We cast a wide net with this week’s Douchebag award, but I felt ready to tackle an issue that must be addressed. This award is meant to cover a whole group of people for whom recognition is well past due and yet whom we only wish could be “unsung.”

This year, the airwaves, the gas stations, the malls and every other nook and cranny of our society reachable by radio have been drowned in a sea of Christmas standards, covered in the most objectionable ways by a host of musical miscreants. The soul singer warbling and yodeling through Nat King Cole’s Christmas Song, rendering it a meaningless, inaudible mess. The country singer trying to “Boot Scoot” through Carrol of the Bells. The sappy bubble-gum pop singer who thinks that four tracks of her whiny-ass voice abusing Jingle Bell Rock is a legitimate alternative to Bill Haley’s original. Its enough to make a music lover to want to deck the halls with balls of feces.

I’m not opposed to cover songs. I’m not opposed to remakes of Christmas tunes. I think both have their place, when they honor the original. And of course, I know that every year includes a few “updates” of old classics, to help people celebrate the season with voices they recognize. I get that.

But this year’s glut of reprehensible repertory is neither tribute nor celebration: it’s just the seepage of a corporate media that’s lost any sense of passion, joy or originality. It is uninspired and uninspiring pablum, tuned to what marketers and salesmen hope is a key that will elicit a Pavlovian compulsion to spend, spend, spend.

And it’s every-freakin’-where. It’s inescapable. I’ve tried. And it doesn’t make me want to spend, it makes me want to roast someone’s nuts over an open fire. It makes me want to run the responsible persons over in a one horse open sleigh. So, if you are one of the winners of this week’s award, do yourself a favour: if you should hear those sleigh bells ring-alin’, ding-ding, ding-alin’, do yourself a favour and get the hell out of the road.

Because somewhere at the root of all of it, there is some executive in a $1000 suit, furtively consulting his Blackberry, sipping a soy latte, flashing his million dollar smile at disinterested waitresses, chomping Viagra and making the decisions that will finally make Christmas as flaccid and ineffectual as his dick. Or maybe there’s more than one, who gives a shit? To him and to all of them, I proudly hand this week’s Douchebag of the Week award. Merry fucking Christmas, douchebag!

. . . Until, of course, it’s inconvenient to do so. Governor Ahnold of California has chosen to sue the Federal Government over it’s decision not to allow California to have higher emissions standards than the woefully-inadequate Federal standards. Good for him.

But check out the defense launched by George “Roe v. Wade was incorrectly decided and the decision needs to be sent to the states” Bush:

Schwarzenegger: California will sue federal government - CNN.com

Bush on Thursday defended the decision of his EPA administrator.

“Is it more effective to let each state make a decision as to how to proceed in curbing greenhouse gases? Or is it more effective to have a national strategy?” he said.

Hmm. . . that’s a real brain teaser, there, George. .

This years verdict?  The cost of the 12 days gifts has gone up 3.1 percent.

Carla Palumbo discusses the decision by County Democrats not to appoint someone to the Zyra Sham Committee nominating the new Public Defender. I agree with her completely, both that you normally need to stay engaged to get things done, and that you sometimes need to disengage completely and let the jerks take their own fall. In our inordinately majoritarian County Legislature, there is little else the Democrats can do:

» Democrats Decline to Support the Public Defender Sham Committee » Carla Palumbo

Though normally I would say you need to be at the table to “keep ‘em honest” sometimes you need to step away from the table to not give them “cover”. Having ONE community person on the committee comprised of Legislature appointees will not bring the independence to the process that was SO important in 1974 and in 1977.

Most people who read this blog have happened upon some article or another where I’ve stated that gun control law is not a huge do-it issue for me. I just happen to be of a mind that illegalizing something only sets it outside the law and therefore reduces our ability to control it. Think about all that pot you smoked in High School. But the new legislation passed by the Congress as a response to the Cho Virginia Tech shooting is something I can get behind.

There have been laws on the books for forty years saying you can’t own a handgun if you have a mental illness, but privacy law has prevented that law from being enforced for as long as it’s been in effect. I’m about as interested in privacy as I am disinterested in gun-control law, but even I acknowledge that something is amiss, here. But this is a tough nut to crack. The new bill seeks to close those gaps by specifically spelling out what records must be provided in order to purchase a gun.

BBC NEWS | Americas | US passes tighter gun control law

The new legislation aims to close those gaps: * it provides funds to improve NICS * sets out which mental health records should be reported * provides $375m (£187m) a year for five years for states and state courts to improve processing of mental health information * states failing to comply could lose federal funds * states with good records could receive financial incentives

So, this is less about a new law and more about focusing existing law properly. It even has the backing of the NRA, something I’m sure will make many people suspicious of it. Certainly, the concern is justifiable. But while there is language in the law allowing those who’ve overcome mental illnesses to be cleared to own a gun, I don’t see a lot here that speaks to the “lunatic fringe” of gun rights we’ve so become accustomed to the NRA representing.

Terror has come to American shores once again.  And this time, it’s sexy as hell:

A young blonde Icelandic woman’s recent experience visiting the US — Signs of the Times News

They would not tell me where they were taking me. The trip took close to one hour and although I couldn’t see clearly outside the vehicle I knew that we had crossed over into New Jersey. We ended up in front of a jail. I could hardly believe that this was happening. Was I really about to be jailed? I was led inside in the chains and there yet another interrogation session ensued. I was fingerprinted once again and photographed. I was made to undergo a medical examnination, I was searched and then I was placed in a jail cell. I was asked absurd questions such as: When did you have your last period? What do you believe in? Have you ever tried to commit suicide?

Let’s hope it really is a flu, and not Polonium-232 poisoning. . .

I love this one, I really do.  Yes, creating “variation humor” is one of the lowest forms of comedy, save for Carrot Top.  But it’s still funny when done well:

Alt.Santas Put the X Back in Xmas

Surely this sort of monopoly can’t be good for competition. I want you to think long and hard about letting some other jolly old elf invade your home in the middle of the night this year. I happen to represent an entire line of Alt.Santas, each one wanting to be your holiday provider. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Well, there’s some great news for Mike Huckabee in the national Republican polls.  Seems the Huckster has pulled to within the statistical dead heat with Rudy Giuliani among likely Republican Voters.  Wow!  That’s amazing!

OK, now for the bad news: old news coming back to bit him.  Doncha just know, every Republican in the field has to have one of these this year?   And how apropos (my new word of the day, apparently), the quintessential “nice guy” Conservative’s Achilles Heel just happens to be his dog-torturing fatty son.

Well, we go from the House of Bush and their unholy alliance to the House of Saud during the Age of Terror. Now that it looks like Russian Premier Putin is setting himself up to be puppetmaster to the Russian government, how apropos that the next Republican nominee to the presidency have ties to Russian Oligarchy:

Giuliani’s Kerik Woes Resurface Through Informant - washingtonpost.com

Ray, 48, met Kerik at a New Jersey bar during Kerik’s rise through the ranks of the Giuliani mayoral administration. In the mid-1990s, Ray said, he and Kerik saw each other almost daily and they e-mailed frequently. Kerik often signed his missives to Ray, “I Love You — B.” In fall 1997, Kerik asked Ray to use his contacts in Russia to try to arrange a meeting between Giuliani and Gorbachev, Ray said. Among his many hats, Ray said that he had managed to become a security advance man for some of Gorbachev’s trips to the United States.

Hmm. . . and just who were these “contacts” inside of Russia? Certainly, during the reign of Gorbachev, it could be members of the Politiburo. But just as likely, the contacts could have been some of the up-and-coming Oligarchs of Russia’s then near-future, the men who were positioning themselves at this time to take over the country financially. For a recap on some of the ugliness, see my article on Alexander Litvinenko here.