Pretty sure the car is a Triumph, maybe a Herald.

Every time I see The Music Man I admire its construction more. From one little tune (OK, the Minuet in G) Meredith Wilson teases out a score packed with vibrant, tuneful songs that each relate to the other to further the story. He also wrote some of the most original lyrics I know.

I was watching some of it last night and was gobsmacked to discover that not only had Mr. Wilson created one of the finest musicals in the canon but that he had also predicted today’s ‘debate’ over marriage equality.

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How do these people keep their jobs? “Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is arguing that President Barack Obama’s health care reform law should be repealed because rights come from ‘nature and God,’ not the government.” [Raw Story]

It takes a pretty big storm to turn this:

Into this:

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I just knew this existed, and one Google search later, there it was:

Should have dealt with this when it came up earlier in the week, because it’s too awful to ignore. Stupid, stupid people. From the Texas Republican Party Platform:

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

TPM believes the Texas GOP when they said this was a mistake, but given the rest of the platform, it was clearly no mistake.

And it gets worse.

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Our own Christine on Italian TV: