Exactly.

Why I don't have Google Ads or any other ad aggregators on this blog...this ad appeared on Americablog this morning:



(Don't bother clicking through, it's just an image.)

At first I thought it was a parody: "The ONLY magazine for the middle-market C-level executive"? But it isn't. And that's what makes it funny.

Dogwhistling to oblivion

Nobody is better at dogwhistling than Republicans. When Newt Gingrich calls Barack Obama "The Food Stamp King", it's clear what word he wants to use. When Sarah Palin puts targets on a map to denote elected Democrats, it's clear what she's saying. Republicans know how to send signals to their followers that give them what they want.

So it makes us wonder exactly what Rick Perry is saying in his recent anti-gay ad:



I mean, there's Rick Perry...with his great hair intact, walking up a mountain...wearing Heath Ledger's jacket....



OK, it's not EXACTLY the same:



Perry's jacket has seaming across the upper chest and Ledger's doesn't. Ledger's jacket has flap pockets, Perry's has just patch pockets. Ledger's is probably vintage from the time period portrayed in the movie, and Perry's is your standard garden-variety Carhartt Sandstone Thermal Jac. And Carhartt uses similar "cowboy" imagery to sell its products:



And maybe the people Rick Perry is trying to reach won't make the connection, because they too wear Carhartt jackets. Maybe it's just that weird Republican cowboy drag thing that Texan men do to try to demonstrate that they are manly-men. But when you're Rick Perry, and gay rumors have been swirling around you for years, and this particular jacket also comes in Moss, Midnight, and a lovely chocolate brown, you'd think someone on Perry's staff would have made the connection.

Unless it isn't evangelicals to whom Perry is really dogwhistling.

(lifted unashamedly from here.)

Oh fer cryin' out loud....

You know, some days I'm glad I'm not a full time blogger. I think having to deal with Teh Crayzee seven days a week would drive me insane.

Today, Faux Noise misses no excuse to get its panties in a twist about the Secret Kenyan Muslim Manchurian Candidate in the White House:

President Obama did not include any reference to God during his weekly address titled, “On Thanksgiving, Grateful for the Men and Women Who Defend Our Country.”

His remarks were void of any religious references although Thanksgiving is a holiday traditionally steeped in giving thanks and praise to God.

The president said his family was “reflecting on how truly lucky we truly are.”

For many Americans, though, Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on how blessed and thankful they are.

The president said the “most American of blessings” is the “chance to determine our own destiny.”

He called the very first Thanksgiving a “celebration of community”

“We’re also grateful for the Americans who are taking time out of their holiday to serve in soup kitchens and shelters, making sure their neighbors have a hot meal and a place to stay,” he said. “This sense of mutual responsibility – the idea that I am my brother’s keeper; that I am my sister’s keeper – has always been a part of what makes our country special.”

The president said that belief is “one of the reasons the Thanksgiving tradition has endured.”

But nowhere in the 11-paragraph address does he mention the Almighty.

Because after all, unless you invoke the Baby Jesus 5,498,632 times a day, God only knows what might happen. Hell, you might start to think....and thinking means asking questions. And we mustn't have that. It would be unseemly.

Brothers of Different Mothers

Separated at Birth? You decide.

Newt Gingrich:




Damon Wayans as "Oswald Bates" from In Living Color:

Somewhere in the Great Beyond, Catherine of Aragon is saying, "NOW you decide this?"

Having a penis is no longer mandatory to be first in line for the British monarchy:

Centuries of British royal discrimination came to an end Friday after Commonwealth leaders agreed to drop rules that give sons precedence as heir to the throne and bar anyone in line for the crown from marrying a Roman Catholic.

The 16 countries that have Queen Elizabeth as their monarch agreed to the changes put forward by British Prime Minister David Cameron, who had called the rules of succession outdated.

"The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter simply because he is a man, or that a future monarch can marry someone of any faith except a Catholic, this way of thinking is at odds with the modern countries that we've all become," Cameron told reporters.

The agreement came on the sidelines of a Commonwealth summit presided over by the Queen in the remote west Australian city of Perth.

Current succession rules dating back to 1688 and 1700 were designed to ensure a Protestant monarchy, and bar anyone in line to the throne from marrying a Catholic.

Only a Catholic link is barred. There are no restrictions on marrying members of other religions or atheists.

The rules have their roots in a turbulent period of English history dating back to Henry VIII's break with Rome in the mid- 16th century. The laws were imposed at a time when Catholics were seen as a threat to the state.

Funny...here in the US they only think that way about Muslims.

But seriously....this is being touted as some kind of Giant Way Forward for Great Britain? Have they stopped to think that this whole business of monarchy is itself an anachronism?

Just wonderin', is all

Let me see if I have this right: investors are fleeing stocks because Standard & Poors downgraded U.S. debt, and they're moving their money into....U.S. Treasury bonds.



And these are the people to whom we trust our retirement savings?

Oh fer cryin out loud...

This is not from The Onion:

TSA warns of implant bombers, prepares fliers for swab tests

The latest threat to America's skies -- explosive surgical implants that authorities have dubbed "belly bombs" -- poses a security challenge so bizarre that air travelers learning of the new danger Wednesday could only scratch their heads and wonder what's next.

If those fliers had collagen injections or dental implants, what's next may mean having their heads examined. Literally.

The Transportation Security Administration advised airlines that terror groups are believed to be experimenting with explosives that could be implanted in buttocks and breasts, allowing suicide bombers to pass through airport body scanners undetected.

[snip]

The TSA said it had no evidence of a specific plot, but intelligence sources indicated this new twist in bomb-proofing international air travel was likely the handiwork of Ibrahim Asiri, the al-Qaeda mastermind behind the Christmas Day attempt to bring down a Northwest Airlines plane by the so-called "underwear bomber."

Few Americans could have imagined when the first airport metal detectors were installed more than four decades ago that travelers would one day be expected to nearly disrobe before boarding their flights. The idea of implanting explosives in the same places plastic surgeons use to "enhance" many Americans does not strike Zoltan Prokay as far-fetched.

"If they do it properly, like a breast implant where the skin is stretched to accommodate the device, it could work," said Prokay, who spent two and a half years in Iraq working to detect improvised explosive devices as a member of a U.S. Special Forces team. He was flying out of San Jose as a pilot for a private airline, which he declined to identify, when word of the TSA advisory began to spread. "It could be set to go off at a certain altitude. If you get an altimeter implanted in your other breast though, maybe you would set off the metal detector."

Prokay sees it as a natural -- if horrifying -- progression from the Shoe Bomber and the Underwear Bomber. "This would be the Bosom Bomber," he said. "It's not funny. And yet it is kind of funny. The Bosom Bomber."

"If (terrorists) really want to attack, there is always a way," Renata Boudon, 47, said in French after arriving at San Francisco International for a two-week vacation in the western United States. "It doesn't scare me much." She and her two sons, 18-year-old Eric and 12-year-old Marc, live in Brazil and said they won't change anything about their travel habits because of the new information. "If it happens, it happens," she said. "There is nothing you can do."

Renata Boudon of France is a hell of a lot smarter than the idiots who populate this country, who will no doubt line up like sheep to have their breasts and buttocks grabbed by TSA agents in the name of national security.

It sure sounds like this is the TSA's way of justifying intrusive "pat-downs" that are often more like being groped by a creep on a crowded subway.

Businesses I Wish I'd Started

Why can't I have an enterprising mind like this?

Your Pets Will Not Be Flagged For Removal By Jesus During the Rapture

---

Date: 2008-06-19, 3:59PM CDT

[snip]

FLAGGERS: Over half the United States population has legitimate concerns about what will happen to their pets after the rapture occurs. Please respect their faith and allow this service to remain posted, just as the waste removal and grooming posts remain posted. Again, over half of the US population feels that this is a concern to them. If there is a specific problem with the ad, please email me. Thank you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"No one knows when that day or hour will come. Even the angels in heaven and the Son don't know. Only the Father knows."
(Matthew 24:36)

"For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord."
(1 Thessalonians 4:15�17)


Have you ever thought about what will happen to your pets after Jesus comes back to claim the souls of the saved during the Rapture and deliver them to heaven to enjoy ever lasting life? The bible clearly teaches that only those that have accepted Jesus as their savior will enter heaven (John 14:6, Romans 3:23), and we all know that pets do not have the cognitive ability to do this, so what will happen to your beloved pets? Surely without you there, they would be stuck inside your empty house, starving to death with no one to feed them, let them out to potty, or clean their litter box. This is probably not what you envision for your pets after you are gone. This is where I come in.

I am here to offer you pet care service for after the rapture. As an atheist, I will surely still be here on this earth post rapture and would love to look after your pets for a small fee and make sure they are still well taken care of after you and your family have been raptured. You will be able to look down on them from heaven and see them being well cared for by me and living happy, healthy lives. Do not let my atheism scare you! I am a moral and loving pet owner and would never do harm to any animal.

For a small deposit of only $50, you can be assured that your pets will be well cared for from the time that you are raptured until the end of their natural life. They will get adequate amounts of food, water, and shelter as well as plenty of exercise and socialization as I would imagine there will be a lot of pets that will be abandoned by Jesus the pet hater that will need to be cared for.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
If interested, please email me for my PayPal address (you can also send me a check if you prefer) so you can assure that your pets will be taken care of after Jesus comes to take your soul to heaven. $50 is only a small price to pay to know that while you are enjoying everlasting bliss, your pets will be cared for until their end days. Thanks and have a great day!

Please do not flag this ad. It is very serious.

Remember, folks, according to Harold Camping, there are only 11 shopping days until the Rapture. Book your pet care now!

This may not be as silly as it looks on the surface

After all, Republicans have been able to claim, with some success, that the 9/11 attacks were Bill Clinton's fault, that TARP (instituted in 2008) was Barack Obama's program, that George W. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifBush'shttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif presidency was a success, and that Bush deserves the credit for capturing Osama Bin Laden.

So with their ability and willingness to rewrite history, why WOULDN'T Newt Gingrich run as a devout, devoted husband to his lovely wife Callista, whom he was fucking on the side while married to his second wife, whom he was fucking while married to his first? http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Still in her 20s when they met, Ms. Bisek had been raised in a town of 1,500, the only child of a meat packer and a secretary. A churchgoing Roman Catholic, she had attended a Lutheran college where she practiced piano five hours a day. “Is this the wisest course for you to be taking?” Karen Olson, her best friend, recalled asking.

Today, Ms. Bisek is Mrs. Gingrich, married for 11 years, but perhaps best remembered for the six-year affair that contributed to her husband’s political downfall. His critics cast Mr. Gingrich, the former House speaker, as a hypocrite who sought to impeach a president over infidelity while engaging in it himself with Ms. Bisek, who was a Congressional aide.

Yet in a curious tale of Washington reinvention, the onetime congressman from Georgia is counting on the third Mrs. Gingrich for his political redemption.

As he prepares for a Republican presidential primary run — he said Monday that he would formally declare his intentions on Wednesday — Mr. Gingrich is presenting himself as a family man who has embraced Catholicism and found God, with his wife as a kind of character witness. Depending on one’s point of view, she is a reminder of his complicated past, or his secret political weapon.

Barely a sentence goes by without Mr. Gingrich uttering the words “Callista and I.” They are constantly together — at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, at conservative political conferences, at book signings and screenings of their documentary films. She is the voice on his audio books; her face is all over his 2012 Web site, where visitors can read “A Note from Newt & Callista.”

At Villanova University on a recent Thursday night, Mrs. Gingrich warmed up the audience for a showing of the couple’s movie about Pope John Paul II by signing books and DVDs in her left-handed curlicue. But when asked whether she is ready for the scrutiny a campaign would bring, she smiled tightly and grew silent.

Mr. Gingrich answered for her. “Seems to be,” he said, with uncharacteristic tentativeness. “We’ve talked about it for a year. It’s difficult.”

Mr. Gingrich is well aware that social conservatives are skeptical of him because he did not emphasize their issues in Congress, but also because of his two divorces and admission of infidelity. He has been meeting with religious leaders around the country to address their concerns.

What concerns could they possibly have? After all, didn't Jesus die on the cross so that Newt Gingrich could fuck whoever he wants? Isn't that what Gingrich means when he talks about his belief in a "forgiving God"? That HE's allowed to do whatever he wants to because a Jewish guy some two thousand and some-odd years ago went through unspeakable agony so he could do it?

Where do you even START trying to counteract this level of Teh Stoopid?

Via Randi:

=sound of forehead hitting desk=

All the Outrage You Can Eat

In case you haven't had your fill of Republican horseshit today....

At ThinkProgress, read how during the Bush years, the current leaders of the House GOP voted 19 times in favor of increasing the debt limit -- to the tune of $4 trillion. But let a black Democrat be elected, and suddenly it's OK to risk global economic collapse just to score cheap political points with a bunch of uneducated mouth-breathers.

And speaking of uneducated mouth breathers (you know, the guys with emphysema and cirrhosis of the liver whose spouses have cancer from working in toxic factories, who are diabetic and have macular degeneration and need knee replacements), when the Tea Party revolution reaches fruition, they're going to be the first casualties.

Lindsey Graham is playing "Mine's Bigger" with Paul Ryan by demanding that Social Security be cut too!

New Jersey governor, thug, and mainstream media mancrush Chris Christie advocates taking a bat to 76-year-old state Senator Loretta Weinberg.

Alan Simpson is still an asshole, but he smacked around Rick "Man On Dog" Santorum (who thinks he can become president and force women to make lots of babies to pay Social Security taxes) pretty good this week.

And you morons couldn't see this last November? Sheesh.

I think Matt Taibbi has been attending the Driftglass school of Refined Rantin'.

Never believe a guy who promises it'll be different this time, baby.

OK, now my head really exploded.

Enough of that.

Fortunately, it's Thursday night, so I can put my cranium back together with the one thing that always restores my sanity. Bassets.

Because all you need to be is a spoiled, whiny five-year-old to be governor of New Jersey

Sometimes the snark just writes itself:

A New Jersey boy who cried on a YouTube clip that he’s too small to be governor was all smiles as Gov. Chris Christie made him honorary chief executive.

Christie signed a proclamation Wednesday making 5-year-old Jesse Koczon, of Old Bridge, honorary governor for the day and his fraternal twin brother, Brandon, honorary lieutenant governor.

The boys, dressed in collared shirt, ties and trousers, appeared at a news conference with their parents, Jon and Dawn Koczon, Christie and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.

Christie, who has four children in elementary through high school, said he “related as a father,” when he saw the video clip of the boy crying.

On the video, Jesse’s mother asks him why he’s upset. Jesse replies, “Cause everyone tells me I’m too small to be the governor of New Jersey.”

Christie responded on Twitter: “Don’t worry Jesse, people gave plenty of reasons why I couldn’t be governor, though being too small wasn’t one of them.”

Christie said Jesse may be a natural for the state’s top job.

Especially now that Chris Christie has demonstrated that throwing a tantrum when you don't get your own way is the most important qualification.

Making Taxpayers for Christ

In the World According to Man-On-Dog, if it weren't for all them dirty sluts not doing their part of the American tax structure, there'd be no problems with Social Security revenues today:

WASHINGTON – Long-shot Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said Tuesday that America's "abortion culture" is harming Social Security, reviving an ages-old argument largely confined to the fringe.

"The Social Security system, in my opinion, is a flawed design, period," Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, told the New Hampshire station WEZS Radio. "But having said that, the design would work a lot better if we had stable demographic trends."

The problem, Santorum explained, is that "we don't have enough workers to support the retirees," because "a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion."

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 22 percent of all pregnancies in the U.S. end in abortion.

"We have seven children, so we're doing our part to fund the Social Security system," Santourm said.

In the long-run, of course, the boon to Social Security from more young people at any given time will be offset by the benefits they collect upon retirement, so the logic that that abortion is a drag on the program is contentious at best.

Yet the notion isn't new -- it's been around for many years, floated mostly by dogged social conservatives gifted at developing theories to blame abortion for just about every one of the nation's woes.

Perhaps someone should ask Santorum where the jobs are at which all those aborted babies would work to pay into the system, when there are fourteen million unemployed Americans today as it is.

How to assure you win an election in a small town

You can now buy your very own Diebold Accu-Vote voting machine on eBay.

They have ten of 'em. That ought to do it.

via Brad Friedman, who followed up with the seller to get to the source of these beauties:

The seller tells The BRAD BLOG the systems, more than 100 of them, come from Van Wert County, Ohio! And from a state like Ohio, you know the machines work just as they are supposed to! Get yours now and become the life of the party!

Stop the presses...Glenn Beck is a hypocrite

Are you shocked and appalled? Surprised, even? I'm not

Neither is Southern Beale:

Glenn Beck and the rest of the Fox fools have been whipping up the fear, because liberal rallies are always bad things and full of terrorists and terrorist appeasers and verging on violence (as opposed to conservative rallies which are Patriotic and Free Speech and Constitutional and Freedom and Liberty and yada yada.)

Anyhoo, yesterday Beck told the protestors their unions “are anti-western way of life,” which is the kind of thing people like Beck say: it’s just an insult attached to a group they don’t like (Nazi, communist, terrorist, leech, etc. + liberals, Democrats, Muslims, the poor, etc.), then regurgitated without any thought whatsoever. It's intellectually lazy, but it gets the job done, and frankly with their audience, no more is required. “This group = bad thing.” Whatever. It’s boring.

I just want someone to ask Beck one thing: aren’t you a member of a union? AFTRA? American Federation of Television And Radio Artists? The same AFTRA campaigning to save Public Broadcasting? Beck’s name is listed on the Los Angeles chapter’s June 2010 ballot under “newsperson.” Maybe there’s another newsperson named Glenn Beck, to which I have to say: dude, I feel sorry for you.

No idiocy is too idiotic for these women to use to bash the Obamas

I've never had children, but I do know enough about the care and feeding of infants to know that at least in this country, when you have a baby, the choice is not between breastfeeding and a carton from Tuscan Farms, it's between breast milk and infant formula.

Infant formula is not cow's milk. It is not just like Ensure. It's designed to mimic breast milk in terms of nutrition and composition. To the extent that cow's milk is used in non-soy-based baby formula, it's the whey from the milk that's used. Now, I'm not here to debate the relative merits of breast milk and formula. My feeling is that if you have this free source of damn near perfect nutrition, why not use it, unless there's a compelling reason not to. But to each her own. Whatever works.

The National Institutes of Health recommendation for consumption of dairy products in infants under one year is:

# None for infants 0-3 months
# None for infants 4-5 months
# None for infants 6-8 months
# Small servings for infants 9-12 months

If you are giving a baby under eight months the contents of the Tuscan carton in a bottle instead of either breast milk or formula, you are not feeding that baby; instead you are spending too much time listening to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, whose hatred for Michelle Obama knows no bounds:

Rep. Michele Bachmann, a potential Republican presidential candidate, is taking issue with Michelle Obama over the first lady's recent promotion of breast-feeding.

Speaking to conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham Tuesday, the Minnesota Republican said Obama's efforts to promote breast-feeding and the IRS's announcement that nursing supplies that aide in the practice can be deducted from tax returns amounts to a "new definition [of] the nanny state."

"This is very consistent with where the hard left is coming from," Bachmann told Ingraham. "For them, government is the answer to every problem."

"I've given birth to five babies and I breast fed every single one of these babies," she added. "To think that government has to go out and buy my breast pump for my babies? You wanna talk about the nanny state, I think you just got a new definition."

The comments come on the heels of Obama's recent contention that breast-feeding can play a key role in reducing childhood obesity.

"We also want to focus on the important touch points in a child's life. And what we're learning now is that early intervention is key. Breastfeeding. Kids who are breastfed longer have a lower tendency to be obese," Obama told a group of reporters last week, according to Politics Daily.

"Breastfeeding is a very personal choice for every woman," Kristina Schake, a spokeswoman for Obama, later said. "We are trying to make it easier for those who choose to do it."

It's not the first time Obama has faced ire from the right when it comes to childhood nutrition. Sarah Palin told Ingraham last fall that "the first lady cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat."

What the fuck is this with these two dames, the Crazy Olympics? How is it a nanny state to allow a tax deduction for nursing supplies so that you can provide your child's caregiver with breast milk in bottles while you are at work? And as for Snowflake Snooki, here's what she said in her latest campaign (and don't kid yourself, it is a presidential campaign) on Long Island last week:

"It's no wonder Michelle Obama is telling everybody you need to breast feed your babies ... the price of milk is so high!"

This is the kind of off-the-cuff moronitude that reminds me of George H.W. Bush claiming that his dog Millie was smarter than these bozos. It's what you say when you have nothing intelligent to say -- and God knows Sarah Palin has nothing intelligent to say. Because in Sarah's World of Anger, Rage and Fear, it's a mother's God-given right to feed her infant cow's milk and chocolate chip cookies if she wants to, and that mean lady in the White House isn't going to stop her, nyah, nyah, nyah.

Except that before she began exhibiting a very bad case of Obama Derangement Syndrome, she was a promoter of breastfeeding:

WHEREAS, breastfeeding is recognized as an unequalled means of providing food for infants.

WHEREAS, throughout their lives, breastfeeding can offer children protection against serious health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Breastfeeding also saves lives by reducing the incidence of life-threatening cancers in women and preventing premature death in infants.

WHEREAS, breastfeeding forms the most basic bond between mother and baby and is a foundation for lifelong health and wellness.

WHEREAS, government and community organizations have a vested interest in protecting and promoting breastfeeding as a means of preventing infant malnutrition, morbidity, and mortality.

WHEREAS, during October, organizations throughout our state will promote the importance of breastfeeding. This year, in conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week - October 1 through October 7 - the State of Alaska will support networks that encourage and promote breastfeeding in all communities.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Sarah Palin, Governor of the State of Alaska, do hereby proclaim October 2007 as:

Breastfeeding Awareness Month in Alaska, and encourage all residents to recognize and support the important contributions breastfeeding makes in improving the quality of life for all Alaskans.

Jesus H. Christ. The stoopid....it BURNS.

What Sarah Palin fans eat

With Sarah Palin having declared vegetables as traitors to America and s'mores as the food of choice for Real Muricans Lovin' Faith Family 'n' Flag, let's take a look at the favorite new state fair foods of Snowflake Snooki's constituency (no blockquote tags because of commentary; the source is linked above):

10. Hash Brown Hot Dog – San Diego County Fair. This is ground-up gore, guts, and animal parts wrapped in shredded potatoes and deep-fat fried.

9. Deep-Fried Cheddar-Bacon Mashed Potatoes…On a Stick – Minnesota State Fair. Because regular mashed potatoes with their butter and cream just don't have quite enough saturated fat.

8. Garbage Burger – Indiana State Fair. It's a pork patty topped with pulled pork, but perhaps the nickname is more fitting.

7. Deep-Fried Frito Pie – Texas State Fair. As near as I can tell, this is batter-dipped chili-topped corn chips.

6. Deep Fried Klondike Bar – San Diego State Fair. Because all the palm kernel oil used to make the chocolate coating just doesn't coat your arteries enough all by itself.

5. Chocolate Tornado Potato – Minnesota State Fair. Now you know what to do with that spiral-cutter from Telebrands that you got for Christmas. Spiral-cut a potato, deep-fry it, then dip it in chocolate.

4. Deep-Fried Cheesesteak on a Stick – Wisconsin State Fair. Now OK, I admit to having tried the Bananas Foster bites at Wing Zone, which is probably sort of what I imagine deep-fried cheesecake tastes like. What? That's "cheesesteak"?

Never mind.

3. Sweet Potato Dog – San Diego County Fair. See #10, but because this is California and they watch their white carbs, substitute sweet potato for hash browns. It's Beta-Carotineeylicious!

2. Corn Dog Pizza – Minnesota State Fair. This HAS to be from Michele Bachmann's district. Just please tell me Franken doesn't eat this.

1. Fried Beer – Texas State Fair. If you've ever fantasized during halftime about how you could combine your beer and fried ravioli, this snack's for you. It combines the comfort of a pastry pocket with the all-American goodness of beer.

I guess fried butter didn't make the list because it's from 2009.

Now what was that about Texas' Medicaid expenses?

You can't BUY this kind of publicity

I don't know if Marc Maron should be thrilled or call his lawyer about this:

The CIA has launched a taskforce to assess the impact of 250,000 leaked US diplomatic cables. Its name? WikiLeaks Task Force, or WTF for short.

The group will scour the released documents to survey damage caused by the disclosures. One of the most embarrassing revelations was that the US state department had drawn up a list of information it would like on key UN figures – it later emerged the CIA had asked for the information.

"Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it's mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: WTF," the Washington Post reported.

WTF is more commonly associated with the Facebook and Twitter profiles of teenagers than secret agency committees. Given that its expanded version is usually an expression of extreme disbelief, perhaps the term is apt for the CIA's investigation.

Politico avoids looking like The Onion

Even Politico knows when the jokes would have written themselves:

Bachmann lands slot on Intel panel

Rep. Michele Bachmann, one of the most outspoken conservatives in the House, has won an appointment to the secretive House Intelligence Committee.

The move by incoming Speaker John Boehner to put Bachmann on the panel surprised Republican insiders, who see her as a fiery grass-roots leader of the tea party movement but not necessarily a leader on national security among House Republicans.

Bachmann once suggested that Congress should investigate whether Democratic lawmakers were pro- or anti-America, and she's been a cable TV favorite because she's known for colorful sound bites.

Members of the Intelligence panel receive classified briefings in a secure conference room in the Capitol, and are sworn to secrecy about most of the committee's activities.

"If you're looking for media and controversy, that's not the committee to be on," said a Republican familiar with the discussions about Bachmann's appointment.

The problem is that this isn't funny. Bachmann is certifiably nuts and putting her on a committee like this really IS playing fast and loose with national security.

I guess now we know that the investigations aren't going to be limited to just the President.

Idiots.

Would someone please tell the holiday weekend crew over at Fox Nation that The Onion is SATIRICAL?

Most people recognize The Onion as the Peabody Award-winning satire machine that it is. Some people, however, don’t. Which is why we get a story like this every few months. Of course, it’s sometimes easy to mistake an Onion article for the real thing since the writers make sure to skew as close to their targets as possible. It also doesn’t hurt when real news outlets reprint the satirists’ work and decide not to let their readers know it’s a joke, as Fox Nation did today.

Yes, the Fox Nation editors were apparently so enamored with an Onion piece from today entitled “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail” that they reposted the first two paragraphs in their culture section with nary a sign as to its fictional nature. The only clue that this wasn’t real (besides a quick peek at your inbox to confirm that Barack Obama hasn’t been emailing you) was a link at the bottom instructing readers to go to TheOnion.com for the real story. This tiny link was, unfortunately, not enough for the vast majority of FN readers.

The same way that Rush Limbaugh has to paint the Pilgrims as Randian capitalists -- nothing....NOTHING...is beyond the ability of the right to turn everything into an ideology-driven screed.

It looks like the "article" has been taken down, but there's still this:

Poor Bill Yosses. He's the White House pastry chef. He makes desserts for a living. He works for Barack and Michelle Obama. They talk about healthy eating. All the time. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right?

Not at all. Yosses' creations -- especially his pies -- have won over even the Obamas. The president calls him "The Crustmaster."

Yes, Barack Obama does have a pastry chef. And a regular chef. And a staff full of people who clean and organize his household. He flies around on a private plane. He doesn't do his own yard work, either. It's because he's the fucking PRESIDENT, morons. And even George W. Bush, hero of said morons, had the very same things.

Sorry, but people who watch Fox, who read Fox's web site, who have anything to do with Fox, are idiots. Period.