“A federal district judge in Virginia ruled on Monday that the keystone provision in the Obama health care law is unconstitutional, becoming the first court in the country to invalidate any part of the sprawling act and ensuring that appellate courts will receive contradictory opinions from below.” [NYT]

There’s an old rule in journalism that you can’t call an event “annual” until it reaches its third installment. Something about not taking organizers at their word, and waiting for actual results.

That’s right, kids: Journalists used to have standards!

Unlike, say, us.

But since, to apply another ironclad rule, eighty percent of success is showing up, and we’ve somehow managed to show up three years running, we’re happy to announce — officially, mind you — the Third Annual Stinque Awards for Achievement in Infamy.

If you’re not familiar with the Stinque Awards, we’ve adopted a Unique Methodology that distinguishes us from the flood of blogfill other year-end awards clamoring for your attention: You do all the work!

Read more »

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Metrodome Roof Collapses [NFL Fanhouse]

Title: “The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead”

Author: Max Brooks

Rank: 59

Blurb: “100 line drawings.”

Review: “The information given might as well have been in bullet points.”

Customers Also Bought: “Dismember-Me 12″ Plush Zombie,” by ThinkGeek

Footnote: It’s our first Stinque Book Club rerun! Yes, it’s a slow week in the Amazon Top 100. But it was last holiday season when this showed up, and we’re fascinated by the idea of a zombie book as a Christmas perennial.

The Zombie Survival Guide [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon kickback link]

A few capitulations ago — honestly, we’ve lost track — the question on the table was whether Obamacare, with three legs lopped off, still had a leg to stand on: Whether the final bill, awful as it was, was still better than the status quo.

Yes, we ultimately — and very unhappily — decided. Although we were likely to be among the uninsured folks screwed over by “reform”, we were convinced by arguments saying the bill would still help millions of Americans. We were willing to take one for the team, as long as the team could still put some points on the board.

The Grand Tax Compromise raises a similar question — although this time, we’ll personally benefit if the appeasement succeeds.

Problem is, many others won’t. Many, many others.

Read more »

Damn, that was fast. We should have programming ready for something like this.

Is Bernie Sanders still talking? [via StarterWife]

Photo: Steve Lambert

While you’re enjoying the filibuster, a look back at a recent Bernie Sanders claim:

“Mr. President, in the year 2007, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States made 23.5 percent of all income,” Sanders said. “The top 1 percent earned 23.5 percent of all income — more than the entire bottom 50 percent. That is apparently not enough. The percentage of income going to the top 1 percent has nearly tripled since the 1970s. In the mid-1970s, the top 1 percent earned about 8 percent of all income. In the 1980s, that figure jumped to 14 percent. In the late 1990s, that 1 percent earned about 19 percent.”

And the Truth-o-Meter scores it… True.

Bernie Sanders, in viral speech, says top 1 percent earn more than 23 percent of U.S. income [PolitiFact, via Gen JC Christian]