A Spork in the Drawer

Shame On Me

Yes, I did forget.

This makes me a bad person or worse, a liberal.

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The End Of Willard?

Or a very clever strategy of competing without competing?

Several officials said that on the heels of a defeat in Tuesday's Florida primary, Romney's campaign was not attempting to purchase television advertising time in any of the 21 states on the calendar for Feb. 5.

Mittens dropping out would indeed be bad news as that would make St. John the nominee. Bad news in that an awful lot of self-identified moderates and even more than a few liberals thing that McCain is an OK guy. Why they think that is beyond my comprehension.

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Fiction Vs. Fact

Fiction:

In Afghanistan, America, our 25 NATO allies, and 15 partner nations are helping the Afghan people defend their freedom and rebuild their country. Thanks to the courage of these military and civilian personnel, a nation that was once a safe haven for al Qaeda is now a young democracy where boys and girls are going to school, new roads and hospitals are being built, and people are looking to the future with new hope. These successes must continue, so we're adding 3,200 Marines to our forces in Afghanistan, where they will fight the terrorists and train the Afghan Army and police. Defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda is critical to our security, and I thank the Congress for supporting America's vital mission in Afghanistan. (Applause.)

Fact:

A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country's rulers. This is Afghanistan – not in Taliban times but six years after "liberation" and under the democratic rule of the West's ally Hamid Karzai.

Few even notice the lies anymore.

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Brutal

La Belle Dahlia on on the Democrats and PAA:

The cliche holds that we are always fighting the last war. I disagree. For the last seven years, congressional Democrats have been fighting the next one: the war perennially set to erupt if they don't deliver whatever the president asks of them immediately. Time and again, they've been rendered so terrified by White House threats about imminent terrorist attacks that they have caved on issues ranging from detainee rights to secret surveillance to torture. And every time they've caved, it's under the threat that if they withhold from the president extra powers (ones that he's often already seized in secret), terrorists will mass against us instantaneously, and they will be blamed.

I've no doubt that when the 15-day "snooze" expires Harry and Nancy and the rest of the invertebrates of Congress will give George and Dick everything they want - including immunity for crimes committed by the Telcos.

Future historians are going to look on this period with awe and disgust.

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Brother (And Sister) Can You Spare A Dime?

Dave and Sara are holding a fundraiser over at Orcinus. Toss a few pennies their way so they can keep up the fight against the radical (and not-so-radical) right.

As a bonus, if you contribute you'll make Jonah "Doughy Pantload" Goldberg cry.

And that's a good thing.

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Edwards Out

This is a surprise.

---

Adding...I'm going to guess that Edwards endorses Obama in an attempt to stop Hillary. After all, 20 states vote next Tuesday...what a mess.

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The GOP Goes For Teh Cute

Makes your teeth ache it does:

(As far as the RNC is concerned my name is "Bob.")

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We'll Always Have Marilyn

9iu11ani to go bye-bye. Judi on suicide watch.

---

ADDED: From Taegan Goddard:

"The beast is dead."

-- Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, quoted by ABC News, on the end to Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign.

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McCain Wins Florida...

...wingers on suicide watch.

Heh.

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Is It Dictatorship Yet?

Sooo...George signed the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act today. Did he also issue a "signing statement" at the same time? Need you ask?

Even though he forced Congress to change its original bill, Bush’s signature yesterday came with a little-noticed signing statement, claiming that provisions in the law “could inhibit the President’s ability to carry out his constitutional obligations.” CQ reports on the provisions Bush plans to disregard:

One such provision sets up a commission to probe contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another expands protections for whistleblowers who work for government contractors. A third requires that U.S. intelligence agencies promptly respond to congressional requests for documents. And a fourth bars funding for permanent bases in Iraq and for any action that exercises U.S. control over Iraq’s oil money.

What will Congress do in response?

I think we all know the answer to that.

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Mittens!

Willard comes up with an economic plan: Make old people get jobs.

That's why he's a member of the "Party of Ideas."




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Dental Hygiene In The Air

From the P-G:

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Getting It Right

William Arkin:

Then there's the question of surrender: Every time the president mentions al Qaeda in Iraq, he is advertising a brand. Al Qaeda's success from the very beginning has not just been the appeal of Osama bin Laden's description of Islam under attack, nor even the abundance of angry, dissatisfied, and driven men; nor has it necessarily even been anti-Americanism. The success has been a macabre form of his success and the hope it suggests. When U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked in 1998, bin Laden's first spectacular and a follow-on to his fatwa that declared war on the enemies of Islam, volunteers flooded in. Young men who had never even heard of bin Laden were captivated: someone was striking back in their name.

[...]

By conferring such power on al Qaeda, by framing a bigger battle between healthy nations and a marginal terrorist organization, the president is mightily adding to the al Qaeda mystique. We are successful enough to pin down hundreds of thousands of American forces, many terrorists and would-be terrorists think. We are responsible for all of those deaths and injuries against the world's greatest army. We are the centerpiece of the president's State of the Union address, they must happily observe.

It's no wonder that conspiracy-minded types believe that BushCo™ are in league with bin Laden.

Meanwhile:

Five U.S. Soldiers Are Killed When Convoy Is Hit in Mosul

It should go without saying that there was no mention of this last night.

356 days.

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Heh

This has to make George and Dick very unhappy:

Iraq has formally ratified the UN's Kyoto Protocol on climate change, according to a government statement seen by AFP on Saturday.

"The presidential council ratified in its session on January 23 a law according to which the Republic of Iraq will join the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol," the statement said.

[Via The Lede.]

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Latest From The Writer's Strike

Pretty freaking funny:

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Surprising

58%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

[Via LGM.]

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If Wishes Were Ponies

Bush speech will seek to calm American nerves

He's going to announce his and Dick's resignations?

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Bad Day To Be Godly

Gordon B. Hinckley, Mormon Leader, Is Dead at 97

Greek Orthodox Leader Dies at 69

The Pope's looking a little peaked as well.

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Not A Promise

A threat:

Sen. John McCain told a crowd of supporters on Sunday, "It's a tough war we're in. It's not going to be over right away. There's going to be other wars." Offering more of his increasingly bleak "straight talk," he repeated the claim: "I'm sorry to tell you, there's going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars."

Remember, kids: St. John is the "reasonable and moderate" Republican. Yeah, right. All of those Democrats who say "I'll vote for McCain if (Hillary/Obama) is our candidate!" might want to keep this in mind.

[Via Election Central.]

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McEducation

This will wash up on our shores soon enough, no doubt:

McDonald's employees trained in skills needed to run outlets for the fast-food chain can get credit toward high school diplomas, the British government announced Monday.

Along with two other large companies, McDonald's Corp. was given the power to award the equivalent of advanced high-school qualifications as part of a plan to improve young people's skills, said the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, a government education regulator.

From the Guardian:

Speaking on GMTV, [Prime Minister Gordon] Brown said: "You have got to do a pretty intensive course to get that qualification. It's not that standards are going to fall. It's going to be a tough course. Once you've got that qualification you can go anywhere."

Don't laugh. McDonald's has already tried to weasel into our school system:

McDonald's has decided to stop branding report card envelopes in a program that gave kids in Florida free food as a reward for good grades after a backlash from parents concerned about exploitive marketing. Teport (sic) cards came in an envelope...telling kids to check their grades and redeem a free Happy Meal if they got all A's and B's or got good marks in "Citizenship" or attendance. The jacket also showed a smiling Ronald McDonald and mentioned McDonald's several times.

Perhaps a course based on being a WalMart "Greeter" would be desirable.

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A Bit Of Lee Miller

Portrait of Space, near Siwa, Egypt, 1937.




A look at Miller and her work can be found in the 21 January, 2007 issue of the New Yorker (abstract here.) The New Yorker slide-show of some of Miller's work can be seen here.

For those of you attending EschaCon08 the exhibition of Miller's work discussed in the above cited article will be at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through 27 April.

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Off The Fence

As I don't particularly care for any of the Democratic presidential candidates I had mostly intended to sit the primaries out (in the Pennsylvania primary - scheduled for April, 2016 - I was going to cast a symbolic vote for Dodd). But, as Scott Lemieux and Josh Marshall explain, Bill Clinton's comments over the past couple of weeks have been too reprehensible to ignore. And don't think he's some sort of rogue operator; Hillary could muzzle him if she wanted and if she is unable to do that, well, that's a problem in itself.

Unlike at least Josh, I was never a Clintonista. I voted for Bill in '92 as a hold-my-nose exercise (I sat out the '96 elections out of sheer cussedness) and grew to resent him for having to defend him during the Year of Monica. As the joke went during the '90's, Bill Clinton is the best Republican president since Eisenhower. I mean all of this merely as a reference point.

Come November I'll vote for the Democrat whoever that might be but for now, barring a miraculous Edwards comeback, the coveted and valuable spork endorsement goes to Barack Obama.

I expect to be named to head an agency in President Obama's administration for this.

ADDED: Greenwald:

The Clintons' strategy has become increasingly trashy, even ugly, and yesterday's remarks by Bill Clinton -- in which he pointedly compared Obama's candidacy to Jesse Jackson's and thus implicitly (though clearly) dismissed South Carolina as a state where the "black candidate" wins, followed up by the Clinton campaign's anonymous branding of Obama as "the black candidate" -- reeked of desperation.

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Saturday Palate Cleanser

Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, and taxes:

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Neat!

A cache of Robert Capa negatives thought lost has been found:

The suitcase — actually three flimsy cardboard valises — contained thousands of negatives of pictures that Robert Capa, one of the pioneers of modern war photography, took during the Spanish Civil War before he fled Europe for America in 1939, leaving behind the contents of his Paris darkroom.

Capa assumed that the work had been lost during the Nazi invasion, and he died in 1954 on assignment in Vietnam still thinking so. But in 1995 word began to spread that the negatives had somehow survived, after taking a journey worthy of a John le Carré novel: Paris to Marseille and then, in the hands of a Mexican general and diplomat who had served under Pancho Villa, to Mexico City.

[...]

“This really is the holy grail of Capa work,” said Brian Wallis, the center’s chief curator, who added that besides the Capa negatives, the cracked, dust-covered boxes had also been found to contain Spanish Civil War images by Gerda Taro, Robert Capa’s partner professionally and at one time personally, and by David Seymour, known as Chim, who went on to found the influential Magnum photo agency with Capa.

And now for a bit understatement:

The discovery has sent shock waves through the photography world, not least because it is hoped that the negatives could settle once and for all a question that has dogged Capa’s legacy: whether what may be his most famous picture — and one of the most famous war photographs of all time — was staged. Known as “The Falling Soldier,” it shows a Spanish Republican militiaman reeling backward at what appears to be the instant a bullet strikes his chest or head on a hillside near Córdoba in 1936. When the picture was first published in the French magazine Vu, it created a sensation and helped crystallize support for the Republican cause.

After the Spanish Civil war Capa went on to photograph the war in Europe including the landings at Omaha Beach in 1944. He was killed covering the French war in Indochina (Vietnam) in 1954.






(Click thumbnails to enlarge. Also click the NYT link for a slideshow.)

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Just Go Away, FCC

Rather than serve as simply a regulator of the public airwaves the Federal Communications Commission these days serves to help large corporations become larger. (This was true under the Clinton Regime as well.) But aside from that it seems the FCC's only other purpose is to engage in Comstockery. So it comes a no surprise to see this:

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $1.4 million fine against 52 ABC Television Network stations over a 2003 broadcast of cop drama NYPD Blue.

[...]

ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Co. The fines were issued against 52 stations either owned by or affiliated with the network.

FCC's definition of indecent content requires that the broadcast "depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities" in a "patently offensive way" and is aired between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

The agency said the show was indecent because "it depicts sexual organs and excretory organs — specifically an adult woman's buttocks."

In the FCC's reasoning concentrating media power into fewer and fewer hands is a good thing. A bare ass is the death of the Republic.

That's some good thinking.

Then there's this:

The agency rejected the network's argument that "the buttocks are not a sexual organ."

That Kevin Martin et al think that the "buttocks" are a sexual organ tells me a great deal.

More than I want to know, frankly.

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Headline Of The Day

Miss Indiana Has Many Interesting Qualities

And Bolivia exports tin!

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The Real McCain

For reasons that continue to elude me many self-described moderates (and even some liberals) see St. John as a viable alternative to whichever Democratic candidate they hate. Not only is he far right on the vast majority of issues (although his American conservative Union rating has dropped), not only does he want to continue the Iraq War for a hundred or a million years, not only does he want to bomb bomb bomb Iran, but now we find out that ultra-rightist Sen. Sam Brownback will advise him on Supreme Court choices and that his model justices are Alito and Scalia.

So, all you nominal Democrats who will vote for McCain (or sit on your hands) because (Hillary/Obama/Edwards) was mean to (Hillary/Obama/Edwards) think about what you're doing. You don't want to be the Naderites of 2008. There's too much at stake.

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Nothing Surprises Me Anymore

FOX "News" (who else?) is airing a big ol' documentary on George this weekend (shot in hi-def!) in which:

We talked a lot about President Lincoln. And there’s going to be a lot of people out there who watch this hour and say, is he trying to equate himself with Lincoln?

I tell you what — he thinks about Lincoln and the tough times that he had during the Civil War. 600,000 dead. The country essentially hated him when he was leaving office.

Let me know when you're done laughing.

Not yet? OK.

Right then. "The country essentially hated [Lincoln] when he was leaving office."

Apparently neither Bush nor reporter Bret Baier have ever heard the old joke, "But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

We're surrounded by idiots.

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Cognitive Dissonance

Reuters:

Clinton seeks to smooth relations with Obama

Former President Bill Clinton said he might have gone too far in attacking Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton said on Friday, adding that both Democratic presidential campaigns should focus on issues.

"He said several times yesterday that maybe he got a little bit carried away," Hillary Clinton said on CBS' "Early Show."

AP:

Clinton says she must counterattack

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she must respond in kind to attacks from rival Barack Obama even though she'd rather keep the race for the Democratic presidential nomination focused on their differences on public policy issues.

"I try not to attack first, but I have to defend myself — I do have to counterpunch," Clinton told NBC's "Today Show."

Elections are fun!

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You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Nothing surprises anymore:

Paul D. Wolfowitz, who resigned as World Bank chief after serving as second-in-command at the Pentagon, has returned to the Bush administration, albeit in an advisory role. From a short news release put out this afternoon:

The Department of State is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Paul Wolfowitz as the Chairman of the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board.

Here's the kicker:

Preceding Mr. Wolfowitz was former Senator Fred Thompson, who resigned as chairman in the summer to run for president. But his successor wasn’t appointed until two days after his campaign crashed and burned on Tuesday.

Uh, isn't Fred of Hollywood looking for work now? And he's slightly less criminal than the Notorious Comb Licker™.

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Life In These United States

So you're a US citizen. Don't feel too smug because that doesn't count for anything anymore:

Thomas Warziniack was born in Minnesota and grew up in Georgia, but immigration authorities pronounced him an illegal immigrant from Russia.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held Warziniack for weeks in an Arizona detention facility with the aim of deporting him to a country he's never seen. His jailers shrugged off Warziniack's claims that he was an American citizen, even though they could have retrieved his Minnesota birth certificate in minutes and even though a Colorado court had concluded that he was a U.S. citizen a year before it shipped him to Arizona.

During a deportation hearing Thursday morning, pleas by Warziniack's family and lawyer to release him, as well as a copy of his birth certificate proving his citizenship, did little to deter the government.

"The immigration agents told me they never make mistakes," Warziniack said in a phone interview from jail. "All I know is that somebody dropped the ball."

The story of how immigration officials decided that a small-town drifter with a Southern accent was an illegal Russian immigrant illustrates how the federal government mistakenly detains and sometimes deports American citizens.

I challenge you to read the whole thing and then tell me we're not a police state.

Life is grand in George Bush's America.

[Via Atrios.]

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Things I'm Tired Of

1. Hillary Clinton supporters
2. Barack Obama supporters
3. John Edwards supporters

But Dennis Kucinich is out.

At least we still have Mike Gravel.

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Sovereign

Or maybe not:

With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire, the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors immunity from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials. [Emphases added.]

Why don't they just come out and say that Iraq is a US colony? Of course, that would mean being honest and this crowd doesn't do honesty.

Meanwhile, if two wars aren't enough for you and you're still waiting for war #3 (Iran) how about sating your bloodlust and skipping right to war #4?

The Bush administration is willing to send a small number of U.S. combat troops to Pakistan to help fight the insurgency there if Pakistani authorities ask for such help, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.

Between war,war, and more war (not to mention our dandy economic situation) we'll be lucky to make it to the next presidential inauguration.

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I'm Stocking Up On Booze

Nominations Will Not Be Decided on Super Tuesday

Just make it stop. Please.

On the other hand, maybe the Pennsylvania primary - scheduled for 2011 - will actually matter.

But still...

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I Get Mail

From Glenn and Jane:

Dear  michael,

John Edwards should challenge his rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to go back to Washington, DC and fight against retroactive immunity for the telecoms.

The Republicans are not going to let Harry Reid punt and extend the Protect America Act for another 18 months so it looks like the FISA bill is going to come back up again on Monday. Chris Dodd's objection to Unanimous Consent still stands, so they will pick up in the middle of the Motion to Proceed debate.

Without the help of the presidential candidates, we are doomed to lose this fight. And all their calls for change will ring hollow if they allow George Bush to railroad this bill through a supine Democratic-controlled Senate because of their absence.

You can email Senator Edwards directly at john@johnedwards.com.

Cheers,

Jane Hamsher & Glenn Greenwald

You know what to do.

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Irony In Action

Polish joke:

At least seven people were killed Wednesday when a Polish military transport aircraft carrying passengers who had attended a flight-safety conference crashed in northwest Poland, military officials said.

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No Shame

Disgusing:

Now the top five Wall Street banks - three of whom racked up record losses - have announced that they are paying their employees a record $39 billion in year-end bonuses. Hemorrhaging losses, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Bear Sterns had to increase the percentage of revenue they devote to pay to ladle out these bonuses. So much for pay for performance.

[...]

Stock buyback plans do help elevate the stock price. And that, of course, makes executive stock options more valuable. And that is likely the next thing we'll learn about these really good people. They've pushed the economy over the cliff, led their banks to the verge of bankruptcy, fed the folly that will cost families their homes - but they pocketed the stock options at the top, and walked away with bonuses at the bottom.

The rest of us may be reduced to eating tinned catfood but the top execs won't car. I've said for years that if thinggs go truly - and I mean truly - bad in this country the lot of them will simply hop on their Gulfstreams and relocate to somewhere safer (Singapore, Abu Dhabi, wherever) knowing that they have their bank accounts in the Caymans. They won't even look over their shoulders as they depart.

I am not now nor have I ever been a Communist but it's this sort of thing that makes the philosophy attractive.

Anyway, my guess is that this country will soon be fundamentally finished.

It was fun while it lasted.

[Via Steven D at Booman Tribune.]

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Another Shock!

Via CREW, the Democratic House leadership caves again:

House Democrats will postpone votes on criminal contempt citations against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, while congressional leaders work with President Bush on a bipartisan stimulus package to fend off an economic downturn, according to party leaders and leadership aides.

Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would “step on their message” of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks. [Emphasis added.]

And not even a Sternly Worded Letter™ this time.

Prediction: In the spirit of Bipartisan Unity the Republicans will steamroller the Dems.

Greenwald:

So it is important to note that [the Democrats] are fearless in some respects -- such as when it comes to forcing famous baseball players to make exciting appearances before them so they can "investigate" the grave matter of whether, as this blogger put it, "a man who is already a far outlier on the curve of human physical development wishes to shrink his balls and grow his boobs in order to swat a ball farther and with more frequency," all as part of "a situation where a collection of superhuman genetic freaks perform feats of unimaginable speed and strength for our amusement."

True, that.

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One Has To Admire This

John Edwards appearing on Letterman last night:

LETTERMAN: You know what I've noticed about Bill O'Reilly? And he's a marvelous communicator. But he doesn't really care very much about telling the truth.

EDWARDS: Yeah I've noticed.

LETTERMAN: Very entertaining. And I like when he's on the show. But if you say one thing...

EDWARDS: Most of what he says is full of crap.

LETTERMAN: I like how you think, Senator.

I can't wait for Billo's response.

Video at link.

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Shocking!

Study: False Statements Preceded War

Who could have guessed?

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

I have trouble believing this.

BushCo™ isn't filled with liars! The very idea is preposterous!

Harrrumph!

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He Was Still Running For President?

Who knew?

I guess Fred decided to spend more time with the twins.

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Headlines That Make Me Do A Double-Take

New Zealand says farewell to Hillary

Do they have a primary or a caucus?

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A Bit Of Käthe Kollwitz

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Saturday Palate Cleanser

Stan Ridgeway rocks!

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Doughy Pantload Vs. Jon Stewart

This is priceless:

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Nutcase.

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A Home (Finally!)

NYT:

Stephen Colbert’s mission to insinuate himself into places where he doesn’t belong has taken him from the campaign trail to Op-Ed page of The New York Times to, this week, the National Portrait Gallery.

[...]

‘’Let me tell you two key things here: His portrait is not coming into the collection, and it’s not hanging permanently,” said the spokeswoman, Bethany Bentley. Her stern comment came after the gallery’s director, Marc Pachter, played along for a segment on “The Colbert Report.”

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I'm Glad I'm Not A Football Fan

Coming to a Superbowl near you:

On Feb. 3, a k a Super Bowl Sunday, in an original News Corp. smorgasbord, reporters from FOX News will be teaming up with reporters from FOX owned and operated stations from around the country for a three hour broadcast event, focusing on—USA! USA!—presidential politics and professional football.

[...]

As the anchors toggle back and forth between discussion of the Super Bowl and Super Tuesday, they will chew over political dispatches from FOX Broadcasting reporters from around the country.

I'm sure it will be "fair and balanced."

[Via C&L.]

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Turds Of A Feather

It would be fitting:

There’s been plenty of speculation since self-described Democratic-independent Sen. Joe Lieberman started stumping for Sen. John McCain in December that Al Gore’s 2000 runningmate might reprise that role for his Republican friend.

[...]

“He’d be a great partner in any endeavor, including joining America together,” McCain said in response to a question on the Lieberman factor. “Let’s reach across the aisle, let’s work together for America. That’s what Joe Lieberman is all about.”

'nuff said.

[Via Think Progress.]

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Oy

[Photo by metaphorge via Attaturk at FDL.]

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[rubs hands together in glee]

What fun this would be!

The Republican presidential race is so unsettled that some party officials are openly talking of a scenario that seemed almost unthinkable until now: the first contested GOP convention in 60 years.

[...]

"The way it looks now, it could end up in the convention," Ron Schmidt, South Dakota's Republican National Committeeman, said of the party's nominating process. "It's fascinating if you're a political junkie."

True, that.

But I can't help but think that this is all part of Newt Gingrich's cunning plan.

(And it wouldn't surprise me if I'm right about that.)

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Follow The Bouncing Balls

Meanwhile, in Italy:

A greyish 18th-century landmark in Rome was transformed into a colorful mess today when a half-million plastic balls were dumped at the top of the Spanish Steps.

The balls bounced downhill before filling the Barcaccia fountain, leaving surprised passers-by and tourists snapping pictures of a scene that recalled the indoor-playground ball pits that spark joyful frolicking by children of all ages.

Of course, there's always a killjoy:

“It was a lot of balls — and that was it,” said Gilberto Guibbini, 38, who had trouble arriving at his job at a shoe store because the stunt forced the closing of streets leading to the Spanish Steps. “I don’t know why.”

“There is nothing interesting about it,” he added. “He just wants attention.”

The man behind the stunt, Graziano Cecchini, previously dyed the water of the Trevi Fountain blood-red.

Bouncy bouncy!

Now why couldn't this have happened when I was sitting on the Spanish Steps some years ago?

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From The Big Brains Of The GOP

A couple of things from Think Progress. First up, creepily insane Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Straightjacket) on working:

I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We’re the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs.

Of course, that means no one is around to raise the children. So much for "family values."

Next, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-WTF?) on, well, I'm not sure:

You know, we’re buying carbon credits. It reminds me of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages when you could buy indulgences. I like the food that we had before. I like real food, food that I can pronounce the name of!

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the word "taco" is one he can't pronounce. And for all that is decent keep arugula away from him!

It's a wonder that they win elections at all.

Or maybe it isn't:

Republican voter.

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Wow

I can't stand John McCain but this is about as vile an attack as I've ever seen. Greg Sargent:

This is ugly even by South Carolina standards: John McCain is being targeted by a nasty flyer that lampoons McCain's POW captivity in Vietnam. The flyer, which was sent to local newspaper editors, depicts a manacled McCain in a cell with the phrase "POW for President," and "elect me" scrawled on the walls, suggesting that McCain is trying to ride his POW status into the White House.

The flyer:

The hatred of McCain among many Republicans never ceases to astound me. If we want to make Republicans keel over dead we should nominate a Hillary/McCain ticket. That ought to do it.

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Why I Don't Watch The "Debates"

Steve Benen:

Within a few minutes of the interruption, Ezra said, “It’s almost impossible for me to convey the damage Tim Russert and Brian Williams are doing to the republic this evening…. It’s literally the worst moderation I’ve yet seen. It’s not moderation. It’s trivialization. 28 minutes in, there’s not been a question about any issue, any cause, any problem.”

I’m not sure if I’m prepared to say it was literally the worst I’ve seen — the CNN debate in November was pretty offensive — but by any reasonable measure, last night was breathtakingly bad.

The "news" media is always Public Enemy #1 for me. The damage they're doing is incalculable and the examples of that are too numerous to mention.

It's worth watching again Jon Stewart's famous slapdown of the "news" media on CNN. Begala and Carlson simply have no idea how to respond:

Relatedly, read CNN's John King semi-coherent missive to Glenn Greenwald. Comment Glenn:

Most of this speaks for itself, but it's worth noting how often journalists' responses to criticisms contain so many of the same elements which King's email contains. They always want you to know that they never read what you write and that you're an Unserious, biased, partisan amateur (without any recognition of the glaring contradiction between those two claims).

The "news" media truly are a work of art.

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Black Is The New Black

Cool:

U.S. researchers said on Tuesday they have made the darkest material on Earth, a substance so black it absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light.

Made from tiny tubes of carbon standing on end, this material is almost 30 times darker than a carbon substance used by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology as the current benchmark of blackness.

And the material is close to the long-sought ideal black, which could absorb all colors of light and reflect none.

[...]

The substance has a total reflective index of 0.045 percent -- which is more than three times darker than the nickel-phosphorous alloy that now holds the record as the world's darkest material.

Basic black paint, by comparison, has a reflective index of 5 percent to 10 percent.

Here's a picture of this new blacker than black substance:

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Can't Even Buy Respect

Poor Mittens:

The Michigan Republican Party mistakenly sent out a news release Tuesday night congratulating John McCain for winning the state's GOP primary.

It quickly issued a second statement praising Mitt Romney for his win.

[...]

The first GOP release went out just minutes later and stated, "In a close-fought victory, Senator John McCain succeeded again (in) the Michigan Republican primary, winning over a traditionally unpredictable voter base in Michigan."

Five minutes after that, the party sent a release that said, "In a close-fought victory, native son Governor Mitt Romney won an important contest here tonight."

[Via DHinMI.]

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