Want a tribble?

Yeah, I want a tribble. But do I have to take one from this guy?

Unpatriotic soldier won't deploy

A US marine, a follower of the "birther" nonsense, is suing to not be deployed to Afghanistan because, he claims, President Obama is not a US citizen and therefore is not the commander-in-chief.

Now, imagine, if you will, the screeching, blood-curdling screams of Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, et al, had a US soldier refused to deploy to Iraq because Bush was not legally elected but was instead installed by the US Supreme Court in 2000.

Boredom engineers

Last night, I had a weird dream about the future. In it, there were "boredom engineers" whose job it was to help people be bored, because there was so much to do and so much overstimulation.

One boredom engineer explained, "You can't just sit and do nothing. Some people call that meditation. The trick is to do something, or watch something being done, that completely bores you, and that's harder than it sounds these days."

So I told them one of my long stories, and they hailed me as a god.

Happy birthday, Patrick Stewart

Ladies and gentlemen, The Picard Song:

Auto-Tune the News #6

Where would we be without auto-tune?

20 years in prison. Oops.

Clyde Ray Spencer: Imprisoned Man's Children Recant Molestation Claims

Former Vancouver police officer Clyde Ray Spencer spent nearly 20 years in prison after he was convicted of sexually molesting his son and daughter. Now, the children say it never happened.

Matthew Spencer and Kathryn Tetz, who live in Sacramento, Calif., each took the stand Friday in Clark County Superior Court to clear their father's name, The Columbian newspaper reported.

Matthew, now 33, was 9 years old at the time. He told a judge he made the allegation after months of insistent questioning by now-retired Clark County sheriff's detective Sharon Krause just so she would leave him alone.

Scientists are not Republicans

If you're talking to a scientist, chances are they're not Republican. A poll shows only six percent of scientists identify themselves as Republicans, and only nine percent overall say they're conservatives.

John Ensign puppet theater

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Protecting straight marriage

Is this what they mean when they say they need to "protect heterosexual marriage"?

Prosecutors: Jailed evangelist 'married' girls

TEXARKANA, Ark. – Jailed evangelist Tony Alamo "married" the underage girls he allegedly forced into sex, exchanging wedding vows and rings, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors made the claim as lawyers met Friday with U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes about Alamo's trial, slated to begin next week. The trial, scheduled to last two weeks, will put Alamo's lawyers in a delicate position of trying to tear into the credibility of the evangelist's alleged victims on the stand while trying to not alienate jurors in the conservative southwestern Arkansas town.

Sarkozy… not so much.

Kucinich schools him on Canadian health care

We've all heard horror stories about the evil Canadian health care system. Dennis Kucinich sets everyone straight.

More photo and video fun

More photo and video fun with presidents and presidential wannabes.

Obama caught peeking? Tape says no.

I didn't think it was a big deal, but some pundit heads exploded. A photo apparently caught President Obama along with French president Sarkozy leering naughtily at the nether regions of a 17-year-old girl. To some right wing pundits, this was more proof that Obama is a secret commie and drinks the blood of white Christian babies in secret satanic ceremonies in the White House basement.

But the videotape says no, and shows that Obama wasn't sneaking an ass-peek, but was turning to help a woman behind him. As for Sarkozy, the camera angle isn't wide enough to see what he was looking at.

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Palin lying about her reasons?

The Drama Queen, who's gone all Battlestar Dramatica on us time and time again, may have been lying about the key reason (or near as we can tell was the key reason from that rambling, disjointed, Red Bull-fueled press conference) for her resignation.

One of the chief reasons Sarah Palin has given for resigning as Governor of Alaska is that her state’s taxpayers are being forced to spend money defending her government against ethics complaints that would otherwise fund teachers, cops, and road repair.

But in response to our questions, a spokesperson for the Alaska governor’s office just gave us new information that casts serious doubt on this assertion. The revelation makes the resignation episode even stranger, and raises fresh questions about the real reasons for her abrupt departure.

During her resignation speech last week, Palin presented herself as a heroic defender of the taxpayer. She said that money being spent on government lawyers to defend against these “frivolous ethics violations” could be “going to things that are very important, like troopers and roads and teachers and fish research.” Palin repeated exactly the same point this week.

But David Murrow, a spokesperson for the Governor, said in an interview that much of this money was budgeted to the lawyers in advance and would have gone to them anyway, even if state lawyers hadn’t been defending against these ethics complaints.

Fighting for our freedoms?

Every time I hear Sarah Palin repeat the platitude about our troops "over there in Iraq fighting for our freedoms, like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and fair elections…" I wonder when the hell Iraq threatened our Constitutional freedoms here in the United States.

And what about our troops in Afghanistan, Sarah?

A benediction from St. Sagan

Buried in the final pages of his novel "Contact" (a book that far surpasses the excellent film version for an emotional wallop in those last few pages), this benediction of sorts from Carl Sagan, a man who should be sainted if ever any were:

"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love."

Atheist billboard making people freak out

The answer is obvious, religious people: Outlaw atheism, and all your problems are solved.

Next up, you can outlaw other religions.

Then, you can outlaw versions of Christianity that are "heretical."

Then, when only your church is left, you can outlaw members who don't toe the line.

Orthodoxy is an ever-shrinking noose, and the search for heretics is never ending.

Right winger begs Osama bin Laden to attack the US

A right winger has gone on Glenn Beck's show and begs Osama bin Laden to attack the United States again.

Glenn Beck nods and agrees with his guest Michael Scheuer that the only way to "save" the US (from illegal immigrants, of course) is for Osama bin Laden to succeed in detonating a weapon on America...

I like the weird stuff

Placebo is a band that should be much bigger in the US, but alas.

Here's the French version of their song "Protect Me From What I Want" along with a video that's a clip pulled from MirrorMask.

Here's the full-length English version of the song.

He asked for permission to go see his mistress?

Governor Mark Sanford's wife is speaking out about his affair with a still-unidentified Argentinean hottie (who apparently has a great rack, if his emails are to be believed). She knew about the affair for awhile, but at one point, she says he asked for permission to go to Argentina to  see "Maria."

Excuse me? He asked for permission to go to Argentina so he could bonk his side dish?

I can't decide if that means he has huge balls or he's a complete weeny.

Oh, and let's not forget, Rush Limbaugh is blaming Sanford's affair on, you guessed it, Obama.

Conspiracy theories make me laugh

Whacky conspiracy theory of the week: Governor Mark Sanford, returning from a trip in which he claimed to be doing someone, er, I mean, something exotic, was behind the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, so that coverage of them would take his peccadillo off the front page.

Rush blames Obama for Sanford affair

Well, I was just joking. I said I wondered how long it would be before pundits on the right blamed gay marriage or Obama for the affairs of John Ensign and Mark Sanford.

I didn't have long to wait.

Rush Limbaugh made a crack that Obama is to blame for Sanford having an affair.

Boom!

And Gov. Mark Sanford returns from his "adventure trip" to Argentina and tells us he's been having an extramarital affair with someone there. And of course, there's all the requisite Christian-speak, which almost ALWAYS comes along with admissions of affairs. (Odd, that. How come admissions of affairs, or hookers, or blow, always seem to make the confessor ten times more religious right there in the press conference?)

Okay. Is there a GOP hopeful for 2012 who has NOT had an affair? Bueller? Bueller?

Mark Sanford

So this morning, after his wife told us he "had to get away from the kids to write something" (on father's day), and his staff told us he was hiking for five days on the Appalachian Trail (on hike naked day), he's telling us he actually went to Argentina on an "adventure trip."

Without telling anyone. Without leaving anyone else in charge of the executive.

The more stories they tell us, the weirder it gets. How long until the words "hookers & blow" start cropping up?

New Rules: There is no liberal party

One of Bill Maher's best New Rules segments ever.

Real Time New Rules June 19, 2009

The geeks have inherited the earth

John Hodgeman at the Radio & TV Correspondents Association dinner.

By the way, the correct answers to the three-part question are: Shai-hulud, thumper, and water of life.

It's been awhile

NASA did something today it hasn't done in a long time: Launch spacecraft to the Moon.

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