2009 REVISITED, JIB-JAB STYLE

You might want to view this video a few times, because it's fast. And if you don't want to comment, it's okay, because most of you already posted New Year's resolutions on the last blog. Enjoy.

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SENATE UNVEILS CompromiseCare™

WASHINGTON - The United States Senate today unveiled details of its health care plan, tentatively called CompromiseCare™:

• Under CompromiseCare™, people with no coverage will be allowed to keep their current plan.
• Medicare will be extended to 55-year-olds as soon as they turn 65.
• You will have access to cheap Canadian drugs if you live in Canada.
• States whose names contain vowels will be allowed to opt out of the plan.
• You get to choose which doctor you cannot afford to see.
• You will not have to be pre-certified to qualify for cremation.
• A patient will be considered "pre-existing" if he or she already exists.
• You'll be free to choose between medications and heating fuel.
• Patients can access quality health care if they can prove their name is "Lieberman."
• You will be entitled to natural remedies, such as death.

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THROW ANOTHER BLOG ON THE FIRE, IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!

Although this is a festive time of year, it can also be a difficult and stressful time for a certain group - a group whose needs, all too often, are overlooked in our society. That group is: men.

Why is the Christmas season so hard on men? There are many complex reasons, by which I mean: women.

This problem dates back to the very first Christmas. We know from the Bible that the Wise Men showed up in Bethlehem and gave the baby Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Now, gold is always a nice gift, but frankincense and myrrh - at least according to my dictionary - are gum resins. Who gives gum resins to a baby?

The answer is: men. The Wise Men, being men, didn't even START shopping for gifts until the last minute, when most of the stores in the greater Bethlehem area were closed for Christmas Eve. The only place still open was Big Stu's House of Myrrh.

So the Wise Men showed up at the manger, handed their baby gifts to Mary, and headed for the eggnog. Mary looked at the gifts - which were not wrapped, nor were they accompanied by cards - rolled her eyes, tossed the gum resins to the goats (who ate them) and said: "Next Christmas, we are going to have some gift-giving RULES." But the Wise Men didn't hear her, because by then they were over by the crib trying to teach the Baby Jesus to pull their finger.

This is basically how things stand today. At this point in the Christmas season, your standard woman has already purchased and wrapped thoughtful gifts for approximately 600 people, including her children, her relatives, her friends, her husband's relatives, the children of her friends, relatives of children of her friends, etc. She has also purchased several thoughtful gifts for nobody in particular, so she will not be in the horrifying position of receiving a gift from somebody for whom she does not have a retaliation gift.

In contrast, your standard man, at this point in the Christmas season, has purchased zero gifts. He has not yet gotten around to purchasing an acceptable gift for his wife for LAST Christmas. He did give her something last year, but he could tell by her reaction to it that this gift violated an important rule, but the man had no idea what this rule was, and his wife was too upset to tell him.

And now ANOTHER Christmas is looming, and this man, terrified that he will screw up again, has been wracking his brain for gift ideas for his wife. Nothing like last year: He won't make THAT mistake again! He's thinking vacuum cleaner.

But he's not sure. He's a nervous wreck. A lot of us men are. That's why we buy gifts at the very last minute, or, optionally, never. It's not that we're thoughtless jerks!

Well, OK, thoughtless. But not jerks! We're doing our best to get through a stressful season. So on behalf of all men, I ask all you women to cut us some slack; and accept us for the imperfect beings that we are compared to you. And give us a clue as to what you'd like, right down to the exact URL for the actual gift; don't say, "Surprise me," unless you really really want a vacuum cleaner (with our luck we'd get the wrong model anyway, and those fuckers are impossible to wrap).

DISCLAIMER: Today's blog in no way refers to either Doc or Buffy. Really. We both have our gifts to each other wrapped and ready to give. The part about the woman having already 'purchased and wrapped thoughtful gifts for approximately 600 people' is an exaggeration for comic effect and does not refer specifically to Buffy, who has surpassed the 600 number significantly and still has more wrapping to do.



And Lastly, to all my Faithful Readers/Commenters:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "AMERICA" in the Western Hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, or religious faith, of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Happy Christmahannakwanzika to all!

- Doc -



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SANTA INJURED IN MYSTERIOUS NORTH POLE SLEIGH ACCIDENT (ANY RESEMBLANCE TO TIGER WOODS IS PURELY SATIRICAL)

NORTH POLE - Santa Claus is reportedly recovering from injuries and lacerations incurred around 2:30 a.m. Saturday when he flew his sleigh into the famous North Pole pole, which is situated about 10 yards beyond the end of his workshop's driveway.

According to North Pole Fire Department reports, he had been extracted from the sleigh by his wife, Mrs. Claus, who came out of their house with a giant candy cane and used it to bludgeon three of Claus's flying reindeer to death in an attempt to free him from the vehicle.

Their identities have been withheld until the families could be notified, but it is speculated that the casualties may include Donner, Prancer and Blitzen.

"It's odd, because he's flown past that pole a million times before without incident - literally, a million," said one North Pole resident who asked to be identified only as Hermey. "Also, he's never out that late, except on Christmas Eve, and by that time he's usually flying somewhere over Belize."

The incident comes on the heels of a report last week alleging that Santa had engaged in a protracted affair with an anonymous woman, later identified in Us magazine as 'Doll' from the Island of Misfit Toys. Doll, 45, not only admitted to an affair, she also provided Us with photos and hundreds of "racy" text messages to prove it, such as one in which Santa tells her that she's on his "very naughty list."

She also provided a voice mail in which Santa tells her that Mrs. Claus had searched his iPhone contacts and might be calling her, and that if she did, Doll should tell her she's been involved in a long-term committed relationship with the Charlie-in-a-Box.

Still, Santa's defenders have noted that Doll has a long history of emotional instability, having also been linked to Yukon Cornelius, the cowboy who rides an ostrich and Scott Stapp of Creed.

"Everybody always wondered what made her a misfit toy," noted Hermey. "I'll tell you what it was - it was because she's got an effing screw loose."

Still, many say it's not surprising that Santa would have his extramarital dalliances.

"He flies around the world - that's a lot of ports of call, if you get my drift," said Playboy magazine mogul Hugh Hefner when asked about the controversy. "Why wouldn't Santa have something else going on? He's famous, attractive and youthful. Err, at least compared to me.

"And I've had sex with a different woman every night since 1953," he pointed out.

Santa, for his part, released a statement apologizing for his "transgressions," and noting that in the future he plans to be "good for goodness' sake," as required by his recently renegotiated prenuptial agreement.

He also requested that children stop asking "How is Mrs. Claus?" in their letters to him.

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RUSH LIMBAUGH SLAMS GOD FOR DITHERING, FAILED LEADERSHIP

President Obama has been accused by Rush Limbaugh of 'dithering' by taking the autumn to review options for Afghanistan before announcing them the other day (interesting word, 'dithering' - say it repeatedly and it's almost like lithping). Anyway, it gave me the idea to do today's blog from a familiar but skewed Limbaugh perspective:

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has taken his recent rant against President Barack Obama to a new level and has now launched a verbal assault on the Lord Almighty Himself. During a second interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace, Limbaugh lambasted God for various shortcomings and a lack of attentiveness.

"The creator in which we're all endowed? What does that mean?" Limbaugh railed during the as-yet-unaired interview. "I'm not a black man; I'm not very well endowed. Every human being looks different. How can we all possibly be made in His image?

"Sending your son Jesus down to Earth to 'check things out' and then watching him get strung up on a cross and doing nothing - what's that about?" Limbaugh continued uninterrupted. "This may sound controversial, but I don't think He really cares. I don't think God cares what happens here on Earth."

When Wallace asked Limbaugh his thoughts on the Son of God, the Republican talking head said Jesus Christ was "pompous, a bit of a windbag, and wrong."

Limbaugh's rant against the Supreme Being went on for just shy of 30 minutes and remained relatively unchecked by Wallace, who at one point was caught by the camera massaging the corns on Limbaugh's chapped, dry feet. Pundits say even when Wallace did push Limbaugh on certain topics, his questions were "as soft as that man's heels after applying the moisturizer."

"I don't recall voting, but apparently Rush is now the de facto head of the human race," said The Nation magazine editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel. "Guess he didn't learn anything from Pat Robertson. Rush is headstrong, a head case, and headed to hell.

"Say hi to Karl Rove when you get there," Vanden Heuvel added.

At one point during the interview, Limbaugh looked as if he was going to spontaneously combust, so Fox News producers did pause it momentarily to allow him to down some painkillers. Limbaugh then proceeded to call out God for "treating Earth like a giant game of Yoville" and "trying to placate human suffering by sending us a black chair with ottoman."

"Let me put it to you this way. The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost all wrapped into one?" Limbaugh said. "I think he's narcissistic, has an out of this world ego, and can't possibly have created this entire place in seven days.

"I mean, it takes longer than that to get a contractor to come install a wood floor for crying out loud," Limbaugh noted.

The Rush Limbaugh interview will air on a future Fox News Sunday program when the Republicans are in need of some slanderous press in order to push an anti-Christian agenda for political gain.


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