“Rahm Emanuel was thrown off the ballot for mayor of Chicago today by an appellate court panel, a stunning blow to the fund-raising leader in the race. An appellate panel ruled 2-1 that Emanuel did not meet the residency standard to run for mayor.” [Chicago Sun-Times]

“The shooter wins if we, who’ve been elected, change what we do just because of what he did.”
—Mike Lee on This Week, Sunday

• “I am not sure which is more disturbing about Mr Lee’s remark. Its obliviousness and stupidity, or its utter depravity.” (Kabnieldebs)
• “Ask Americans if they’d like to live in Mike Lee’s vision of this great nation. I doubt many would…” (mattparker1)
• “Obviously, Mike ‘Dumbfuck’ Lee didn’t see that booking photo of Jared Loughner, grinning like a fucking Cheshire Cat.” (Zooey)
• “I do not throw around accusations of mental instability lightly, but I am really beginning to wonder if Lee needs professional help.” (CCTX2)

Read more »

Fitness guru Jack LaLanne, 96, dies at Calif. home [AP/Google]

Title: “The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection”

Authors: All of them

Rank: 3,251,794

Price: $13,413.30

Blurb: “Please note: Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck is no longer available. This title has been replaced in the collection by a new edition of The Portable Edgar Allen Poe.”

Review: “They arrived in 25 boxes shrink-wrapped on a wooden pallet, over 750 lbs. of books. It took about twelve hours to unpack them, check them off the packing list (one for each box), and then check them off the list we downloaded from Amazon.com. They take up about 77 linear feet.”

Customers Also Viewed: “Harry Potter Paperback Box Set”

Footnote: Let’s see, at a 6% kickback, that comes to…

The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon kickback link]

While nojo is correct in pointing out that Americans like to blow things up, so does my favorite Brit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI2MpcIiO6A

On this day 38 years ago, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Roe v. Wade, holding that women have a privacy interest in the decision whether to bring a pregnancy to term, and thus ending an era of back-alley unsafe and illegal abortions.  (LBJ also died on January 22, 1973, but that news was overshadowed by the Roe decision).

In the intervening four decades, the Court has limited its decision. Access to a full spectrum of reproductive health services, including abortion, is limited by geography and state laws.  Despite ongoing efforts by politicians, primarily Republicans, to further limit women’s access to abortion, 62% of Americans oppose overturning Roe. In fact, one out of three women in the United States will have an abortion at some point in her life. Read more »

You know you’re an American when you take an unhealthy delight in blowing shit up.

[via Daring Fireball]