Newt Gingrich still had some presidential campaign staffers after 16 of his top aides quit en masse a couple of weeks ago. It only takes a few, right? Perhaps. But his top campaign finance advisers just quit too, so he really should end his campaign and take whatever few dollars remain to pay himself a PAC salary for a few months.
President Obama plans to give a White House address tomorrow night regarding his future plans for the Afghanistan war. What will the troop drawdown be? 10,000? 30,000? Two soldiers and a dog?
The staff for resigning Rep. Anthony Weiner are feeling awfully sentimental today as they clean out the office. Wouldn't you? I mean you'd be losing your job, for Christ's sake — and there are literally no other jobs available in America!
A public monument to the Soviet Armed Forces in Sofia, Bulgaria was vandalized spectacularly over the weekend. The statues of the Second World War soldiers were painted to resemble such candy-colored figures of capitalist iconography as Superman, Ronald McDonald, Santa Claus, Captain America and The Joker. The spray-painted writing beneath it says the hack now puts the statue "in step with the times!"
The first of what is likely to be several verdicts in the case of exiled Tunisian dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and his wife Leila was handed down today: 35 years and $65.6 million in fines, on charges of theft.
At an auction of actress Debbie Reynolds' collection of old Hollywood costumes this weekend, someone purchased the famous Marilyn Monroe "subway dress" from the movie The Seven Year Itch for $4.6 million, which was well above the pre-sale estimate of $1-$2 million. In fact, all the clothes sold for prices well above what was predicted.
An important part of being a successful American citizen these days is tempering your expectations. Calmness. Deep breaths. Freedom from all forms of desire. So when you hear, for example, that your economically devastated city won't see a return to pre-recession employment levels for another decade, you'll be able to take that news with poise, rather than with a stroke.
The prototype is incubating, but still under wraps. A recent picture of Larry Page's wife reveals that the Google CEO is expecting a second child. Just don't expect Page, the taciturn computer scientist, to reveal much about the baby.
The Supreme Court has just ruled that what would have been the largest sex discrimination suit in history—more than a million women suing Wal-Mart—cannot proceed as a class action suit. The women are all free to sue the company separately, but the mega-humongo class action suit would have been a serious financial threat to the company, while various isolated lawsuits will not be.
The trial of deposed Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali begins today in absentia, since Ben Ali is yukking it up with Saudi royals on his extended vacation there. Today's trial is the first of many, but this one is pretty juicy. Ben Ali is charged with theft, as well as drug and weapons possession, and the case is built on evidence recovered from two of his palaces outside of Tunis.
For his new Current TV program — premiering tonight! — angry television personality Keith Olbermann will step out of his comfort zone to bring viewers a diverse set of voices. Last night on the Twitter, Olbermann announced the guests for his first show: Michael Moore and Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos.
Something not good has gone down at Cooper Nuclear Station, an electrical power plant near the Missouri River in southeast Nebraska. The region has been flooding steadily for weeks, and with river levels rising, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released water from two dams on Saturday in anticipation of more heavy rains this week.
Today Pastor Mark Driscoll and his congregation of "blind lemmings" at Seattle's Mars Hill church are expecting a visit from the Westboro Baptist Church, whose members call Mars Hill a "Whore House" (for search engine optimization purposes, probably). In honor of Westboro's visit, Driscoll's planned a little party.
