“The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive.” Except the story says they didn’t. [The Hill]

A West Virginia man found wearing women’s underwear and standing over a neighbor’s goat’s carcass told police he was high on “bath salts” when he stabbed the animal to death.  The grandmother of the 4-year-old owner of the pygmy goat found 19-year-old Mark Thompson in his bedroom wearing a bra and panties, and standing over the goat’s body and a porn magazine. He was arrested and charged with animal cruelty.

[NYDN]

We were nine the year of Martin and Bobby, and because we were politically precocious, the names of James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan are very familiar to us. But our precociousness only went so far: We draw a blank on Tet and Chicago, although we do remember Tricky Dick on Laugh-In. (Answer: Yes. Because you’re a fucking asshole.)

Jumping ahead a few years, we’ll happily admit that we only watched Senator Sam and the Watergate hearings because they pre-empted the Match Game — and only until the networks started rotating daily coverage among themselves. Sure, we paid attention, but it’s not like we went out of our way.

You’ll forgive us, then, if we don’t get an easy chuckle out of this factoid making the rounds:

Teens Don’t Know Who Osama Bin Laden Is, According to Yahoo! Search Trends

That was Yahoo’s Monday report on Sunday-night search activity. Boing Boing combined it with some Jaw-Droppingly Clueless Tweets, and the meme was off and running.

And really, who can resist? You can blame the kids, you can blame their teachers, you can blame their parents, you can blame the media, you can even blame society. Everybody wins!

In our case, we’ll blame Yahoo.

Read more »

This video is an amazing thing of beauty. Watch Michelle Obama dance the Running Man with a bunch of middle schoolers in D.C.

Warning to Str8 Men, or at least DodgerBlue – she does some serious hip grinding in there that may bring excitement to you. If your excitement lasts for more than four hours, contact your physician.

[ ABC Flash video not available. ]

[ABC News]

“A Texas high school teacher has been placed on administrative leave following an incident where he allegedly told a 9th grade Muslim girl in his algebra class ‘I bet that you’re grieving’ on Monday following the death of Osama bin Laden.” [TPM] Bonus cross-cultural reference: Algebra?

Read more »

It’s the centennial of the Indy 500, and guess who’s the guest of honor!

A groundswell of pressure is starting to build on Indianapolis 500 officials to dump Donald Trump as pace car driver at this month’s race.

A Facebook page has rallied more than 7,500 supporters who have placed calls or posted comments on social media sites of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, corporate sponsor IZOD and Chevrolet, sponsor of the pace car program.

They want Trump, well, fired.

The Indy organizers announced Trump a month ago. And there’s some grumbling that the anti-Trump forces are Lefty carpetbaggers. So we’ll see how this plays out.

Campaign grows to set early bump day for Trump [Indianapolis Star, via Political Wire]

Thursday update: Trump pulls out…

Read more »