The Daily Grill

Turkey Trot

Continuing to show himself to be a lame duck out of step, White House Resident Bush did the Thanksgiving tradition thing and pardoned two turkeys, Pumpkin and Pecan. Rather than go to feed hungry families, the pair of gobblers were given a "full pardon" by Bush and sent -- seriously -- on an all expense-paid trip to Disneyland. To be given a pardon, the birds must have committed some crime...unless simply being a turkey is a crime itself. In which case the whole Bush administration should be given a thorough going over before Obama takes over...

No Yogi

Sexing a bear doesn't seem like that big a deal -- just take a look where you'd expect to take a look and do the math. According to a story online today, this seemed to be beyond the scope of keepers at a zoo in the Japanese city of Kushiro that had been scratching their heads as to why two polar bears wouldn't mate. Turns out they're both female. I'm sure if they'd known about this in time, the people behind Yes on Prop 8 -- the measure against gay marriage on this year's California ballot -- would have made a big deal about it. I feel bad for those bears. Three years behind bars wondering why the stupid zoo doesn't have any boy bears.

The Least We Could Do Is Clean Up A Little

A very exciting vote in Iraq tomorrow as their parliament decides on a pact that sets an end-of-2011 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from the country.  Which is sort of embarrassing. It means we're that guest that doesn't know well enough to leave on our own, even though our hosts are standing around in their pajamas, yawning and checking their watch.

Back To The Future Meets Way In The Future

I caught the new trailer for next summer's Star Trek movie and was struck by the jacket young teenaged James Tiberius Kirk is wearing in the opening sequence. Something about it was knocking on my forehead so I did a little Google Image searching and there it was. Not identical. But if Kirk's jacket and the one worn by Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) in Back To The Future II isn't going to come from the same designer line in 2015, someone's ripping someone else off. (Of course, since Star Trek is set in the 24th century, Kirk's jacket could be a "retroterpretation" of McFly's 21st century outerware...)

Bill Of Goods Comes Due

So now it seems the vaunted $700 billion bailout that the Fed's Ben "Trust Me" Bernacke and Treasury Secretary Henry "Trust Me?" Paulson pushed so hard for turns out to be like a three-card monte game after all. Paulson flipped his flop last week and said the bailout money WON'T be used to buy crappy mortgages from banks. Instead, it now seems like the real scheme is to funnel a huge chunk of the fundage into banks in exchange for partial ownership stakes. If you'll remember, this alternative was a "possibility" when the plan was first touted. Now it's the main stem of the deal. Just as I'd said a little over a month ago, it looks like Uncle Sam is gunning to pull together a central bank, to be made up of the bits and pieces of the banking interests it intends to comandeer. America's forefathers didn't want a central bank (most of 'em, anyway) but the country's baby mamas apparently do. Good going, lawmakers! Way to keep your eye on the red queen...