Nina Totenberg: “When Justice Stevens retires, it is entirely possible that there will be no Protestant justices on the court for the first time ever.” [NPR]

Blood donations in Chicagoland are not handled by the Red Cross, for some reason. Instead, it’s done by this outfit called “Lifesource.” They manage to place three calls per day when your 8-weeks-between-donations period runs out; thus, in order to avoid annoyance (and be a helpful little citizen), I popped in this morning.

They have teevees and such while you sit in the chair. And being Saturday morning, cartoons were on.  And they were GOD AWFUL. Each of the nets, of course, have managed it so that it is a roadblock — no winners, only losers, in the Q-rating, profit-per-minute game — of pure, undiluted drivel.

Federally-approved drivel, no less — the E/I bug in the corner demonstrates that there is a moral to the story… which kids will not get, because the stories are stupid. Race-car driving dogs. Penguins in space.  And other assorted CGI nightmares.  (And then there’s this — if you stick around for the credits, you will notice that each cartoon was produced with a lot of tax-credit money… from the Canadian Government (or provincial authorities).  So we have to import our ostensibly-educational cartoons.)

Three things are required in this country to Make Everything Better — an end to the Teabaggers, a boycott of the NCAA tournament if they go to a 96-team field (God damn… what a horrible idea that is), and BUGS BUNNY AND OLD-SCHOOL CARTOON VIOLENCE ON SATURDAY MORNINGS.  An example of which, thankfully, follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKKs_-xYQRM

Two years ago, Pope Benedict sorta kinda apologized for the Church’s American molestation scandals, saying they were “sometimes very badly handled”. He may want to dust off that script. [NYT, via DodgerBlue]

We’ll skip the Shillong jokes, mainly because they’re better heard than written:

The government in the Indian state of Meghalaya has confiscated textbooks showing pictures of Jesus Christ holding a cigarette and a can of beer.

The book has been used for primary classes and has caused a furore in the north-eastern state, where more than 70% of the population are Christians…

The controversial picture of Jesus was discovered in cursive writing exercise books being used at a private school in the state capital, Shillong.

As it happens, that particular image is not hard to find online, which makes us wonder whether there’s an innocent mistake involved — we could easily insult Hindis or Muslims if we weren’t paying attention.

On the other hand — dayum. Now there’s a dude we could have a conversation with.

Indian state confiscates ‘blasphemous’ Jesus textbooks [BBC]

GQ has a slideshow of actual cover sheets used for intelligence briefings in March-April 2003 — when we invaded Iraq. They’re the work of Major General Glen Shaffer, and despite objections from within the Pentagon, Shaffer argued the bosses were cool with it:

When colleagues complained to Shaffer that including a religious message with an intelligence briefing seemed inappropriate, Shaffer politely informed them that the practice would continue, because “my seniors” — JCS chairman Richard Myers, Rumsfeld, and the commander in chief himself — appreciated the cover pages.

We’ll have to double-check our Gideon, but we weren’t previously aware of a Book of Quagmire.

Onward, Christian Soldiers [GQ]

And He Shall Be Judged [GQ]

Took us a moment — well, more like an hour — to catch the reference in today’s email from our favorite gals:

I call today “Creator’s Day!”! I am THANKING GOD for Creating ALL THINGS, including EVERY child, born and unborn, and of course the earth!

See, it’s really Earth Day, and — oh, never mind. We’ll let them play it that way. And next time they see the Creator, we hope he mentions that the creations he’s tasked with stewarding his planet are really fucking up the job.

“The Gathering” by Glen Tarnowski, on display at the Chuck Jones Gallery in San Diego — just down the street from us.

What’s up, Jesus? Looney Tunes ‘Last Supper’ parody stirs controversy [LA Times]

The Gathering: The Artist’s Perspective [Chuck Redux]

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