The big news: Barack Obama will announce Elena Kagan as his pick to succeed John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. If she’s confirmed, four of the nine Supreme Court justices will rep NYC.

Scalia: Queens. Ginsburg: Brooklyn. Sotomayor: The Bronx. Kagen: UWS Manhattan. Only Staten Island lacks supreme court love, a truly terrible oversight.

Can you say “Associate Justice Ghostface Killah“? He’s clearly not lacking for empathy:

Brings a whole new meaning to Supreme Clientele.

For those neither living in nor descended from the holy six that is New England, Bill Belichik is some kid of monster. A loathsome ruthless win machine, desecrating the shield in a cold-blooded quest to squeeze any last possible competitive advantage out of an otherwise noble game. Man you effing hate that guy.

Unless, of course, you’re a Pats fan, in which case Bill Belichick is the Brawny Man studmuffin hero of all your athletic wants, hopes and dreams, a guy who may have long ago stopped being polite but started getting real real good at winning you football games. If he’s a total asshole, he’s our kind of total asshole.

Nancy Pelosi is the same dude, just a chick who does politics.

When your political instincts run counter to her ambitions, she’s a brutal botoxed witch, hell-bent on greedily violating the very fabric of American human existence. Ooohgrrr you hate her!

When she’s on your side, though, she’s queen Nancy the Hammer. For those pretty amped and excited over passage of health care reform, Pelosi today is basically Bill Belichick circa February 7th, 2005. You can’t get enough of that hooded sweatshirt tight skinned forehead and bad dye job.

UPDATE: Relatedly, I’m now hoping these two have an elicit, freewheeling, Woodsian affair. Pelosichick, maybe. Mmmm, wrinkly.

For the rest of the month, Outback Steakhouse will generously provide all veterans and active military with a free Bloomin’ Onion.

This promotion seems so painfully obvious, so clearly motivating for both service member and plain citizen alike, I’m surprised neither Presidents Bush nor Obama developed a similar deal when attempting to sell a souring public on their unpopular war plans.

What better way to inspire our men and women in uniform, while further promoting solidarity with their protectorates back home, than the far-off possibility of a limited time offer of an Australian recipe ripoff of Chili’s classic American Awesome Blossom?

These are the times that try men’s souls! He that stands by his country now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman, and a large, sliced onion, breaded, deep fried and arranged to look like a flower.*

Lucky for freedom, the savvy folks at Outback Steakhouse and OSI Restaurant Partners had the foresight to develop this promotion, thus circumventing what I am sure to be President Obama’s natural instincts toward a socialist Bloomin’ Onion handout; the free market saw a need and fulfilled it most efficiently.

Semper Fibloomin’ Onion.

* (Offer only available for the month of March at participating locations. Let’s not get too ridiculous.)

Relevant section at 3:32:

Like a Thelonious Monk, I travel in peace
Left on right on black man from the east

We don’t quit
We don’t quit, uh uh
We don’t quit
Nah we don’t quit

Life for nothing but beats and cheese

Last line might be a stretch. Nevertheless, full text of actual speech right here.

UPDATE: Wikipedia’s concise history of the actual May 4th Movement anti-imperialist uprising is well worth a read. Thrice times for the Brooklyn dimes.

* Congressmen Game Cards Do Not Actually Talk

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is like one of those dudes who says “Guess what?” and then makes you actually guess a whole bunch of times.

It’s all…

Ok, so.

The US financial system has been taken hostage by a zombified incarnation of Carlton Banks, whose debts resulting from the sale of substandard prime rib submarine sandwiches have been shored up by implicit and/or explicit credit support from Uncle Phil. Yes?

Enter Timmy, who has sent Lassie to purchase a brood of toxic donkeys from Carlton at potentially inflated prices. Once the donkeys are out of Bel-Air and Uncle Phil has thrown Jazzy Jeff out the front door, the money supply frees up, enabling Hilary to continue shopping for some new outfits, thus providing the foreplay necessary for the recent broad national dose of Cialis to bestow upon America a steady five hour erection. Right?

But will it work? Mr. Feeny doesn’t think so.

** Only just now hitting me that it’s definitely a toxic goat in that picture, not a donkey. Damn you Google Image Search!!!

A libertarian-leaning friend sends over this column by Uni Chicago Economists and Hoover Institute Fellows Gary Becker (Nobel Laureate!) and Kevin Murphy, advocating a “do no harm” approach to the current crisis.

Some smart dudes, about as articulate as it comes when arguing against government overreach into free market capitalism. Though count me as not particularly persuaded in the midst of the current poo fest (is Obama really pushing card check as a solution to the credit implosion? Really? I hadn’t noticed.)

All merits aside, though, I’m still baffled as to why their famed libertarian institution has survived nearly 100 years with the same name.

If you’re going to develop ideas promoting a laissez-faire approach to capitalism, why why why name your institution after Herbert Hoover? It’s almost too clean a satirical joke.

Barack Obama is all talk.

I know this because any number of prominent politicians have been telling me as much the past five or so years, and nothing Barack Obama has done so long as I have known about him has proved otherwise.

Every time I see Barack Obama, he is talking about something. Every time I read the paper, there are more words he has said in quotes all over the page. His answer for everything is to talk about it. New unemployment numbers? Words words words. Direct threats from a foreign dictator? Language language language.

John McCain has picked up on this as well. In a(n otherwise reasonable) letter to supporters expressing his opposition to the current economic stimulus legislation, McCain argues the following:

“I appreciate the discussions President Obama is having with my Republican colleagues, but the time for talking has come to an end and we must now begin some serious negotiation.”

And therein lies the rub: John McCain doesn’t want Barack Obama to talk to his Republican colleagues about the contours of the ever-evolving stimulus package; that time is over. What we need now is some “serious negotiation.”

But what’s that distinction?

Thing is, there really is none.

Politicians talk. A lot. They talk to each other. They talk to reporters. They talk to lobbyists and political contributors. They talk to experts. They talk to us, in political ads and supporter correspondence.

Words words words. Language language language.

The only time a politician accomplishes anything without the use of words is during a vote. Although even then, when not pushing some sort of button or lever, they’re shouting out “Yay” or “Nay,” a form of binary speech.

Talking is political doing. All political action is oratorical; a sport of rhetoric, an art of articulated persuasion. If you ain’t sayin nothin, you ain’t doin shit.

So keep talking, guys. The more you talk, the more you get done.

Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain spent $1.22 million last year renovating his predecessor’s office, this despite massive losses suffered by Merrill requiring $100s of billions in government assistance.

Here’s his defense:

Pete: I’m surprised you’re renovating, this is such a nice office,
Jack: It’s a great office, but sometimes you have to change things that are perfectly good just to make them your own.

Wait, sorry. That’s a scene from the pilot episode of 30 Rock.

Here’s John Thain:

(My predecessor’s) office was very different than the general decor of Merrill’s offices. It really would have been very difficult for me to use it in the form that it was in.

Amazing.

Obama’s speech yesterday was, as expected, great-serious-sober-inspirational, though certainly not to everyone’s taste. And of course his Presidency and policy outlook won’t be much celebrated or cheerlead by his political opponents. Which is all good, fine, and the way it all should be.

But I have to say I was surprised to see so many conservatives objecting to this line from the inaugural:

We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.

Ramesh Ponnuru labels it a “real clunker,” as Jonah Goldberg helpfully remarks:

Why not distill energy from our strategic unicorn manure stockpile?

I have to say I don’t really follow the bizarre sarcasm, given these plainly true equations:

Barack has welcomed contributions and policy proposals from all Americans, liberals and conservatives alike, which is a great and serious invitation.

But for all the talk of unity, post-partisanship and the putting aside of petty grievances, it’s hard to take seriously the contributions of those who do not take seriously the role of the sun.

Don’t fuck with the sun; motherfucker will buurrrnn you.

According to Politico, Sarah Palin remains super duper popular (STILL!), almost as popular as the President Elect, and isn’t that crazy??

“People are still searching for her in record numbers,” said Kathy O’Reilly, a spokeswoman for Lycos. “How bizarre is that? Obama is the president-elect after the most historic election of all time and you’d think he would be dominating search activity and he only now is going ahead of her.”

There’s no doubt Sarah Palin is an unnaturally engaging public figure, but so much of the attention she draws is of the car wreck rubbernecking variety; people aren’t tuning in to hear sober assessments of the delicate future of our resilient country, they’re hitting Lycos out of a morbid curiosity to see what sort of terrible things may happen to America’s number one most hilarious political circus.

And no need to go much further than the Politico article itself for evidence of the morbidity:

• Sarah Palin was the most popular Lycos search item from early Sept until this past week, when she was ultimately overthrown by…Paris Hilton (a woman known less for being an active mom of a mentally disabled kid than she is for being a mentally disabled kid who many millions have seen partaking in some mom-making activities).

 
Or, as Politico insists, observe Sarah Palin’s smash-success YouTube videos, consisting entirely of:

• Sarah Palin giving a humorously oblivious interview to a local news crew while a series of turkeys are brutally slaughtered behind her.
• Sarah Palin being ruthlessly mocked by Tina Fey in a hilariously vicious SNL sketch.
• Sarah Palin viciously mocking herself while being brutally slaughtered by Katie Couric’s relatively tame questioning.

 
Sarah Palin certainly has “a unique opportunity to build up something massive,” as one Republican operative puts it. But I have a hunch that massive something will be more along the lines of a popular daytime talk show on Fox News afternoons than anything else.

It’s peevish enough the extent to which commercial political media crushes so heavy on a politician’s perceived “flip flops,” roundly denouncing any slight shift in opinion and.or policy positioning as horribly offensive/hillariously mockable pussyfooting*.

But are reporters really going to start spending a lot of time drawing wildly unjustified conclusions from minute changes to political websites? As if slight revisions made to website copy offers stunning insight into a politician’s unprincipled soul; the magic of Google Cache herein utilized as the deus ex machina of dickish reporting.

* “Pussyfooting” pops up so commonly in polite writing, it clearly must have evolved from pussy as cat rather than pussy meaning vag, which totally makes the word a lot less useful.