The thing is, everything on these Skin & Body pages you link to also spend time on the HuffPo front page. It becomes such a sordid melange. Stories about torture investigations and the daily mass shooting mixed in stuff right off Hollywood Tuna and TMZ. A vaguely Progressive outlook ... with a Lohan fixation.

Now mix in sports too. One typical screenshot right now has a stories about Eliot Spitzer, an immigration bill, an in-your-face slam dunk, two actresses showing their cleavages, and a poll on which forty-something babes are still hot enough to do.

So even Arianna Huffington reckons that Americans cannot go more than three minutes without seeing a pair of breasts, even when they are looking at the news. And she's probably right.

Distracted? Aren't there flashing lights and other warnings when pilots are wildly off course? No contact for an hour? I sympathize with the work load and don't necessarily blame them for succumbing to a natural need, but dude, these guys were asleep.

Sorry to hear about your Mom. I lost my Mom a few years ago, a similarly 'feisty old broad.' I miss her dearly, so I feel for you.

The kid is heard in an interview saying this was all for show. They set this whole thing up to get some more attention now that the reality show fifteen minutes were done.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/richmond/detail??blogid=109&entry_id=49703

Next maybe they'll get on CourtTV...

"don't expect Republicans to give up on revisionist history. After all, it's working so far."

C&L pointed out the other day how everyone is interested in Obama's poll numbers, but no one notices those of the GOP. GOP leaders are below 20% across the board, with Boehner at 12 (in the poll under discussion). Dick Cheney polls better than the GOP leadership! They are stirring up anger, especially toward Dems, but they are not gaining support for themselves.

Everyone agrees the Dems are in big trouble ... until they start to consider the alternative.

I recently watched the first eleven seasons of the Simpsons in order. Cracks began appearing around season nine, but the clear "shark jump" to me was when they killed off Maude Flanders. That was the worst episode to date, and after that the bad eps poured forth regularly.

Plus, killing Maude itself did not make for any further story line benefits. Ned single hasn't been any more interesting or funny. Indeed, there was more comic fodder in Homer ogling Maude than in Ned being single. It was a pure "Jerkass Homer" incident and a sign of what was to come.

That's funny, I've been stewing over the angry response I sent to Stewart even before I saw this piece. I just don't know whether the tone or target of my response was correct:

Perhaps I was wrong to harangue him for the failure of Harry Reid to corral his own party members and put pressure on the obstructionist right. Perhaps I was out of line for mocking his opening line that "opponents of health insurance reform have power" when Dems have an overwhelming majority and 70% of people want reform. Perhaps I went too far in asking whether my further donation would go toward instructing Democrats how to exercise power. Surely I was being shrill when I suggested that coming back for more money now was akin to bank officials giving themselves bonuses for driving their companies into bankruptcy.

But I have to say that the part where I called them "feckless jerk-offs" for getting their "asses handed to them" by "a bunch of screaming lunatics banging on trash cans" feels properly weighted.

Americans are heading across the border for health care, and not the northern border...

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE57C40C20090813

Our health care system is lowering our standing in the world. Companies are choosing to locate elsewhere, people have to buy insurance just to travel here, and now free clinics and trips to Mexico for basic care. We should be ashamed.

Obama has been disappointing to many of his supporters, but the GOP offers no reasonable alternative. In the end, the birthers and deathers are driving the GOP so far out of rational debate that it will be difficult for any candidate to fight the way back into the middle. The wacko fringe has intensity, and is very loud, but they aren't winning converts. They are instead turning the GOP into a circus sideshow.

This presents a problem for progressives. Obama can abandon positions that appeal to us because who else are we going to vote for?

Rumsfeld was "feisty"; "cagey"; he "sparred" with the press. Hillary "snaps," and if she gets irritated that means she is "unhinged" about her marriage.

Rummy was a fighter. Hillary is a bitch. Rummy charmed the press with his tough guy routine. Hillary must have her panties in a twist over her husband - or maybe, you know, it's just that time of the month.

Onion headline: "BREAKING: Injury Sustained Disrupting Town Hall Not Covered By Insurance"

The town hells: Where The Onion and reality overlap.

Mmm, tasty punking.

But it's a sad day for Hollywood Upstairs Law School.

Crowley & Gates

They can hang out. Watch football games with their cop and prof friends. Maybe give them eight kids to raise.

Don't let the magic die!

Even Bush doesn't believe Cheney any more. Bush! Cheney, therefore, wins the coveted Lyingest Of All Liars Trophy, via concession by the second lyingest liar, in accordance with the Lying Liars Rulebook, which is a pack of lies.

Libby will turn up with a bullet in the back of his head any time now.