“The Cuomo administration is expected to lift what has been, in effect, a [New York] moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, a controversial technology used to extract natural gas from shale, people briefed on the administration’s discussions said on Thursday.” A Cuomo spokesbot calls it “baseless speculation and premature”. [NYT]

No, not Michele but her husband Marcus.

The big old queen next to Boehner in this heart-warming scene.

Matt Taibbi (I know, I know) burns down the barn in his account of Michele’s burning desire to become the dumbest woman in America. That she’s been amply blessed by nature may be true. But there’s no doubt that Marcus, described as her “strategist”, raises the game to a whole new level of arrogant ignorance.

Before everyone heads off this holiday weekend to drink copious amounts of beer, incinerate pieces of meat, and set off explosive devices that scare the shit out of dogs, all in celebration of our Founding Fathers such as John Quincy Adams signing the Declaration of Independence, your friends here at Stinque want to remind you to stay safe and to not be an asshole during the celebrations. We have a cautionary tale for you.

A Bay Area man is jailed without bond in the San Mateo County Jail, facing charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, making terrorist threats, and resisting arrest after he went nutso at a neighbor’s barbecue on Sunday. At this time it’s unclear whether he was invited to or crashed the party, but that’s beside the point.

Pedro Garcia, 32, went to a neighbor’s barbecue and starting making “inappropriate sexual comments” to a woman at the party.  The host asked Garcia to leave, at which point Garcia raised his shirt, exposing rifle ammo tucked around his waist,* and threatened to shoot everyone.

But that sort of liquor-fueled dick-waving shit could happen at a lot of barbecues. This one gets weirder…

Read more »

The insect Micronecta scholtzi is a fascinating creature. Just two millimeters long, it can create a noise magnitudes greater than its size — “comparable to a passing freight train”, according to scientists who have endured it. Males “try to produce a song as loud as possible, potentially scrambling the song of competitors”, we are told. The insect accomplishes this amazing feat by rubbing its extraordinarily tiny penis against its abdomen.

In related news, today is Glenn Beck’s last day on Fox.

Water insect makes record noise with penis [BBC, via LuxMentis]

Our guest columnist is a Seattle-based online retailer that’s been pulling this move on every state that tries to collect sales taxes from it.

To: Stinque
From: Amazon.com Associates Program
Subject: Notice of Contract Termination Due to Potential New California Law
Date: June 29, 2011 12:20:34 PM PDT

Hello,

For well over a decade, the Amazon Associates Program has worked with thousands of California residents. Unfortunately, a potential new law that may be signed by Governor Brown compels us to terminate this program for California-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers — including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you — even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.

Read more »

“‘They want to see two girls come together and have a mud wrestling fight, and I am not going to give that to them,’ Bachmann told a voter Wednesday who asked about her relationship with the former Alaska governor.” [CNN]

“John Lennon was a closet Republican, who felt a little embarrassed by his former radicalism, at the time of his death — according to the tragic Beatles star’s last personal assistant.” [Toronto Sun]