You may have read on the Internet that this week’s big movie release is the “new” original Star Trek movie, and it is going to make millions of dollars. It is the latest manifestation of Hollywood studios’ race to abandon all creativity: after a popular movie series like Batman or Superman has run its course, just start over and make the first one again. Critics then praise the director’s “new vision,” and political writers note that all of the characters are famous politicians, secretly, in real life. Everyone remembers last year’s important Wall Street Journal column, “George Bush Jr. Is The Bat Man.” This year’s version? “Barack Obama is the Spock.” Steady yourself… MORE »

• Ooh, big day for George Bush today, when he will be informed that despite whenever epigram he was forced to write out 100 times in Dick Cheney’s Schoolmaster Assistant Spellings & Geographies Primer, there is a difference between “authoritative” and “authoritarian.” [Daily Intel]
• Nancy Pelosi is upsetting the entire world by posting YouTubes of her boring cat dressed up like a demon hybrid of James Joyce and a leprechaun. In other words, Nancy Pelosi is the only person in the history of recorded time to put cat-related content on the Internet and have it be met with disdain and not a book deal and a Bloggie. [Gawker]
• Mickey Kaus is still mad about that JournoList thing! Why is objectivist robber-baron Ezra Klein “privatizing” the Internet by emailing his friends??? [Kausfiles]
• Barack Obama does this quaint populist ritual in which he reads exactly 10 letters from the pile of 40,000 that are mailed to him everyday. Barack Obama is impossibly weird. [Top of the Ticket]
• AIG has a new friend in Rush Limbaugh, who will defend the company from Obama’s “lynch mob” by unwisely conflating Barack Obama the leader of an activisty band of racist vigilantes. [HuffPost]

Ha ha ha, so incredibly stupid, but here we are, LAUGHING. If you’d like to know the context of this amazing still — and we certainly don’t — you can read more here. Something about a brawl at “Cheyney” University. Really. [Philadelphia Will Do, ABC 6 Philadelphia]

Ughh… people have asked for a drinking game for George W. Bush’s farewell address, which this liveblog will “cover” (as in, “maybe watch.”) Well here’s your game. Drink. Drink constantly. Locate alcohol and imbibe as rapidly as possible. YOU MUST DRINK, IT IS GEORGE BUSH JUNIOR COMMANDING RESPECT. SAVE YOURSELF. DRINK SOME ALCOHOL YOU IDIOT. DRINK VINEGAR AT THE VERY LEAST. MORE »

• Some states, including some you might actually live in like New York, are trying to introduce an online sales tax to things like iTunes, Amazon, and pornography sites like “XX Factor” etc. [AMERICAblog]
• Obama will select a Columbia/Harvard pal of his, “Orange” Julius “Caesar” “Salad” Genachowski, to be the new chairman of the FCC. [The Caucus]
• George Bush is the most popular human of all time in Sudan, Israel, Georgia (the Georgia that did not actually elect him) and some other places. [Daily Beast]
• Dick Cheney will maybe write a book! One that will settle “a few scores.” What “scores” did he possibly leave unsettled, or alive? [Top of the Ticket]
• Mitt Romney would still like to be considered for the position of John McCain’s losing Vice President. [CNN Political Ticker]

By the Comics Curmudgeon
Remember a couple of months ago, when everything was all Hope this and Change that and Yes We Can whatever, and you thought that everything was going to be all sweetness and light from here on in? FOOLS! Little did you know that the nightmare would just go on, forever and ever, like a never-ending mescaline trip. Brace yourselves for the horror show that launches 2009, with waves of human-animal hybrids and Dick Cheney’s bosoms! MORE »

Politico, everyone — the Politico has a scoop! MORE »

• Instead of fixing Florida’s terrible economy, Charlie Crist spent a quarter of a million dollars in sunny Madrid, including $1,300 on a minibar tab, presumably immediately preceding sex with his fiance, a known woman. [Andrew Sullivan]
• Mark Begich, who is from Alaska and is neither Trig nor Ted Stevens so why would you know who this is?, doesn’t want to send Stevens, whom he beat in last month’s Senate race, to jail. [TPMMuckraker]
• President Bush is thinkin all profound-like. “I’m just a simple President,” he tells Cynthia McFadden. [ABC News]
• The mystery of “Senate Candidate #5″ is like that of “Client-9″ but with fewer whore diamonds (because of the recession.) [Marc Ambinder]
• Fran Drescher, whom you might remember hating on teevee programs like The Nanny, would like Hillary Clinton’s old gig as a Senator. [CNN Political Ticker]

Can you even believe this George Bush. While all of you people and everyone else are having your homes foreclosed by the Subprimes, PRESIDENT MONEYBAGS over here and his smoker wife “Laura” are going to *buy* a home, to *live* in. “Laura Bush confirmed that she and the President are buying a house in Dallas, about two hours from his beloved Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas.” Superfluous! MORE »

What is up here? George Bush is not shaking anybody’s hand, nobody’s shaking his hand, it is an international diplomatic crisis! It will be nice to have a President whom the leaders of other nations do not find so physically revolting they can’t stand to touch him briefly. [YouTube]

• Here is your President — ha ha, no, the other one: “George” — congratulating Barack Obama. [Ben Smith]
• Hysterical manchild Eric Cantor, whose feelings were hurt by terrible bully Nancy Pelosi, is throwing his name into the House Republican Whip hat. [RedState]
• Michelle Malkin will have none of this dumb “GOP re-branding,” which is just a fancy vapid David Axlerod-ism. The fundamentals of the Party, clearly, are strong. [Michelle Malkin]
• A bunch of elitist four-year college professors suggest books that Obama should read, now that he’s President and has so much more time for leisure. [Inside Higher Ed]
• Meet Obama’s all-star transition team! Starting lineup includes Janet Napolitano, John Podesta, and that new puppy that Obama has pinky-sworn to Sasha and Malia. [Marc Ambinder]
• There are about 9 billion humans on Earth right now (not counting Joe Lieberman or his multitude of evil hologram clones.) In 1830, it was just 1 billion. [The Caucus]