Today’s Newsmakers: Mike Shanahan is Fired, and Roland Burris Gets Tapped Dec 30, 20089:41 PST

Two big stories have been buzzing the blogosphere for the past 10 hours.

Mike Shanahan, the NFL’s second longest tenured coach, just got canned after an epic collapse to end the Broncos’ season. Losing 4 of the Broncos last 6 games was not only big enough to remove a coach who won them Superbowls (albeit 10+ years ago), but it was the first time in NFL history a team had gone from leading its division to finishing out of the playoffs.

Politics had been nearly out of the news completely, but thankfully the state of Illinois has a crazy governor who loves being defiant. Rod Blagojevich just announced his nominee for Barack Obama’s senate seat: some dude named Roland Burris. I almost feel sorry for the guy because he just became a famous pawn in a futile move.

One guy gets fired. One guy gets a job (well, not really yet). Both will likely be dusting off their resumes this January.