Bristol Palin’s memoir will hit bookstores on June 21.

Last week in the NYT Book Review, Neil Genzlinger wrote of memoirs:

There was a time when you had to earn the right to draft a memoir, by accomplishing something noteworthy or having an extremely unusual experience or being such a brilliant writer that you could turn relatively ordinary occur­rences into a snapshot of a broader historical moment. Anyone who didn’t fit one of those categories was obliged to keep quiet. Unremarkable lives went unremarked upon, the way God intended.

Apparently some things are genetic.

[Politico: A Bristol Palin memoir?]

“A planned trip by Bush to speak at the Switzerland-based United Israel Appeal later this week has been canceled after several human rights groups called for Swiss authorities to arrest Bush and investigate him for authorizing torture. Bush has traveled widely since leaving office, but not to Europe, where there is a strong tradition of international prosecutions.” [Salon]

The Paper of Record, February 5, 2011:

But some scholars are already wondering how much damage, if any, a party-line ruling striking down the [healthcare] law would do to the court’s prestige, authority and legitimacy.

Is that a caterpillar on the ceiling, or did our eyebrows just fly off?

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“The Huffington Post, which began in 2005 with a meager $1 million investment and has grown into one of the most heavily visited news Web sites in the country, is being acquired by AOL in a [$315 million] deal that creates an unlikely pairing of two online media giants.” [NYT]

Yes, friends: it is that time again.  Violence and committee meetings, together with overeating, commercialism, and lowbrow humor.  All the things that make America THE GREATEST NATION ON EARTH, wrapped in a neat four-hour package (which expands to a twelve-hour unholy mess if you count the pregame dreck on Fox).  So welcome to Stinque’s Third Annual Super Bowl Liveblog, reporting on the big game between —

Wait a second.  One of the things that does not make America THE GREATEST NATION ON EARTH is socialism.  And, what’s this?  Organized labor?  Collective bargaining?  Bad faith negotiation tactics?  Work stoppage?

Yes, indeed. We are facing a deadline (3 March) for the League and the NFLPA to ink a new contract.  Under the current deal, the players take 59.6% of league munnie, and the inter-club revenue sharing deal make the haves (Patsies, HOW BOUT DEM COWBOYS, etc.) subsidize the have-nots (for example, Cleveland).  In other words, SOCIALISM!  For this red menace in our midst, the owners have built massive stadia (often with a little help, or total and complete backing, from local taxpayers).  The old deal signed in 2006 just does not fit the modern spirit, then.

Thus you have it that, with this negotiation, the owners want major concessions (to the tune of about $1.4bn by one estimate).  They also want two more games in the regular season (from 16 to 18).  The players, in response, asked the clubs to open up the books and demonstrate claimed economic distress — to which the League said, diplomatically, “no dice.”  Which leads us to conclude that this may be the last professional football game we see for a long, long time.  If the lockout lasts into August, as it might, the NHL Memorial Doomsday Scenario — the cancellation of a whole season — starts to become real.

But enough unhappy talk.  Somebody’s going to get beaten to a pulp tonight — follow along after the jump with this liveblog as we find out who.

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“When I was a child, President Ronald Reagan was the nice man who gave us jelly beans when we visited the White House. I didn’t know then, but I know it now: The jelly beans were much more than a sweet treat that he gave out as gifts. They represented the uniqueness and greatness of America — each one different and special in its own way, but collectively they blended in harmony.” [Politico]

It’s no secret that the Huffington Post is really a celebrity-gossip site that dabbles in politics on the side. As Nick Denton didn’t say when he cut Wonkette loose, link-baiting political stories don’t pay the rent.

But we didn’t realize how insidious professional HuffPo editors were at their craft until this morning, when we read this breaking story about a pending Major Sporting Event:

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