Twelve years ago this evening — more or less: twelve years ago December 31, 1999 was a Friday night, and the corresponding Friday this year is December 30, 2011 — I was in Bettendorf, Iowa with Doug getting ready to celebrate Y2K. It’s a little weird to remember how concerned so many people were about the Imminent Collapse of Civilization, but yes, lots of intelligent, well-reasoned people had those concerns. Doug’s mother had about thirty gallons of drinking water set aside in case a serious crisis ensued.

He and I spent that day enjoying cigars with his father, solving all the world’s problems from our comfortable chairs in the basement. We went out to a shooting range, where I rented a Glock for the first — and only — time in my life. It was a well-used range weapon. The sear broke like a soda cracker on the second round of the magazine, and the next thing I knew my Glock 19 became a Glock 18 firing at twelve hundred rounds per minute. Doug can affirm just how white my face was: that was, is, the greatest moment of stark terror I’ve ever experienced on a shooting range. Of course, it was all over in under a second and a half: by the time I fully recognized what had happened it was all over save for the sound of a fountain of brass falling down around me like a rain of pennies.

We left the range after finishing our ammunition, then returned to his parents’ place. We rang in the Year 2000 by watching Strange Days on DVD, a movie set on December 31, 1999, and ending right at the year 2000.

I look back on that now and it seems so new to me, as if it was only a year or so ago. And yet, look at all that’s gone on since then. We each moved to California, enjoyed the boom and were damned by the bust, returned to the Midwest. I went to graduate school and he got married, he moved to Colorado and I headed out East. There have been jobs taken with optimism and left with the wreckage of cynicism, there have been failed relationships, triumphs, tragedies, all of that.

The more I think about what matters in life, the more I realize there is nothing more precious than a friendship which has aged well. Nothing.

May we all be so blessed as to have well-aged friendships. May those of us who are married be so fortunate as to say we’re married to a friend of many years. May those of us with children be so lucky as to say our children are not just our children but also our friends.

And may we all have a prosperous and joyful year ahead.

Thanks much, y’all. :)

My friend Adrian Preston will be missing the next two weeks of work due to some life-saving emergency surgery. Between having no health insurance and missing that much work, well — it’s fair to say he’s currently in a state of financial emergency.

His partner Andrea is running a fundraiser over at her LiveJournal page. Anything you can to to help them will be appreciated, not just by them but by me. Everything helps. Thanks a lot, guys.

A hat tip to fireba11 for his help with this list. Any major brainos are mine, not his.

Now that I have trunk space worth talking about, I'm in the process of putting together an automotive emergency kit worth talking about.

So, what are y'all's thoughts? Have you put together your own automotive emergency kits? Are they similar to this, different?

This is one of the most astonishing unretouched photographs I’ve ever seen. Courtesy of Oleg Volk, who says that this image is of the model’s natural eye color, with a slight bit of natural augmentation from the clear blue skies she was photographed under and the lack of other blue hues in the image.

According to the Occupy Wall Street crowd, they speak for me on account of how my income and wealth are insufficient to put me in the top one percent of Americans.

This is for them.

First, shut the fuck up.

Second, let’s have a reality check here. 47% of Americans pay no federal income tax at all: whatever withholdings get taken out they get refunded back each April 15. If you’re part of the 47% you have little incentive to have sane thoughts on income tax policy. Maybe you do have sane thoughts. Maybe you don’t. But until you have skin in the game I’m going to assume that you’re woefully ignorant on the subject of taxation. It’s nothing personal. I just don’t see any incentive for you to pay attention, and that means I think you’re probably not.

While we’re at it, stop trotting out that old hackneyed line from Justice Holmes about how with taxes he purchases civilization. When Holmes said that line he was giving four percent of his income to the government. This year I’m going to pay almost forty percent of my income to the government. In each eight-hour day of labor, the government takes three hours and twelve minutes of my productivity.

Every. Goddamned. Day.

Believe it or not I don’t complain too much about my taxes. We’ve got some very real budget problems and I understand there are no pain-free ways out of this ball of suck. The President is promising not to raise taxes for 98% of Americans, the Republicans are promising not to raise taxes for 100% of Americans, and I just stand here slack-jawed. These imbeciles have run our nation’s economy into the ground and now we’re looking to them to get us out of it? Screw that. If someone can make a credible claim to me that if I were to pay another five percent net in taxes — hiking my tax rate by 12%, more than anyone in Congress is currently lobbying for even on the high end — that we could get out of this financial quagmire, I would grind my teeth into powder and put my shoulder to the wheel.

We’re Americans. Hard work is in our blood. France is the nation of the 35-hour workweek. America is the nation of overtime.

So, yeah, I’m actually okay with higher taxes, if someone can present something even vaguely resembling an actual plan. Which, so far, not just hasn’t happened but is now approaching the realm of deluded fantasy. We’re talking about a Congress that hasn't passed a budget in over 900 days. 900 days. Why should I have any confidence in their financial predictions if they can’t even pass a budget?

What makes me prickly about the prospect of tax hikes, though — and especially from the OWS crowd — is that so far none of them have had the decency to say what’s clearly, obviously, true.

None of them have had the decency to look me in the eye and say, “You made good decisions. You’re above water financially. You’ve got a good job. You’ve got good future earnings prospects. And we know that our government is already forcing you to work for them for three hours and twelve minutes each day. And we want our government to force you to work for them for four hours a day. Forty-eight minutes longer each day, from here on out.”

Because that’s really what we’re talking about, folks. That’s really what it boils down to.

I’m willing to do this for my country. I’m willing to do this for my fellow citizen. I’m willing to do this for a patchouli-stinking graduate student in art history who thinks he’d be a lot better off if I were to be forced to work forty-eight minutes a day more so that he can be delivered from the consequences of his stupid financial decisions.

I just want someone to look me in the eye and be honest about it, and tell me that yes, this sucks, and they understand exactly what it is they’re demanding of me.

The fact that nobody has done this just makes me think nobody understands.

And I’m not willing to work an extra forty-eight minutes a day for people who don’t even understand what they’re demanding I do for them.

It’s called, “Count the Constitutional Errors.”

As most people know, I have little respect for Keith Olbermann. I try not to accuse him of blind partisanship, malice or offensive body odor, though, on account of Hanlon’s Razor and not attributing to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.

The fact Olbermann did not challenge Rep. Slaughter on the bullshit she’s shoveling is, in my mind, absolute and conclusive proof that either (a) partisanship, malice and offensive body odor rule Olbermann’s brain, or (b) he flatlines an encephalogram and therefore nothing can be said to rule it.

Morgan Freeman, the man with the Voice of Authority, has been using it to great effect in Hollywood. I’m an enormous fan: his acting talents and his stentorian authority are second to none.

He has also parlayed his gifts into speaking with authority on a variety of partisan issues. To the extent he pushes his party’s agenda I have no objection to him: to the extent he demonizes those outside his party as racists and bigots, I object strenuously.

The great difficulty with letting Hollywood actors assume the role of voices of morality is this: so often it turns out their moral code is shockingly at odds with the rest of the world’s.

Great actor — but apparently a thoroughly loathsome human being.

I sat out of the 2008 election because I couldn’t support the candidate — yes, the candidate: no matter who you voted for you were really voting for Bush’s third term, and I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

It now seems I’ll be sitting out of the 2012 election, too. The President is undeserving of a second term, and tonight’s disgrace at the Republican debate shows none of the Republican contenders are deserving of a first.

Short version: an openly gay soldier asked the candidates a question about gays in the military. The answers don’t interest me so much as the fact the crowd heckled this soldier. That’s right: the debate crowd openly booed and hissed at this soldier, presumably for having the temerity to be gay and in uniform.

Any one of the candidates — any one of them — could have turned me into a supporter had they just told the crowd, “Listen to yourselves: you’re disgracing the Party of Lincoln. So what if he’s different? He put on that uniform to protect your right to be different in your own way. Show some respect, damn it.”

Of course, none of them did. A few have issued press statements calling the booing “unfortunate,” which is one of those political weasel words meaning “I’m going to claim I disapprove of what happened while pointedly not calling anyone on the carpet for it.”

This is not an issue of gay rights. This is a matter of basic human dignity, and the political courage necessary to hold people accountable when they fail to respect it. There were a lot of cowards up there on the stage, and they were all too happy to let the bus run over that soldier in the name of political expediency.

They’ll do the same to you or me if the need arises.

That’s all.

[Edit:] Kevin points out the reports that (a) only a very small number of people were heckling, but doing so loudly, (b) they were quickly hushed by their neighbors, and (c) the candidates on stage couldn’t hear the heckling. Gary Johnson, who was on stage, has confirmed that he heard it just fine, but the other two claims seem plausible. Even then, though, my real concern is the cowardly silence from the Republican candidates.

Governor Johnson has since come out to condemn the heckling in no uncertain terms, and to condemn his own silence. Good on you, Governor: most reformed prisoner in the penitentiary, you are. You could’ve had me as a rabid supporter had you only had the courage to stand up and be counted right when it mattered.