We’ve posted 3,535 items — mostly headlines — to the Stinque Twitter account. (Not to be confused with the Stinque Daily Blurb Twitter account, just to confuse you.) Using the new Internet time waster analysis service “That can be my next tweet”, our composite Tweet DNA results in the Dada Haiku above, which we insist be inscribed on our tombstone.

That can be my next tweet

That Can Be Our Next Headline: 21 Perfect Stories by The Machines [The Awl, via flippin eck]

The most significant passage of President Obama’s speech has to be the following:

You will have your choice of a number of plans that offer a few different packages, but every plan would offer an affordable, basic package… And I believe one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market, so that we can force waste out of the system and keep the insurance companies honest.

Whoops, we’re sorry! Bookmarked a June 2009 speech by mistake.

But while we’re there, can we just say that we count our blessings every day knowing that, with the electoral winds at his back and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, President Obama was not only able to get the healthcare package he envisioned, but was also able to pass his 2011 budget and avoid nasty showdowns over mid-year funding?

Apparently we can’t.

So reading Wednesday’s speech — the right one — you’ll forgive us if we don’t get excited about the passages where President Obama said the right things. Maybe during the campaign, maybe a couple years ago, but we’ve learned to wait for the hostage crisis to see what gets bargained away. And right now the next capture is looking like May 16, when our National Plastic gets cut off.

Remarks by the President on Fiscal Policy [White House]

“Former gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid’s campaign manager oversaw an operation last summer and fall that first erected an overall PAC that could take unlimited contributions and then created mini-PACS that would only exist temporarily to funnel that money back to the Reid campaign, emails I have obtained show.” [Las Vegas Sun, via Political Wire]

[Business Insider]

Instant Update: Congratulations to the Yes Men!

“Newly released Federal Aviation Administration documents and audiotapes shed a scary new light on a bizarre incident late last year during which U.S. Senator James Inhofe landed his Cessna on a closed runway at a south Texas airport, scattering construction workers who ran for their lives as the politician’s plane hopscotched over them and six vehicles.” [Smoking Gun, via Political Wire]

GOP Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona claimed last week that abortion is “well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does.”

The actual number is less than 3%.

Details, details. Okay, fine, so it’s the usual right-wing strategy of “the sky is green, war is peace, why do you hate America” approach to discourse; namely, repeat a lie often enough and it becomes true. Yawn. Move on.

Unless you’re Kyl’s spokesperson and explain it with a true yet colossally idiotic comment to reporters: that the 90% figure “was not intended to be a factual statement.”

Read more »

Wonderfully Creepy Sculptures Carved From Bananas [Laughing Squid]