2.013 This space I can imagine empty, but I cannot imagine the thing without the space.

2.024 Substance is what subsists independently of what is the case.

2.03 In a state of affairs objects fit into one another like the links of a chain.

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So we had a mildly clever idea this afternoon to run various aliens (E.T., Bat Boy, Giger’s Alien) over a stock crowd photo that both Newt Gingrich and Teddy Kennedy have seen fit to use on their websites. We started putting it together, and then we lost interest.

Which is just as well, because somebody else out there had more time on their hands, and a better premise.

Newt Gingrich in Front of Stock Photos [Tumblr, via Weigel]

Newt Gingrich Launches 2012 Presidential Campaign Website With Stock Photo Of Supporters [ThinkProgress]

While we just can’t get excited over the Shocking! revelation that Bill O’Reilly used Sacramento footage to illustrate “union thuggery” in Wisconsin, we have to give props to the enterprising Madisonites who have added some impromptu set design to their protest.

And speaking of thuggery, Wisconsin Republicans are ready to put on their jackboots:

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Our guest columnist is Northwestern University spokesman Al Cubbage.

Northwestern University faculty members engage in teaching and research on a wide variety of topics, some of them controversial and at the leading edge of their respective disciplines. The university supports the efforts of its faculty to further the advancement of knowledge.

Mr. Cubbage is referring to “The optional presentation last Monday, attended by about 120 students, [which] featured a naked non-student woman being repeatedly sexually stimulated to the point of orgasm by the sex toy, referred to as a ‘fucksaw.’ The device is essentially a motorized phallus.”

Class sex toy demonstration causes controversy [Daily Northwestern]

Keith Calder [via The Tweeter Formerly Known as The Starter Wife]

We remain profoundly uninterested in the news this week. Rupert’s news channel faking union-thug footage? Fox bites Man. Mike Huckabee faking Obama’s past? That’s sooo 2009. Charlie Sheen faking reality? Even Franco is more entertaining.

So please enjoy some mood music while we wait for the world to get its ass in gear. And remember: Don’t be careful out there. We’re dying for fresh material.

[via Nerdist]

“Although representatives deny any connection to the recent prank call on the governor, two [Wisconsin] legislators began circulating a bill Monday that would ban making trick calls masking the caller’s true identity… Lawmakers introduced the bill at the end of the last session but ran out of time to pass it, [a spokesman] said.” [Badger Herald, via Political Wire]