Merry, Merry!

Ok, people. I'm off to LA to enjoy the holiday with Reader M (a little worried that while I'm gone The Big One will strike -- there have been two decent size earthquakes in the last 3 days, the two biggest I've felt in 11 years in California.... I mention this so I can seem prescient if it happens, and by way of claiming the apotropaic effects of predicting catastrophe, i.e. it then never comes to pass).

Anyway, perhaps you are bored, and would like something to read. Perhaps you, like me, absolutely loathe Thom Friedman of the Times. Maybe you also have taken on the term "one Friedman" to mean 6 months, "2 Friedmans" to mean a year, etc. (for the uninitiated: since 2002, Friedman, who agitated for the war like he was getting paid for it, which maybe he was, has been saying "the next six months in Iraq will be critical" at roughly 2 month intervals). And maybe you have not been introduced to the pure joy that is the writing of Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi when he's on a tear. If not, let me offer you this as a Christmas offering. Feel free to eat it with your hands.