Free fire zone

And here we were looking for peace in the New Year. No such luck. Time to pull out the blunderbuss again:

• 
  Nancy Pelosi’s big debut was pretty amusing. She’s coming on like Helen Reddy did back in ’72 and her heartwarming story about going from being a housewife to Speaker of the House would be genuinely inspiring if not for the inconvenient detail that she is one of the richest people in Washington. She rose in Congress because her vineyard-owning husband was able to pay the entry fee. I think the narrative stuff is overrated, anyway. Pelosi will succeed or fail based on her ability to control the cranks in her party. Having Cindy Sheehan shout down one of Pelosi’s top lieutenants and then commandeer his microphone is a bad, bad sign.
• I’ve talked about Don Shelby’s dumb-ass commentaries on the local news before. Shelby has been a Minnesota institution in his perch at WCCO-TV for nearly 30 years now, but his pomposity has been growing exponentially lately. He’s lately taken up the cudgels for Keith Ellison, our shiny new Muslim congressman, giving Ellison plenty of air time to espouse his nonsensical views. Shelby yesterday was waxing eloquent on the lingering protests about Ellison’s symbolic use of the Koran for taking the oath of office. Shelby asked why people weren’t protesting the two Buddhists who were elected to Congress. Well Don, there haven’t been any Buddhists who have flown airliners into the World Trade Center. There’s one reason. Nor have any Buddhists planted IEDs lately, nor have any Buddhists beheaded anyone and distributed the video. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Buddhists aren’t a threat to our way of life. Some Muslims are.
• If I recall correctly, one of Rosie O’Donnell’s original claims to fame was how nice she was. Guess we were mistaken, eh?
• A little Hot Stove League – word is that elderly southpaw Randy Johnson is headed back to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Phoeniz is a popular retirement area, so it seems fitting. Johnson apparently still thinks he can pitch effectively in the majors, but he’s now 43 and it’s probably about time to go. Amazing that the guy will get $16 million this year. I’m 43 and lefthanded, too. Sure wish I could throw 95 miles an hour….