A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

A line in Isaiah referring to John the Baptist. These days it's a line from the media referring to Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma. Coburn was last seen (or likely first seen, by most people) on TV doing a crossword puzzle in the John Roberts confirmation hearings.

Well, he can do all the crosswords he wants as long as he keeps doing what he's doing now. He invoked some obscure procedural rule that requires a yes or no vote on each of 19 appropriations earmarks. This means that each Senator who inserted the earmark has to get up and defend it, which will undoubtedly make some of them look stupid. Today Coburn won a small victory by getting a seafood promotion program removed. Kudos for at least trying to hold people accountable for runaway spending.

The Futurama episode "Hell is Other Robots" is on right now, one of my favorites. It's up there with "Amazon Women in the Mood" and "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings". Not surprisingly, the first and third feature the Robot Devil, who's probably my favorite ancillary character on the show. Voiced by Dan Castellaneta, the same guy who does Homer Simpson, he's got style and personality out the wazoo. If we could combine the tenacity and devil-may-care attitude of Coburn and the evil cunning and devil-doesn't-care attitude of Robot Devil, we may actually get things done around here.