Readin' the News and It Sure Is Bad...

…the title is a hat-tip to Joni. But it’s true. Today.

Bad News from Australia… Labor sweeps to a huge win and John Howard…one of America’s strongest and most articulate allies in the war against Islamofascism… is out. Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister-to-be, ran on a platform of withdrawing Australian troops from Iraq and signing the Kyoto Protocol immediately (among other things). Jules Crittenden sez it’s a move to Pre-9/11 politics. I say it sucks.

Captain Ed, OTOH, predicts it will be “business as usual” with Australia, no matter who’s in charge. The Guardian, in their profile of Rudd (who speaks fluent Mandarin!), seemingly agrees. Let us pray…

More Bad News… and this is a corker. The NY Post: “'Blame U.S. for 9/11' Idiots in Majority; 'Plots' Thicken in Shocking Poll”

November 24, 2007 -- Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government had warnings about 9/11 but decided to ignore them, a national survey found.

And that's not the only conspiracy theory with a huge number of true believers in the United States.

The poll found that more than one out of three Americans believe Washington is concealing the truth about UFOs and the Kennedy assassination - and most everyone is sure the rise in gas prices is one vast oil-industry conspiracy.

Sixty-two percent of those polled thought it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials turned a blind eye to specific warnings of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Shocking, indeed. Are we really that frickin’ stupid? Don’t answer that…

I blame Ron Paul.

News You Can Use…Mashable publishes a link to 33 sites with (mostly) free stock photos and backgrounds that can be used on your blog… or elsewhere…without fear of copyright infringement. Most of the photo sites require a link-back or an attribution for a photo you use but that’s only common courtesy, innit? I’ve bookmarked the link.

A Senior Moment… yesterday. Right here at El Casa Móvil De Pennington. I completely forgot it was a holiday Friday, and as such was loaded-up with potentially great college football. I missed another good one, to wit: LSU came up short in a second triple overtime loss. At home this time. Wow. And those Aggies beat Texas, while USC demolished…destroyed… Arizona State. And I missed it all.

But I won’t miss today’s games. Not on your life!

Today’s Pic: It’s another cold and snowy day here on The High Plains of New Mexico. And that’s not too bad, seeing as how today is only Day Two Three of our current cold snap. At any rate, whenever I find myself feeling sorry for myself (about the weather, anyway) I only have to go back into the archives to see it could be…and was…worse. Once upon a time.

This is a (grainy first-generation digital) photo of the Ol’ Homestead in Perinton, New York, taken on a crystal-clear and numbingly cold morning following a six-inch (or more like eight inches) snowfall. As I said: worse.

January, 1999.