Christmas traditions, anyone?

At my aunt's house for our annual Christmas Eve dinner with the cousins.

When my grandmother was alive we would all gather at her house in the city, order pizza, then open the gifts we bought for ourselves on behalf of grandma and act surprised. Now we do big dinners with lots of Greek food - tonight's specialties are pastitsio and spanakopita, along with ham and that great cool whip jello. Then tomorrow morning is Christmas breakfast at mom's, where my brother in law (Carmella's dad) does the cooking, a big box o' joe from Dunkin Donuts keeping us company.

How about you guys? Any holiday traditions? And invading foreign countries for a lie doesn't count. Read the rest of this post...

The Washington City Paper used to be such a nice read. Now, not so much.

The City Paper is preparing a hit piece on investigative reporter Murray Waas, and you really need to hear the audio recordings of their interviews with him. I was blown away by how utterly rude and unprofessional (and crazed) the City Paper reporter was. It was beyond bizarre. Waas just kept responding politely and meekly to the reporter's questions - including the reporter's grilling of Waas for being a cancer survivor (apparently, surviving cancer is now a mark against your record, in addition to it being a suitable topic for public dissection against your wishes), while the reporter went off in a screaming rage about fuck-this and fuck-that. Seriously, it is one of the most unprofessional incidents I have ever witnessed in professional journalism, and that includes years of watching FOX News and reading the Washington Times. The City Paper's behavior in putting together this story was sickening.

It's sad. I used to love the City Paper.

(Full Disclosure, I guess: I went to graduate school with the current editor of the City Paper. He was always a nice guy, there's no ill will at all between us. Just figured I'd mention it anyway.) Read the rest of this post...

The Gospel of Judas

I watched a special on it last night on MSNBC. I really wished I went to see it when they had it at the National Geographic headquarters in DC. Anyway, can someone explain why this is so controversial? I found it fascinating, and don't really find the notion of Judas being in cahoots with Christ all that earth-shattering. I mean, it's not like the new gospel suggests that Jesus wasn't really the son of God or anything. Also, from a religious right "literal interpretation of the Bible" perspective, I'm rather fascinated that there were some 30 or so gospels at the beginning and someone arbitrarily picked 4 to go in the Bible. That's a bit disturbing, especially as it concerns those who say the Bible is the literal word of God - what happened to the 80% of the rest of the literal word they simply chose to throw out? Read the rest of this post...

Top US military commander in Iraq succumbs to Bush's pressure, at the expense of our troops

I remember a day when our generals actually had balls. Now they're simply pathetic. They objected to sending more troops to Iraq, but because Bush wants it, now they're in favor. They're condemning our men and women to death for a policy they know is a failure. Why? Because they're not man enough to stand up for their own. So Bush will continue to say that he will make policy in Iraq based on what the generals want, and the generals will keep on genuflecting to Bush even when they oppose his policies. That spells disaster. It also spells a lot of unnecessary death and injuries for our troops. Too bad our generals don't seem to care about that fact.

Funny, but when Clinton was considering lifting the ban on gays in the military, all the military was up in arms, and all the top generals - starting at the top with Colin Powell - practically mutinied. But when Bush decides to continue a criminally negligent war that is a disaster, all because he's too arrogant and stupid to change course, our generals sit back and shut up. I guess the deaths of 3,000 of our soldiers aren't nearly as big a deal to the generals as a couple of gay guys wanting to enlist.

Pathetic. Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Looks like we're headed for a bunch of uselessness on the Sunday talk shows. Laura Bush and Lynne Cheney? If you're going to watch Russert, read this post on Think Progress first:

ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C; U.N. Secretary-General-designate Ban Ki-moon; former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara Bush.

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CBS' "Face the Nation" - First Lady Laura Bush.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" - Rev. Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life"; Newsweek editor Jon Meacham.

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CNN's "Late Edition" - Repeats of past interviews with President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others.

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"Fox News Sunday" - Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney; Archbishop of Washington Donald Wuerl; Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of evangelist Billy Graham.

I'll be driving to Maine, but I don't think I'm going to miss a thing on these shows today. Commentary, please. And, I know it's Christmas, but don't hold back -- especially on Laura and Lynne. Read the rest of this post...

Now there's science back up parents who dislike noisy toys

As the Christmas gifts are being opened, there will be plenty of parents with the infamous look of dread (not to mention loathing in the direction of the gift giver) as kids jump onto the noisiest gift in the bunch. Somehow the batteries always died quickly when I was a kid or the noisy bit would just stop on it's own or so I thought.

"With most toys, your child will only damage their hearing if they use them for too long a duration, or if they stick them in their ear," Dr. Brad Backus, a research fellow at University College London's Ear Institute who performed the study, said in a press release. "Our advice is pretty simple: don't let your child hold noisy toys too close to their ear, and don't let them play with them for more than an hour a day."

There you have it. Science is on your side. Good luck pitching this one though in the excitement of the moment.

So is everyone ready for Christmas? Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Have at it. Read the rest of this post...