The only problem with new years is that they create unrealistic expectations.  If only there was a reboot button on reality, we could back up the good stuff, clean up the viruses, reload the OS, and start fresh.  With more heavage.

I feel like that's what I've done. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the world.  But we're only a week in, world!  There's still time!  Here are some of the left-overs from the noughts (in no particular order, and by no means a complete list) that are way past their expiration dates and overripe for the dust bin of history.



Balloon Boy, et al.  So 2009.  Now dad's off to jail and whining that he had to plead guilty to save his family.  Know what?  Don't care.  Your fifteen minutes are over, bitch.  And by the way: they'd be doing your wife the biggest favor of her life by deporting her.  In fact, why don't we, as a nation, have a new year's resolution to do away with "reality" "stars", aspiring and otherwise, altogether?  That includes White House Party Crashers and fucking Jon and Kate (the latter of whom apparently wants to be the next Posh Spice). 

Teatards.  Enough already with the Tea Party "movement."  Calling this a movement is like calling a brain-dead patient's involuntary knee jerk a sign of intelligent life.  It's not a movement, it's a fucking spasm.  Pull the plug already. 

Fox News/The Fox News-Daily Show Romance. With TV it's really true that if you ignore it, it goes away.  But if you don't, the idiocy spreads like wildfire.  As much as I admire Jon Stewart & Co.'s trying to keep Fox honest, his crew at Comedy Central is probably doing more for Fox's ratings than Fox is.  And Fox is happy for the business.  Which is why Sean Hannity snidely thanked Stewart for watching after The Daily Show ran a segment on Fox's distortions in reporting a recent Teatard Rally.  Of course I saw Hannity's thank you on the Daily Show.  Enough already. This is the very definition of a codependent relationship.  End it.

That means you, Glenn Beck.  And all the other old rodeo clowns at Fox.  Fucking network's like a reject Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Janet Napolitano.  I have never once felt reassured by the current head of Homeland Security.  And I'm not all that hard to reassure, actually.  I just think she hits all the wrong notes.  The low-point was her recent claims that a Christmas Day terror attack thwarted by other passengers (not to mention the would-be terrorist's own ineptitude) proved that "the system worked", for which she received much-earned scorn.  How about getting someone like Chesley B. Sullenberger III to head the agency, and while we're at it, can we finally please change that awful Third Reichy name (by which I mean "Homeland Security," not "Napolitano")?

Dick Cheney, please die. 

Michael Jackson.  Another treacly, half-baked, undiscovered single? Ooh.  Can't wait to hear it.

The Climate Change "Debate".  Who are you going to believe:  the people that brought you penicillin and the iphone or the people who brought you George Bush?  If you don't believe in science, try living without it for eight years, see how that works out.  Oh, wait a minute.

Declaring the Recession Over. December 1, 2008: Recession Declared.  Declared over: April 15, 2009. May 5, 2009. June 17,2009.  July 14, 2009. August 13, 2009.  September 15, 2009.  October 27, 2009. November 7, 2009. December 17, 2009. January 5, 2010.  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet??  Are we there yet???

Seriously, people.  Let's take it from the top.  This time, with more heavage.