Howard Kurtz is pissed that Hurricane Irene didn’t live up to its trailer:

Someone has to say it: cable news was utterly swept away by the notion that Irene would turn out to be Armageddon. National news organizations morphed into local eyewitness-news operations, going wall to wall for days with dire warnings about what would turn out to be a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest possible ranking. “Cable news is scaring the crap out of me, and I WORK in cable news,” Bloomberg correspondent Lizzie O’Leary tweeted.

Yes, well, a violent storm forecasted to visit one in five Americans certainly isn’t something to get excited about.

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Anderson Cooper is so big, hurricanes come to him.

We’re starting to like Rick Perry. A lot. Here’s why:

Since leaping into the GOP presidential race, Texas Gov. Rick Perry hasn’t been asked if he thinks gays are born or made. But in a little-noticed passage in his first book, “On My Honor,” a encomium on the Boy Scouts published in 2008, Perry also drew a parallel between homosexuality and alcoholism. “Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink,” he wrote. “And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she still makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender.”

In “On My Honor,” Perry also punted on the exact origins of homosexuality. He wrote that he is “no expert on the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate,” but that gays should simply choose abstinence. Perry’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether he maintains this view.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbwrR91He84

[via Rachel]

While we endure another two weeks of baseless Palin Presidential Speculation, we’d like to note that the modern record for a Big Tease, measured from Breakout Convention Speech to Definitive Refusal, belongs to Mario Cuomo (July 16, 1984 – December 21, 1991).

Because of the lateness of the 2008 Republican Convention, Palin would need to hold out until at least February 2016 to dethrone Cuomo, although with her relative youth she could easily extend a Tease well into the 2020 cycle.

The competition is not without controversy, however. Some members of the Governing Body argue that Cuomo’s reign should be extended to April 7, 1993, the date he turned down a Supreme Court nomination, fifteen minutes before it was to be formally offered. But this requires entertaining the notion of “Justice Palin”, the very thought of which sends most members screaming from the room, thus denying the Governing Body a quorum.

At bedtime press time, Libyan rebels had entered Tripoli. Gaddafi Kaddafi Qaddafi was nowhere to be seen, while two of his sons had been captured.

We’ve expressed our hope that Obama wouldn’t fuck this up. Maybe he hasn’t.

Jubilant Rebels Control Much of Tripoli [NYT]

Stinque, publisher of the Stinque Zombie Bible, wishes Juliana and Benjamin a happy and brain-splattered life together.

Wedding of Juliana S. Park & Benjamin J. Lee [Wedding Jojo, via Comics Alliance]