In An Alternate Universe This Didn't Happen

Ex-wife of GOP Senate candidate alleged sex club forays - CNN:

"The ex-wife of Jack Ryan, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, alleged in court papers filed in 2000 that he took her to sex clubs and asked her to engage in sexual activity in front of other patrons."

Would Barack Obama be President now if this had never happened?

If Huckabee runs for president

Let's not ever forget that one of the guests on his last Fox show was Ted Nugent.

Ye shall know them by the company they keep.

War Porn Lawsuit filed

First Lawsuit Filed Seeking Release of Osama Photos - The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times: "In a statement announcing the suit, Fitton said, 'The American people have a right to know, by law, basic information about the killing of Osama bin Laden. Incredibly, the Obama administration told us that it has no plans to comply with the Freedom of Information law, so we must now go to court. President Obama’s not wanting to ‘spike the football’ is not a lawful basis for withholding government documents. This historic lawsuit should remind the Obama administration that it is not above the law.”"

Another reason for the IMF Haters to hate the IMF

IMF leader arrested after alleged sex attack - US news - Crime & courts - msnbc.com: "NEW YORK — The leader of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested on Saturday, minutes before he was to fly to Paris from John F. Kennedy International Airport, The New York Times reported."

Newt Did not divorce his first wife while in hospital

Setting the Record Straight by Jackie Gingrich Cushman on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent:

"For years, I have thought about trying to correct the untrue accounts of this hospital visit. After all, I was at the hospital with them, and saw and heard what happened. But I have always hesitated, as it was a private family matter and my mother is a very private person. In addition, for the four people involved, it was one of a million interactions and was not considered a defining event by any of us."

Nice to know that he isn't that much of a douchebag

On the Christianity of Johnny Cash and Sarah Palin

Balloon Juice » If I’d Known It Was Going To Be This Kind of Party, I’d Have Stuck My Dick in the Mashed Potatoes: "People who are publicly Christian would have a much better name in this country if they emulated Johnny Cash instead of Sarah Palin. But the Palin style of Christianity is so much easier—no loving your enemies, no giving to the poor, no visiting prisons, just making moral pronouncements and showing up at church every once in a while."

Newt.org - Really?

And here I figured that this would be a spot for a Monty Python bit ...

The Problem with Selling a Shit Sandwich is that it is a Shit Sandwich

Daily Kos: Paul Ryan: The Republican budget isn't unpopular, just misunderstood: "Earlier this week a 'senior Republican strategist' declared that the problem wasn't that Republicans wanted to end Medicare, but that 'Republicans haven’t messaged it well.' See, just fix the message on abolishing Medicare and it'll be fine."

Ace of Spades wastes lots of words on Atlas Shrugged

Ace of Spades HQ:

"My overall guess is this: The producer, or the director, or both, decided that they had to be very faithful to Rand's book. So even in cases where her book was flawed in its under-dramatization (too much thinky-talking, not enough dramatic confrontations and emotion), they followed her down that path, deciding that fidelity to the source material was of primary importance, and dramatic movie-making only second."

This review is over 7000 words long. I am thinking that Ace, like Ms Rand did, desperately needs an editor.

Dream Act Redux

First Read - Senate Dems re-introduce DREAM Act: "The DREAM Act, which would create a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who have completed two years of college or military service and who came to the United States before the age of 15, failed by a close vote in the Senate during the lame duck session of Congress last December."

Bloomberg Fact checks Boehner

Boehner’s Economy Views Contradicted by Studies - Bloomberg:

"House Speaker John Boehner, giving Wall Street leaders his prescriptions for growing the U.S. economy and reducing the nation’s debt, built his case on several assertions that are contradicted by market indicators and government reports."

Something strange is going on here. Or maybe Wall Street is finally realizing that the GOP has been captured by the Tea Party loons and they have as much to lose as anyone if it continues.

via Atrios

On the Grass-Mud Horse

CDT Launches the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon | China Digital Times (CDT): "The grass-mud horse was particularly suited to the contested space of the Chinese Internet. The government’s pervasive and intrusive censorship system has generated equally massive resentment among Chinese netizens. As a result, new forms of social resistance and demands for greater freedom of information and expression are often expressed in coded language and implicit metaphors, which allow them to avoid outright censorship. The Internet has became a quasi-public space where the CCP’s dominance is being constantly exposed, ridiculed, and criticized, often in the form of political satire,jokes, videos, songs, popular poetry, jingles, fiction, Sci-Fi, code words, mockery, and euphemisms."

Disingenuous statement of the day: Louis Camilleri Edition

Philip Morris Int'l CEO: Tobacco not hard to quit - Washington Times:

"RICHMOND, Va. — The head of cigarette maker Philip Morris International Inc. told a cancer nurse Wednesday that while cigarettes are harmful and addictive, it is not that hard to quit smoking."

Reminds me of the old joke ...

It isn't hard to quit smoking, I do it every night before I go to bed.

Scrabble Dumbs down the wordlist

'Innit' makes Scrabble wordlist | UK news | guardian.co.uk:

"Street slang including thang, innit and grrl along with words from the internet such as Wiki and Myspace have been added to an 'official' reference for Scrabble players."

via Bon The Geek at ZVTS

Comment of the day at Gateway Pundit

Terrific… Dear Leader Obama to Send You Text Messages | The Gateway Pundit: "#30 – Sydney……very interesting, but you fail to look at who is in the Whitehouse now. Obama is a Marxist/socialist, and he will use this system to his evil advantage. Obama has no good intentions. He is an arrogant b*stard who produced the worst piece of fraudulent trash of a Long-Form Birth Certificate, and all his blind and stupid followers sucked it up without even the slightest regard for any facts. It doesn’t even state “This certifies that the above is a true and correct copy of the original record on file in the research, planning and statistics office Hawaii State Department of Health” and have a Seal."

Idiotic Comment of the day at Politico.

Judges’ questions hint that they’ll uphold health law - Jennifer Haberkorn - POLITICO.com:

"Just looking at the drawings of the three judges on the panel, it was pretty obvious they would not be hostile to anything the Messiah, ooops I mean the President, put forward."

Two of the Judges are Black men and the third is a woman. Not that the author of the comment is a racist, misogynist asshole or anything like that of course.

The Right Is more devious than the Left

Zandar Versus The Stupid: Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion: "And thus, it's virtually impossible for a woman in South Dakota to now get an abortion. There's no way the requirements of the law can be satisfied, literally no way a woman can jump through all the hoops the new law requires. Because there are no crisis pregnancy centers that have registered to give 'counseling' to women who want an abortion, no abortions can be performed in the state."

Best Health Care System in the world?

I AM PAYING THEM TO DRINK THEIR MILKSHAKE. - Acephalous: "Once upon a time, as most of you know, SEK had cancer. His cancer requires he take thyroid replacement hormones for the rest of his life, but this January his Primary Care Physician informed him that he could not, in good conscience, continue to prescribe said hormones unless SEK saw an endocrinologist at least once a year, so he referred SEK to one who works at the UCI Medical Center. Because the United States has the best health care system in the world, three months later he arrives at the UCI Medical Center for his appointment."

A loss to the sporting world

The escape artist - ESPN: "Ballesteros died early Saturday at 54, from complications of a cancerous brain tumor, but I'll never believe it. In 20 years covering him, I never saw a mess Seve couldn't get out of. He made birdies from parking lots, concession stands, bushes, trees, ditches, weeds you could lose an eighth-grader in, ponds, creeks, flower gardens and even women's purses. I saw him hit shots on his knees, on his tiptoes, stooped over, one-legged and one-armed. The man was 80 proof."

Dimwit of the day - Todd Reynolds

NHL agent sparks controversy over gay marriage - The Globe and Mail: "'Very sad to read Sean Avery's misguided support of same-gender 'marriage'. Legal or not, it will always be wrong.'"

Christopher Hitchens on losing his voice

Christopher Hitchens: Unspoken Truths | Culture | Vanity Fair: "Until cancer attacked his vocal cords, the author didn’t fully appreciate what was meant by “a writer’s voice,” or the essential link between speech and prose. As a man who loved to talk, he turns to the masters of such conversation, both in history and in his own circle."

Bring on the furries

Balloon Juice » Fiscallly Conservative Fee-Fees: "You are a fucking genius. That is exactly what the fiscal debate needs: more costumed advocates standing before cameras. Lessee, we could have Trekkies lobbying for a Federation economic system. We could have Medieval Reenactors lobbying for a return to the feudal system (they may eventually align with the teabaggers, so gotta be careful there.) We could have Furries lobbying for an agriculture-based economy. Geez, the possibilities."

We're #1

Wonk Room » CHART: The United States Has The Worst Income Inequality In The OECD: "This is some dubious company. And as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted today, America has the worst income inequality amongst the 34 nations that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development:"

Neighborhood Advice - Jacksonville, FL

I know that I have a few readers in Florida and others that have lived there in the past so I have bleg for anyone that wants to answer it.

I am looking at the possibility of relocating to Jacksonville, FL (nothing for certain) and am wondering what the various neighborhoods there are like.

Any and all input is gleefully accepted.

The National Jukebox

National Jukebox LOC.gov:

"The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives."

Lest you think that the digital age makes the Library of Congress less relevant. This is a brilliant idea.

David Brooks finds something else to blame medicare for

The Missing Fifth - NYTimes.com:

"So Americans should be especially alert to signs that the country is becoming less vital and industrious. One of those signs comes to us from the labor market. As my colleague David Leonhardt pointed out recently, in 1954, about 96 percent of American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today that number is around 80 percent. One-fifth of all men in their prime working ages are not getting up and going to work."

yes, he really does find a way to blame this on medicare. I am just beyond words on this one.

This is straight talk from Steve Jobs

Jobs to 2008 MobileMe Team: Why The %@&# Doesn’t It Do That? | News | The Mac Observer:

"Mr. Jobs reportedly asked the assembled engineers and other MobileMe team members, “Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” When one of those employees then volunteered a satisfactory answer, Mr. Jobs followed up with, “So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”"

I really don't have a problem with a CEO doing this. There is nothing wrong with holding people accountable for failure as long as they are given credit for their successes.

The Danger of napping at work

Candorville On The long term impact of Osama bin Laden

Here's hoping this is true

Digby on Alan Simpson being willfully ignorant

Hullabaloo: "'It was never intended as a retirement program. It was set up in ‘37 and ‘38 to take care of people who were in distress -- ditch diggers, wage earners -- it was to give them 43 percent of the replacement rate of their wages. The [life expectancy] was 63. That’s why they set retirement age at 65” for Social Security, Alan Simpson"

Krugman on Ryan's "plan"

Balloon Juice » Calling out word strings of stupidity…: "Here’s an analogy: think of Medicare as a footbridge that is deteriorating and will eventually become unsafe. You could propose structural repairs to fix its faults; Ryan doesn’t do that. Instead, he proposes knocking the bridge down and replacing it with trampolines, in the hope that pedestrians can bounce across the stream. And the Post declares that he deserves credit for pointing out that the bridge is falling down, and proposing a solution. Um, we knew that the bridge was in bad shape — and his solution is a fraud."

A Creationist Brings The Stupid

That's a new one : Pharyngula: "If people die when hearts, kidneys and livers fail, then how did anyone live while those organs 'evolved?' The obvious answer is that they didn't. Man began as he is today."

Belgian cyclist Wouter Weylandt killed in Giro d'Italia crash

Belgian cyclist Wouter Weylandt killed in Giro d'Italia crash | Sport | guardian.co.uk:

"Wouter Weylandt, a rider for Team Leopard Trek, has died after crashing during the Giro d'Italia."

via First Draft

Chuck Schumer pees his pants

Schumer Calls For 'No-Ride' List For Amtrak Trains | TPMMuckraker:

"Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) called on Sunday for a 'no-ride' list for Amtrak trains, as a way of preventing potential terrorists from riding the rails."

This is quite possibly the dumbest idea from a politician this year.

I like Filets-o-fish and I don't know why

Fish shticks: A tour of fast food fish « Climate Progress: "Sustainability rating: Surprisingly, something to sing about. McDonald’s is widely considered the leader in sustainable seafood sourcing for fast food chains. They operate in conjunction with the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, and one of their executives was recognized with a Champion award from the Seafood Choices Alliance in 2009."

Over $500 a pound for a bluefin tuna

$400K Bluefin Tuna Breaks Sales Record | Field & Stream: "Hey, have you heard this one? Guy walks into a Japanese fish market and says, 'I got a 754-pound bluefin tuna out here. What's it worth?' The fish market proprietor says, 'Gee, there are hardly any wild bluefin that big left in the world. How about $400,000?' This is precisely what happened yesterday at Japan's Tsukiji Fish Market."

Geeky Post: Soccer Simulator

mloss | Project details:Gird Soccer Simulator: "Grid-Soccer Simulator, is a grid-world environment in which two teams of agents play soccer together. The main intention behind developing this environment, is to provide a test-bed for reinforcement learning, and learning in cooperative, competitive, and mixed multi-agent environments. The communication between the environment and the clients is done through a text-based network protocol; thus, one can create a client in any desired programming language as long as that language supports networking. Currently there are several agents developed in C# and sample agents in C++ and Java, which can be easily extended to fit one's experiments' needs."

This should not be a startup

Robot engages novice computer scientists:

"Based on four years of educational research sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Finch includes a number of features that could keep students busy for a semester or more thinking up new things to do with it.
'Students are more interested and more motivated when they can work with something interactive and create programs that operate in the real world,' said Tom Lauwers, who earned his Ph.D. in robotics at CMU in 2010 and is now an instructor in the Robotics Institute's CREATE Lab. 'We packed Finch with sensors and mechanisms that engage the eyes, the ears -- as many senses as possible.'

Lauwers has launched a startup company, BirdBrain Technologies, to produce Finch and now sells them online at www.finchrobot.com for $99 each."

I really have a hard time with someone in an academic setting taking a pile of government money and then when they have something that they think can be a product decide to "launch" a "start up". Seems to me that all the risk was taken by someone else.

Flying by wire by thought

EEG headset with flying harness lets users 'fly' by controlling their thoughts: "ScienceDaily (May 6, 2011) — A team of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students has created a system that pairs an EEG headset with a 3-D theatrical flying harness, allowing users to 'fly' by controlling their thoughts. The 'Infinity Simulator' will make its debut with an art installation in which participants rise into the air -- and trigger light, sound, and video effects -- by calming their thoughts."

Driftglass on Conservatives

d r i f t g l a s s: The Voice of Empire, Ctd.: "As if their Movement is anything other than a rat's nest of cowards and sociopaths."

Dick Cheney is Evil

Dick Cheney: Reinstate the torture program | Video Cafe: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that President Barack Obama should put waterboarding back on the table."

Happy Mother's Day to Your Mistress! Wait, What?

ThinkProgress » Family Values: Rush Limbaugh Encourages Listeners To Send Mother’s Day Flowers To Their ‘Mistress’: "LIMBAUGH: Mother’s Day coming up Sunday. Make sure the mother in your life, the mom, mother-in-law, wife, girlfriend, mistress, whatever, knows how much you care about her. And how thankful you are to have her. It’s one of these holidays they have the expectation, it’s there. It just is."

How to fuck up as an editor

If you've read this far, mention 'bananas' in your comment. - bengoldacre - secondary blog:

"Update: Annoyingly from comments it looks like they added the Bananas bit a little while after the article went live, though it still took a while for people to mention them after they added it (eg there's an hour between 'last edit' and first mention). Even so, boo."

And to be clear I am talking about the editor at Ars Technica