there's probably no good reason why anyone should believe in Santa, anymore. After all, he's been branded as politically incorrect and sexist and an animal abuser and a fat, jackbooted drunk and a robber and a whole host of other reasons the lib-dem wackos worldwide can conjure up. Wonder if Mrs Claus and the Elves know about Santa's past? I still like the concept, though. I just want to get through this Holiday Season; my teeth and lips hurt from whistling and humming Winter Wonderland for the past 11 days. Did I mention Merry Christmas, to you and yours, from all of us? Around The Garden Center. Even though Winter "officially" began Wednesday with the Winter Solstice, and the days are now getting longer, Winter's been here for several weeks. I've never been one to strictly go by the Gregorian Calendar — except in the case of the 21st Century changeover, as opposed to the Millennium which is next year — since there are always signs in Nature which obviate any mortal calendar. We finally finished a medium-sized landscape job to the west, in York New Salem, but with all the rain we had this past week, it's been slow going for the crews in lifting the B&B (balled and burlapped) trees, pruning the root systems back, and re-planting them in new rows. The machinery keeps getting stuck in the muddy fields. We've had to use the 5-ton dumptruck to pull the John Deere 675B SkidLoader out of the muck several times now, so I called a halt to the maintenance activity mid-day last Friday, and wanted to give the fields the weekend to dry out. Each full-time employee received a nice Christmas card with a cash bonus last Friday; some walking-around money to help ease the Holiday purchases. Or whatever. Me? Nah, I'm enjoying my recently-ordered black truffles and stainless All-Clad® cookware sets from www.tavolo.com, purveyors of all good things cooking & eating. The eNewsletter Pages and Archives are finally up and working correctly, along with the sign-up script for the print version. Try it! Started way back in September, it's been a long road coding all those past quarterly editions of Roots & Shoots, writing email scripts et al. Now it's on to other tweaks and thingys-on-the-WebSite needing "attention". Thanks to abeedle.com for the help. Onward and upward, always. Last weekend was very busy with nearly 100 people coming through, buying Christmas gifts and plants of all sorts. Each year, it's been this way, but in previous year, we sold close to 100 live Christmas trees as well. I've opted not to do that this year because of all the extra work it entails, and right now we have enough on our plate to finish before we lose the weather. Within 10 years, things will change drastically in the horticulture industry. And here's something which is dramatically altering the botanic world's view of the ancient world. On Tuesday evening, I had some great gourmet pizzas (one with the newly-arrived truffles), super cabernet sauvignon vino at Jeff & Denise's home and experienced their newly-finished "multi-media center" — it was f*cking awesome! We watched one of the Alien movies I'd never seen before. They're all set for the Holidays; somehow I don't remember their casa being that decked out before — must be Denise's positive influence, now that they're getting married. Worlds Apart. As a child, I remember wonderful Christmas Seasons, full of family, Christmas Eve services at church, sleighing, evergreens, snow, decorations, feasts and roaring fires in the hearth. As an adult, I also remember the seamy side of Christmas in New York City, with its crowds and garish decorations and hawkish retailers. Now, it's Washington, DC, with one of the most commercial Christmas Seasons anywhere — the National Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony; it makes me sick to think about it. Clinton has destroyed the spirit of Christmas. Yes, it's always a "green Christmas" around here, but we've stopped the aggressive sales of live trees. It was too much work bringing crews in on weekends and getting so many trees delivered or planted. The more lucrative landscape work has been the priority for the past 4 years. Since 1994, I took on the cut, dead tree merchants and forced them to sell live trees too. Now, we feature the high quality houseplants and Holiday plant material and gift certificates. Here's a Holiday-related, evergreen tree article I did for the once-ubiquitous David Siegel's Journal, way back in '96; it informed and introduced people to the concept of live vs cut trees, as well as garnering between 5,000 and 35,000 hits per day. Quite a lot for back then; not much noise from it now, except around the Holidays. Yet these bastards in Virginia, are still cutting live trees down for a two week orgy of Santa shit. Y2 Chaos. I sure hope I'm wrong. I don't know why, but I have a bad feeling about New Year's Eve. I'm reading way too many stories about foreign terrorists bringing explosives into the country. Sure, US Customs and the FBI are nabbing a few here and a few there, but what about the dozens they don't get? What about the ones already in place with explosives or other weapons? I have this awful feeling that the relatively minor Y2K problem isn't going to come from our own computers and clocks, it's going to come from outside terrorists — who are already inside the country — blowing up things and maybe unleashing weapons of mass destruction upon us. I sure hope I'm wrong, but it appears that the US is a tad bit lax on terrorism detection and prevention. Sure, the authorities have caught a few terrorists, but the dozens and hundreds who have slipped through and are in position to do real damage is worrisome. Ditto for all the kooks, wackos, nutcases and weirdos out there. Tightening up the borders won't do it now, G-Men, the enemy is already within the Nation, poised and ready to strike. I sure hope I'm wrong. Only 8 days left and we'll find out. 1999 was certainly a tumultous year. No one seems to give a flying rat's rear end, though, according to this poll. I guess I fit into that 8% who are very worried, based upon the information that's available. And I sure wouldn't go anywhere Times Square in New York City on New Year's Eve. I have an awful feeling that Times Square will be "ground zero" in any attack or strike. Like I said, I sure hope I'm wrong. One Year Later. It was a day I'll always remember: the day the US House of Representatives impeached the lying, criminal son of a bitch William Jefferson Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice. The other day I'll never forget is the day the sons and daughters of bitches in the US Senate were unable to find their ethics and morals to convict the criminal president. It all happened a year ago last Sunday. The sleaziest, most corrupt administration in the Nation's short 260 year history was humiliated, but never humbled or correctly punished. Republicans as well as Democrats are to blame for that. Myriad investigations of the criminal Clintons has caused them to go deeply into debt from huge attorneys fees. Now, they want the American Taxpayer — that's you and I — to bail their sorry asses out and pay the bills. Bull-f*cking-shit on that. They both deserve prison. Hopefully, Clinton will be disbarred in Arkansas as punishment for his lies under oath and obstruction of justice in the Paula Jones Case, not that anyone in their right mind would hire a sleazeball like him as an attorney, anyway. I'm all for re-impeaching the son of a bitch Clinton and convicting him, since proof is now available that he sold out the US for money from the stinking red chink filth. He ought to be impeached, convicted and executed for treason. Because Clinton is despised by both Republicans and Democrats alike, and no one in Congress will work with him to pass his wacko programs, he's resorted to Executive Orders to get illegal laws into force. Clinton's a criminal piece of shit. Curious about what the Clinton moron plans to do after he's finished f*cking-up this country? Welllllll, he's got a pretty ambitious agenda and will be demanding $125,000 per speech. I just can't imagine anyone wanting to hear what that lying, lowlife son of a bitch has to say, on any subject. Say What? In naming Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com as "Person Of The Year", TIME magazine has sunk to new lows. This guy's pathetic company is hemorrhaging red ink — losing $350 million a year — and hasn't even turned a profit in 5 years. It sells everything from tuna fish to wallpaper; it's a junk operation. How can he be a biz-illonlaire? In my math tables, anything x a loss = zero or less. What a loser he and that company are. Hey TIME: next time, pick someone whose company has made a profit and who has done something worthwhile. Bezos is a shit-headed lowlife. It's been a slow week for executions nationwide; probably because of the Holidays. Now I would have stepped up executions nationwide to try to get as many of the subhuman filth on death row into Hell, as was humanly possible. It doesn't make sense to me to give murderers another day to live when the courts have decreed that they should die for their heinous crimes. Guess I'll just have to wait until 2000 to enjoy reading about which states are terminating such scumbags. For edification on the arbitrariness of the death penalty, read this startling story. Since getting on the Web in November '95, the things I find never cease to amaze me. Here's a site which deals just with Christmas cookies dot com. For the other 11 months a year, it's a zero visitor situation; pre-Christmas, they get 5-10 million visitors in a 3-4 week period. Amazing. Hey, here's a hot one: commie, lowlife, fasicst, socialist, piece of shit, Wen Ho Lee, traitor and spy, needs to die. All traitors, murderers, rapists and child molesterers need to receive the capital crimes blessing of death. No, no, sorry; I'm not running for office. Too much "baggage" to explain and tote around. Except, for State & Federal Executioner-For-Life, with no questions asked. VOTE for me! The convicted, cop Killing, psychopath idiot, Mumia Abu-Jamal (aka Leroy Tyrone Johnson), is back in the news again. The idiot's been condemned to death; when the f*ck is Pennsyl-tucky going to fry the scumbag for his crime, committed 17 years ago? Give me the death warrant: I'll rid the world of this piece of shit, forever. So, the filthy, towelheaded muslim sand idiots called Taliban say that since Osama bin Laden doesn't have a phone of fax, he can't direct terrorist activity worldwide? How f*cking nonsensical and typical of islam idiot scum. Of course he can and does. Laden needs to be caught, tried and executed. And the Taliban need to be bombed back into the stone age where they belong. Stupid, half-breed allah f*ckers. This is ridiculous: getting jail time and fines for setting a trap for a burglar? What's wrong with this picture? If the owner had just shot him, it would have been dismissed, but setting a booby trap nets him jail time? What a pathetic legal system we have. And this is beyond ridiculous: another group of punk scum plotting to whack teachers and students. This must be the 30th or 40th or 50th time this has happened since the so-called mainstream media have reported on the initial shootings in '98. Time for swift and sure punishment to these white trash scum. Clearly, this piece of white trash shit needs to die for raping and murdering a 7 year old girl. How do heinous crimes such as this warrant "life in prison"? The death penalty is called for here. shit, I'll gladly pull the trigger. Hmmmm, my sentiments exactly, pal. Once again, another outsider lib-dem loser, Andrew Cuomo, son of a bitch of former disastrous governor, Mario "The Homo" Cuomo — who f*cked up New York state and New York City back in the 80s — is interferring in NYC: he's pulled $60 million from the city's budget for the homeless slime and degenerates with AIDS. Ship the slime, scum and money to DC and let the greaseball head of HUD administer it from there. Aw gee whiz, too bad: I was certainly hoping that Louis "Calypso Louie" Farrakan would die a horrible and painful death from his so-called "cured" cancer. Hopefully, it'll come back and whack the racist, bigot idiot scum. Well, terrorists got this 747 in London yesterday, blown right out of the sky, as was TWA Flight 800 in '96. I think the count is now 29 commercial airliners downed due to either missiles or bombs. AlGoreBore2000. This guy — AlGoreBore — is a lowlife moron, incapable of even the basic "truth" of life. He lies to enhance a lackluster life and career, like his criminal US Sen. Daddy GoreBoreWhore did, before he was run out of office. He was a criminal, like all of today's politician scum are. AlGoreBore lies again: now he claims he invented another InterNet device, which can track children's clicks online for their parents. Sure, AlBore. Just like, I invented the InterNet, and, I was the model for "Love Story", and, I was the first to discover and act upon Love Canal, and, I was a VietNam hero, and, I am a down-home Tennessee farmer, and, ad nauseum. GoreBore may just well be a worse liar than Clinton; maybe that's going too far. Maybe. Remember what Hitler's propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels said: If the lie is big enough, people will believe it. Pandering to the gays again, the GoreBore will stop at nothing to get himself elected, as will the Bradley moron. Both are without morals or ethics, just like the criminal Clintons. Red & Green. There's a reason why the colors of Christmas are red and green. Red, because it's the color you see more than anything while standing in line in the stores, while shoved and being shoved by the other "happy" shoppers, and the color you wish the aisles would run with other people's blood. And green because nothing goes with Christmas like money, money, money. Color me pessimistic if you want, but you know it's true. In celebration of the real meaning, I merrily link to a RealAudio presentation from NPR's This American Life, specifically "Christmas and Commerce" as first broadcast on December 20, 1997. If nothing else, David Sedaris's retelling of his life as one of Santa's elves at Macy's in New York will send the eggnog flying out your nose.