Game of Thrones is the best show on television and I would happily murder three people of your choosing if you were able to get me a screener of the second season. George R.R. Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series that the HBO show is based on, is a wizard who created an entire alternate universe from his own imagination.
The Iowa Republican party has a minor update to the results of this year's caucuses, something it discovered while going through the formality of certifying Mitt Romney's 8-vote victory: Someone else won. Eh, don't sweat it, Iowa Republican officials. We all change the course of a major party's presidential nominating process out of sheer incompetence from time to time.
The Grammy Awards hasn't had a host in seven years, so it only makes sense that when they decided to choose a host this year they get someone who was last relevant in the music industry seven years ago. LL Cool J, star of seminal UPN comedy In the House has been chosen to host. The last host was Queen Latifah, so I guess the trend is once great rappers who now do crappy TV shows and movies? LL is expected to stand on stage for four hours repeatedly licking his lips and occasionally lifting his shirt to show off his abs. Why not just let Billy Crystal host every award ceremony ever, including the AVN?
Denis D. Gray at the AP has a rundown on a new book out about the fascinating exploits of alleged spy Jim Thompson in Southeast Asia. A well known titan of the silk industry, Thompson disappeared in 1967 after going for a walk in the Malaysian highlands. Rumors abound about his death, including that he was eaten by a tiger or killed by the CIA. If those are the rumors surrounding your death, there's a good chance your life was pretty eventful.
The calls on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns at first seemed to be just another desperate last-ditch move from all of the candidates who were trailing him by 50 percentage points in every poll. But, thanks to his unusually ill-prepared responses, the story isn't going away. Are we learning anything about his rich-person accounting tricks, though, that couldn't be predicted by simply looking at a picture of him for half a second?
President Obama will visit Walt Disney World tomorrow. The plan is to "unveil a strategy that will significantly help boost tourism and travel," according to the White House, which informs us that this is "an important sector in the U.S. economy." All well and good, but let's skip to the important part: What delicious Republican wisecracks that we'll hear ten million times over the next year will emerge from this?
Congressional Republicans forced the Obama administration to expedite its decision on constructing the Keystone XL pipeline late last year, and today they're getting their answer: No Keystone XL pipeline. Our president has abandoned the oppressed Canadian tar sands, who only ever wanted a one-way ticket to Texas and the chance for a freer, more refined life.
Ooh boy. Here's a quote that speaks volumes, from Reuters' article about Iran's morality police "cracking down" on the sale of Barbie dolls, which is forbidden. Stores have been instructed to sell Iran's specially-designed, ultra-demure Sara and Dara dolls instead, to the disgust of the superficial girl tykes of Tehran:
Have you had the opportunity to settle down with the hot new political gossip book of the past several days, New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor's The Obamas? The Gawker Political Desk rarely consumes these White House reporters' bound anecdote collections but, for mysterious reasons, both obtained and made it through 200 pages of Kantor's offering before having to stop due to a total lack of interest in continuing.
Check out Newt Gingrich on Saturday, gabbing with some nice old ladies after a most uncomfortable church service. Who are these women — church elders, pillars of the community, something along those lines? Let's check the AP photo caption: "Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, accompanied by his wife Callista, meets with prisoners during an event at the Jones Memorial AME Zion Church, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012, in Columbia, S.C." Hmm. What gives the AP the impression that these elderly ladies have run afoul of the law?
There are so many excellent ways that the Associated Press could investigate Ron Paul, given his long congressional record and status as a competitive major party presidential candidate with views radically outside the mainstream, something you don't see too often. He's a character, a real life political character. But what the AP has chosen to go with today is a report about how he frequently flies first-class between Washington and his Texas district, making him the worst sort of hypocrite who has no values and loves Big Government deficits, secretly.
There was a brief period in the history of human development in which it was imagined that making children "feel good" about themselves would have a positive effect on children's ability to learn facts and adapt to social norms. This period is now over, and good riddance. Let's tell these fucking kids just how wrong they are about things.
America's aging class of socially conservative evangelical leaders finally gathered this weekend to pick a presidential candidate to rally around, and, crucially, to make each other feel important again. The 150 or so big-time fundies, including representatives from the Family Research Council, American Family Association, and Focus on the Family, ultimately chose Rick Santorum but came nowhere near a unanimous decision. Let's all congratulate these once-important gatekeepers: For the second straight presidential election, they've swooped in just in time to render themselves useless.
Oh my gosh, what is Ricky Gervais going to do? Which celebrities are going to get drunk? Which awful actors will the Hollywood Foreign Press Association award tonight? Yes, it's Golden Globes nights. Please join us in witnessing all these atrocities and making mean jokes about them.
Last year members of Congress, at the urging of some centrist pressure groups and coming in the wake of Rep. Gabby Giffords' shooting, decided it would be cute to sit next to their colleagues in the opposite party to promote civility. So: How did they civility thing work out last year? Let's not answer that just yet, because the important news here is that they're going to try it again at this year's State of the Union.
