And the rest of last week's comics:

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In primetime, Fox was down 21% in total viewers and 41% in the key 25-54 age demographic from last November -- when the presidential election boosted numbers. That marked the lowest decline -- both CNN and MSNBC were down more than 50% in both categories in primetime.
[...snip...]
Here are the ratings for November, via Nielsen:

TOTAL DAY

• FNC: 1,201,000 total viewers - down 18%; (248,000 in 25-54 - down 30%)
  
• CNN: 335,000 total viewers - down 48%; (100,000 in 25-54 - down 59%)
  
• MSNBC: 401,000 total viewers - down 45%; (124,000 in 25-54 - down 52%)
  
• HLN: 213,000 total viewers - down 7%; (81,000 in 25-54 - down 14%)

PRIMETIME 8-11PM/ET

• FNC: 2,011,000 total viewers - down 21% (338,000 in 25-54 - down 41%)
  
• CNN: 481,000 total viewers - down 54%; (153,000 in 25-54 - down 62%)
  
• MSNBC: 645,000 total viewers - down 50%; (190,000 in 25-54 - down 57%)
  
• HLN: 278,000 total viewers - down 2%; (90,000 in 25-54 - down 17%)

Anita Kumar, a reporter at McClatchy, has a good article highlighting how, for all the talk by the Obama administration about how it needs to be more open and transparent about what the NSA is doing, in actuality, the administration has built up the walls even higher, increasing the levels of secrecy... including secrecy about how he's responded to everything:

Obama has been gradually tweaking his vast government surveillance policies. But he is not disclosing those changes to the public. Has he stopped spying on friendly world leaders? He won't say. Has he stopped eavesdropping on the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund? He won't say.

Even the report by the group Obama created to review and recommend changes to his surveillance programs has been kept secret.

As is noted in the article, the administration, which likes to pretend it's the most transparent in history, is actually one of the most secretive. Its attempts at transparency have almost exclusively been focused on where it can get the most political bang, not for what areas people expect the government to be transparent about -- such as how it interprets the laws that allow the government to spy on everyone...

Money is the basis of almost all relationships in DC. And, in a nutshell, this is why our political campaign system and DC's mushrooming Permanent Class...who alternate between government jobs and lawyering. Influence-peddling and finance...mean Wall Street always wins. The rest of the country may be divided into red and blue, but DC is green (that is, covered in money), and cheerfully so. Nationally, we're descending into bitter partisan warfare, while in Washington, professional Democrats and Republicans gleefully join together to work for those special interests that can afford to pay them. Among the political class, the center may be disappearing, but at my old lobbying firm, Quinn Gillespie & Associates, it's holding together quite well. From The Payoff by Jeff Connaughton

Where All The Waste Is

Sure defense contractors are robbing us all blind, but we really need to cut the salary of the grunts.
...
The point of cutting the pay of military personnel is to ensure there's more money for the contractors, and more money for the post-military salaries of the generals.

The Denver Post has hired a Marijuana Editor.

Ricardo Baca, a blunt-speaking man, will be in charge of covering the rollout of the new recreational marijuana law in Colorado on Jan. 1. In an only-in-America Q&A last week, Baca was asked by the Post, which sounds like a hip joint, if he plans to have a pot critic covering the local reefer scene.

His answer: "We are absolutely hiring a freelance pot critic. And a freelance pot advice columnist. And a freelance video game writer."

What a country.

Walker had been attending a charity event that afternoon for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan, and as the event wound down, he joined his friend, Roger Rodas, in taking a 2005 Porsche out for a spin. Rodas, who was driving, also died in the crash. L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. investigators believe that speed was a probable cause in the accident.

Walker's final completed film, "Hours," which is set in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, is due in theatres in a couple of weeks. He was in the midst of filming the seventh installment of "Fast & Furious" when he was killed, and it's unknown how his death will impact production in Atlanta.

link

The justices did not comment Monday in leaving in place a federal appeals court ruling dismissing Liberty University's lawsuit. link

Meanwhile, up north, 18-year-old Washington Huskies freshman QB Troy Williams -- who was recruited by now-former Huskies head coach Steve Sarkisian only eight months ago -- tweeted his displeasure with his coach's decision to bolt UW for USC:

"Don't ever commit cus of a coach. Faker than a 3 dollar bill."

Out of the mouths of babes.

The person I truly feel horrible for is now-former USC interim head coach Ed Orgeron, who earned the right to the serious consideration he obviously never received for the job, based upon his sterling leadership under difficult circumstances these past few months. And after all he did to salvage this season from what otherwise looked to be an imminent train wreck, Coach Orgeron deserved far better from USC AD Pat Haden than this, a knee-jerk reaction to a disappointing loss at the hands of a better UCLA team.

To make matters worse, Orgeron apparently first learned about the decision from the L.A. media, and not from Haden himself. Rather than accept Haden's subsequent offer to serve as the Trojans' "Associate Head Coach" under Steve Sarkisian, he abruptly resigned from the job and vacated his office, leaving the Trojans now rudderless as they prepare for an upcoming bowl game.

Quite obviously, the good folks at USC have done yeoman's work this day to live up to their school's derisive monicker, "The University of Spoiled Children." Simply put, this was a terribly shabby move by both an institution which feels itself entitled, and a self-centered coach on the make. Shame on you, Pat Haden and all involved.

Well, now that USC has shown their true colors, they clearly don't deserve Ed Orgeron. And I wish Coach O all the best as he moves forward with his life. I hear there's a current coaching vacancy in Seattle.

Enjoy the .500 ball and seven-win seasons to come, Trojan Nation. You deserve it.

There's a legend of a lady on the mountain
Lives alone beyond the Mecca plain
And with her hands she makes it through the winter
She never goes against the grain

To be someone is to be someone alone
To be someone is known as solitude
To learn to sing below the surface
You must adjust your altitude
[...snip...]
Break the news, the Pepote Rouge is coming to town
We stand accused, Pepote Rouge, of bein' hell bound
She can help us find our way and get across
You don't know what you gained, till you find out what you lost

The Pepote Rouge come down from the mountain
And lead our people into the light of day
For they are lost and know not where they're goin'
And all their leaders are cast in clay

Now disbelief and mass confusion
Spreading wild across the land
You can call it love or call it wisdom
To be not savin' a drowning man

Break the news, the Pepote Rouge is coming to town
We stand accused, Pepote Rouge, of bein' hell bound
She can show us just where we went wrong
You don't know where you're goin', till you find where you belong