Dave Barry’s Year in Review
It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result Washington, rejecting “business as usual,” finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it.
. . . .
The annual observance of Earth Hour is observed with one hour of symbolic energy conservation as hundreds of millions of non-essential lights and appliances are turned off. And that’s just in Al Gore’s house.
Lots more like that. Good stuff.
Yes, Dave Barry was my favorite part of the Chicago Tribune after Royko.
BTW, Patterico, are you up early or up late?
nk (df76d4) — 12/30/2009 @ 5:05 amI’m in the Central time zone but up early. We got up at 3 a.m. so we could miss our flight by 5 minutes. Killing time at D/FW until the next flight.
Patterico (c32295) — 12/30/2009 @ 5:25 amIf, by any chance, your next stop is Chicago, the New Year’s Eve party is at my house. I promise only one other lawyer, but there will be kids and dogs I’m afraid.
nk (df76d4) — 12/30/2009 @ 5:30 amNo, it’s not. The location is classified but it’s not Chicago.
Patterico (c32295) — 12/30/2009 @ 5:40 amSafe passage and God’s speed.
Glad you’re on the tubes P, and thankful you have nk (and the others) @ your side. Nicely done over this last year.
I caught and read Barry’s entire piece, and well, between the somali pirates and the problems gibbs tells us bush left, that was gold. Like virtually everything Dave pens as I recall. It has been a long time since I’ve read anything he has written.
Thanks for pointing it out and…Happy New Year.
-bear
bear (202e3b) — 12/30/2009 @ 6:47 amNow, that’s all the news that’s fit to print.
John Hitchcock (3fd153) — 12/30/2009 @ 7:10 ambear @ #5, what a lovely Miracle you yourself have (at your link). Safe passage and God’s speed, indeed.
Dana (f64b7d) — 12/30/2009 @ 8:35 amDB offers the best single-paragraph summary of cash-for-clunkers I’ve seen so far.
sierra (4be1ff) — 12/30/2009 @ 9:12 amDave Barry is a Libertarian, so I can take vicarious pride in his government-roasting.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (9eb641) — 12/30/2009 @ 9:41 amAnd in truly shocking news, Maureen Dowd wrote a decent column.
President Obama’s favorite word is “unprecedented,” as Carol Lee of Politico pointed out. Yet he often seems mired in the past as well, letting his hallmark legislation get loaded up with old-school bribes and pork; surrounding himself with Clintonites; continuing the Bushies’ penchant for secrecy and expansive executive privilege; doubling down in Afghanistan while acting as though he’s getting out; and failing to capitalize on snazzy new technology while agencies thumb through printouts and continue their old turf battles.
Even before a Nigerian with Al Qaeda links tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet headed to Detroit, travelers could see we had made no progress toward a technologically wondrous Philip K. Dick universe.
We seemed to still be behind the curve and reactive, patting down grannies and 5-year-olds, confiscating snow globes and lip glosses.
Instead of modernity, we have airports where security is so retro that taking away pillows and blankies and bathroom breaks counts as a great leap forward.
If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?
H/t to Wizbang.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (9eb641) — 12/30/2009 @ 9:53 ama Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants
It scares me when MoDo agrees with me.
nk (df76d4) — 12/30/2009 @ 10:51 amNovember Additions
Saddened Manmade global warming scientists discover the public actually got to see what they have been paying for when 3000 e-mails are released by a computer glitch. The e-mails contained a plethora of hockey sticks stuffed in trash cans.
December expansion.
“On the environmental front, Copenhagen hosts a massive international conference aimed at halting manmade global warming, attended by thousands of delegates who flew to Denmark on magical carbon-free unicorns.” Their hope was that TOTUS could spin the trash can hockey sticks into some sort of hope for change message that the POTUS could read for the world. The gathering went down in the history books, way down, yeah barely a foot note, easily missed.
TC (0b9ca4) — 12/30/2009 @ 12:44 pm