Completely nude, save for the odd piece of jewelry, burlesque performers like Nasty Canasta, Miss Tickle and Sapphire Jones regaled the audience with everything from Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" to the children's book "Tomatoes From Mars," which was read by a real-life librarian who was considerably less clothed than usual.
link: 'Naked Girls Reading Sci-Fi' Tackles Ray Bradbury and Douglas Adams - Asylum.com
Applying our rigorous editorial standards to this story from Asylum.com, we have added three exciting new items to our official Work Avoidance List: Watching Grass Grow (you won't be able to watch it for very long, take our word), Michigan's possibly time-limited Snowman Cam, and the truly inspirational Peeling Paint (hours of fun for the easily amused!).
In our current armed conflicts, there are two U.S. drone offensives. One is conducted by our armed forces, the other by the CIA. Every day, CIA agents and CIA contractors arm and pilot armed unmanned drones over combat zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Pakistani tribal areas, to search out and kill Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants.
link: CIA drone attacks produce America's own unlawful combatants - washingtonpost.com
The US economy grew at a 5.9 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2009. That sounds good until you realize GDP figures are badly distorted by structural changes in the economy. For example, part of the increase is due to rising health care costs. When WellPoint ratchets up premiums, that enlarges the GDP. But you'd have to be out of your mind to consider this evidence of a recovery.
Part of the perceived growth in GDP is due to rising government expenditures. But this is smoke and mirrors. The stimulus is reaching its peak and will be smaller in months to come. And a bigger federal debt eventually has to be repaid.
So when you hear some economists say the current recovery is following the traditional path, don't believe a word. The path itself is being used to construct the GDP data.
link: Robert Reich: The Sham Recovery
Utah's House majority leader said late Thursday he paid a woman $150,000 to keep silent about going nude "hot-tubbing" with her when she was minor a quarter century ago....
House members gave him thunderous applause for his honesty and embraced him.
link: Utah House GOP leader says he paid off woman | Raw Story
Said majority leader, one Kevin Garn, claims there was no sexual contact between himself and and the now 40-something Cheryl Maher, who was 15 at the time. Now that Maher has gone and blabbed about the thing to the Salt Lake Tribune, well, it appears paying her all that money was a mistake, Garn told his thunderously applauding colleagues.
Garn became House majority leader recently when his predecessor, one Sheldon Killpack, resigned after being arrested for DUI.
So don't believe everything you read about Utah. They know how to have a good time too.
Apple Sells An Estimated 91,000 iPads In 6 Hours
link: Apple Sells An Estimated 91,000 iPads In 6 Hours
"Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh said this week he’d go to Costa Rica for medical treatment if Congress passes proposed reforms to the US healthcare system."
-Noted (here on Yahoo News) by our Midwest Bureau.
Sam Smith says:
My Coast Guard navigation instructor told us that if you take a navigational fix and it puts you on one side of a rock and then you take another fix and it puts you on the other side of the rock, "Don't split the difference." Obama doesn't seem to grasp this principle.
The grass field is gone, replaced by shards and chunks of concrete and steel.
link: Sports Business - Lots of Memories, and Debris, at Old Yankee Stadium - NYTimes.com
(Photos at the link.)
In Washington, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a health insurance industry group that failure to pass health reform would cause costs and premiums would soar and force more Americans and businesses to drop coverage....
Insurers could "give up some of their profits" to make premiums more affordable and work with Congress to enact the legislation, she said.
link: Obama: Time for talk is over on healthcare bill - Yahoo! News
Give up some of their profits?
Sure.
Massa [now former U.S. Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y] denies he sexually harassed anyone, but he now says he did engage in "tickle fights" with male staffers and may have sent inappropriate texts.
link: Rahm Emanuel: Naked finger-pointing allegations - chicagotribune.com
Hey, the ancient Romans might have been pretty weird but at least they didn't txt.
I got a letter from the Census Bureau informing me they're going to send me a census form in two weeks. Couldn't they have just surprised me? Hey, census guys, take a note: Next time just send the freaking form.
I should get a bonus of some sort for carrying junk mail upstairs and then carrying it back down in a recycle bin every B week. B weeks are the weeks they pick up recyclables here, A weeks not so much. Apparently we don't have the money to do it every week.
So then I guess if the census form really does come in two weeks, that'll be a B week too. Imagine the excitement - a census form and a B week too.
I might have to take an extra nap.
The Republican Party has nothing in the way of solutions to Americans’ economic plight. It is committed only to the demented policy of trying to ensure that President Obama and the Democrats fail.
But the fact that the Republicans are pathetic and destructive is no reason for the Democrats to shirk their obligation to fight powerfully and relentlessly for the economic well-being of all Americans. There are now six people in the employment market for every available job. There is a staggering backlog of discouraged workers who would show up tomorrow if there were a job to be had.
link: Op-Ed Columnist - The Source of Obama’s Trouble - NYTimes.com
From Bob Herbert's column in the Times this morning, noted by our Midwest Bureau.
The tale of Limbaugh's rise features slapstick duo Rumsfeld & Rove, ironic winks to the Obama administration, a show-stopping Rent parody, and chilling musical numbers like "You Can't Argue With Jesus."
link: Rush Limbaugh! The Musical | Second City E.T.C. | Theater & Performance | Chicago Reader
CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. researchers estimate that an 18 percent tax on pizza and soda can push down U.S. adults' calorie intake enough to lower their average weight by 5 pounds (2 kg) per year.
With two-thirds of Americans either overweight or obese, policymakers are increasingly looking at taxing as a way to address obesity on a population level.
link: Tax soda, pizza to cut obesity, researchers say - Yahoo! News
And as soon as they figure out some theory of second-hand calories they can not only tax pizza, they can make you stand outside to eat it.
The federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in contract payments, grants and other benefits over the past decade to foreign and multinational American companies while they were doing business in Iran, despite Washington’s efforts to discourage investment there, records show.
That includes nearly $15 billion paid to companies that defied American sanctions law by making large investments that helped Iran develop its vast oil and gas reserves.
link: U.S. Enriches Companies Defying Its Policy on Iran - NYTimes.com
The trailrs - just the trailers - for "the nine worst movies ever made," here at HuffPo.
Speaking of which, he doesn't rise to the nine worst level but James Cameron has real flair for making movies I don't want to see. I have zero interest in "Avatar" (I thought I'd say that before it collects a basket of Oscars and makes me look like a grump) and I still have to ambition to watch "Titanic" (maybe I shouldn't have read the spoiler but it was kind of hard to ignore); I watched the first "Terminator" but none of the countless sequels and spin-offs, ditto for "Alien" and "Rambo." So he's not exactly my favorite director, it seems.
I have seen "Hurt Locker" and I agree with some who call it one of the best war movies ever made.
