Happy Yankees Elimination Day!

Yeah, I know, I’m a bit late with this one: Yankees Elimination Day officially fell on Tuesday, when the Sox beat Cleveland 5-4 to extinguish any last mathematical shred of hope the Evil Empire had of making the playoffs. (What can I say, I was on vacation.)

This year has been a bonanza for Yankee-haters the world over: not only is The Toilet That Ruth Flushed going to be smashed into rubble in a couple of weeks, but YED falls on its earliest date in 13 years! Huzzah!

Ah yes, it’s truly a great time for those of us who love America, babies, puppies, and freedom.

In the midst of the unfolding horror that the Most Foul Year of Our Lord 2008, there are a few rays of light. It has occurred to us that several things are, in fact, Not Quite Dead Yet, and would like to go for a walk. For instance:

The New England Patriots are Not Quite Dead Yet. After losing the NFL’s best player to a season-ending injury last week, many (including yours truly) fretted over their future, but the sight of them shutting up an entire stadium of 78,000 knuckle-dragging troglodytes Jets fans was beautiful beyond measure. The whining and carping in the NYC sporting press this morning was even sweeter. Still Enjoying those t-shirts you shelled out $18.99 for? Boy, that shirt sure had a long shelf-life, didn’t it? You fucking pathetic losers.

Metallica is Not Quite Dead Yet. The band that revolutionized heavy metal and released the greatest album of the entire 80’s decade had since launched into a death spiral so long and uninterrupted that I wrote them off completely years ago. Ditching their distinctive style to dabble (badly) in pop-metal, grunge, alternative, and Southern rock…the lawsuit against Napster…the rehab stints…the haircuts...all culminating in one of the worst albums any band in any genre has ever released…yeah, I thought they were done.

But then they hired Rick Rubin, who basically told them “You had the perfect sound in 1986. What the fuck have you been doing for the past 22 years???” And against all odds, they’ve recorded what should have been the logical followup to the impeccable triumvirate of Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and ...And Justice For All. Is Death Magnetic as good as those classics? No, not really. But it’s easily the best thing they’ve done in more than two decades. They may not be all the way back, but they’re finally headed in the right direction, which, considering how far they fell, is a miracle in itself. It’s certainly far more than I ever expected at this late date.

New Orleans is Not Quite Dead Yet, despite the best efforts of our government to kill it. The City That George Bush Forgot miraculously dodged not one, but two potentially fatal hurricanes in the past two weeks.

This Friday, the Special Lady Friend and I will be flying down to N’awlins for a few days of vacation. It will be my first time visiting since 2002, long before Katrina hit. If there’s post-Ike cleanup that needs to be done, we’ll volunteer to pitch in where we can. The post-Katrina cleanup, I fear, may take decades… but it will get done.

No, despite what you are all no doubt assuming, the title of this post is not a reference to Tom Brady’s knee injury. If it turns out to be as serious as it looked, and the NFL’s best player is indeed out for several months, then this season is over before it even began. However, I’ll wait for the MRI before I commence panicking.

And no, it’s not a reference to Oldy McOld picking a dangerous lunatic to be his running mate, either. After all, there’s still plenty of time left for the American voter to come to his/her senses. If November 5th dawns with the McCain/Palin ticket running the Formerly Free World, then I’ll shit bricks.

Nope, the real reason my knees are knocking together today is the federal government’s takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As previously noted, these twin giants collectively control 50% of all the home mortgages in America, and are hemorrhaging money by the trainload. If they were to go under, the entire US economy would collapse like a house of cards in short order. As in, tomorrow.

As for the consequences of the government’s buyout, well, we’ll let the Snarky Penguin handle that one:

Over 9% of U.S. mortgages are either in default or in foreclosure. The U.S. government is taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The economy has shed over half a million jobs over the past nine months. Most state and local governments are bankrupt or the closest thing to it. The highway trust fund for repairs to the nation’s crumbling highways and bridges is out of money. The federal government isn’t bankrupt only because it can print money—without the power to print money, there would be no way to pay the bills. But this is driving up the prices of everything to the point where even raw materials are cheaper overseas, meaning that even though the dollar is plummeting like a rock, it is still cheaper to move manufacturing jobs overseas rather than keep them in America—the U.S. has lost 20% of its manufacturing jobs over the last five years.

Meanwhile, this show is debuting on Fox as I write this post. I’d say they’re distracting us with bread and circuses while Rome burns down around us, but the country’s been run by Republicans for eight years, so there’s no more money for bread.

To celebrate our first anniversary, the Special Lady Friend and I took a getaway trip to the small island of Monhegan, ten miles off the Maine coast. There, far beyond the insidious reach of teevee, cell phones, and the Interweb Tubes, we enjoyed several days of excessive public drinking rest and relaxation. Monhegan might just be one of the most beautiful spots on earth.

Here are a few pics. (Full set nyah.)