Closed for the Season

I am leaving for Tampa this Friday, so I think we're about done with this blog for 2005. Perhaps it's the stress of getting ready for the trip back, but I can't make sense out of anything I'm reading about these days. Here are the last links for the year, along with some fairly feeble attempts to see the irony in each. Bear with me today, and I hope to be back in full snark in 2006.

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From Red A: I know why America is great, by Gianluca Zanna. While I am not unfamiliar with the experience of people having immense patriotism for their adopted homeland, Mr. Zanna seems... misguided? What's the word to describe someone who puts way too much effort into a tertiary aspect of an issue? Is there a word for that? There should be.


In Australia, there are Apocalyptic, civilization-ending race riots going on. Or perhaps there are drunken gangs of welfare state yobbos engaging in turf wars, just like the Italian and Greek immigrants did in Australia 30 years ago. Depends on whether you believe the media or believe Terry, who has an interesting take on the subject. Terry, if you read this, please give the rest of us a synopsis of the points you made so eloquently Monday night. Also, is 'yobbo' some kind of Australian slang? I hope so. If not, substitute 'bogans' for 'yobbos' in the above sentence.


A topic that has been burning through the blogs and boards is the 'War on Christmas'. John Gibson wrote a book:

The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought.

and Philosopher-Sage Extraordinaire Bill O'reilly has jumped on this blazing bandwagon. I think that this is an innovative and groundbreaking point of view. Remember how back in the day, all you ever heard was old fogey complaints about the commercialization of Christmas? How it was too focused on shopping and presents, and had lost its original and true meaning? Well, in a brilliant display of rhetorical jiu-jitsu, Gibson and O'Reilly have stunned the left by arguing that Christmas is now not commercial enough! Brilliant move, and I applaud it. Let's get Christmas out of the church and the home and back where it belongs. In Sears.

And a quick note to all you liberals out there- I may be an incoherent drunken fool, but I'm still technically a liberal. So next time we put together a plot to Ban Sacred Christian Holidays, somebody make sure I get a copy of the memo.