Symptoms of a War on Terror out of control: An ex-CIA agent’s privately funded spy agency (log in required) acts on the owner’s personal agenda independent of US foreign policy. And new documents reveal “unjustified homicide” of Afghan and Iraqi detainees at Guantanamo.

Revolt in Tunisia escalates: Protesters score new victory as two allies of ousted president are detained and “Caravan of Liberation” marches on Tunis. Some worry revolt will destabilize North Africa.

Guns don’t kill people, but people who kill people are using guns: Analysis shows link between decreased gun crime and assault gun ban. Lifting a decade-long ban coincides with surge of police seizures of firearms with high-capacity magazines. Meanwhile gun control advocates have new momentum in DC after Tucson shooting. Obama likely to address guns issue (log in required) in State of the Union.

For a marriage of convenience, the honeymoon is nearly over: Hawkish Republicans have reason to regret embracing the Tea Party so avidly back in 2010. Tea Partiers open to cutting defense spending in order to balance budget.

China wants fewer Boeing planes and more of Washington’s raw materials: Timber, copper and silicon needed to fuel Chinese industry. Says Washington Trade Development Alliance head, “It’s like we’re a Third World country.”

Fixer-upper in Granite Falls at cut-rate price: Foreclosed home called a “horror house” found with 31 dead pets and an “inches thick layer of feces…covering nearly every flat surface.”

Finally! Technology that actually benefits mankind: Montesano, Washington company invents fastest beer-dispensing system in the world, and they have video to prove it. The secret technique—specially-designed cups are filled bottom up.

Calling the gay and fashion elite: Mark your calendars—Calvin Klein Boy Toy turns 21. Birthday bash announced.

To acknowledge Calvin Klein in the news, here is his 1985 Obsession commercial: a sublime mix of androgynous casual wear and art school pretension.

25 replies on “Morning News”

  1. Re: beer.

    I’d rather not have to rely on stupid expensive proprietary cups and dispenser, I’ll use a tap that’s just as fast with my own beer glasses thank you.
    Also, using three people to fill beer cups is cheating. If you’re not going to limit resources, I can fill ten times as many containers with beer in the same amount of time.

  4. The teabagger loons have been emboldened by the Tuscon backlash, and the gun nuts are going to show how wrong everyone is about guns the only way they know how: buying more guns & ammo, and acting like even bigger jackasses. It’s a safe bet that there will be more major antigovernment violence or assassination attempts in the next two years.

    So if you know more attacks are coming, it’s smart for Democrats to propose gun control now, even if you know it will get shot down. The GOP will loudly proclaim their allegiance to guns and their love of revolutionary violent rhetoric, and then, bam!, another lesson taught in blood, and voters will know who to blame in 2012.

    You could call it opportunistic politics to take advantage of the Republicans that way, but nobody is forcing them to cling to antigovernment red meat, and they can disown the violent right any time they like. And if they don’t want to pay the political consequences of guns on demand to any fool who wants one, nobody is forcing them to cling to that policy either.

  8. #6

    The complete takeover of the one truly “democratically” elected body of government, the House of Representatives, hardly seems forced.

    If anything, the un-democratically elected yet ironically “Democrat” controlled Presidency and Senate are what is being forced upon us…and holding back change.

    Go Jets. Go Queens. Go Joe Namath. Go san-CHEZ!

  9. There was a time when me and my buddies would deliver those lines all the time — “save me” “but how?”. — at the grocery store, in the mall, at the boring party.

  11. @9,
    “democratically elected?” Bullshit, it was bought.

    Big Corporations shell out billions to get their pet candidates elected. The teabagger meme is a paper tiger. The republicans passed their worthless health care repeal bill to make the baggers feel like they accomplished something, when in truth they accomplished practically nothing at all. Now it’ll be back to politics-as-usual: Obeying the commands of the people who pay them, big corporations.

    The politicians who promise to give big businesses what they want are the politicians who will get elected. In most cases, those are republicans. That’s why they won and that’s why the tax breaks for billionaires were extended. You think you or your voice matters in this country? It doesn’t. Unless you’re the CEO of Citibank or GE or something.

  12. @13 But it is possible to force a corporation to come over to your side. For example, if liberals and progressives all canceled their cable to protest the murderers at FOX, there would be serious fucking changes.

  13. I think I’ve said this before, but I always get a laugh when I hear Republicans talking about “my party.” I ask them if they make seven figures a year. When they answer “no,” I tell them “it’s not your party.”

  15. Vince, quit being a dumbass. First of all, calling the people at Fox “murderers” just makes you look stupid. Nobody at Fox has murdered anybody, and that kind of hyperbole contributes nothing. Secondly, if – big if – you could manage to get every single one of that 20% of the population that identifies as “liberal” or “progressive” to cancel their cable, it might make a difference. But we both know that’s never going to happen.

  16. Ryan, what an excellent Morning News again! I have two favorite items from the 20-pound Sunday NYT:

    1) Finding Dan Savage’s sage advice to Obama for the State of the Union address put right next to Robert Reich’s (also perfect) on the back page of the Week in Review with a beautiful graphic – the sort of thing that makes the print edition a unique treasure to me;

    2) their coverage of artist Laurel Nakadate, who’s a bit like if Cindy Sherman had an interest in giving you a boner.

    And re: Calvin Klein – I just love Michael Musto’s take on the mini-me’s birthday party:

    Calvin, darling, you’re embarrassing yourself.

    What’s worse, you’re embarrassing the whole community.

    You were never really that much of a gay hero in the first place.

    Remember when you suddenly had a wife because, as AIDS made it uncool to be gay, you took the wussy way out and closeted yourself so you could sell more T shirts and perfume?

    That was a hideous approach and I screamed my lungs out about it–but it was better than now!

    Now you’ve hooked up with that almost-21-year-old ex-porn star, Nick Gruber, and you’re fawning over him as if this were real love and not a massive late-life crisis being acted out for the horrified masses.

    It’s not going to work!

    I’ve had some (mid-to-late) 20-somethings myself, but:

    (A) They threw themselves on me, I never made advances and certainly never gave them a cent or even a drink ticket;

    (B) I never convinced myself it was a healthy relationship for the ages, just a kind of wild lark;

    (C) I never flaunted the whole thing so flagrantly by inviting people to the kid’s 21st birthday party like you just did!

    Calvin, you went from deeply closeted to being more open about your shame-based antics, and I don’t know what’s worse.

    Get a grip on yourself, girl, and nail some dignity to the floor before this kid steals it all away from you.

    http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto…

  17. (And a belated nod to 5280 and Canadian Nurse, whom I just saw plugged Dan’s NYT piece in the True Grit thread while I was still fast asleep…)

  18. @18 Is it just me, or does Musto’s reaction smell equally of envy as it does of disgust? Especially the “Yes, I’m famous enough to get 20-somethings too, but I didn’t even give them a drink ticket! So, I’m better than you.” WTF?!

  19. @20, no, no, he’s poking fun at Calvin, not wishing he were in those sad expensive sugar-daddy shoes. Maybe you’d have to have read more of Musto’s columns, laced with self-deprecation and sexual frustration as they are, to know that when he says he’s had pretty young things, it’s with gratitude at those rare events, not bragging about it.

  21. @9: You don’t even know what a meme is. I’m also curious as to why you say that the President and the members of the Senate were illegitimately elected, given the dearth of supporting evidence.

  24. @21 I dunno. I slept on it. Re-read it a couple of times, and there’s still enough “look at me” to read as a sickly mix of mocking and envy.

    I even tried reading it in a Buddy Cole voice, and it only almost worked. “Why, I can still get 20-year olds, and I didn’t even have to give them drink tickets. *sucks on cigarette*” But,, Buddy Cole was all about ego and self-promotion.

  25. Obsession. I remember that bottle vividly from my mother’s dresser and her collection of perfumes. I’m sure it’s still there next to her No. 5.

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