Of course the five ways to reach first base without striking the ball are, BB, IBB, K/PB, (or technically also K/WP), I2, HBP. It is a scoring issue and those are the ways of scoring it. That's actually six ways if you think about it.

Can you believe that the Repubs in the house whine and cry about the stimulus bill for the economy. The Democrats cave and put in stuff to mollify them. And then not one of the Repubs votes for the bill. It is not as if any one needed their votes. They have totally no say in the house of representatives, the Democrats were just being bi-partisan in accepting suggestions from people with absolutely no power. Then the Repubs vote in lock step. What is that? And how much do you think you'll get listened to on the next bill. Why, not at all.

Meanwhile President Obama has come up with a crafty way to break the deadlock that might occur in the Senate on the bill. First, Sen. Gregg, R-NH is appointed Commerce Secretary. Gregg is 61, facing a difficult re-election in 2010. After 8 years as Commerce Secretary he'd by 69, ready to retire well after serving his country in the executive branch. Then, the Democratic governor of NH will appoint a Democrat to that senate seat, making the ratio in the Senate, 60 Democrats, 40 Repubs. And there goes the ability of the Repubs to derail any piece of legislation they like for at least the next two years. Two years of congress non action in the current crisis will be seen as a failure of the Obama administration. But if Gregg accepts, then Obama gets two years to govern. It will be time to judge him then.

One out of every 200 people in the United States attended the inaugaration of President Obama. Reports are coming out that the crowd was a joyous, mellow, model crowd.

Okay it is downright cold out there and is supposed to get colder all day! We are looking for a low of 11 tonight and about the same tomorrow night. That is going to test my furnace and R value of our home's insulation.

Our Governor is just about as incompetent, corrupt, and evil as our outgoing president. His new policies for this year include cutting another hundred million plus from schools for the current year, plus even larger cuts for next year. Meanwhile he's planning a "stimulus package" to create jobs around the state by taking the education money to build pet projects for his friends. A library here, a golf course there. Meanwhile raising class sizes of the worst school system in the nation to historic highs, bypassing established state regulations for class size in order to do so, and even cutting school nurses.

Hundreds of millions in cuts for public education will then go to construction companies to build buildings or upgrade facilities for colleges around the state. So my buddies construction company gets millions, class sizes swell and teachers get cut. And he'll claim he's the education governor.

Plus! 52 million dollars goes to spiff up the capitol. Couldn't you build a completely new capitol for that much. Last time I checked, the capitol was looking pretty good. This is a heck of face lift.

Make no mistake. The goal of this governor and the Rebulican Party nationwide, is to run public education's ship on the rocks, to cause it to be so ruined, so septic, that no one can any longer say that public education is a good thing. Then finally the religious right can claim goverment vouchers to support their segregated, parochial, even hate mongering schools.

And Georgians are among that minority of Americans who cannot see that the time for racial prejudice is past so they will elect another Republican, perhaps even a worse one, when this good ole boy is finished.

Al Franken's book title Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them comes to my mind as I hear the spin being put out by the Bush administration to the news media by virtually all members of the Bush administration during these "legacy" days of W and his cronies. While he seeks to secure his place in history, most of the rest of us are looking for a way to imprison him.

Some big lies that don't get talked about any more, or have never gotten talked about. I'm not citing a source for my conclusions here, because they are my conclusions, based on my experience.

Sometimes people tell you things and you just can't figure out how they could be possible. I remember the line "She went to Julliard School of Music." But in my experience, the 75 year old church organist was both borderline delusional and a terrible musician. It was hard to reconcile how any one could be this incompetent a player and every have studied at Juilliard. It would be like looking at a 400 pound man and saying, "back in the day, he won the Boston Marathon." Naaaaah. Something is wrong with that. Turns out she actually wanted to go to Juillard, in oboe, but never did. Myth explained.

You hear that George W. Bush is a brilliant man. I've even heard him described as "the most brilliant man I ever met." (How sad). We know he graduated from Yale and also from Harvard Business School. We also hear that he was a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard.

We his National Guard service is still a matter of lawsuits. Maybe that will get sorted out. It is usually pretty easy to confirm someones service. Their buddies can tell you about serving with them. Bush buddies step forward please.

But to graduate from Harvard and Yale, my guess is you would have to write papers and give presentations. After listening to his many public presentations in the past 8 years, it is my firm belief that he was not capable of college level work with the English language and like his National Guard service, he did not do the work. He was either waved on through by people who were paid off or looked the other way, or more likely, he turned in excellent papers that were written by someone else, and he read (poorly), presentations written by someone else. I've graded a lot of students and never had one quite as stupid as George W. Bush.

If you missed seeing Jupiter blazing beneath a brilliant crescent moon last night, it would be worth it to bundle up tonight and wander outside around 7:30 or 8:00 and look for it. It is amazing to see those extra terrestrials hanging in the sky, glowing in the sun that is hitting the back side of our planet. The enormity of Jupiter, being so far away in the frozen outer space of the solar system and yet reflecting back so brilliantly in our night sky is food for wonderment.

It is 2009. I didn't think about what I'd be like in 2009 when I was a boy. I do remember thinking about that I'd be 49 in 2000. Now at times I wonder how long I will make it. Our good friends Pat and John lost her mother yesterday. My dad is talking about the pain in his hips that nearly paralyze him and he wonders about hip replacement at 85. I saw that the clocks are being corrected a leap second as we go to 2009. Seems the earth's rotation is slowing and we will lose a whole hour in the next 1000 years, without corrections that is. There is little that is certain in life. Plan for retirement--don't count on it. Your best plans may fail. Money in the bank or your mattress, about the same it seems, is fairly safe, but diminishing in relationship to what you can do with it as sure as the earth is turning. The stock market--well that is ridiculously scarey, down 40 to 45 % this year. It will be awhile before we see 14,000 on the Dow Jones average again.

The only certain thing is that I am alive and feel healthy at this moment and I must wring as much joy out of today as I can. We have had a joyful holiday, filled with beautiful singing, hugs, and smiles. Old George Bailey really was the richest man in Bedford Falls.