"Her securing the nomination is certainly possible - but it will require exercising the 'Tonya Harding option.'" the official said. "Is that really what we Democrats want?"

OW! I don't think that's the kind of comparison Hillary wants.

Political Punch

Giant pandas are known to be sexually inactive, but the new measure follows several other initiatives taken to try and encourage breeding, including panda pornography.

Panda... HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

China's pandas in new rigorous 'sexercise' programme: report - Yahoo! News

I went to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled, a few minutes ago. Well, I tried ... but I was Expelled! It was kind of weird -- I was standing in line, hadn't even gotten to the point where I had to sign in and show ID, and a policeman pulled me out of line and told me I could not go in. I asked why, of course, and he said that a producer of the film had specifically instructed him that I was not to be allowed to attend. The officer also told me that if I tried to go in, I would be arrested. I assured him that I wasn't going to cause any trouble.

Keep reading this one. Getting expelled from Expelled is pretty funny in the first place, but read down until you get to the punch line of the story...

Talk Reason: arguments against creationism, intelligent design, and religious apologetics

In this chilling BBC clip, a newsteam ventures to one of LA's new shantytowns made up of people who've lost their homes in the subprime meltdown and now live in tents, improvised shacks or RVs on abandoned land. It's the contemporary Hooverville...

Nearly 80 years later and we're moving right back to the same disaster we were looking at then. There are differences. We don't yet have the midwestern drought that destroyed agriculture for years, we have a southern one where Atlanta is in danger of turning into Las Vegas, and may get that midwestern one, but no one is sure. We don't have brokers jumping from the ledges is New York, many of those buildings were torn down and replaced with buildings that don't have ledges, or windows that open. We don't have 25% unemployment, we don't know what it actually is because the "new unemployment" doesn't count people who, after months of trying, gave up searching for work.

When the BBC is showing us the new Hoovervilles but our own media isn't. When they're also talking about the possibility that we're looking at 1929, but our media isn't. When CNNI is showing the real on the ground cost of the Iraq war across the world, but not here. Our government and our media is giving us a bill of goods.

America's new subprime shanty-towns - Boing Boing

In the model researchers studied, transmissions from the defibrillator to the bedside monitor are not encrypted, which means that someone intercepting the transmissions could retrieve such data as the patient's birth date, medical ID number and, in some cases, Social Security number.

Okay... Let's start with, what the hell is a pacemaker doing with that information? I can see where some of that information might be in the monitor, but I can't see ANY reason someone's SSN would be in it.

Now, they do bring up a better issue later on, someone could hack the machine to kill someone with one. That's an excellent blackmail plot, kill a couple of people and then do "send us this much cash or we'll shut yours down" or if you're of a terrorist bent, build a bollix to trigger every single one in the transmission radius. I imagine that could cause complete havoc.

(and yes, I know it's not a pacemaker, not the point)

not really an update: Please don't send DHS crawling up my ass over this, if I could think of this without even blinking hard, someone else could too, and they likely have the networking know how to actually do it, which I don't, so please DHS, go bother the people actually looking at stuff like this.

Study: Heart devices can be hacked - CNN.com

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

Sorry, cCain making this sort of error is nothing new, the fact that it's now being noted is. As screwed up as things are now, someone making basic mistakes like this is a problem, the nominee making this mistake is a train wreck in progress.

A McCain Gaffe in Jordan | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

The senior staffer, however, was still reluctant to let it go: "New products on the market? They haven't been TSA approved. Probably shouldn't be permitted,"

Way to go TSA. Schmucks.

MacBook Air stumps TSA agents, owner misses flight : Ben Patterson : Yahoo! Tech

Last December, when the National Intelligence Estimate downgraded the immediate nuclear threat from Iran, it seemed as if Fallon's caution was justified. But still, well-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don't want a commander standing in their way.

Admiral Fallon resigned this morning. Is the balloon going up?

The Man Between War and Peace

At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens

Your "abstinence only" tax dollars at work.

1 in 4 Teen Girls Has Sexual Disease

I'm trying to imagine the mindset of a man who doesn't realize that when you try to take dildos away from women, basically everyone with a brain and/or a sense of humor is going to assume it's because you're afraid you can't handle the competition.

Yet another entry in the "Law or humor?" category. In this case, it's headed back to court so it goes in law, but... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

AlterNet: Blogs: Video: The Dildo War in Texas Is Still Not Over