Odds that, due to two PBS pledge-break specials and other promotional nonsense and diva-like behavior, Americans will be sick to death of Susan Boyle (of British reality teevee fame) within one year — 7:2 against.

Susan — KEEP IT REAL, GIRL.  PLEASE DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU.

Blago just got himself indicted, along with his brudda, Bill Cellini (Republican heavyweight / lobbyist for Big Asphalt), and others.

Late word: he’s booked on all the late night talkshows for next week.

[But also: IOC inspectors begin their on-site evaluation of Chicago 2016… tonight.  Ah, comic timing.]

Haven’t seen this guy over at The Corner yet. Let us see what he has for us, hmm?

Democrats complained endlessly about the supposed “politicization” of the Bush Justice Department. When asked about this at his confirmation hearing, Eric Holder piously pledged that his Justice Department would “serve justice” and “not the fleeting interests of any political party.” America, he intoned, was “in dire need of a less political and more independent Justice Department.”

But an e-mail and flyer recently circulated to Justice Department employees indicate Attorney General Holder has an interesting definition of what it means to be “less political.” The flyer invites all employees to attend a speech in the main Justice building on Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact, it notes, all “supervisors are encouraged to grant official time to employees to attend this event.”

And what pillar of the legal profession will be lecturing Justice employees to help them “serve justice” in a “less political” way? Why, none other than Donna Brazile, whose own website biography describes her as a “veteran Democratic political strategist” and a Vice Chairman at the Democratic National Committee. Brazile is marketed by more than one speaker’s bureau at a cost ranging from $10,000 to $20,000. The flyer doesn’t say how many taxpayer dollars are going to pay a Democratic political consultant to speak to career employees at the Justice Department (sounds like a good FOIA request). Good thing the Department is no longer politicized.

So, to sum up: stacking the office with loyal GOP hands, with selections overseen by a graduate of a Tier Twenty-Six law school that, oddly enough, is run by a preacher? These things happen. But a brown-bag lunch with a political operative will totally destroy the image of the DoJ and CANNOT BE TOLERATED.

Yeah. This guy totally should have been on the FEC.

Black Eagle, yesterday:

I know Washington’s all in a tizzy, and everybody’s pointing fingers at each other and saying, ‘It’s their fault, the Democrats’ fault, the Republicans’ fault.’ Listen, I’ll take responsibility. I’m the president.

We didn’t draft these contracts…. [but] it is appropriate when you’re in charge to make sure that stuff doesn’t happen like this.

[bold] Barry. [/bold]

I have noticed that this joint is well-populated with music nerds.  And thus I believe, in my addled brain, that there may be grounds for formal discussions on this subject.  Therefore: Music Nerding, to which other regulars can contribute at will. Suggestions most welcome.

First, for your consideration: the incomparable Kristin Hersh, from 2007.

Not widely known or recognized, she’s been at this for over twenty years — first as a punk kid, with her punk half-sister Tanya Donnelly in Throwing Muses, then solo, and then with a thrashing side-project known as 50 Foot Wave (which released its first album about two weeks after the tsunami hit Indonesia and Thailand — forcing her onto CNN to hastily explain the audiological basis for the name, which is about as much time in the limelight she has seen in her entire career).  Oh, and she’s an all-American badass — battled mental illness and won, has four kids.  Solid.

Follow along for more, won’t you please?

Read more »

The deathwatch at Big Newsprint continues — the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is on the ropes, and the referee is looking somewhat concerned.  Possibly by the end of the week, if not sooner.

Notably, the second major metropolitian newspaper to go down in recent days is, like the first, in a two-newspaper town. So there’s that. But still.

Well, the married gays have gone and done it now. Seeking federal recognition and rights in a lawsuit filed in Boston.

Let’s see: the inevitable First Circuit appeal would be heard in Decemberish, maybe. That presumes a real rocket docket, but even so there’s little chance of this getting heard by the Supremes so that a decision could be rendered by June 2010.

Anyway: discuss.