This one is for you coffee fanatics. I have a five-year-old Capresso coffee maker which I really love but it’s finally starting to die. More often than not, the coffee spills all over the kitchen counter before it’s finished. So my question for you guys is: what is the best new drip coffee maker I can buy?

I am generally willing to spend as much as $200 for a good coffee maker. I know it sounds crazy, but that is the fuel that makes the cartoons and the writing possible for me. So I have to have something good and reliable. I would prefer a machine that does not have a heated element to keep the coffee warm.

Thomas Friedman’s column in the New York Times is a total mystery. Here is a man who has no insights whatsoever, is always wrong on every political prognostication, and can’t write his way out of a paper bag. And yet he has won two Pulitzer Prizes. His books are routinely number one on the New York Times bestsellers list for weeks or maybe even months at a time. My former boss at United media even called him the best columnist in the country.

Today’s column is a typical example. Written in the format of a memo from the Chinese ministry of state security to Pres. Fu Jintao of China, this piece of sh*t purports to explain that the world is now interconnected by this very strange thing called the Internet. As if this was something that everybody did not already know.

Fire Tom, please.

Today’s New York Times week in review section has the usual cartoon spread. As usual, it is nothing more than an example of hackwork that is completely stripped of editorializing. Political cartoons should have politics in them. But these never do. Of the four cartoons, we have one about Congressman Wiener and Twitter, another one about cell phones and cancer. Then there’s a Jeff Stahler cartoon about Kevorkian and again Wasserman cartoon about Mitt Romney. None of these express any indication as to whether they’re drawn by liberals or conservatives. Typical.

Listening to the Kinks’ “Low Budget” LP. Track: “Attitude.”

I’d forgotten how much fun this period, not their best, was.

John Edwards is accused of something laughably trivial.

It is downright surreal to see him pilloried for misappropriation of campaign funds while total scum like Bush and Obama relax, unmolested, despite lying the American people into wars that are bankrupting us and murdering hundreds of thousands of people.

The Democrats and Tea-publicans are equally worthless on job creation. Both point to encouraging businesses to hire. (Rs say they need lower taxes and deregulation. Ds say business is spooked by the threat of government shutdowns and threats not to make good on federal obligations.) Both are wrong.

Recovery would begin with consumer spending. For that to happen, consumers need more disposable cash. Whether that’s from extended unemployment benefits for the 99ers, or big public works hiring and WOA-style projects, the government has to jumpstart the economy.

Despooking business won’t help. They won’t start hiring until they have more customers to sell to.

Amazingly, the two parties want to see an American Spring, Yemen-style.

Alabama has just surpassed Arizona with new nativist legislation.

The good news is, it won’t be too hard to boycott Alabama.

Don’t do anything stupid, Hawaii!

So apparently prison in Venezuela is more fun than a job in an American office.

Hugo Chavez, please invade!

These politicians! An Ohio Congressman claims someone hacked into his fake Twitter account. My head hurts, and not just from seasonal allergies.

There ought to be a law: if a politicians’ name is on a tweet–or a New York Times op/ed piece–he or she ought to have written it.

Coming soon: The bizarre spectacle of the GOP-controlled House voting on a Dennis Kucinich-sponsored bill against Obama’s oil war against Libya.

The vote was already delayed because (horrors!) it might pass, triggering a devastating peace.

It’ll be interesting to watch if the GOP takes on the War Party (Obama’s pseudo-Democrats).