OMG, still another timesink

A thing of beauty and a joy forever

I see many user pics coming from this.

twistedchick sums up my wishes for the presidential election perfectly.

You cannot believe how quickly I want the close of the polls in Alaska and Hawai'i to happen.

Fred Clark at Slackivist pointed me to this fine post by Scott Paeth* about religion in the public square. Scroll down to the bits about Santorum and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops for the stuff that made me want to jump up and holler yeah!

IMO, The Bishops ought to spend more of their time talking about unjust war, extrajudicial murder, and gross economic inequality (just to start), but I guess they have more fun beating up on women. Color me a little bitter this International Women's Day.

*who incidentally is a professor of religious studies at DePaul University, a Catholic school

Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown has some sage words about bravery and St. Joan of Arc.

Not that my homegrrl Clare of Assisi fails to rock, she truly does (patroness of my university (which came in handy during finals for sure), the Valley where I thrive, television), but there's something to be said for Jehanne d'Arc, who Doyle says is the unofficial patron saint of "victims of gender policing, people and especially women who come out of nowhere to exercise political voice and/or get violently assaulted or killed for their political action, ..., lapsed Catholic women, women who have huge-ass troubles with the sexism of Catholics, and feminism."

Sounds like a good one to have around for backup. Jehanne, keep Gabrielle Giffords in your prayers.

ETA to thank wired for the link via twitter.

Wow. Paul Krugman points to a comment left on an Irish economics blog that notes that the "markets" are motivated by the desire for hookers and blow. Not sure if it's actually good policy to cater to these desires, but if it's even partially true that that's what's making Wall Street and the City of London tick, that explains much about how we got in the current mess.

Damn, if I had gotten such frank information in college, maybe I wouldn't have blown off taking any economics.

Move over Elizabeth Warren, and meet Maxine Udall, Girl Economist. If I had been exposed to more folks like her, I probably wouldn't have avoided the dismal science like the plague.

I was studying the Constitution in eighth grade when Watergate hit the fan (my congresscritter Don Edwards was on the House Judiciary Committee), and I remember hearing about Nixon's enemies list. Daniel Schorr's shining moment of journalistic glory was reporting on the list, and finding out he was on it in real time. I'm going to miss him on NPR.

Some guy called me up this morning for a donation to the national Democratic Senate committee. I think I didn't go off on the guy personally, but I let him know straightaway that the party committees aren't getting a dime from me until they show some spine, and that the Senate is a big part of the problem. They need 51 votes, not 60 to pass stuff, and if they stay being spineless, they may very well not have 51 after the midterm elections.

And I told him that the President is doing fine (I was a bit charitable there), but he needs to push Congress with a reinforced spine of his own.

Sorry about that ala_too, but right now, I don't have a whole lot of patience with my party, and I've been a registered D since I was 16. They keep making promises about bringing in more progressive folks, yaddayaddayadda, but I'm looking at the second half of my life, thinking they're going to show more of the same wussiness, and watch the GOP play dirty (gotta give the other side credit, they do know how to play rough) and stonewall any progress. President Johnson was a gold-plated SOB, but he did know how to push legislation through. LBJ must be spinning down there underground in TX.

Thanks to the efforts of whump, elainegrey and sparkymonster, I will now have nightmares about knitting yarn made from the fleece of #demonsheep!

The flock of #normalsheep that were grazing by Hwy 237 seems to have disappeared. Coincidence?

Shit. Go off the grid for a day, and miss the latest implosion in Republican politics. Since when is "bored now" something you can justify telling the citizens of your state?

The smart money says there's some fecal matter getting launched toward a rotary impeller.