C.K.: November 22, 1999 – January 7, 2012

5:35 pm EST January 7th, 2012 | Me | 36 Comments

I lost my best friend today.

C.K. was in my life for exactly 12 years, 2 weeks and a day. We first brought him home on December 23, 1999. He was so small, he fit in the palm of my hand. As a miniature dachshund, he never got really big, but at 15lbs now he seems so big to me.

C.K. was always there for me. Always ecstatic when I got home, always upset when I had to stop petting his head and go to work — the nerve of me! C.K. was my buddy in watching the Redskins fail again and again, looking ridiculous in the Redskins jersey I bought him. The jersey was size extra-small, but even then his little 2 inch legs were too short for it.

My entire family, particularly my mom, loved — loves — C.K. He was at all our familial gatherings, he got a plate of ham (his favorite) and other food at Christmas and Thanksgiving. He fell asleep in laps – mine, Mom’s, my Aunt Angela, my Grandmother’s, my little cousins. He cozied up with everyone, from my girlfriend to my uncle to perfect strangers. He would not be ignored. You must rub his head or his belly, or fear the wrath.

He wasn’t just a “pet.”

Those of you who read this blog and my Twitter feed know C.K. too. You’ve seen me post humorous photo essays about the “weiner dog of infinite justice.” You’ve seen me post goofy pictures and videos, notes about his birthday and the like. You’re part of the C.K. story as well.

He was diagnosed today with a tumor in his stomach and had been having trouble breathing. I could not allow him to suffer. I love him too much.

He’ll always be with me and I’ll love him until the day I die.

The outpouring of love and condolences is a testament to my little baby dog and the life he led.

P.S. Those of you who know me a little bit know this, but of course C.K. stands for Clark Kent and not the fashion designer (as if). He was and is in every way a Super Dog.

Topic: C.K.

The Best #SuperHeroPrimary Tweets

2:09 pm EST January 6th, 2012 | Comic Books, Humor | Comments Off

On a lark I decided to combine two of my favorite things: Superheroes and politics. That resulted in the #superheroprimary hashtag, which was a top trend for a few seconds. Here are some of the best.

Read These

4:44 pm EST January 5th, 2012 | News | 5 Comments

Right Wing Leader Tells Church Abuse Victims To Shut Up

Conservative Leader Declares War On Romney

Private Sector Job Growth Up In December

Mad Man Goes Nude At Chipmunks Movie

Millionaire Mitt: Candidate Worth 2,708 Times Average American

The Shanahans Suck, Again

2:37 am EST January 2nd, 2012 | Sports | 17 Comments

Once again, for the umpteenth time since 1992, the Washington Redskins played football in December and (sort of) January in games that didn’t mean anything. They went 5-11 and did so in disgraceful fashion. As some have already pointed out, the Shanahan administration now has a worse record than Jim Zorn did. And Zorn was a total failure.

Even worse, here’s nepotism poster child offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan yelling today that “In 2012 the Redskins are gonna be the NFC East champions, and that starts right f–king today.”

This is the same Shanahan son who is coaching the #16 offense in the league and lost 34-10 to the 8-8 Eagles.

Shut the hell up, Kyle.

I know I keep writing this, but I’m tired of this. Tired that the Redskins aren’t just out of the league’s elite for two going on three decades, but that they aren’t even regularly in late contention for a wild-card playoff spot.

Turns out I was right to be suspicious of starting and NFL season with John Beck and Rex Grossman as the starting quarterbacks… because THEY SUCK AT PLAYING QUARTERBACK. I hate that the Redskins have now had two arrogant coaches who think they can start sucky University Of Florida quarterbacks because they think they’re such geniuses (the first was Steve Spurrier with Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews).

Neither Beck or Grossman should even be a backup on the NFL roster.

The Redskins — again — need a wholesale makeover. They need a new quarterback. Santana Moss is done at WR, they need new blood. RB is okay. They need new offensive linemen and tight ends who aren’t injury prone or who disappear. They also need defensive players who actually scare the opposing team.

And they need a head coach and coaching staff based on skill, not family connections. And they need coaches who will adapt to the players they have, rather than be so arrogant they insist on jamming round pegs into square holes (this is true of every Redskins coach over the last 20 years save perhaps Joe Gibbs and Marty Schottenheimer).

And they most importantly need an owner who isn’t an insufferable jerk who couldn’t assemble a winning team and staff if he had all the money in the world (which he does).

I’m sick and tired of the Redskins sucking, but I expect they will suck for the foreseeable future.

See you next September.

Topic: Redskins

Weiner Dog Emergency

5:51 pm EST December 30th, 2011 | News | 8 Comments

C.K. suddenly collapsed and passed out when I was walking him today, and for a few minutes I thought I had completely lost him. Thankfully, he’s on some medicine and hopefully getting better. Superthanks to my girlfriend for being there the whole time.

Merry Christmas Everyone

12:20 am EST December 25th, 2011 | News | 4 Comments

Hello, you old savings and loan!

My Christmas With The Obamas

3:45 pm EST December 19th, 2011 | News | 32 Comments

So here, finally, is the picture my girlfriend Mona and I took with President & Mrs. Obama at the White House Holiday Party. Woot!

Romney’s Cash Source

1:32 pm EST December 19th, 2011 | Republicans | Comments Off

Will be relevant:

Mitt Romney is still making millions of dollars from layoffs engineered by Bain Capital, the private equity firm he helped to start.

As revealed by the New York Times, Romney negotiated a backroom deal with Bain that gave the already wealthy Romney a share of Bain’s profits even after he left the firm.

Topic: Mitt Romney

America Is Out Of Iraq

11:39 am EST December 15th, 2011 | Foreign Policy | 46 Comments

At long last, we are leaving Iraq. Thanks to President Obama for keeping what was, to me at least, the most important issue of the last presidential campaign. George Bush’s decision to invade and occupy Iraq will go down in history as one of the worst, most wrongheaded decisions in American history — just short of the folly of Vietnam.

For Bush’s exercise in aggression, thousands of Americans and Iraqis needlessly lost their lives. Even worse, the American servicemen and women who perished did so without a good reason for it. Iraq was not a threat to us nor our allies. There were no weapons of mass destruction. The threat was exaggerated and the case for war was deceptive (and the Democrats who voted for Bush’s war were wrong and share some responsibility for the aftermath).

The argument has been made that if McCain had been elected, we would be leaving Iraq. That’s a pretty absurd assertion and debunked by McCain’s own words yesterday where he attacked President Obama for withdrawing from Iraq. If McCain had been elected, in all likelihood, we would have doubled-down on Bush’s Iraq failures and lost even more precious lives.

The Iraq War is ending, the soldiers are coming home. We owe them better than what the leadership of George W. Bush offered them, and I hope we will in the future, no matter who their commander in chief is.

Newt Gingrich Is Not Ronald Reagan

11:15 am EST December 12th, 2011 | Conservative | 61 Comments

In the last few weeks, as Newt Gingrich has leapfrogged Mitt Romney and common sense to become the Republican frontrunner, Democrats and progressives like me have reacted with glee. Newt Gingrich, in the eyes of the left, would be a suicidal pick for the Republican party. Destined to lose, and to once again send the conservative movement out into the wilderness.

Since then, there has been a meme from the right and now being echoed in the mainstream press. Don’t be too quick to dismiss Gingrich, they say. As evidence they cite 1980 and the fact that the Carter team preferred to face Reagan, thinking that his conservative positions would be a huge turnoff to the nation. That election, of course, ended in a landslide in Reagan’s favor and ushered in the so-called “Reagan Revolution.”

Those parallels are, at best, a major stretch.

For one, as bad as things are politically for President Obama, he is a far savvier politician than Jimmy Carter ever was. Carter repeatedly made the kind of tin-ear mistakes that Obama has largely avoided for the last three years. Obama is highly unlikely to emulate the foreign policy impotence of the hostage crisis, and this president simply doesn’t give “malaise” speeches.

The parallel becomes even more ludicrous when you compare Gingrich and Reagan. First, their pedigrees and legacies. Before being elected, Reagan was a B to C list actor, a national commercial pitchman, and the governor of one of America’s largest states. Gingrich, on the other hand, has never been elected to statewide let alone national office. And his tenure at the national level is remembered by moderates and liberals as one that ended in shame. Only conservatives remember the Gingrich tenure as Speaker with any sort of fondness. Post-Speaker Gingrich is also remembered by moderates and liberals as an abject hypocrite who was attacking President Clinton for an extramarital affair while he was cheating on his second wife.

The complete implosion of this meme comes when you compare Gingrich and Reagan as human beings. I’m a progressive who of course finds almost nothing admirable in the policies of Ronald Reagan, but it is a historical fact that he was a gregarious, well-liked leader (if conservatives were being honest they would acknowledge this about Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton). Reagan’s the best advocate conservatism has ever had in America for a reason. There is a reason “happy warrior” is synonymous with his name.

Newt Gingrich is not this. Even though the “new Newt” claims he has learned from his past mistakes, in his debate performances and media interviews you can still see the petulant, whining, arrogant, condescending jerk Newt right below the surface. Gingrich is only ever a few seconds away from the temper tantrums he had during the Clinton era. In the battlefield of a national political campaign this will come out in spectacular fashion. Reagan was able to communicate some form of humility, often using self-deprecating humor in order to lull his political opponents into a false sense of superiority. Gingrich, at all times, believes he is the smartest man in the room. He would believe it if he was attending a summit of rocket scientists, he surely believes it on the campaign trail.

This doesn’t even take into consideration the conservatism of the two figures. While Reagan is being held up as a lion of the right, he would be seen as far too moderate to make it through the modern Republican primary. Gingrich is pandering to the Tea Party base, which is all well and good for the GOP nomination, but the 2012 electorate will not look like the 2010 crew that elected the Republican House.

Newt Gingrich isn’t Ronald Reagan. They were both nationally known conservative Republicans, but the similarities end there. Despite the sentiments of people like myself, Reagan is likely to be remembered fondly for a considerable time. The same will not be true of Gingrich.

Topic: Newt Gingrich