A smattering of today’s news:

The NSA is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center

Suicides Eclipse War Deaths for U.S. Troops

Mitt Romney Mocks Obama for Wanting More Firemen, Policemen, Teachers

David Barton: People Are on Welfare Because They Don’t Read the Bible

But on a lighter front:

25 Things You Didn’t Know About Mad Men

and look! Bernese Mountain Dog Puppehs!

Not without irony that his death occurred when there was a little black spot on sun yesterday.

[NYT]

From the Department of Oh My Fucking Flying Spaghetti Monster Please Pass the Popcorn:

A novel California primary that premieres Tuesday was intended to produce moderates, but in California’s U.S. Senate race, it could yield a challenger who claims President Obama was born in Kenya.

Incumbent Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 78, running for a fourth full term, faces 23 challengers, including 14 Republicans, the best known of whom is litigious Orange County “birther” Orly Taitz, a Russian Israeli emigre who has appeared on national television with her claims that Obama faked his birth certificate.

Polls taken by robocalls, including those commissioned by Taitz, show Feinstein with a wide lead, trailed by a strange assortment of single-digit rivals, in some cases led by Taitz. Whoever finishes second Tuesday, from any party, wins the chance to take on Feinstein in November.

What do you think, Stinquers? Should the California Stinquers all cast their votes for Orly tomorrow just to fuck with the GOP?

[SF Chron: CA Primary Could Pit Birther Against Feinstein]

Somehow, I don’t think this is what Jesus had in mind.

Frank Bruni of the New York Times shares with us yet another anti-gay video from a church service. This time it features a young boy in Indiana who can’t be more than three singing “Ain’t No Homo Gonna Make it to Heaven” to a wildly cheering crowd of adults and children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2agsAZcA3fU

As Bruni notes, it is important to see these videos because especially those of us who live in certain parts of the country can get lulled into complacency that this vile hatred and prejudice is not still out there.

Tellingly, when I searched for “suffer the little children” on Google to confirm that was the wording of the passage in the Bible, what came up after the KJV was a link to a 1968 documentary about institutionalized child abuse at the Pennhurst State Hospital in Pennsylvania.

[Bruni: Hatred You Can Hum To]

Happy June, boys and girls! One of my favorite months, the official start of summer (aka fog season in Ess Eff) and when things can get interesting in baseball.  The Cynica household in Oregon opened the garden cocktail corner for business and there are strawberries, ice cream, and wine available.  Yay, drinks on the Willamette!

And this June is also the 40th anniversary of two iconic events that reverberate to this day. I’d advise you pour yourself an adult beverage before following me after the jump. And make yourself comfortable in the cocktail corner, or make sure that your bartender is close at hand.

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Former Ess Eff Mayor and current California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom apparently has enough time on his hands (and product on his hair) that he doesn’t need to actually be in the state’s capital to do his job. As my fellow Kalifornication resident DodgerBlue as my witness, I regularly refer to the capital of Our Nation’s Largest State as “Excremento” – nonetheless, if you are elected to the second highest statewide office, is it really too much to ask that you spend more than one day a week in the capital city?

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For your pyrotechnical pleasure, enjoy last night’s firework show at the Golden Gate Bridge in celebration of its 75th birthday. If you like things that go boom, this will be for you. (Sorry about the stupid commercial at the beginning of the video).

First, a still photo:

And video, courtesy of CBS:

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