Best. Olympic. Poster. Evar.

Too bad Colbert didn't have this design ready when he was doing the fundraising for U. S. speedskating; these would've been on every dormroom wall in America...

Download your own to share the world-dominating love.

Saturday Shuffle

The Hollow Man - Jerry Goldsmith
Passive Manipulation - The White Stripes
You Want The Candy - The Raveonettes
Pyramid Song - Radiohead
Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon - Urge Overkill
All Tomorrow's Parties - Johnette Napolitano
Freezing Process - Quicksand
Mr. Moto - The Belairs
Land of Competition - Bad Religion
Eraser (Polite Mix) - Nine Inch Nails

Headlines you don't want to see

"Youth Vote Collapsed in Massachusetts"

Interesting--and by "interesting," yes, I mean "pretty damn terrible"--tidbit in the aftermath of the Scott Brown win in Massachusetts on Tuesday (courtesy firedoglake):

About 15% of Massachusetts citizens between the ages of 18-29 turned out to vote. For citizens age 30 and older, turnout was about 57%.

For comparison: 25% of young citizens (age 18-29) voted in the 2008 Massachusetts presidential primaries, and 47.8% of young Massachusetts citizens voted in the 2008 presidential elections, according to CIRCLE’s analysis. Seventy-eight percent of under-30 voters in Massachusetts chose Barack Obama in the 2008 general election; 20% chose John McCain.

Funny thing about younger voters: a lot of them still labor under the delusion that the people for whom they cast ballots will actually do the things they talked about while asking for those votes.

They'll let you off the hook for not changing the world overnight; after all, they're young, not stupid. (Anyone who didn't think this was going to be an uphill climb desperately needs some reality to intrude on them). But what you cannot get away with is being seen as not willing to fight for what you want public option ...and that's when you're not too busy explicitly embracing the status quo on things you campaigned against, e.g. unadjudicated detention, drug price negotiation/reimportation, etc.

Saturday Shuffle

Enter Sandman (live) - Metallica
Private Eye (live, acoustic) - Alkaline Trio
I Wish You Wouldn't Say That - Talking Heads
Slide - The Dresden Dolls
Forever Tonight - Jan Hammer
Rust In Peace...Polaris - Megadeth
Caleb's Blues - Tangerine Dream
Ancestor Cult - Macnines of Loving Grace
Flutes of Chi - Ween
Seasons - Chris Cornell

A regular "Barry-on-the-spot," aren't you?

From the NYT:

In Health Talks, President Is Hands-Off No More

WASHINGTON — President Obama has taken full control of the health care negotiations, casting himself for the first time in the role of mediator between the House and Senate during a 72-hour marathon of talks that have turned his White House into a de facto Congressional conference.

So "done by August," merits "hands-on" in...January?

Way to get around to closing the barn door after Max Baucus let the horses out.

Saturday Shuffle

Nightswimming - R.E.M.
I Can't Put My Finger On It - Ween
Love Me - The Cramps
Mary, Won't You Call My Name (live) - Morphine
Overblown - Mudhoney
Word Is Bond - House of Pain
Bleeding Warm & Newly Dead - Grade
Stop! In The Name of Love - The Supremes
Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears
How I Could Just Kill a Man - Cypress Hill

Lugar-IN, Martinez-FL, Snowe-ME pick Sotomayor over Sessions' "wise Latina" smokescreen.

Sorry, Jeffie.

Throw that hat in the ring. I dare you.

Some things just need recollectin':

...we should stop reporting on the families of the candidates. Unless the candidates want us to.

Sarah Palin wanted the media to report on her teenage son, Track, who enlisted in the Army on Sept. 11, 2007, and soon will deploy to Iraq.

Sarah Palin did not want the media to report on her teenage daughter, Bristol, who is pregnant and unmarried.

Sarah Palin thinks that one is good for her campaign and one is not, and that the media should report only on what is good for her campaign. That is our job, and that is our duty. If that is not actually in the Constitution, it should be. (And someday may be.)

You resigned due to excess of ambition or lack of fortitude.

Shut up with any "nasty, nasty media" finger-pointing to the contrary.

Is there ever really a need to post my musings 160 characters at a time?

We'll see...

Saturday Shuffle

Human Behaviour - Björk
Tuck Me In - Alkaline Trio
Laughing Pain - Front Line Assembly
Afterhours - The Sisters of Mercy
God's Zoo - Death Cult
Eyes Without a Face - Billy Idol
Bad Trash - Switchblade Symphony
Wild Side - Mötley Crüe
Stowaway - Chris Connelly
Waiting For The Man - David Bowie

John Ensign plays doctor with staffer, needs a pelvic exam.

Via WaPo:

The wealthy parents of Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) gave $96,000 last year to the staffer who was then his mistress and to her family, his attorney said yesterday.

...The gifts roughly coincided with Hampton's departure as treasurer of Ensign's political committees, as well as with the resignation of her husband, Douglas, as Ensign's chief of staff, on May 1, 2008. Ensign has said that the sexual affair with Cynthia Hampton began in December 2007 and continued until the following August.

The money was disbursed in April 2008, in eight checks of $12,000 each, with two checks each for Cynthia Hampton, her husband and their two children, Coggins said.

How bad does this look? Let me count the ways:
He's indisputably an unfaithful husband.

He apparently needs Mummy and Daddy to clean up the mess after he played Brotherhood of the Wandering Pants.

It seems painfully clear they're doing so in such a way as to skirt the IRS.

And...it gets better.

In an interview this week, Douglas Hampton also alleged that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a close friend of Ensign's, urged Ensign to end the affair early last year and suggested financial compensation for the Hampton family.

Coburn's office acknowledged that he counseled Ensign to end the affair but denied suggesting any financial deal.

Yesterday, Coburn told the Roll Call newspaper that he would refuse any attempts to compel him to testify in court or at the Senate ethics committee about his role. Coburn, an obstetrician, claimed a legal privilege against such testimony as his physician and religious adviser.

"I was counseling him as a physician and as an ordained deacon," Coburn said. "That is privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody. Not to the ethics committee, not to a court of law, not to anybody."

The only thing more awesome than an elected official vowing to obstruct an ethical or criminal investigation is one doing so based on claims of privilege straight out of fantasyland.

The true believers say, "You betcha!"

Even when she says, "No más."

Via CNN:

Now, four days after Sarah Palin announced that she will step down later this month as governor of Alaska, a new national poll by USA Today/Gallup indicates that seven in 10 Americans say Palin's decision had no affect on their opinion of her.

The survey also suggests a wide partisan split over whether respondents would likely vote for Palin if she decides to run for the White House in 2012. More than seven in 10 Republicans said they would be likely to vote for Palin for the presidency. That number drops to 34 percent among independents and to 17 percent among Democrats.

In a development that has Democratic strategists rushing to launder the drool stains off their shirtfronts, it looks they're riding this one all the way to the ground.

Major Kong would be proud...

Saturday Shuffle

Buena (live) - Morphine
40 Grand in the Hole - Mike Doughty
Love Calls You By Your Name - Leonard Cohen
Unfamiliar - Ride
Blue Train (alternate take) - John Coltrane
Ocean Man (live) - Ween
Ordinary Guy - Joe Bataan
Outlaw - The Cult
Department of Youth - Alice Cooper
Zoo Music Girl - The Birthday Party

Saturday Shuffle

Itch - Ani Difranco
Cocaine Blues (live) - Johnny Cash
I Don't Want It - Ween
Everybody Knows (live) - Concrete Blonde
I Love It Loud - Kiss
Lonesome Town - Ricky Nelson
Overture - Bad Religion
Funky Boss - Beastie Boys
Jelly Roll - Charles Mingus
Warsaw - Joy Division

King of Pop

1958 - 2009

Profiles in creep-age

Via the WaPo:

Student Strip Search Illegal
By Robert Barnes

Arizona school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old girl when they strip-searched her on the suspicion she might be hiding ibuprofen in her underwear, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The decision put school districts on notice that such searches are "categorically distinct" from other efforts to combat illegal drugs.

In a case that had drawn attention from educators, parents and civil libertarians across the country, the court ruled 8 to 1 that such an intrusive search without the threat of a clear danger to other students violated the Constitution's protections against unreasonable search or seizure.

Justice David H. Souter, writing perhaps his final opinion for the court, said that in the search of Savana Redding, now a 19-year-old college student, school officials overreacted to vague accusations that Redding was violating school policy by possessing the ibuprofen, equivalent to two tablets of Advil.

What was missing, Souter wrote, "was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear."

It was reasonable to search the girl's backpack and outer clothes, but Safford Middle School administrators made a "quantum leap" in taking the next step, the opinion said. "The meaning of such a search, and the degradation its subject may reasonably feel, place a search that intrusive in a category of its own demanding its own specific suspicions," Souter wrote.

Makes sense to me, as it did to most of the court.

But not all. Remember: 8-1 against the school. Wait for it...

Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. "Judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment," he wrote.

Last I checked, judges are uniquely qualified to determine what is and is not appropriate regarding issues of search and seizure.

I'd love for Coke Can Clarence to let us know exactly what "quiet and order" is being jeopardized by the possible existence of two pills that any student could acquire about 500 of at any corner drugstore.

And yet we still have to listen to people drone on about how the president has to make sure Souter's replacement is sufficiently conservative enough. Do we really need another person on the big bench with this sophisticated a perspective:

Saturday Shuffle

My Little Underground - The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Man Comes Around (early take) - Johnny Cash
Motor City Madhouse (live) - Ted Nugent
Lover, You Should've Come Over (live) - Jeff Buckley
Legalize It - Cypress Hill
Lullaby - The Cure
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me - Morrissey
So What - Ministry
Billie Jean - Chris Cornell
Cold Wind - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Putting the 'D' in "Duh"

Pittsburgh Steelers LB, James Harrison, on why he's declining the invitation to the White House for the customary congratulatory visit with the President:

 

"This is how I feel -- if you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don't win the Super Bowl. As far as I'm concerned, he [Obama] would've invited Arizona if they had won," said Harrison.

 

Yes, James; yes, he would have.  I have the sneaking suspicion the NFL would've given them the Lombardi trophy, too...

Walking the walk

Courtesy John A. at Americablog:

 

An American service member, about to be discharged for being gay, penned an open letter to his commander-in-chief on CNN's Web site. Here is an excerpt:

 

 "As an infantry officer, I am not accustomed to begging. But I beg you today: Do not fire me. Do not fire me because my soldiers are more than a unit or a fighting force – we are a family and we support each other. We should not learn that honesty and courage leads to punishment and insult. Their professionalism should not be rewarded with losing their leader. I understand if you must fire me, but please do not discredit and insult my soldiers for their professionalism.

 

When I was commissioned I was told that I serve at the pleasure of the President. I hope I have not displeased anyone by my honesty. I love my job. I want to deploy and continue to serve with the unit I respect and admire. I want to continue to serve our country because of everything it stands for.

 

Please do not wait to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Please do not fire me."

 

I cannot imagine a starker contrast than that which exists between Lt. Choi and the chickenhawk Keyboard Kommandoes who not only continually offer their full-throated support for putting (other) people in harm's way, but view him as a second-class citizen--if not an outright subhuman--his commitment and sacrifice be damned.

They should be ashamed of themselves and, given their truly bizarre need to attack others while declaring their patriotic--not to mention, heterosexual--bonafides so loudly, I imagine that, deep down, they are...

Saturday Shuffle

Honeybear - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Our Secret - Beat Happening
A Hazy Shade of Winter - The Bangles
Guilty of Being White - Minor Threat
Junkhead (live) - Alice In Chains
The Last Day On Earth (live) - Marilyn Manson
Hand in Glove - The Smiths
The One I Love (live) - R.E.M.
Butterfly (live) - Tori Amos
Faaip de Oiad - Tool