New Avengers trailer, now in HD

This is the best trailer to date, very clean looking and you get a good look at the charcters and the basic plot and some nifty action. The Hulk is kind of odd looking, but other than that . . .

Matt Kenseth wins the 37 Hours of Daytona

Matt Kenseth won The Race that Wouldn't End®, otherwise known as the Daytona 500 sometime around 1:00am Tuesday morning.

Congrats to Matt for winning NASCAR's season opener -- this year a wild and wooly thing that included a lap two wreck that took out Jimmie Johnson and media sensation Danica Patrick, among others. Also, late in the race, Juan Pablo Montoya's car broke while trying to catch up to the field, and sent him spinning into one of the track dryers, causing a horrific crash that ignited the jet fuel in the truck that burned for what seemed like forever.

Both Montoya and the truck's driver came out of the crash okay, and track and NASCAR officials did an incredible job putting out the wild fire and repaired the track to get the race back under way.

My boy Tony Stewart came in 16th, and Danica managed to get her car fairly well back together to finish the race running, but tons of laps down.

But here's my thing -- and if you've read my stuff before you know what's coming: NASCAR effed with these cars in the off-season, claiming they were responding to "the fans" whom they claimed wanted a return to the old pack style of restrictor plate racing.

The changed the aero package and the cooling systems to prevent the so-called "2 car tango" that allowed multiple lead changes during a race. Mission accomplished guys. What we had this race was that once someone got in the lead, you couldn't get around them. There was only one workable lane in the race -- at the bottom. Even prior to the 2-car phenomenon, they could get 2 and 3 lanes of cars freight-training on the track. Not now.

If this is what NASCAR officials and those fans they claim entreated them consider exciting, I'd like them to explain it to me. It was dreadfully boring!

Every restart, once Kenseth got in the lead, all he did was swing up a lane to collect his teammate, they dropped down blocking the lower lane and Kenseth could have tooled around the track with his arm out the window. No one was going to get around him. The announcers even made note of the fact that no one could get the high lane to work. Where's the excitement in that?

The announcers spent all race toeing the company line about how this style of racing is preferable, but I'd love to get those guys off the record to hear what they really think.

Oh well, like I said, congrats to Matt for the win. Nice they finally got the race done. And it's on to Phoenix.

I think Ann Coulter just had an orgasm

"If Gov. Romney were to come and talk to me about it, I would listen because I love my party enough and I love my country enough to listen."

That was NJ Gov Chris Christie speaking on CBS' Face the Nation Sunday on whether he would accept a VP nod from ole Flip Flop if the opportunity arose.

Given Ann's bizarre attraction to RINO's these days -- her current shilling for Mittens, and previous wet panties slobbering over Christie, I don't think she'll be in any state to do her television commitments for the next day or two as she comes down from the ecstatic high she must have gotten from hearing those words come out of Christie's mouth.

Anna Faris & Milla Jovovich for the win

This is based on a quick glimpse through various thumbnail sized images from the red carpet at this year's Academy Awards. But I'm thinking it's pretty much a tie between Anna Faris and Milla Jovovich for who I thought looked the best last night:

The short, blonde bob Anna's rocking is pretty cute on her, though I wouldn't mind so much if she'd lay off the lip injections.

And Milla just looks wonderful -- the pale skin with the perfect red lipstick, the hair . . . woof. Both she and Anna had dresses that fit perfectly, weren't too crazy with the cut or style and both women have the bodies to pull off those dresses.

Looking good, ladies :-)

Update:
One of the celeb sites I cruise through was trying to suggest that pinched-face Tina Fey out glammed Milla on the red carpet. Heh. Tina Fey is a one-trick pony clinging desperately to her character assasination of Sarah Palin for relevence. Her vaunted tv show is in the toilet ratings wise, but these celeb blogs, that mostly lean precipitously left, just continue to fawn over Tina because of her sole dubious achievement.

Nice try folks, but epic fail on your part.

Sarah Palin is nominated . . .

. . . for a 2012 Razzie Award.

Seriously?!

Is there no end to liberal's hatred of this woman?

Link

*sigh* There you go again . . .

I like Breitbart's Bigs, always lots of good stuff there. Occasionally a clunker, case in point:

This post from the other day. A contributer named Jason Hart went on a bender about Senator Sherrod Brown's efforts to keep the U.S. Post Office solvent and in one piece. Apparently, Mr. Hart has a bone to pick with the Ohio Senator, perhaps because Jason is from Ohio originally. But he does what so many conservative bloggers, who hate on anything government or union do -- simply grab the easiest data and smear a few hundred thousand hard-working, tax paying citizens.

In his piece, Jason states the following:

"USPS has been running deficits for years and is losing roughly a billion dollars a month, but Progressives won’t acknowledge market realities or admit the postal union’s demands are insane."

What market realities? And what union demands? Jason, of course doesn't mention those, instead using . . . dare I say it, conservative dog whistle terms like "union's demands" that he knows readers and commentors will greedily lap up.

If he had done even the most minimal of research, Jason might have found that the PO's first quarter statement showed an operational profit of $200 million for fiscal 2012! The $3.3 billion loss is entirely due to the pre-funding payment of disability and retirement pensions. A requirement that no other public or private business in the country is required to do. The requirement is to pre-fund these pensions 75 years into the future.

Jason takes the boilerplate conservative stance on this pre-funding that is bankrupting the USPS and states mockingly:

"...[Sen] Brown's big idea is to stop requiring USPS to sock money away in advance? This is a Progressive solution through and through – we’re running out of cash, so stop saving and spend, spend, spend!

No, dumbass! The idea is that if pre-funding 75 years into the future is putting you in debt now, and forcing you to borrow money to pay your bills, perhaps you can scale back on the pre-funding while you restructure to stay competitive!

Jeez Jason, what's your degree in anyway? *pulls up bio* Ahh, a BS in Management Information Systems -- a degree grounded in the Liberal Arts and focusing on Network Management and Security, Database Technologies Management, Enterprise Systems Management, and Web Site Design and Development (according to NYU website). So for building a nifty website or running an IT department, you might be the guy. Running a multi-billion dollar business that employs over 500,000 people . . . eh, maybe you're not so much.

At another point in his article, Jason snarks about a quote from Sen. Brown in an online petition:

"The postal service has been very restricted in what its [sic] allowed to do under law. It’s not been given opportunities to generate revenue..."

Jason points out, showing his own ignorance of the subject matter, that the PO has a monopoly on first class mail delivery and the suggests that Sen. Brown is "incredibly stupid" for making that statement.

Hey Jason, you know who else has made the exact same complaint about revenue generation? The Postmaster General. Maybe you should level the same insult at him.

But no, to Jason, the PMG is the good guy battling the evil, powerful and corrupt unions to save the embattled Post Office. Hart questions who has the "better grip" on postal finances -- PM Donahoe or Sen. Brown?

Well, here's my thing -- PM Donahoe, like every other manager in the postal service, is in management because he was either unwilling or unable to do craft work. Plain and simple. Patrick Donahoe was not promoted from craft based on merit. He went into management because he either lost his position in the clerk craft or decided he couldn't do it anymore and wanted a desk job. That he matriculated to the top of the Post Office is the Peter Principle in action.

So in response to Jason's question . . . it is quite possible that Sen. Brown is more qualified to make business decisions than the Postmaster General.

Part of the problem is that no one ever checks the PO's data on anything, they just accept the numbers that come out of the PMG's office as gospel. That's like going to the guy embezzling money from the bank and asking him for the records to catch the embezzler. Duhrr

This was pointed out nicely in Michigan recently when Sen. Levin stated that the Post Office had given them a savings estimate for closing a number of offices and processing facilities "...but no data on how these figures were reached..."

The Post Office has only been running deficits since 2006. The same year that it was forced by the government to begin this huge pre-funding program. Prior to that, the Post Office was already funding it's retirement/disability programs at a manageble pace. To suggest that to stave off the conservative bug-a-boo of unfunded pension liabilites by pre-funding them to such an extent as to put a business into bankrupcy and/or force it to be bailed out by the government is sheer stupidity.

Perhaps if Mr. Hart took more than intro courses in economics, he might know that.

I don't care if Jason dislikes Sherrod Brown as a Senator. He can rail against him all he likes. But as we are learning in the current Republican primary season -- not every decision, law, or bill put forward by a government representative can be hated on for purely partisan reasons.

So naturally, we have a rain delay

Been waiting all this time for NASCAR to get going again and what do we get? Typical wierd Florida February weather -- cold and rainy at the track, bone dry just a couple of miles south.

Watching the pre-race drag-it-out preliminaries. Anything interesting?

I'm likin' Lenny Kravitz's drummer. Dude looks like he's having a blast back there.

The Danica interview was horrible. Not all her fault as DW seemed oddly unprepared to ask her questions about anything important.

For a guy who spends so much time flapping his gums about the sport, NASCAR head guy Mike Helton doesn't come off very comfortable in front of the camera. Just answer the question Mikey -- gonna postpone until Monday if the rain doesn't stop? How tough a question is that?

Speaking of which, NASCAR just couldn't stand the very cool nature of the old 2-car tango from the last couple of seasons, so they screwed up the cars by making the rear spoiler smaller and the rear bumper bigger. So we're back to the big pack, wreck-in-waiting, style of driving again. Just ask Danica, Jeff Gordon, and Kyle Busch how nice that is. Could have lost three drivers already, simply for the sake of so-called old school racing. Idiots!

Oh yeah, not race related but the commercial for the new GI Joe movie -- Bruce Willis and The Rock? Might be substantially better than the first one.

Update:
And just like that (@5:10pm) the Daytona 500 is put off until noon on Monday. Good thing I'm off work tomorrow. heh

Update #2:
Looks like its still raining in Daytona, so they've pushed the race back to 7:00pm tonight (Monday). It might still rain during the race, so if they make it to the half-way point, and it rains we may get a rain shortened race again. Tuesday's an option, but not a good one because it jams up the teams travel schedules.

In case you were wondering

With the release of an additional 17,000 e-mails, we now have over 40,000 e-mails from Sarah Palin's 2 1/2 years as governor of Alaska out in the public domain being scoured over by drooling, bigoted lefty bloggers hoping to find some whiff of scandal.
*note: nothing's been found yet, way to waste your time dumbasses!*

We still do not have our sitting President's college transcripts or health records (that nearly every other President has willingly released) available to the public. And it took 3 years to get President Obama's birth certificate released.

Just seems a bit topsy-turvy to me.

Rule 5 Sunday -- Jessica James Clement part 2

Alternate title: Jessica James Clement is Back in Black.

Heh . . . no? Well, I'm not a professional blogger after all. Anyway, big race today that starts early for some reason, so a quicky Rule 5 and I'm off for a day of turnin' left, rubbin' is racin' fun.

*click the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive
Reaganite Republican

Btw, thanks for the new linky love from Reaganite Republican and the "follow" as well.
:-)

This is probably a fake, but . . .

. . . someone did a pretty good job shooting what looks like a flying saucer or man-made saucer-like vehicle flying slowly and then decending out of sight.

Tony Stewart wins Daytona qualifier

Tony Stewart showed this week that he has every intention of continuing his great finish last season by winning Race 1 of the Bud Shootout.

With his win, Stewart starts third in the field and looks to be in a position to win one of the races that has eluded him in his storied career.

Danica Patrick was collected in the last lap of her qualifier and suffered a very hard crash which will put her in a back up car for the 500 Sunday.

Danica's running a full Nationwide series this year for Dale Jr's team and a 10 race stint in the Sprint cup with Tony Stewart's team. Stewart has stated how impressed he was with Danica so far. And since she will finally be using top flight equipment, as opposed the the hand-me-downs she got in IndyCar, we'll get a chance to see just how good a driver she is.

I actually think she'll be quite successful, so I'll keep monitoring her results. And you can pat me on the back at the end of the season and say "Hey, you were right!"

Heh

Maybe the RNC should hire Lindsay Lohan

Proving that the folks in Hollywood have all the spine and resolve of Pavlovian dogs, Lindsay Lohan has finally secured an acting gig playing Elizabeth Taylor.

Linds managed this via a relentless campaign of name checking Liz and Marilyn Monroe at every opportunity; being photographed in poses reminiscent of either woman; even being photographed in sweatshirts bearing Liz's image.

Hollywood naturally fell for this, which we knew they would, because Hollywood fell for, and continues to fall for President Obama's socialist clap-trap, bait-and-switch empty rhetoric politics.

Here's my thing -- Lindsay has managed to score an acting gig, and despite her hard partying and documented drug use, has convinced a sitting judge that she is turning her life around, so maybe the Republican party should hire Linds as a campaign consultant.

She'd have the liberals eating out of our hands in no time.

Because the resemblance is uncanny, right?

Late night hotness . . .

Too tired to be clever tonight . . .

This is a must read . . .

Over at RedState, contributer Lori Ziganto posted a devastating deconstruction of the shrieking harpy liberal meme about "ultrasound as rape" that's being promoted by the Chris Brown wing of the Democratic Party.

Speaking as a rape survivor, Ms. Ziganto is uniquely qualified to point out the shocking insensitivity of this demagoguery.

I urge you to read it and remember her words next time Debbie Wasserman-Shultz or one of the water carriers at MSNBC trot out this heinous meme.

And it used to be a "classy" holiday

President's Day - that day between Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays that we use to celebrate the men (and someday women) who have led this country throughout it's history.

Yeah . . . it just got a whole lot more classy up in this joint:

Faux-celeb Courtney Stodden dressed up as Marilyn Monroe (where's Lindsay when you need her?) and did a knock off photo shoot with her creepy husband to celebrate the holiday.

Next we have that delicate flower, Jenny Farley, posting a little missive on her blog or website or something about PILF's. Yeah, you got that right folks - Presidents I'd like to f*ck. Rumor has it she kept it to only eight lucky guys. A couple of whom are still alive, so get steppin' fellas, you ain't gettin' any younger.

I simply cannot imagine a more dignified way to celebrate the sacrifice and service these men have given to our country. Can you?

So about those unemployment numbers . . .

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) posted a graph today that shows what unemployment really looks like in this country:

According to Jordan and the Republican Study Committee, true unemployment stands at a staggering 36.3%!

This figure is found when statisticians look at the total number of Americans who are of eligible age to work and compare it to the actual employment numbers. Pretty much everyone knew that when Dems and the White House were touting the drop in unemployment last month, that it was just a numbers game. But now it is more obvious just how horrible those numbers are.

Even if one quibbles with the Republican's math, the path of the graph -- continuously downward, shows that this administration's rampant spending and pie-in-the-sky plans have done nothing to improve employment in this country.

Twitter yes . . . twitter no

Twitter yes? The Tis uploads a couple of cute/sexy pictures of herself:

Twitter no? Miley Cyrus gets another tattoo!

I believe Miley has enough ink now to qualify her to run the Tilt-a-Whirl at any carnival or state fair in the country.

Though if it comes to arm wrestling, looks like she could take Avril pretty easily.

My boy Wake retired today

Timothy Stephen Wakefield retired from baseball today at the age of 46.

Faced with no spot in the starting rotation and no guaranteed bullpen job, Wake's only choice was to come to training camp as a non-roster invitee and try to earn a spot or try to latch on to another team.

Born in Melbourne Florida and coming out of Fla Tech, Wake broke into the bigs with the Pirates in 92. Picked up by Boston after he was cut by Pittsburgh, Wake got some coaching from the famed Niekro brothers in the art of throwing the knuckleball, and the rest is history.

A durable, reliable pitcher who could eat up innings, Wake was the epitome of what true Red Sox players are -- a team first guy. He pitched out of the bullpen, he started, he came off the bench to spell the staff even if it meant sacrificing his next start as he did in the historic 2004 World Series season.

This guy gave it all for the team, and chose to retire as a Red Sox rather than try to hang on with another team just to pad his stats.

I've always had a soft spot for knuckleball pitchers, and Tim Wakefield is probably my favorite pitcher of all time. My son bought me a great picture that Wake did for charity, that has him pitching on the field with the Looney Toon characters. It's signed by Wake and is something I'll cherish for years.

Thanks Tim! For all you've done for the Sox and this fan. You will be sorely missed.

Stats:
1992 - 2011
wins -- 200
era -- 4.41
innings pitched -- 3226
strikeouts -- 2156
Roberto Clemente Award -- 2010
All Star -- 2009

Yzerman, Bolts not standing pat. And yet . . .

Yesterday, the Lightning traded forward Dominic Moore to San Jose for a 2nd round pic in next year's draft. That gives the Bolts three pics in that round, which will be nice for either trade bait or stocking the pantry for down the road.

Veteran defenseman Pavel Kubina is reportedly on the trade block as well. The 34 year old did not play in the o/t win against the Sharks and is sitting out games to protect his trade value as Yzerman shops him around. Kubina has a no-trade clause and was asked to submit a list of teams he would be willing to go to if traded.

It's nice that Yzerman is working hard to upgrade the team, but what they need is a big time goalie and local favorite Kubina simply isn't going to fetch one in a trade. The thought is that someone looking for veteran leadership going into the playoffs will be interested in Pavel, which may be true. But that same team isn't going to jettison their goalkeeper to get him.

Are we looking at picking up someone else's back up or number three guy? Yzerman's got an eye for talent, so maybe he sees someone out there.

I don't know. It's just killing me to see this talented team languishing with a sub-.500 record because of less-than-stellar play in goal.

Oh well, hope springs eternal. I guess.

False narratives

As we conservatives stumble through this agonizing primary process, one thing that has been patently obvious is the disconnect between the republican elites and the more grass-roots conservative, tea party types.

The conservative intelligensia determined that Mitt Romney was the front runner immediately after the 2008 election. And have done their best to destroy anyone, either in the media or prospective candidates themselves, who challenged their superior wisdom.

Sarah Palin has often borne the brunt of these attacks, as her populist appeal threatens to derail the annointed one's path to the nomination. Even after Sarah announced she would not seek the party's nomination, conservative bloggers and pundits have continued to try and diminish her appeal to both the party and the country at large.

The latest salvo come from Bart Marcois a writer for the DC Caller. In his latest column there, Marcois claims Palin has tipped her hand by claiming she'd be willing to be drafted to run for president in a brokered convention:

"She has no interest in seeing any candidate gain the support of the majority of the GOP delegates, because she believes she could step into a brokered convention and walk out as the Republican nominee."

He uses this belief to salve his own inability to understand why Palin, like millions of voters, want the primary process to continue. We don't want a beltway annointed candidate. We don't want someone else to tell us who to vote for. Those are hallmarks of the current generation of democrat voters. We want to learn more about our choices, indeed, we want to make our own choices . . . that is the hallmark of the current generation of conservative republican voters. And beltway influence brokers like Marcois cannot get their heads around it.

Marcois claims the proof is in a recent interview Sarah gave to Eric Bolling on FOX Business. In the video, she explicitly says she may be open to running for office in the future. And when asked about a brokered convention, says she would do whatever she could to help:

That Marcois can use Palin's non-admission of anything substantive to support his own imaginings only shows the depth of his PDS. Indeed, later in the column, Marcois cannot resist one final unfounded dig at the former candidate for Vice President:

"She also shares with him [Gingrich] a disdain for conventional campaigning, which critics call a lack of discipline. Those characteristics are ideally suited to winning an election process that lasts only three days and takes place in a single city, but they are liabilities in a process that takes months and covers 50 states."

Who are the critics Marcois is referencing here? Beltway pundits and influence peddlers like himself, perhaps? I said in a post long ago, that Palin proved that she did not need the established machine to get her message out and it infuriates those who make their living off political messaging. Clearly Marcois' got his panties in a bunch because Palin won't play his game.

For the record, I don't believe Sarah's angling for a brokered convention. I also don't believe that only Mitt Romney can defeat Barack Obama in the general election.

Sorry there Bart, but I'm not buying what you're selling.

Avril may need to hit the gym

Perpeptual punk princess Avril Lavigne did a layout for FHM Australia (I think) recently:

Now, I'm not saying the 28 year old isn't still cute or hot or anything, but I don't think they're going to be casting her as the villian in the next Gina Carrano movie.

Just sayin'

Late night hotness . . .

You have to be so careful in those high heels. One false step and . . .

Not that its of great cosmic significance . . .

. . . but I'm sort of impressed at how much support a painted on bikini can give a gal as evidenced by the LPGA's Natalie Gulbis in this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition:

Natalie Gulbis
age 29
2005/12 top tens/T3 best finish/$1.01mil earnings/scoring rank: 5
2011/0 top tens/T15 best finish/$176K earnings/scoring rank: 49

And for the record, I'm old enough to remember the uproar when Jan Stephenson did a calendar that didn't really show anything and yet was shunned and derided by her fellow golfers for demeaning the sport.

My how times have changed.

Money talks, my favorite sports teams . . . eh, not so much

So I've got the Red Sox rss feed on my cell phone. It's been conspicuously quiet for some time now. I've been watching anxiously all summer to see how they'll rebound from last year's late season disaster.

I'm still waiting.

The rotation stands at three starters -- Lester, Beckett, and Buchholz and after that . . . well, it gets interesting. They're planning on platooning the number four starter and hoping that failed closer Daniel Bard can be the number five guy.

They traded away their starting shortstop to save $7million and are planning to platoon shortstop now as well! Papelbon's gone, though losing him and his 5 year/$50 mil salary might not have been a bad idea.

So when did they get so cheap? Both Lucchino and Cherrington swear they're not budget watching. CBSports reports that the Sox ownership group has sunk $179 million into their Liverpool soccer club. And there's only so much money to go around. Right now, it looks to me like the Sox are playing for the wild card berth in the post season.

And what's up with soccer?!

The Bucs ownership, the Glazers, own Manchester United, and sink tons of money into that club. The U.S. football team . . . not so much. In fact, the Bucs payroll is so far below the league's salary cap, that it is below the league minimum! We, as fans, have gotten what the owner's have paid for -- a lousy team that just fired it's "never should have been hired" head coach at the end of last season. Rumors locally are suggesting that the Glazer's are hoping to sell the team before the NFL forces them to increase payroll. At least in that context, cutting team costs to the bare minimum to make it an attractive sell, makes sense.

Meanwhile, the on-the-cheap Rays have their rotation, one of MLB's best, locked up in multi-year contracts. They brought in free agent slugger Luke Scott, and resigned local favorite Carlos Pena, to a one year, $7 million contract. My personal belief here is that the team, which is fighting the city of St. Pete and The Trop, are hoping to get into the series once again. Whether they win or not, another high profile post season and Rays ownership will go to MLB and beg them to get the team either another stadium here or relocate where they can survive financially.

MLB can ill afford another debacle like what's going on with the Dodgers and would likely find a way to force the locals into giving the team what it wants.

And finally, my Lightning. *sighs* So much offensive talent on a team with no goaltender. Garon's playing better now that some of the defensemen are off the ir, but that horrid losing streak showed that Garon's not the money goalie they need. My boy Rolo, seems to have burned himself out carrying the team into the playoffs last season. He doesn't look to have anything left now. Without a great goalie, this team's going nowhere. And I'm sure that Stevie Y knows that. But they don't have the cash to drop on a big name guy. So what? Trading for a starting goalkeeper will likely cost the team one of the big names on offense. And if this team trades away one of the big 3 -- Vinnie, Marty, or Stammer, the fans will burn the Palace down to the ground.

What a mess!

I'm not sure I'm gonna be liking the upcoming sports year at all.

---

And on a sort of related sports note -- it appears that swimsuit model extraordinaire Kate Upton scored the coveted cover of this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

huzzah!

I don't have a pic of the new cover, which reportedly has been leaked already, so here's a pic from last year's issue:

Oops, spoke too soon, here it is:

Rule 5 Monday -- Jordan Carver, part 2

Missed the last few Rule 5 weekends as work's been so hectic, so with my vacation starting, I'll get a little caught up with a quicky posting of the buxom internet beauty and Big Peace favorite person -- Jordan Carver.

*click on the thumbnails for full-sized images*

Rule 5 Sunday suggested by this.

Hat tips:
Jake Finnegan
The Daley Gator
The Classic Liberal
Say Anything Blog
Proof Positive

Because celebs say the stupidist things . . .

The other day at some fashion show, Scarlett Johansson opened her mouth and showed why actors and actresses should only speak the lines written for them by scriptwriters.

In discussing her adoration and desire to see Barack Obama re-elected, Scarlett brought up the first couple's effortless style and casual glamour.

Yep. And then when dismissing current flavor-of-the-month Rick Santorum, the cerebral actress pointed out that Santorum's biggest flaw was not only that he wore sweater vests, but that he didn't wear them "ironically."

Not voting for someone because you disagree with their sartorial decisions? Fabulous. I've got a friend who said she wouldn't vote for Sarah Palin for President because the Alaska governor was an avid hunter. At least that sounds almost reasonable.

In the wake of fallen songbird Whitney Houston's death, Tony Bennett spoke out for the legalization of drugs.

?!?

I've got no idea how Tony thinks that easier access to drugs that addict and kill those who take them would have saved Whitney's life, but then I'm not an idiot entertainer either.

And finally, in the new issue of Ebony, everyone's favorite movie badass, Samuel L. Jackson, said that the only reason he voted for Obama was because he was black.

Yep. Just like that, openly admitting that the man's lack of qualifications for the biggest job in the world took a back seat to the color of his skin. And he calls Tea Party people racist.

The included pics of politcal scientist Johansson in all her frumpy, cellulite goodness are from her vacation in Hawaii this week.

Somewhere, my girl Mischa Barton is pointing at these images and doing the Nelson laugh.