Wow — it’s been a year since I started keeping this website alive. It doesn’t feel like a year…

I don’t know what it is, but I rarely agree with other people’s “Best Of” lists. That being said, coincidence has it that Dan Egger and I agree on the #1 Simpsons moment of all time.

I read a ton in the news earlier this year about the parents who were being prosecuted for the obesity of their child, and a lot of it lamented that it was an unnecessary intrusion into parental caretaking liberties. After reading this article about the true situation, though, I have no sympathy for the parents; they had a four-year-old, 138-pound baby, and they were feeding him fast food. The BiPAP machine (a type of intermittent ventilator) they had for the boy had cockroaches in it. Parenting isn’t just a right, people — it’s a responsibility, and taking it less than completely seriously should lose you the right.

A whole bunch of things I want for my Sony Clie: expansion modules, a wireless adapter, and a GameBoy emulator.

My friends, herein lies the reason that the American Academy of Pediatricians recommends the sole use of the injectable polio vaccine. (For those less medically-inclined, the oral vaccine can mutate in the stomach to a fully-live virus; it won’t infect you, but it will infect anyone who comes into contact with your poop and whatnot.)

If, in a conversation about a cat who accidentally drank some antifreeze, a woman also asks how much antifreeze it would take to kill a person, you may want to check on the health of her husband…

Lost in all the election news: Clinton establishes the largest protected area in the U.S. out of the the coral reefs of Hawaii. (Of course, don’t worry — once we’re in a Bush administration, Cheney will rescind the designation.)

Has the BushBlog really been around since November 22nd, or did they just predate a whole lot of entries? Whatever the answer, the thing’s friggin’ hilarious. “Told Jim if he wouldn’t let me concede, I’d take it to court. And I will, soon as Jim lets me out of my room. I didn’t know the doors could lock from the outside.”

Lots and lots and lots of election news today. First, the Leon County Circuit Court ruled in favor of Bush, saying that there would be no hand recount of the 14,000 disputed ballots from Southern Florida. Gore immediately appealed, and the appeals court immediately kicked to case to the Florida Supreme Court. Next, the U.S. Supreme Court threw the vote certification case back to the Florida Supreme Court (opinion here); that makes two big cases that are now on their desks. And lastly, former President Bush is to undergo hip replacement… oh, wait, that’s just minimally-important news that the stations are using to fill time.

Regarding the U.S. Supreme Court decision, most news outlets are making this out to be a big win for Bush, but so far as I can see, it’s not. Taken literally, the Court told the Florida Supreme Court that it couldn’t understand the argument made in the lower court’s decision; figuratively, though, it was probably as clear a sign as I’ve ever seen of a Court that wished it hadn’t taken a case. For God’s sake, they kicked it down to the Florida Supreme Court with a complete roadmap of what the lower court would have to say to prevent their clarified decision from being reviewable by the Supremes; they made it clear that a clarified ruling for Gore would be untouchable.

Salon also has a great Law and Order-type story about the testimony in Leon County, and how a clerk got a piece of information to one of the lawyers just quickly enough for him to make a witness change his story 180 degrees.

Mix the first modern hotly-contested election with the first election in the age of the Web, and what do you get? The Bush-Cheney Presidential Transition Foundation Website. Ladies and gentlemen, it don’t get more pathetic than this.