Clear and irrefutable signs that we are progressing as a society.

New in bookstores, and already in its second printing, is “The Year’s Work in Lebowski Studies,” an essay collection edited by Edward P. Comentale and Aaron Jaffe (Indiana University Press, $24.95). The book is, like the Dude himself, a little rough around the edges. But it’s worth an end-of-the-year holiday pop-in. Ideally you’d read it with a White Russian — the Dude’s cocktail of choice — in hand.

More on the Academia of The Big Lebowski…

If in addition to Santa bringing me a Karl-Rove-Divorce for Christmas, we could get a Dick-Cheney-really-is-a-CIA-robot story, my holidays would be pretty much perfect. Texas Monthly sums up nicely.

Apparently Karl Rove, the champion of traditional marriage, is getting his second divorce. Yes, not one but TWO women in this world were willing to marry Karl Rove. You have no excuse for being single.

After 24 years of what I can only assume was marital bliss, Rove and his wife Darby were granted a Texas-sized divorce last week. Dana Perino, the family spokesperson, said that the couple “came to the decision mutually and amicably, and they maintain a close relationship and a strong friendship.” Wait. Dana Perino as in former White House press secretary Dana Perino? And now she’s reduced to being a family mouthpiece? Damn. Is no one safe from this shitty job market?

The saddest part here – multiple affairs ending in quickie-no-fault-divorce are fine in this state as long as it’s between a man and a woman. But god forbid we legally allow a loving marriage between two people of the same gender.

“To fill glasses to the brim is the mark of a Philistine.”
This and other fine facts.

The gravity wells of our solar system – a graphical representation.

Lets face it, the 2000′s, or the aughts, ought to have been a lot more exciting technology wise (see what I just did there?).

No flying cars or jet packs. No utopian, or even non-utopian space colonies. Ok, we got the iPhone, but it drops calls like a bad habit and it doesn’t fly. The Internet was cool for a while, but ever since Facebook became popular the threat of being contacted by random people from high school makes firing up the old web browser an exercise laced with fear and despair.

About the only technological bright-spot of this decade was in Nerf guns. Enter the Raider CS-35 which appeared under the Christmas tree last Saturday, With drum loading cartridges, pump action semi-automatic fire capabilities, and a collapsible stock, for the close in work. And, yes you can be damn sure I’m buying the tactical scope and light addons. Welcome to your bright future.

Similar to my assertion that The Two Towers is a great holiday movie, I’ve always thought Empire Strikes Back is a fantastic Christmas flick. This guy has taken it a few steps further and combined another few of my favorite things, photography and legos, with my favorite holiday classic. He captures these scenes by submerging the whole scene in a water tank and sifting in plaster of Paris.

Amazing shots, Cool technique, and the hilarious captions are awesome.

Connecticut would barely make county status in Texas, yet their jackass senator is doing his best to pass a bill that contains a mandate to buy insurance, but no public option, thereby affecting the lives of many million of his non-constituents, as well as getting the insurance companies a really nice Christmas present. In some ways I’m starting agree with Howard Dean –

This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”

…Dean essentially said that if Democratic leaders cave into Joe Lieberman right now they’ll be left with a bill that’s not worth supporting.

Can we strip Connecticut of state status, for the crime electing this jackass, thereby fixing the problem?

Twenty-two million of those pesky missing Bush-era emails have been recovered. It’s a Christmas Miracle! (Actually, no it’s not ).