Post-Christmas postpourri

-- Thanks for the memories, Saddam. You were good for us -- some of us, anyway. Though like any other dysfunctional relationship, you weren't good to us, and that's why we had to find someone new.

-- As an ice shelf 25 square miles in size breaks off from the Canadian Arctic, Bush's former interior secretary, Gale Norton, takes a job at Shell.

I'm so old I remember when this kind of cronyism generated outrage.

-- In other science news, the National Park Service is not allowed to give an estimate of the age of the Grand Canyon so as not to offend religious fundamentalists. You can also buy a book at the national park which explains how Noah's flood created the canyon. Really.

-- We're going to watch the Rockets play on New Year's Eve, a tradition we started back when they were still playing at Lakewood Church.

See you next year.