Reps. Marty Meehan and Richard Neal apparently split the rent on a cheerful, swingin' party pad in the District:

"We don't have a kitchen table," said Rep. Marty Meehan, a Lowell Democrat who sleeps in a 1970s-era bed in the one-bedroom apartment he shares with Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield. "The refrigerator is empty."

Meehan, purported to be the neat one who occupies the bedroom, emphasized that Neal sleeps in a different and perhaps older hand-me-down bed in the living room. "It's kind of a bed," explained Meehan, noting that it once lurked in former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill's Washington pad decades ago.

Neal is older and more senior than Meehan; how come he gets stuck being The Guy on the Couch?

Seriously, though: can we please pay these people more?

Why are terrorists bad? According to Michigan State Senator and noted tolerance advocate Alan Cropsey, it's because they're "less likely to celebrate Christmas."

"Integrity" heads up a list of the most-looked-up words of 2005. Not on the list: irony.

Ralph Whitehead, a journalism professor at the University of Massachusetts, said it might indicate the continuing discussion about American values and morality, or perhaps that integrity itself is becoming scarce so its definition is unfamiliar. "You hope integrity is a word everyone understands," he said.

You heard it here first,* folks: integrity has become so scarce that no one knows what it is anymore. Go Bob Ney!

* - Unless you count the Associated Press.

Bill Richardson takes time out of his busy schedule of being drafted to lobby for a New Mexican NFL franchise:

Richardson and league Commissioner Paul Tagliabue have scheduled a meeting Tuesday - a day after Richardson plans to attend a Democratic Governors Association holiday reception in Washington, D.C.

"It's a very preliminary meeting," said Gilbert Gallegos, a Richardson spokesman. "He wants to discuss the RFP process that's ongoing and to get suggestions from [Tagliabue] about getting a team for New Mexico."

For reference, the only way to make this idea worse: if the franchise designated to become Albuquerque's NFL team was the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Interesting fact: Barack Obama didn't graduate from law school until he was 30.

Need to buy a present for a feeble-minded three-year-old, but can't think of any ideas? These folks have the answer. Highlights include the "Twisty Thing, That is Red," and the "Freedom Dinger" (with its accompanying "wood stick that can be used as a remote control").

Who's stupider: Ann Coulter or her UConn audience? CNN wants to know.

John Tierney, strangely enough, has a good idea:

Instead of just financing NASA's plans for Mars, Congress and the White House should make it compete against engineers like [Burt] Rutan. It could offer a prize, to be awarded by the National Academy of Engineering or the National Research Council, for the best plan on paper for a manned mission to Mars.

I don't think we should decrease NASA's funding, and I certainly don't think we should force it into any sort of "earn-your-dinner" competition for appropriations; on the contrary, I think it's a shame we don't spend more money on NASA. But without getting into that debate, surely it wouldn't be too hard to shift around a couple of non-NASA budget line-items and come up with $10 or $20 million (which, for reference, is about one-eighth of the cost of a new F/A-22) to give some private-industry types the incentive to get involved in the space program. The X-Prize proved that you didn't need to spend a gazillion dollars to get people excited; the winning team (led by the above-mentioned Rutan) spent about $25 million to win the $10 million award. So let's put some money out there, give people some time, and see what happens. It can't hurt.

Kooky Christians - determined to be unhappy until either A) theirs is officially declared the best and only religion in the world, or B) the rapture - are pissed off that the White House [holiday] card says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."

Bush "claims to be a born-again, evangelical Christian. But he sure doesn't act like one," said Joseph Farah, editor of the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com. "I threw out my White House card as soon as I got it."

And then later:

At the Catholic League, Donohue had just announced a boycott of the Lands' End catalogue when he received his White House holiday card. True, he said, the Bushes included a verse from Psalm 28, but Psalms are in the Old Testament and do not mention Jesus' birth.

Do these people hear themselves speak?

Sen. Bob Menendez? I have no particular objection to Menendez (other than that awful picture), but 2006 is going to be a heck of a challenge.

Mark Warner (the article conveniently features a creepy picture of him, in case you don't know his face) raises $2.5 million with a single meal. To put that in terms you little people can understand, that's exactly $2,500,007.56 more than I raised during my gala dinner at Subway last night. Mark Warner 1, Mike 0.

Handicapping the World Baseball Classic. Because why the devil not?

Round 1
Pool A: Ichiro, Matsui, and the entire Japanese Major League, playing six home games in a row? Japan's coming out on top, no question. The second spot will go to Korea in a squeaker over Chinese Taipei. Sorry, China.
Pool B: U.S. and Canada, barring something surprising from Mexico. The sheer starpower of the American team makes it easy to worry about a basketball-style Dream Team meltdown, but Buck Rodriguez will whip them into shape, no problem. U-S-A, U-S-A!
Pool C: Puerto Rico comes out of this bracket smelling like a rose (the savvy reader will note that the home team has yet to lose), with the second spot hotly contested by Cuba and Panama. Panama will win it, but Cuba will put up a fight. (And those poor bastards on the Netherlands team are going to be playing, essentially, "Who gets to carry Andruw Jones's bat during practice?")
Pool D: Finally, some excitement: Venezuela v. Dominican Republic (no home team this time). That'll be a great game, but there's no real pressure: they're both advancing to Round 2. Speaking of which....

Round 2
Pool AB: Canada and Korea are great countries, I'm sure, and they are each notable for producing literally tens of thousands of baseball players more talented than yours truly, but there's no reason to expect that they'll be advancing beyond Round 2. Nice talkin' to you; onward and upward.
Pool CD: The Latin explosion! Puerto Rico, Panama, Venezuela, and the Dominicans, all in the same pool. Sweet Jesus, that's a lot of talent for one body of chlorinated water. Expect some early-inning shutouts and some late-inning slugfests, but when the dust settles, Venezuela and the D.R. will be moving on.

Semis
Semi AB: Japan v. United States. The Japanese team's looked pretty good up to this point. They'll have played the U.S. twice, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they've won one of those games. But no way they win the rubber match; the U.S. is just too powerful. U.S. beats Japan, 4-2.
Semi CD: Venezuela v. Dominican Republic. Venezuela's going to put up a great team, but in the end, they'll fall to the Dominican Powerhouse. The only way Venezuela can win is if the D.R.'s divas go overboard ("just Manny being Manny" doesn't fly when the entire team does it), but the coaching staff knows to expect it, and they'll be on the lookout. The Dominicans whomp the Venezuelans, 8-3.

Finals
U.S.A. v. Dominican Republic, PETCO Park. Otherwise known as "The 2006 All-Star Game." Seriously, of the 2005 All-Star Game's 18 starters, 11 have announced which country they'll play for, and 8 of those 11 will be in this game (A-Rod will make it 9 of 12, once he decides which of these two teams he'll be playing for). The U.S. team is impressive, but for big bats, there's no one in the world who can top the Dominicans: Pujols (1B), Soriano (2B), Tejada (SS), Vlad (RF), Manny (LF), and Ortiz (DH) - plus a possible A-Rod (3B) - all in the same lineup? Christ. The U.S. pitching staff is good (Buehrle, Clemens, Halladay, Sabathia, Sheets, Smoltz, Willis, Zito), but they can't all pitch at the same time. The Dominicans win the World Baseball Classic in a shootout, 11-7. You heard it here first, folks.