Airport.

They clearly could use someone with his skills and Can-Do initiative:

Now That The Holiday Extravagence Has Ended

The Box is back in town!

Snow Buzzard

I had bought a nice big honking roasting buzzard a few weeks ago that I was going to make a fricassee with on the day we had the big storm. But after shoveling for several hours I frankly didn’t have the energy. So what to make? When in doubt, I reach for Marcella.

(I hope my Bride knows what I mean by that)

Anyhow, since I had one of these lying about

And a couple of these

it was a given that I was going to make her classic Two Lemon Chicken, just about the simplest, divinest piece of poultriarchal joy that will ever cross your lips.

Roll the lemons on the counter to allow them to commune with their inner juiciness; use a reasonable amount of pressure…they like it

now take a bamboo skewer or other appropriately sharp and strongly pointy implement and puncture a multitudinous array of holes in the lemons as if you were practicing some nasty lemon voodoo

Juice will ooze out.

Here’s an interesting random fact: If you have the slightest, most tiniest-and-insignificant of blisters on your hand

from, oh, say having spent the weightier portion of your waking hours that day shoveling your driveway, well sir, those tasty oozles of lemon juice that are casting off the mortal cloak of their now artfully punctured rind will find it and sweet baby jeebus will it burn with all the fiery napalmic hell of Jihadi Depends.

I cussed and jumped around.

A lot.

Having survived that, we now face the rather delicate introduction of the Lemon Brothers with Ms. Buzzard

So that’s where they come from…

Anyhow, salt and pepper the Beastette all over and lightly tie the legs together and place the buzzard in a roasting rack, boobs-down, in a preheated oven at 350º for 30 minutes

then flip to Pamelas-up for another 35 minutes or so

then raise the heat to 400º and cook ’til done.

Don’t depend totally on the little pop-up thermometers that are in the buzzard as they will usually err on the side of over-done Sahara style dryness. Or, occasionally and as was the case with this particular buzzard, the pop-up was not properly inserted into the buzzard (it had been put in at a very shallow angle) so it popped up after about 20 minutes of cooking; umm, chicken carpaccio…my favorite!

The instant-read thermometer and the clear running juices told me it was done perfectly, and indeed it was.

plated up with a side of Zatarain’s Black Beans and Rice it made for a tasty and pretty easy meal. The chicken comes out incredibly most and subtly lemon-flavored.

AGW Dateline Pensacola: Twenty Five Balmy Degrees Here This Morning

Weatherunderground has us at 16 for Tuesday and Wednesday’s lows. I don’t think this year’s snow birds are getting much relief.

(I think AGW stands for “Al Gore’s a Wiener”.)

Welcome to Florida!

UPDATE: Are you sh*ttin’ me?!?!!?

Thursday
Cloudy. Slight chance of rain in the morning…then chance of rain and light sleet in the afternoon. Highs 44 to 49. Chance of rain 30 percent.

Thursday Night
Breezy. Mostly cloudy. Chance of snow in the evening…then slight chance of snow after midnight. Lows 25 to 30. Chance of snow 30 percent.

Oh, man! THIS is delicious.

Happy Freakin’ New Year

I mean it.