“In the last several months, Politics Daily has learned that the Palin family lawyer, Alaska attorney Thomas Van Flein, has filed applications to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademark ‘Sarah Palin®’ and ‘Bristol Palin®.'” [via Political Wire]

As we write, it’s 10 a.m. in Cairo, and crowds are already flooding into Tahrir Square for the “Day of Departure” — the departure, they hope, being Hosni Mubarak’s. When this is posted, it will be 2 p.m. If shit’s going down, it’s going down now.

Al Jazeera is repeating Omar Suleiman’s promise Thursday that protesters won’t be forced out of the square. The New York Times is is holding out a ray of hope:

The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately and turn over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday.

Today’s metaphor: National Geographic moved the Pyramids. Can the protesters?

The Case of the Moving Pyramids [Museum of Hoaxes]

It would be irresponsible not to speculate!

But the reasonably reliable National Enquirer says to hell with speculation:

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So this small alternative paper, the WashingtonCity paper, runs a story by sports writer Dave McKenna. It’s all about how awful a person Redskins team owner Dan Snyder really is. Apparently he’s all into defiling federally protected lands, telemarketing, charging fans admission for team workouts, hiring bad people, firing good people, pitching certain kinds of tickets to lobbysists as a way of skirting congressional gift limits, etc. etc. etc.

It was all good and well, until the Washington City paper decided to hire illustrator Brooke Hatfield to create an illustration for the article. And Hatfield went waaaay overboard, creating a representation of the Jewish Snyder so over-the-top and blatant in its use of anti-semitic imagery that Snyder is threatening to sue and has enlisted the help of the Simon Weisenthal center, which is itself demanding an apology from the newpaper, insisting that:

…it is inappropriate and unacceptable when a symbol like this–associated with virulent anti-Semitism going back to the Middle Ages, deployed by the genocidal Nazi regime, by Soviet propagandists and even in 2011 by those who still seek to demonize Jews today–is used on the front cover of a publication in our Nation’s Capital against a member of the Jewish community.

Because the image in question is so objectionable, so virulently hateful, so outrageously out of bounds, dear Stinquer, I have deliberately chosen to hide it from casual view beyond the break. Click the link to see the rest of this article, as well as the gruesome defamatory pap that passes for “illustration” these days:

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“House Republicans plan to sidestep a charged debate over the distinction between ‘forcible rape’ and ‘rape’ by altering the language of a bill banning taxpayer subsidies for abortions… The modifier ‘forcible’ will be dropped so that the exemption covers all forms of rape, as well as cases of incest and the endangerment of the life of the mother.” [Politico]

Cue the “Last Tango for Maria Schneider” headlines.

No butter scene photos for you!

[Guardian: Maria Schneider dies aged 58]

Our guest columnist this morning is marking time while we wait for the latest news to break.

Most early evidence of cat domestication comes from ancient Egypt. Some experts believe that the Egyptians may have tamed and bred felines to produce a distinct species by the 20th or 19th century B.C.

Cats are frequently represented in Egyptian mythology in the form of the feline goddesses Bastet, Sekhmet, and other deities. Cat art and mummified remains are known from as far back as 4,000 years ago.

But researchers have also stumbled across hints that cats were domesticated much earlier. Experts have found 10,000-year-old engravings and pottery that depict cats dating to the Neolithic period (late Stone Age), [French archaeologist Jean-Denis] Vigne said. He notes such finds provide evidence that, even then, cats had a spiritual significance.

Oldest Known Pet Cat? 9,500-Year-Old Burial Found on Cyprus [National Geographic, 2004]

Image: Mask from a Cat Mummy, Roman Period, 1st Century AD [Solar Navigator]