16,500 isn’t a very big number.

Unless it represents the number of IRS agents who will be added to police compliance with the Health Care bill.  We apparently need those agents (the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War II) in order to make sure families and small businesses, in addition to filing more complicated returns, reveal further tax information to the IRS, provide proof of ‘government approved’ health care and submit detailed sales information to comply with new excise taxes.

And of course they would use the IRS to enforce this. They are the only government agency I know of that does not have to afford people due process.

You know, Obama, may really have unified the country with that one, because hatred of the IRS certainly does cross all party, ethnic, and class lines!

My heart and prayers go out to this woman’s family.

A veteran animal trainer whose dream was to work at SeaWorld’s Shamu Stadium was killed Wednesday when one of the show’s killer whales dragged her underwater and she drowned.

SeaWorld said that 12,000-pound Tilikum pulled Dawn Brancheau, 40, into the orca’s tank about 2p.m.

Witnesses told the Orlando Sentinel that the animal suddenly grabbed Brancheau by the upper arm, tossed her around in his mouth and pulled her beneath the water as dozens of tourists looked on in horror.

However, you’d think that the word “killer” in its name would be a giveaway that maybe, you know, it kills things?  If you want to keep it caged, don’t get into the cage with it.  And though some are advocating destroying the animal, killing it would be even more senseless than using it as a toy for tourists.

Q: What’s the difference between Obama’s cabinet and a penitentiary?

A: One’s full of tax evaders, blackmailers, liars and threats to society. The other is for the ones that got caught.

Today is election day.

Thousands of men and women have died (and are currently dying) to preserve our right to vote.

Go vote. It’s the absolute least you can do.

Take some Welsh shepherds, Samsung and LEDs, put them all together and what do you get?  It’s … well, watch.

Snow falls seldom enough around here, that it’s a delight (rather than a chore) when it does.  So dog and I went for a walk.  This is outside my front door:

And when we got back, this is inside my front door:

Perfect!

Barack Obama is possibly four days away from getting elected president, and he decides to get pissy when he can’t take his daughter trick-or-treating without photographers following him? Does he think it’s routine for the most powerful man in the world to go door to door asking for candy, and that such activity won’t attract a little publicity? What office does he think he’s running for? He and Sarah Palin should talk.

If I admit to getting a kick out of watching building demolitions, does that make me a weirdo? Or just a bit … odd. I’ll settle for eccentric. Anway, it’s kind of fascinating. Like when they demolished the King Dome (the home of the Seattle Mariners) back in 2000.

I rather miss the King Dome — when the crowd got to cheering, it was absolutely deafening. When Randy Johnson came out of the bullpen in the 1995 ALDS and they played the Guns and Roses song “Welcome to the Jungle”, talk about overwhelming.

The Japanese have come up with new way to demolish buildings, floor by floor. The support columns are cut and replaced with giant computer-controlled jacks. Once the floor is demolished and the debris removed, the entire building is lowered and work begins on the next floor. The process is repeated for each floor until the entire building is gone. (H/T Pink Tentacle)

While the sheer high-five awesomeness of blowing-up something is missing from this new technique, it is much more environmentally friendly — which increasingly seems to be the only reason to do anything these days.

You’ve likely already heard about the shooting in a Tennessee church where a lone gunman walked in during a children’s production of Annie and began shooting, “killing two people, including a man who witnesses called a hero for shielding others from a shotgun blast.” The shooting, however, did not end with a lengthy stand-off.  Instead, the “gunman was tackled by congregants and eventually taken into police custody.“  Wouldn’t you like to know more about those people — the man who died shielding others, and the men who tackled the gunman?  I would.

I know that they’re the same kind of people who leap into flooding rivers to rescue people trapped under debris.  I know they’re the same people who leap in front of subway trains to rescue someone who has fallen onto the tracks.  I know they’re the same type of people who fall onto grenades.  And every time I read about people like this, I wonder who are they?  What special thing do they have inside of them that enables them to display such courage and unselfish heroism?

These are profound examples of heroism — heroism in its simplest, ordinary form, not splashed onto the latest comic-book action movie screen at the local cineplex.  I thank God for the men and women who possess that quiet courage and heroism.

Because I can’t think of anything witty or newsworthy or interesting to write about, I give you ….

The Rabbit Letter Opener