Rep. Barney Frank: Is There an Antidote to the Republican Amnesia?

Memory eventually fails us all, but apparently the decline strikes one party far more than the other.

In recent weeks, my friends across the aisle have expended a lot of breath proclaiming that the Democrats caused the present financial crisis by failing to pass legislation to regulate financial services companies in the years 1995 through 2006.

There is only small one problem with this story -- throughout this entire period the Republicans were in complete charge of the House and for the most critical years they controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.
read more at HuffPost

Prank War

(Deadspin)
The kids at College Humor pulled off what we'd have to consider a prank of epic proportions; one guy put a fake marriage proposal on the big screen at Yankee Stadium as his friend, the object of the prank, sat agape with his girlfriend, who, amazingly, said "yes" before he had a chance to alert her to the joke. When we first watched it, it seemed too over-the-top to be real. But we've spoken with Amir Blumenfeld, the architect of the prank, and we now can merely salute him.



Fast-forward 18 months later, revenge is a dish best served at a Maryland basketball game.

The goofballs in question are Amir and Streeter from College Humor. While Streeter was on the "slapped in the face" end of the Stadium prank, he one upped his colleague this time by incorporating the entire crowd at last night's Maryland-Wake Forest game into his payback scheme. The set up: Amir believed he would be taking a half court shot for $500,000. The twist: He would be blindfolded, so only the crowd reaction would let him know if he had made it.

Lawrence O'Donnell Reduces Eric Cantor To Babbling

(Huff Post)
Media Monitor Brian Cohoon drew our attention to this clip from MSNBC's Morning Joe, where Lawrence O'Donnell subjects Eric Cantor to some sort of reporting-like substance, effortlessly reducing Cantor to nonsense.

Basically, O'Donnell asks Cantor a straight question: "Are you going to vote for the 'tax seizure bill'?" That's the bill introduced by Charles Rangel that would recover these AIG bonuses that threaten to bring civilization to its knees. Cantor's basic answer is no, but the roundabout evasions are a heaven-sent melange of tongue-tripping malarkey: "LISTEN," Cantor purrs, "I am for whatever we can do right now to get that money back into the Treasury." Except that "whatever we can do right now" isn't, as it turns out, a PLAN. What follows, roughly paraphrased from the original Cantorese, is this: "But uhm, WHY ARE WE HERE TO BEGIN WITH ... and the Rangel bill is terrible tax policy ... but I will get those bonus payments back, with NECROMANCY, or I'll pass a bill that requires Tim Geithner to figure all of this out, on pain of death or something."

O'Donnell summarizes: "What you're telling us today is that you have no idea how to get the money back, we'd like to ask the Treasury Secretary to do it. We will not vote for Charlie Rangel's tax proposal." Then they argue some more. Finally, out of nowhere, you hear Joe Scarborough say, "He's going to vote FOR it!" But Scarborough has nothing in all the world upon which to base this conclusion.

Anyway, Eric Cantor, the guy just oozes leadership. Probably from a weepy pustule.

Start at 2:45 right after Doucheborough finishes fellating Cantor.

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Let The Right One In trailer

A fragile, anxious boy, 12-year-old Oskar is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates but never strikes back. The lonely boys wish for a friend seems to comes true when he meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next door to him. But Elis arrival coincides with a series of gruesome deaths and attacks. Though Oskar realizes that she's a vampire, his friendship with her is stronger than his fear... Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing, darkly atmospheric, yet unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence.

The new face of crime: white people are scary

Bill O'Reilly seduces your ass

Yup, someone has dug up clips of Bill-O reading his porno novel Those Who Trespass, his 1998 novel about an O'Reilly-esque TV journalist who is trained by an Irish Republican Army terrorist to kill the people who deserve it the most: the broadcast news bastards who interfered with the O'Reilly character's career. It's personal on the political level, too -- his victims includes a powerful "bitch" named Hillary and a fat "slob" named Martin Moore.

Observations:  Bill's sex talk must be bracing, seeing as how he details it here.  Oh, and he has a very strong fixation with breasts. 

Bill is getting all slow-jam on yo azz. 

"Say baby, put down that pipe and get my pipe up."

"I would like you to unhook your bra and let it slide down your arms. You can keep your shirt on."

"Cup your hands under your breasts and hold them for ten seconds."

"Off with those pants."

Bill O'Reilly Tells You How to Do It

Cunnilingus tips from Bill.
 

One teen gives head while another smokes crack.
 

Pipe slow-jam music into your shower!
  

Bizarre confessions: "I wish I were a lesbian."
 

George Clooney in Chad (Darfur)

In Darfur, Clooney is an activist first, then actor

George Clooney recently took a trip to Chad to highlight the refugee situation, as thousands of people pour across the border trying to escape ethnic cleansing in Darfur.  Clooney invited NBC along, as well as Pultizer Prize winning journalist Nicholas Kristof.

Goals for Chad: safety and hope

To save the children:

George Clooney also filmed a personal videoblog ("the Clooney cam").

Bathroom tour:

Rooming with a Pulitzer Prize winner:

Connected?

W. Neil Berrett quit his job by presenting his boss with a resignation letter on a sheet cake.


And my question is, was his boss Mike Tyson?

Teabagger Santelli supports AIG bonuses

So Rick Santelli, he of the 'rewarding-the-housing-market-losers' fame, urged the masses to show some perspective. After all, this was mere "millions" of dollars engendering the bonus-driven anger, as opposed to the "billions" that AIG has received in bailout bucks. From CNBC's Squawk Box:

SANTELLI: Now, think about it this way. Maybe I'm missing something. But the outrage seems to be about M's, millions of dollars, right? $165 million, OK?

But I would think that it should be looked at as a pretty big positive, because when you go from the M, maybe you should try to go to the B's, which is the billions of dollars, and maybe that's going to even enlighten it for the T, trillions of dollars. You know, $165 million is like worrying about 16.5 cents, while $165 maybe necessitates a little more outrage. What do you guys think?

BECKY QUICK: Hey, Rick, I think the real idea here is just the idea of rewarding bad behavior, which is something you've spoken out against in the past.

SANTELLI: No, I guess what I'm saying is it's an order of magnitude. Don't you think this dynamic that the average guy reading his newspaper is really starting to be in tune with this?

And I think bonuses really strike a cord as to the dynamic you're talking about. But there's many degrees of intensity if one really wants to shine the light on the money that's being scrutinized. You know, there's Ms, Bs and Ts. I just want to know what people think.

All of this goes to the bullshit notions behind this "Teabag Revolution".  This isn't about responsibility.  It's not about protecting taxpayers.  

It's about fomenting a nonsense idea that the average Joe is being screwed, while you're actually the one screwing him.

It's about protecting the status quo using the same dimwit sections of the populace that have always knee-jerked when the wealthy pull their chain.

Santelli is a huckster who sees the end of the road for this shell game, and he's desperately clinging on.

Finally a reasoned approach from the Republicans on AIG

(MSNBC)
Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley suggested on Monday that AIG executives should take a Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves.

"I suggest, you know, obviously, maybe they ought to be removed," Grassley said. "But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide."

Actually, on a gut level, it's hard to disagree.

Medical update: Pope's head still firmly lodged in rectum

(MSNBC)
Pope Benedict XVI said on his way to Africa on Tuesday that condoms were not the answer in the continent's fight against HIV, his first explicit statement on an issue that has divided even clergy working with AIDS patients.

Benedict had never directly addressed condom use. He has said that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS. The Vatican encourages sexual abstinence to fight the spread of the disease.

"You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane headed to Yaounde, Cameroon, where he will begin a seven-day pilgrimage on the continent. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

How does one even respond to nonsense of this caliber? Condoms increase the problem? NO THEY DON'T YOU STUPID DIPSHIT!

I am so tired of idealogues who frame issues by deciding what they want the outcome to be and then trying to shape the facts to fit. The earth isn't 6,000 years old because you desperately need it to be, Obama is not a Muslim and condoms don't make AIDS worse.

Of course abstinence works better. Of course it does. And magic carpets would cure our dependence on foreign oil but they're not going to happen either.

Rest in Peace Ron Silver

I didn't agree with the turn he took in becoming a "9/11 Republican", but he always seemed to be a decent man interested not in demonization, but in finding what ties us together.

And he was great on The West Wing.