Republicans control the Michigan state legislature.  It was the perfect opportunity to push through laws limiting union power and labor rights for public-sector workers.  So, they did. Michigan is now the 24th state out of 50 designated as a "right-to-work" state.

For critics, this act translates into a "right-to-fire-and-treat-workers-anyway-we-want" law. Critics will also know that Republicans and their fat cat constituents are no doubt all smiles with today's action in the House of Representatives, a push they began last week in the Senate.

The BBC quoted Republican state senator John Proos in a story:  "As they say in sports, the atmosphere in the locker room gets a lot better when the team's winning."  Republicans like to talk about teams.  Proos means his team:  Republicans, corporations, the wealthy, the privileged, the well-connected -- the people for whom the words plenty and cornucopia were coined.

As for everyday people, police say 12,000 protesters showed up at the state capitol, despite freezing temperatures.  Inside, people chanted, "Shame on you."  One protester, Valerie Constance, a member of the American Federation of Teachers,  said, "I do think this is a very sad day in Michigan history."

John Proos, who backed the bill, say he's certain public anger will fade away, especially when people see all the new jobs brought to Michigan.  Opponents of the bill say the change will lead to lower wages.

We're looking in on some of those ubiquitous, Year-End summaries, letting them out of their cages and urging them to stretch their legs -- to take wing a bit early this December.  Call it a seasonal lark.

It's not that we're likely to forget these tales (we have memories like elephants).  There's just a good supply of animal tales squirreled-away in our cache:  Dogs and deer, whales and flies, ducks, cats, elephants, even a sort-of giraffe.

Take the case of Monty, the giant schnauzer.  He's in New Zealand, along with the people teaching him (and other dogs) to drive a car.  It's hard work, layering up levels of training and knitting together behaviors until the dogs are ready to slip behind the wheel.

The point is to show how smart these rescued dogs can be, in hopes of getting them adopted out a bit quicker.  That level of intensive training would have come in handy a while ago for the owner-guardian of one dog named Fenton, last seen sprinting after deer in a UK park.

You know how it is:  It's Saturday, and, in your mind's eye, you're vacationing in the tropics, surfing via your motherboard, running fast along topical waves of interest in the vast internet ocean, hooked on something or other you find titanically interesting, when you strike the unexpected iceberg, snapping to a halt with a sickening lurch.

All you can manage to do is stare numbly and in shock at the screen, dead in the water, dumbstruck and adrift in your one-person lifeboat, and without so much as first aid kit, water, rations, or a flare gun.  Or Dramamine.

OK, that's a bit overstated -- although I may still need the Dramamine for the drama-mine -- but I'd rather walk the plank than tell you it felt otherwise, that it was only a mild jolt grasped through the rigging and not a lightning bolt taken through the mainmast of my mouse.

Less nautically so, but more specifically:  I happened upon some people's blogsites, absolutely by accident and without intent, and was exposed to the reading equivalent of the bubonic plague, leprosy, flesh-eating bacteria, or a parasitic brain infestation -- or maybe all of them, or in some berserk combination.

There must be a rule somewhere that says everything in life must be stranger and more complicated than it really needs to be.

If there is such an ancient edict handed down through the ages, like an amulet that we can't shed, one that's still mysteriously holding sway over us, then our days suddenly go from inexplicable to predictable.

Sometimes The Curse, or whatever, has a sense of humor.  Other times it is as likely to trip you on the way by as it is to sneer and growl at you, no longer playfully waggling its fingers, its thumb parked on its nose.

For example:  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was caught up in his own web of arcane legislative tripwires, traps, and tangles, and was forced to filibuster himself.

(Don't look -- the man has no shame:  He did it right out in public and everything.)

There's a blow-by-blow account of how this came to pass, if you're interested, in the link down below.  I did a pre-dawn run through it once (before application of the miracle drug, coffee) and retained about half of it.  I decided not to press my luck with further details at that hour.  Or since.