The Governor is delivering an ugly little present this holiday.

NY Gov. Patterson, faced with an ever mounting budget gap, is proposing 88 new or higher fees and will hit New Yorkers in many areas, from downloading music to sipping drinks to fishing.



Enjoy your Christmas folks.


Here's a little ditty about the holiday for those of you in a bad mood because of all the proposed tax increases





Christmas video countdown -








Here's your Today in History -



It was 105 years ago today that Orville Wright made the first recorded flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in a plane he built with his brother. The flight lasted a mere twelve seconds and covered only 120 feet, but a short flight had been expected: after all, two Wrights don't make it long.

Their checked luggage still hasn't gotten to the terminal.


81 years ago today, U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg suggested a worldwide pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy. Virtually all of the major powers of the world signed the Kellogg-Briand pact in Paris on August 27, 1928.



The pact went into force on July 24, 1929. War was finally outlawed and the people of the earth were filled with joy.

The peace achieved by the Kellogg-Briand Pact was an idyll like none other. It is still referred to as the happiest seven minutes in human history.

Ah, 1929, that sweet summer of human happiness!


But perhaps we do not give sufficient credit to the authors and signers of that ill-fated pact for their ironic sense. It was thought up on the 227th birthday of Humphrey Davy, the inventor of laughing gas.




William Safire would probably be able to explain why he's "turning" 79 today, rather than flipping, busting, or tripping that milestone. He shares his birthday with Bob Guccione (1930), Arthur Fiedler (1894), and John Greenleaf Whittier (1807).


Continue to shop til you drop, 4 more shopping days until Hanukkah, 7 more shopping days until Christmas.

And so it goes.