[The Onion TPM]

“To our Fans and Friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening.” [R.E.M.]

“Ron Paul told TPM on Wednesday that even if there’s a ‘case or two’ that makes Americans uncomfortable, the government should stay out of the health care business. Even if one of the cases in question is his former campaign manager, Kent Snyder, who died with $400,000 in unpaid medical bills after being unable to secure health insurance due to a pre-existing condition.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW2VW-Z1M94

One of the rules of thumb we’ve developed since we fell into this bottomless pit of blogging three years ago is Always double-check ThinkProgress transcripts. We’re all for afflicting the comfortable, but TP has a nasty habit of being too, um, enthusiastic in their mission. There’s plenty of outrage to go around without sexing up the dossier.

But Monday afternoon, we were asleep at the switch:

HOW THE OTHER TWO PERCENT LIVES…

“By the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.” –Louisiana GOP Congresscritter John Fleming, adding that “class warfare has never created a job”. [ThinkProgress]

This was, how you say, not quite right. The sentence doesn’t end where ThinkProgress ended it:

“The amount that I have to reinvest in my business and feed my family is more like $600,000 of that $6.3 million,” Fleming said. “So by the time I feed my family I have maybe $400,000 left over to invest in new locations, upgrade my locations…”

That version of the quote is from TPM, which went with the implied $200,000 in Fleming’s family food budget.

But even that is misleading. In fact, of everybody who decided to run with that quote, the only reasonable voice was Fleming himself.

Read more »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVAgz6iyK6A

Presenting the best iPhone commercial ever.

[via Rachel]

Our guest columnist is WorldNetDaily, which buries the lead in the very last line.

In a 21st century world consumed with interest in “the dark side” of the paranormal, is the mysterious realm of demonic spirits and other-worldly beings as portrayed in movies, books, and television productions that literally fill our pop culture screens and load down our bookshelves, really real? Is the devil a myth — a figment of the human imagination — or is there an existing demonic world of darkness? Is Satan really alive and well?

Read more »

Google responds to Rick Santorum’s request to remove his filthy namesake page from its database:

“Google’s search results are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the web. Users who want content removed from the Internet should contact the webmaster of the page directly,” the spokesperson said. “Once the webmaster takes the page down from the web, it will be removed from Google’s search results through our usual crawling process.”

While we wait for Dan Savage to take a swing at the softest pitch all season, consider Google’s subsequent baldface lie clarification:

Read more »