https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8mAZhOJIfI

In our cribbed report from Sarah Palin’s first book-signing, we omitted a curious detail:

4:40 p.m. | Several hundred more people waited outside in the misty rain. They didn’t get to the Barnes & Noble Booksellers early enough to get one of the wrist bands. But they hoped that Palin might show some pity on them by saying a few words or extending her three-hour signing time.

Since there was no follow-up — did she extend her hours? — we let it slide. But it turns out that the Golden Ticket orange wristband, “which would allow them a few moments with Palin,” doesn’t guarantee you shit:

Read more »

Looks like Chubby Santa won’t be helping any naughty boys or girls this year:

No matter if children are naughty or nice, they won’t get a reply from Santa this year, as the US Postal Service has blocked mail to a tiny Alaska town that answered Christmas letters for decades.

Since 1954, thousands of volunteers in the Christmas-crazy town of North Pole have run the heart-warming tradition of replying to letters addressed “Santa Claus, The North Pole” forwarded to them by the USPS. But no more.

Officials cut the tradition after an “Operation Santa” volunteer working on the program in Maryland was revealed last year to be a registered sex offender.

If kids insist on divulging personally identifying information, they can still write “Santa Claus House, North Pole, Alaska”. But anything less specific will be discarded, lest it end up in the lap of Enzyte Bob.

No reply this Christmas as US blocks Santa mail [Raw Story]

IBM said it has already simulated a cat-sized cerebral cortex — the area of the brain that’s key to memory, attention, and consciousness — using a massive Blue Gene supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

• Sleeps 22 hours a day
• Refuses commands
• Rejects mouse

Read more »

In what may be an historic moment, Fox News faired and balanced its production errors today, displaying anti-Palin tome Going Rouge when they meant to show fiction bestseller Going Rogue.

Twice.

The only possible explanation is that Virginia Foxx left behind some blotter paper after her last visit, which innocent Fox control-room proles mistook for Happy Teddy Bear Sweets. Either that, or their own poll showing that two-thirds of Americans — and more than half of Republicans — don’t have a problem with Obama bowing to foreign leaders, really harshed their mellow.

Fox Shows Cover Of Palin Takedown Book Instead Of Going Rogue [TPM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqfsLG6Kuz0

It’s an old line, but if you remember the Sixties, you weren’t really there. Proving the point, Virginia Foxx (R-Jesse Helms) reveals her flower-child roots:

“We were the people who passed the civil rights bills back in the ’60s without very much help from our colleagues across the aisle.”

While we don’t recall LBJ switching parties to pass the Great Society legislation, we’ll take Ms. Foxx at her word. We also look forward to her next speech, explaining how it was Hubert Humphrey who mounted that despicable racist Southern Strategy a few years later.

Foxx: Republicans ‘Passed Civil Rights Bills Back In The 60s Without Very Much Help’ From Democrats [Think Progress]

As someone who never recovered from high school civics, we have strong beliefs regarding the right of the accused to a fair trial, including a robust defense, whatever the cost. We consider it an abomination that someone charged with a crime may lack the resources to defend himself against the deep pockets of the state, or may bankrupt himself in the process.

But in Jay Bybee’s case, we’ll make an exception:

Read more »

Republicans have been gunning for ACORN for years, but it took the election of a black president to make the insinuations stick:

PPP’s newest national survey finds that a 52% majority of GOP voters nationally think that ACORN stole the Presidential election for Barack Obama last year, with only 27% granting that he won it legitimately…

Belief in the ACORN conspiracy theory is even higher among GOP partisans than the birther one, which only 42% of Republicans expressed agreement with on our national survey in September.

Overall 62% of Americans think Obama legitimately won the election to only 26% who think ACORN stole it for him, as few Democrats or independents buy into that line of thinking.

Left unexplained is the ACORN Gap: Obama won 52 percent of popular vote, yet 10 percent more still think he’s legitimate. Who are those nuts?

ACORN [Public Policy Polling]