But IOKIYAR – she will pay no price.

UPDATE: SIX OTHERS HAVE BEEN KILLED, TWELVE WOUNDED.

UMC Hospital news conference, 4pm ET:

• 10 patients: one died — “a young child” — five critical. (This does not include other hospitals receiving victims.)

• Giffords’ condition is “very optimistic” following surgery.

NPR (updated):

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head by a gunman at a public event in Tucson on Saturday. There are reports of numerous injuries and the White House said “some had passed away.”

The dead included U.S. District Judge John Roll, U.S. Marshal for Arizona David Gonzales told the Associated Press…

The suspect fired indiscriminately from about four feet away, Michaels said. A congressional official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the gunman was using an automatic weapon…

Giffords’ Tucson office was one of three damaged last March by vandals who targeted Democrats in advance of the U.S. House vote on the controversial health care legislation. A glass panel at her office was shattered, and at the time her staff said that it appeared the window had been damaged by a pellet gun.

The shooter is in custody; he is being described as a “white male born in 1988.” CNN reports that he used a 9mm Glock.

AP:

People familiar with the investigation tell The Associated Press that the gunman held in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and others has been identified as Jared Lee Loughner.

Post being updated as the story develops.

Read more »

We’ve long since packed away our Na’vi gags in the Stinque Storage Unit, and really, there’s no point riffing on the Inevitable:

The ultimate alien fantasy has landed. The new Fleshlight Alien is an unworldly experience that will abduct your penis and send it spiraling through in a real milky way! Use the Alien Fleshlight while watching Hustler’s new 3D epic, “This Ain’t Avatar XXX” for the ultimate in E.T. ecstasy.

We must be out of the loop, since “This Ain’t…” seems to be a popular series of Hustler videos, including This Ain’t Glee XXX, This Ain’t I Dream of Jeannie XXX, and… and… this can’t be right…

This Ain’t Curb Your Enthusiasm XXX.

We don’t know about you, but the thought of Larry David, Jeff Garlin and Richard Lewis in a three-way kinda eliminates the need for a Fleshlight.

Alien Fleshlight [Oh so NSFW, via The Nerdist]

“The Leader and the Speaker have established their integrity and their mendacity for years in this Congress, and I don’t believe it can be effectively challenged.” [TPM]

They were imprisoned for life for a crime that, at most, should have netted them a couple of years behind bars. When they were young, Jamie and Gladys Scott facilitated a robbery that netted the robbers $11. The women had no prior criminal history. No one was killed and the boys who actually committed the robbery escaped with a few months in jail after fingering the young women in a plea-bargain. But the sisters were sentenced to life.

 Now, sixteen years later, Governor Haley Barbour is releasing the Scott Sisters from prison. But it’s not for the reasons you might suspect. They aren’t being released to right a long-ago wrong. They’re being released because th eldest sister, Jamie Scott, requires dialysis treatments which are costing the State of Mississippi about $200,0000.00 a year, and the younger of the two sisters has agreed to donate one of her own kidneys in exchange for their freedom:

After mulling over the matter for several months, Gov. Barbour announced in late December that he would not pardon the sisters, but would instead indefinitely suspend their sentences.

Gov. Barbour said he had acted in part out of concern over Jamie Scott’s health, but also to relieve the state of the cost of her dialysis treatment, approximately $200,000 a year.

“The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society,” Mr. Barbour said in a Dec. 29 statement. “Their incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott’s medical condition creates a substantial cost to the state of Mississippi.”

That’s some mighty fine Christian compassion for ya!

“Truckloads of Four Loko and other alcohol-laced energy drinks are being recycled into ethanol and other products after federal authorities told manufacturers the beverages were dangerous and caused users to become ‘wide-awake drunk.'” [AP, via Weigel]

We really don’t care either way about Yet Another Daley occupying the national stage — it’s not like Yet Another Quayle — but we’re getting somewhat annoyed with remarks like this, demonstrated for us by Marc Ambinder:

Choosing Daley, a well-respected Washington-and-Chicago figure, is a further signal that Obama ties the fate of his presidency to the fate of the economy and recognizes that his relationship with Congress will be much less helpful than a better rapport with the nation’s employers and job creators.

It’s long been remarked that reporters don’t know shit about economics, and as a former adept of that Evil Cult, we must include ourself among the Congenitally Clueless.

But as little as we know, we do know this:

Employers don’t create jobs. People who buy shit create jobs.

Read more »