I do solemnly swear

In the post before last I wrote about the oath of office for our Congress critters.

Cheers and Jeers suggests new oaths for each party.

The three best lines of the day from one place, so far

“Huckabee Proposes to Replace Social Security With ‘Loaves and Fish’ Program”

“Clinton Campaign Accuses Obama of Sniffing Mimeograph Paper in Kindergarten”

“Mitchell Report Concludes Bush Should’ve Used Performance-Enhancing Drugs”

The Satirical Political Report - An Offbeat Look at the Hot-Button Issues of the Day

Best line of the day, so far

“I don’t know about you, but I’m really getting tired of having elected officials who appear to have either no knowledge of or respect for the Constitution of this country.”

Crooks and Liars commenting on Rep. Steve King saying “If you teach American history, you cannot teach it without teaching Christianity.”

It’s worse. They appear to have no knowledge of or respect for a Constitution they have sworn to “support and defend…against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to.” Shouldn’t they have to pass some sort of written exam before they can take the oath?

I’m afraid I’m back to agreeing

Indeed, Obama’s campaign has begun to make my skin crawl a little bit. The we-are-the-world optimism that not only blinds him to the fundamental corruption of the regime he hopes to replace, but also makes you wonder if he’s the guy to come in and throw daylight into all the dark corners of the past seven years. The willingness to employ Republican storylines on Senator Clinton and, far more seriously, on Social Security in an apparent attempt to win the vital Green Room Primary in Washington and to appeal to mythical “moderates” who don’t exist and won’t vote for him anyway.

Charles Pierce

Best ‘roids line of the day, so far

“Take all the drugs out of the NFL, and the season’s a half-hour long.”

Charles Pierce on the Mitchell Report.

Valero

There has been an additional line of gas stations I’ve noticed recently — Valero. They have 5,800 outlets, yet I’d never heard of them until the past year or two. Valero also has 17 refineries “with a throughput capacity of approximately 3.1 million barrels per day.”

So today’s trivia question is: Where does the name Valero come from? (No fair Googling.)

Hint: The company is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.

The answer is in the Handbook of Texas.

Almost the perfect winter’s day

It has been snowing fairly hard and fairly consistently at Casa NewMexiKen since 7:30 this morning, yet there is no accumulation on the pavement.

Beauty without the inconvenience.

Simply put, Albuquerque has the best four-season climate in the U.S.

Update: At 1PM it’s snowing and the sun is out. I’m thinking someone is making soap snowflakes around here like at Disneyland.

The eco bottle

The Numbers Guy takes a look at the new water bottles.

It’s not uncommon for bottled-water companies to tout the purity of their waters. But one giant bottler has gone one step further: boasting about the bottles themselves.

Nestlé claims it offers the lightest half-liter bottles in the U.S. market. Earlier this year, it introduced new, sculpted bottles with labels stating they contain “30% less plastic.” On Web sites for its brands Poland Spring, Ozarka, Arrowhead and Ice Mountain, Nestlé clarifies that this isn’t a 30% reduction from the old model, which is still in distribution; instead, its new “Eco-Shape Bottle” has 30% less plastic “than the average half-liter bottle.”

Homeowners With Negative Equity

51 million U.S. households have mortgages. By the end of this year, 11% of them (5.6 million) will have no or negative equity. By the end of next year, if housing prices decline another 10%, the number of mortgages with no or negative equity could exceed 20% (10.7 million).

A basic underpinning of the middle class way of life may crumble before our eyes in coming months.

Source for numbers: Calculated Risk

Best line of the day, so far

“I always thought I would miss immortality by about 50 years – which really pissed me off.   I know, lots of people say they wouldn’t WANT to live forever, but I sure would, if only because it will take that long to successfully cancel my Norton Anti-Virus subscription.”
 
Andrew Tobias

Tobias goes on to talk about Ray Kurzweil who predicts that in about 15 years life expectancy will be increasing about a year every year. Just make it to that cusp and you’re golden.

Unless of course the glaciers melt and you live near the coast.

Christmas music from a century ago

The Antique Christmas Lights Museum has lots of information about the evolution of Christmas lights, but hidden among its goodies is a page of Vintage Christmas Recordings. The 18 recordings were made 1908-1914 and reproduced on a 1908 Edison Home cylinder player for conversion to mp3 files.

Best ‘roid line of the day, so far

“The new scouting report says: Throws left, bats left, injects right.”

Joel Achenbach in a post on How to Fix The Baseball Record Book.

Did Maxine do a ‘Britney’?

Canberra Times editor Mark Baker has defended his newspaper’s decision to publish a revealing front-page photograph of Labor MP Maxine McKew in a short dress.

The broadsheet received complaints from readers after it ran the image of Ms McKew talking animatedly to former Prime Minister John Howard.

LIVENEWS.com.au

Click the link, then click the photo link (the little camera in the article) to see the contentious photo.

What do you think? I’d have cropped it.

It’s a NewMexiKen holiday tradition

Time for our annual visit to Ugly Christmas Lights.com!

Worth an annual viewing

Calvin and Hobbes Snow Art Gallery

Hi there!

Glad to have you drop by from , .

Now try this and see what happens (from Explore Our Planet).

December 14th

Today is the birthday

… of Don Hewitt. The producer of 60 Minutes is 85.

… of Patty Duke. The Oscar-winning actress is 61.

It’s the birthday of Veronica, official daughter-in-law of NewMexiKen, mother of one of The Sweeties, attorney-at-law, and source of many suggestions and comments for NewMexiKen. Happy Birthday, Veronica.

Oscar nominee, for Days of Wine and Roses, Lee Remick was born on this date in 1935. Miss Remick died in 1991.

Congressional Medal of Honor winner Jimmy Doolittle was born on this date in 1896. Doolittle led the daring bombing raid on Tokyo in April 1942. Sixteen B-25s from the U.S.S. Hornet did little damage, but the attack on the Japanese homeland was a major public relations and morale-boosting effort for U.S. forces just five months after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Nostradamus was born on this date in 1503.

George Washington died at his Mount Vernon home on this date in 1799 at the age of 67. According to the Library of Congress, his last words reportedly were: “I feel myself going. I thank you for your attentions; but I pray you to take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly. I cannot last long.”

Alabama was admitted to the Union as the 22nd state on this date in 1819.

Roald Amundsen and four others became the first to reach the South Pole on this date in the summer of 1911. See the NOAA South Pole Live Camera.