If, like me, gift giving isn’t your thing, perhaps you can take some solace in reading of bombs like this:

“Man Says He Gave Wife Toilet Seat as Gift”
Gary and Karri Clark haven’t forgotten their second Christmas together. He knew she wanted bathroom accessories, so he wrapped up a couple of gifts and waited.
The toilet seat and towel rack didn’t go over too well.
“Here I thought I was doing good,” he recalled with a laugh. “It was something she can always use, day after day. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
. . .
Karri Clark admits she wanted a new toilet seat a decade ago because there was a crack in the old one. She just didn’t think she’d get one gift wrapped.
“I could not believe it,” she said. “What man gives you a toilet seat for Christmas? A fricking toilet seat, and it wasn’t even that expensive.”

Via Counterspin Central.

There haven’t been many of them recently. But Joe Lockhart thinks the fact that Rush Limbaugh has turned his guns on the senator is an indication things are “going well.”

Reports indicate that al-Qaeda continues to be interested in striking by air:

The United States has credible information, including some that prompted this week’s rise in the national terror threat level, that al-Qaida continues to study potential weaknesses in America’s revamped aviation security net looking for ways to strike again through the air, U.S. officials familiar with recent intelligence say.
. . .
“The information clearly shows they care about getting ahold of airplanes with large fuel supplies in areas with lots of people, and to do it in a way that comes in below our radar screen,” said one senior U.S. official with access to intelligence, speaking only on condition of anonymity.
. . .
“You would think there are a lot of softer targets out there that wouldn’t take as much work,” said Douglas Laird, a former Northwest Airlines security chief who now advises clients on aviation security. “What baffles me is I just don’t know what they (al-Qaida) would do to make it happen now.”
But Laird said an aviation attack continues to have appeal to the terrorist mind. “The airlines are always going to be a good avenue because it strikes the fear of God in the public to have an airliner sabotaged. It generates lots of coverage,” he said.
U.S. officials said debriefings of terrorists show al-Qaida continues to value an attack via aviation because its leaders believe such an attack would have both dramatic effects on America’s economic superiority and because it would strike at an important symbol of Western freedom.

I don’t have a habit of sitting around contemplating terrorism strategy, but it seems to me that one of the reasons 9/11 was so successful was because it caught authorities off guard. Presumably, that’s more difficult to do now via aviation. So if al-Qaeda is planning another air strike, they’ve either found a fairly soft spot to exploit, or they’re pretty hard-headed. Mr. Laird’s comment seems on point.

Joshua Marshall doesn’t see anything to the Saddam capture rumors.

Apparently money can’t solve all one’s problems:

An attorney for Rush Limbaugh charged Monday that the conservative talk show host was being blackmailed by the Florida couple whose allegations triggered an ongoing investigation into his purchases of painkillers.
During a hearing over whether prosecutors should have access to Limbaugh’s medical records, attorney Roy Black said Limbaugh paid “extreme amounts of money” to Wilma Cline, his former housekeeper, and her husband, first for pills and then for extortion. Black alleged that the Clines had threatened to go public with information about Limbaugh’s drug use unless they received $4 million.
. . .
Sources have told CNN that the investigation into Limbaugh’s drug use began in February when Cline, who once worked as a housekeeper at his home in West Palm Beach, went to authorities.
The Clines later went public with their charges in the National Enquirer, alleging that Limbaugh’s representative had paid them hush money. Sources said the couple was paid a six-figure sum for their story.

This all couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.