That's Burris, Not Burress!

Wow, for a minute I thought Blago had appointed Plaxico Burress to the Senate ?!?!

Vacation

Obviously I haven't been posting much, but this will soon change. Have been preoccupied with real life: Christmas, and now a little vacation at the country palace. Sort of hard to get exorcised about Israelis in Gaza (finally!) Blago's antics, the departure of Bush etc., when there's Christmas. The world isn't going anywhere, and there's plenty of time to comment. Moreover, the un-assing of un-lamented 2008 is approaching, which promises to make me a much happier camper.

On vacation (of sorts) but I have a cold. Possibly this is why SWMBO elected to stay in Cuidad El Jefe. Have all kinds of interesting medications to take: I have a cough syrup with dosages written in medico-speak. I'm supposed to take "5 CC's before bed." Well, that's clever. I gave up the intravenous drug habit, so no syringes are around. Wonder how much that is in non-doctor-speak? Possibly this is the pharmacist's revenge for my walking up to the Kroger pharmacy counter and asking her to fill my prescriptions and telling her that, oh yeah, I'd like to buy 1,477 boxes of Oxy-Contin for my runny nose. They seem to take a dim view of that. Probably like bad jokes in airports.

In any case, I will be back to regular posting soon. God knows, there's enough to talk about.

Pistols, Football

El Jefe, unusually, has spent the weekend in Ciudad El Jefe. Off to the Titans/Texans game in a minute with the Heir and his friend B. SWMBO is a bit under the weather, so it's just us.

Went to the pistol range yesterday, and spent an hour or so with my latest purchase, a Beretta 92FS, (Wikipedia entry here: the military calls it the M9). Have wanted this pistol for years, and, recently, finally broke down and bought one. I first tried one years ago, and was very impressed, and have coveted one since. I am very pleased with it: the weapon is not heavy, loads reasonably easily, has a smooth action, and I can hit the target. Easy to field-strip and to clean also. Being a double-action/single action pistol, the first trigger pull is a very long one, which takes a tad getting used to, and I think makes my first shot less accurate. But it's a fine weapon and the Beretta people (in the firearms business since 1526), are justly proud of it.

Off to the game. Hopefully the Texans do better than predicted.

Blog Business

El Jefe has been blogging less of late, but hopefully this slump will not be a permanent condition. After the turn of the year, things should pick up a spell. No doubt the incoming Supreme Leader will supply plenty of fodder for comment.

Also, the blogroll badly needs to be updated. Blogrolling has apparently died: El Jefe has hoped for its resurrection, but patience is fading. There are other possibilities, as well as template modifications, labels, etc., that I do want to get to eventually.

Missing Ballots? Uh huh...

The US Senate race in Minnesota remains undecided. Incumbent Senator Norm Coleman (a Republican), won on election day, but the margin was close enough to legally require a recount. With the re-tabulation process about 99 percent complete, Senator Coleman still maintains a lead of about 300 votes over the Democratic (more correctly Democratic-Farmer-Labor) challenger, the very liberal and very repulsive Al Franken.

But now (gasp!) CNN is reporting that there are apparently missing ballots in Minneapolis. Simply shocking, isn't it? Completion of the recount is on hold until the "missing" votes are found. The "missing" envelope supposedly contains about 130 ballots. "Simply put," thunders the Franken campaign, "these ballots must be found."

You saw this one coming, right? What do you bet those "missing" ballots are found? What do you bet more ballots turn up "missing?" What do you bet they finally find, oh, say, 300 votes for Al Franken?

UPDATE: (8 Dec. 2008). Sure enough, the Franken people today say more ballots have been found in some warehouse in Minneapolis. Imagine that!

So Who Is Obama Anyway?

I've got a secret, I've been hiding, under my skin.
My heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain IBM.
So if you see me acting strangely, don't be surprised,
I'm just a man who needed someone, and somewhere to hide
To keep me alive-just keep me alive.
. . .
The time has come at last
To throw away this mask
So everyone can see.
My true identity...
I'm Kilroy! Kilroy! Kilroy! Kilroy!

Styx, "Mr. Roboto" (written by Dennis DeYoung, from album Kilroy was Here, A&M Records, 1983).

I agree with a friend of mine that President-Elect Obama is much more likable (at least so far) than candidate Obama. On the whole, Obama's announced appointments have been more judicious than I have expected. I'm dubious about the Attorney-General designate; and putting Senator Clinton at the State Department has the drawbacks I've previously mentioned. But on the whole, Obama has proceeded to assemble a reasonably sane-looking team. In particular, I am pleased that Robert Gates is staying at the Pentagon for now.

Not everybody is happy, of course. Robert Scheer, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, seems worried about Obama's going to "Wall Street insiders" bearing "comforting" messages for the financial community, and deplores that Obama is sticking with the "absurd 'war on terror" language he inherited from Bush" in discussing the Bombay terrorist attacks. Mr. Scheer fears that "superstar" Obama "on which it all hangs," he of the "big" brain, the "fresh" style -- ". . .may stop being Obama, the agent of change who electrified a nation."

We should be so lucky! No fear liberals, no fear. You don't need to remind Obama to be Obama, any more than Reagan's True Believers needed to beg the world to "Let Reagan Be Reagan." St. Barack's got a bagful of presents for you and trouble for the rest of us, and he's buying quiet and cover to get them unwrapped with encouragingly sound appointments. Why quibble about appointments the markets and circumstances are going to force him into anyway?

Still, you wonder just who this man Obama is, that so many of our fellow citizens decided to fetch into the President's House. In large part, Obama won because he's not a Republican, and because he said absolutely nothing of any consequence, and did it in such a polished, uplifting way. In his book The Audacity of Hope, the Hoped for Sainted One told us that "I serve as a blank screen, on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."

And there you have it from the Great One himself -- we just don't know who Obama is, and he's not telling, yet. Mr. Scheer, like so many others, has his own ideas about what Hope and Change might look like; but, like the rest of us, he has no clue what's on the screen next, or who will get to project their views there. Mr. Scheer, and all of us, have no choice now but to stay tuned.