various items

1. Trammel Crow, dead at 94. Legendary Dallas real estate developer who I have just learned got his start -- as did some other local moguls I could name -- as a seller of livestock feed.

2. The Top 50 Most Loathsome People in America for the year 2008. Pretty much everyone comes in for some derision in this, the most cleverly written year-end summary I've seen. I can't say I was surprised that, when I got to the end, I notice that ol' buddy IOZ was a contributor.

My favorite entry:

43. You

Charges: You think it’s your patriotic duty to spend money you don’t have on crap you don’t need. You think Hillary lost because of sexism, when it’s actually because she’s just a bad liar. You think Iraq is better off now than before we invaded, and don’t understand why they’re so ungrateful. You think Tim Russert was a great journalist. You’re hopping mad about an auto industry bailout that cost a squirt of piss compared to a Wall Street heist of galactic dimensions, due to a housing crash you somehow have blamed on minorities. It took you six years to figure out what a tool Bush is, but you think Obama will make it all better. You deem it hunky dory that we conduct national policy debates via 8-second clips from “The View.” You think God zapped humans into existence a few thousand years ago, although your appendix and wisdom teeth disagree. You like watching vicious assholes insult each other on TV. You support gun rights, because firing one gives you a chubby. You cuddle falsehoods and resent enlightenment. You think the fact that 43% of whites could stomach voting for an incredibly charismatic and eloquent light-skinned black guy who was raised by white people means racism is over. You think progressive taxation is socialism. 1 in 100 of you are in jail, and you think it should be more. You are shallow, inconsiderate, afraid, brand-conscious, sedentary, and totally self-obsessed. You are American.

Exhibit A: You’re more upset by Miley Cyrus’s glamour shots than the fact that you are a grown adult who is upset about Miley Cyrus.

Sentence: Invaded and occupied by Canada; all military units busy overseas without enough fuel to get back.

Not that I agree with all of that... but funny, nonetheless.

3. None of the teams left in the NFL playoffs is terribly exciting, and I'm not a fan of any of them, but if you've not seen Arizona Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald play then you are missing out. That guy is simply incredible.

4. Speaking of IOZ, here's his characteristically understated take on the latest Bushie to pen an "exculpatory fantasy" on the eve of January 20, 2009 (a/k/a: Death of Bushism):

Future Cialis spokesmodel Richard Perle took to the pages of The National Interest to assure us that it was most certainly not his fault. What wasn't his fault, you ask? It, that's what wasn't, none of it. Typically when a rat leaves a sinking ship, it attempts to make the escape while the fucker's still partly above water at least, but to each rodent his own pace, I suppose. The intellectual acumen on display is proof--if you needed any more of it--that the Lord Baby Jesus loves mediocrities most among us: he fucks the poor and helpless, he makes geniuses mad, poor, or syphilitic, but Richard Perle has the ear of presidents and potentates, plus a cushy gig writing exculpatory fantasies in various subsidized publications.