Florida Governor Rick Scott made headlines recently after he was exposed as an awful, dog-abandoning political hack. Well, the hack part wasn't exactly news, but the dog-abandoning was. His approval rating was already low before the dog incident, so who in their right mind would throw their support behind him now? Satanists, that's who.
A hedge funder is making noise about bringing down the salaries of executives at Morgan Stanley. Good. The government sure hasn't been successful at holding down corporate executive salaries, so maybe the market should work its magic—let hedge funds squeeze a few extra percentage points of profit in return for holding down the paychecks of the bosses of the banks they invest in. A worthwhile deal for the public. And a vindication of capitalism's mythical self-regulatory powers!
Monday morning, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas broke his impressive seven-year courtroom silence with a stupid Yale joke. Or at least that's what people think he said – the official transcriber (somewhat appropriately) failed to record the entire comment, although they did note it produced some laughter.
A dog can be a political double-edged sword: treat it well and you get lots of good press; treat it shitty and, well, just ask Mitt Romney how that worked out for him. Florida's Republican (and wildly unpopular) Gov. Rick Scott is the latest politician to fall victim to dog-loving media. The Tampa Bay Times reveals that shortly after being elected governor, the Scott family returned a rescue dog they had adopted during the campaign back to its previous owners. Yikes.
This morning, under the shadow of controversy, the city of Dallas demolished an apartment building that was once home to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated President John F. Kennedy. The 10-unit apartment building located at 604 Elsbeth Sreet was vacant and has been for years. Oswald, his wife and his daughter lived in the building until March 1963 — seven months before Oswald would allegedly shoot and kill the President as well as Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit.
This week saw not one but two announcements about the development of intentional living communities dedicated to the principles of libertarianism: one from Glenn Beck (Independence, USA, a "city-theme park hybrid" that will marry "media, live events, small business stores, educational projects, charity, entertainment, news, information, and technology R&D") and the other from a group of like-minded citizens looking to build a rifleman's paradise in the mountains of Idaho (The Citadel, which boasts "No credit check. No background check. Zero down payment. Zero interest. Zero property taxes.").
Everyone could do with a little extra science today, if only to distract themselves from the blank and empty yawn that is a Sunday afternoon. To celebrate their 125th anniversary, National Geographic is hosting a free-for-all interview with James Cameron, Robert Ballard, Jane Goodall and "explorers in the field on every continent." You can join the conversation here; explorers will be taking questions for the next hour.
Brooklyn, a young, up-and-coming borough of New York City, truly has it all now: Last night, Mallory Hytes Hagan, a 23-year-old who lives in Park Slope, was crowned Miss America. Hagan, formerly Miss New York, beat out 52 other contestants (including one named Mariah Cary, aka Miss Iowa, who placed fifth) to win a $50,000 scholarship, which would afford her approximately 5/6ths of one year at NYU. Congratulations Mallory!
The only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi came one step closer to closure today. Last year, the state passed an ordinance requiring all of the doctors working at the Jackson Women's Health Organization to have hospital admission privileges in order to continue operating. The deadline to comply with the order came earlier this week; only one of the four doctors currently employed at the clinic has admitting privileges.
Yes, the flu season is really bad this year. No, it's not entirely due to "people use too much Purell nowadays" or whining about what's probably just a cold, either. The CDC reports that more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from "flu-related complications" every year. Sometimes, especially in the winter, people will use the word "flu" to describe any condition they want, but this is not the flu's fault and you should not blame it.
Hmm, well, okay.
The Golden Millennium of Beyoncé continues today, as Us Weekly has just confirmed that Destiny's Child will publicly reunite on stage during the Super Bowl.
