The Holidays Are Definitely Over

The holidays are over officially. I took the tree down on New Years Day and feel damn virtuous about it. Got up at 9am (with no hangover) and set to the task. In fact, cleaned the entire dining room, which was where the tree was housed, including sucking up about 5# of dust bunnies, cobwebs and cat hair. Sorted all the drawers and cupboards and dealt with the pile of papers (I had TOTALLY forgotten there was a table underneath that stuff.) Here's a picture of how Pumpkin reacted when he came in and found everything clean and reaaranged. Pumpkin disproves the saying that if you don't have eyebrows it is impossible to look surprised. At least I hadn't messed with his favorite sleeping spot. Biggie was a little scared of the changes and took refuge in the basket. Guess we'll have to wash those socks again. Zath'ras was p.o.'ed that his favorite snack food (Aluminum Christmas tree) had been removed, so he chose to sulk. I should get the rest of the year off. Surfing the web today, checkin out my favorite blogs, and found a link to this new product - a toilet bowl cleaner shaped like a windsurfer. Too bad the little dude hangs on the rim instead of floating around the bowl. If the guy floated around he could have been pretty handy when I was potty training my boys. They would have been enthralled with trying to capsize him. Come to think of it, I'd enjoy doing that too. First time in my life I've even come close to having "penis envy". (Hat tip to Joe at A View Through The Windshield. Hope you'll be feeling better soon. ) The 93rd Carnival Of The Cats is up at Elms In The Yard hosted by Missy & Her Ladyship. Lots of lovely and handsome cats to admire. Seems like most of them have been enjoying the holiday season immensely. If you would like to participate in Carnival of the Cats #94, use the handy Carnival submission form from Ferdy of The Conservative Cat or you can submit to SFP at Pages Turned.

Over at The Right Place there is a truly funny article about the care and feeding of moonbats - in case any of you were unfortunate enough to receive one for Christmas - "Many moonbats are herbivores, reacting angrily at the sight of meat, fish or dairy products. They can exist happily on granola, fresh fruits and vegetables, twigs, tofu, diet soda, Evian and yogurt. For other moonbats, you may need to provide an extensive array of snack foods such as Hostess snack cakes or anything ending in -itos! They also frequently enjoy Triple Mocha Latte Cappuccinos from Starbucks, but these can be rather expensive. Often, moonbats also liberally use tobacco products and may smoke funny little herbs that resemble oregano. It is recommended, however, that you discourage this last behavior, as it leads to binge snacking and nonsensical babbling --- that is to say, more than usual. Many also crave copious amounts of alcohol, but this is also considered dangerous and should not be permitted."

Read the whole thing here.

Mark Steyn has another of his excellent articles at Opinion Journal today. A long piece about the demographics of Western civilization vis-à-vis Islam. He takes on the left's insane value of tolerance and multiculturalism above national interests and its love of liberal social programs to explain why Europe as we know it may soon cease to exist. "The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it.... There are many trouble spots around the world, but as a general rule, it's easy to make an educated guess at one of the participants: Muslims vs. Jews in "Palestine," Muslims vs. Hindus in Kashmir, Muslims vs. Christians in Africa, Muslims vs. Buddhists in Thailand, Muslims vs. Russians in the Caucasus, Muslims vs. backpacking tourists in Bali. Like the environmentalists, these guys think globally but act locally..... What will London--or Paris, or Amsterdam--be like in the mid-[2000]'30s? If European politicians make no serious attempt this decade to wean the populace off their unsustainable 35-hour weeks, retirement at 60, etc., then to keep the present level of pensions and health benefits the EU will need to import so many workers from North Africa and the Middle East that it will be well on its way to majority Muslim by 2035. As things stand, Muslims are already the primary source of population growth in English cities. Can a society become increasingly Islamic in its demographic character without becoming increasingly Islamic in its political character?" Read it all here- maybe a little bit at a time if you need time to digest this kind of deep thinking like I do.

Over at This Blog Is Full Of Crap, Laurence Simon has an interesting tale of a naked man and a police officer in his piece Welcome To Houston.

Sissy Willis at Sisu summed it up right about the horrible turn of events at the WV coal mine disaster. Read it here.

(Comments by cfomahm) Whoever overheard/misheard and called those families without concrete proof their loved ones had survived, well, I can understand the impulse to want to make them happy, ease their pain and perhaps hoping for yourself to be the *first* one with the good news but geez, you d@#n well better be sure. I hope the person who did this feels tortured in their soul for a long time and learns a well-needed lesson. But shame on the press for going with it. The MSM is supposed to have "standards. They look down on the blogosphere. They are obviously nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. Still the blame goes to the morons who made those phone calls. We the public were deceived, but that is NOTHING compared to pain inflicted on those families.

And then there is Psycho Kitty. Psycho Kitty has a lot to say about the Holidays and how he views this past year. Fun reading from a cat's point of view here.