Senator Duffy

I’m sure that’s going to grow on everyone… eventually.

It’s difficult to argue with the motivation behind his decision to accept an appointment to the Senate — some mental “busy work” to avoid falling prey to the all-too-common sense of futile irrelevance, boredom and morbid intellectual sloth that usually accompanies forced retirement. That Duffy would actually jump into the Senate to proactively avoid these very things may perhaps be somewhat amusing and/or highly ironic fodder to critics of that much-maligned legislative body, but at the same time, staunch defenders of the upper chamber’s constituted role in our parliamentary democracy can take some small amount of cheer from it as well.

Update: A little civics lesson…

Brit for Bret

News is that Bret Baier will host Special Report, Fox News’ nightly broadcast from its Washington bureau, after veteran Brit Hume departs, Politico reports.

Unfortunately, “The Cadaver That Walks Like a Man” isn’t done quite yet; his near-lifeless corpse making gloomy utterances on cue to lend some journalistic gravitas to the latest Fox News talking points will still be a “significant part” of the New/Old Special Report Oh goody.

Snow in Victoria (Still!)

My daughter was telling me that, according to the Weather Network, Victoria has the most accumulated snow in Canada at the moment. I find that a little hard to believe, but there’s more on the way tonight…

Glad I don’t have to go out tomorrow.

Bail-Out Rage

Applying for a slice of the US government’s TARP is easy, apparently. Really, really, mindblowingly easy. How ironic.

Providing transparency and consistency… well, not as much so. UC Berkley business professor Laura Tyson discusses the conflicting interests associated with the public being a preferred equity investor in banks and other lenders over which it has no ability to set requirements, and the self-defeating results stemming from the Bush administration’s apparent incoherency and incompetence in managing the bailout of the financial sector.

2008 Election in Review

Countdown looks back at the last presidential campaign in a montage of clips from the show featuring KO’s “favorite people”…

It all seems a lot grander somehow in this abbreviated format than was actually the case, day after grinding day, month after seemingly endless, dreary month.