Barack Obama's State of the Union speech scored at an eight-grade readability level, according to the University of Minnesota's Smart Politics blog. His three SOTUs all rank among the six lowest scoring ones ever, and are on average "more than two grades lower than the 10.7 grade average for the other 67 addresses written by his 12 predecessors." [via Politico]
Our old pal to the South, retired Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, has been watching these Republican debates, including the most recent one in which the candidates talked about Fidel Castro going to Hell. He has not been impressed, writing in an editorial that "the selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is - and I mean this seriously - the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been." But what if Mitch Daniels jumps in?
Hahaha! Barack Obama made a funny joke in his State of the Union speech last night about how dumb the EPA was for forcing dairy farmers to have containment plans spelling out what to do if their massive milk facilities spring a leak. Stupid EPA! It's just "spilt milk," amirite? Milk is good for you, and you shouldn't cry when you spill it! Except when you spill it in massive amounts. Then it kills fish and threatens the water supply.
Tonight we witnessed President Obama outline all the proposals that will be blocked by Congress in the election year 2012. Drill for everything. Create jobs for the humans who want jobs. End more wars, try not to have new ones... but maybe have some new ones? 2012 is shaping up to be a banner year for America's government. Let's check out some reactions from the pundits and various clowns on Twitter.
The last batch of President Kennedy's secret Oval Office recordings was released today, just barely missing the deadline for everyone's "Best Secret Presidential Recordings of 2011" year-end lists. Archivists from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library have been declassifying and releasing portions of the tapes, recorded so super duper secretly not even Kennedy's top aides knew of their existence before his death, since 1993.
68-year-old Sen. John Kerry suffered two black eyes and a broken nose playing hockey around New Year's. It's great news for children, who can now throw away the regular terrifying John Kerry Halloween masks they wear every year and buy the new completely horrifying bruised version. (What? Look, the only reason we're making jokes about John Kerry's ugly face is because it's fun.)
The nominations for this year's Oscars were announced this morning and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tapped exactly who you thought they would. That's not a bad thing. There were some surprises though. Here's a full list of the nominees.
Voulez-vous deny that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians during World War I ce soir? Not for long.
Mitt Romney is in trouble — he's losing to Newt Gingrich, the worst presidential candidate in history who isn't named Mitt Romney. What sort of indignant attacks will he pull on Gingrich tonight, now that he's vowed to stop being such a baby? Let's watch and discuss, together, in this Open Thread. The debate starts now at 9:00, on NBC.
It's about to be a girl fight.
Those passengers fortunate enough to survive last week's cruise ship disaster will be happy to know that their next seafaring vacation will come at a reduced cost. Costa Cruises spokespeople confirmed to the Telegraph that, "The company is not only going to refund everybody but they will offer a 30 per cent discount on future cruises if they want to stay loyal to the company."
Newt Gingrich is going to win the South Carolina presidential primary tomorrow. Not just because he yelled at two debate moderators for asking him debate questions this week, which brought him up about 20 percentage points in the polls. That wasn't enough to close the deal. But now that television survivalist Chuck Norris has endorsed him in a meditative World Net Daily piece, Romney's got no chance.
If you've taken your frustrations with the Stop Online Piracy Act to your congressman's online contact form and tried to type that famous protest cry "DELETE THE BILL! DELETE THE BILL!", then you've already discovered a dark truth: You get censored, thanks to oxymoronic "congressional rules." But don't worry, you can always curse out your congressman instead.
This has already been the best day of shallow political horserace infotainment in the election cycle, and the evening bill of events hasn't even begun. There's a Republican debate between four candidates in South Carolina on CNN right now. It's going to be filthy and nasty and an embarrassment to humanity, hooray. At 11:30, ABC's interview with Newt Gingrich's second ex-wife, Marianne, will air and you perverts will love it. Here's your open thread, which we're trying out instead of a liveblog because why the hell not? Enjoy.
Seniors in Tokyo are turning up at the city's specialized brothels more and more, according to the Tokyo Reporter. Kayoko Kageyama, the author of a book about the sex industry in Japan, sees it as results of Japanese attitudes towards sex loosening up in the 60's and 70's, when most of these men were coming of age.
