Honestly, that’s all I need to see. For the story, go to TPM. Or check out an AP feed. Or any of the links below.
No, you do not want to play this at work:
If you missed the original e-mail from Miss Congeniality at the University of Maryland, click here.
This is a great photo from the Jezebel blog and the Daily Mail:
Same woman, different outfit, right?
No!
South Korea’s growing obsession with plastic surgery became apparent when pictures of a group of aspiring beauty queens posted online prompted claims that cosmetic procedures have left all the contestants looking the same.
Pictures of the 20 Miss Korea 2013 finalists were posted on Reddit fueling speculation that many of them had undergone surgery and prompting users to criticize the Asian nation’s growing trend to go under the knife.
South Koreans currently have more plastic surgery than in any other country according to recent figures, with the craze particularly popular among 19 to 49-year-olds.
Now that’s impressive. There is an established perspective of beauty here, and already beautiful women are eager to have their faces cut up to achieve this idea of perfection.
Let’s get a better comparison of the contestants:
Same eyes, same nose, same mouth.
This reminds me of the Sonmi 451 character in “Cloud Atlas”
This is science fiction, and the cloning here creates a series of identical beings, which also removes the concept of individuality. And at a certain point in the movie, Sonmi 451 recognizes the importance of individuality, and leads a revolution.
But here, we’re going in an opposite direction. We see in today’s reality, people are eager to turn themselves into clones. It’s not just in Korea. Plastic surgery is huge business in America. Sometimes people go too far:
So, Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino said he would get a tattoo if the Cardinals won the national championship.
The Cards won. He got the tattoo:
Here’s the post-tattoo interview from the parlor on Bardstown Road in Louisville.
For the 57th year in a row, my invitation to the White House Correspondents Dinner got lost in the mail. The president of the United States spoke, as usual. Here’s what we missed:
Daniel Day Lewis makes a pretty good young strapping Muslim Socialist.
Mark Sanford, a Republican, was South Carolina’s governor from 2003 to 2011. For six days in 2009, he disappeared. No one knew where he was. Not his security detail. Not his family. When he reappeared, he told the state that he had gone on a hike on the Appalachian Trail. It was a lie. He was with his mistress in South America. On state expense. He’s an adulterer, and he said this wasn’t the only time he had cheated on his wife.
This year, he decided to run for Congress. On the night he won the Republican nomination, he introduced his young son to his mistress. On stage. In front of supporters.
That’s his son, not looking at his father or his father’s mistress.
Mark Sanford is a douche bag.
Recently, the douche bag held a debate with a cardboard cutout of California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi:
I hope the people of South Carolina realize that the cardboard cutout has more integrity than Mark Sanford.
Now, Sanford isn’t running against the cardboard cutout of Nancy Pelosi. Oddly, South Carolina doesn’t cardboard cutouts file papers to run in elections. Just empty suits.
His opponent is Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch. She’s Stephen Colbert’s sister. She has more integrity than Mark Sanford. We’ll see if South Carolinians prefer integrity (with an occasional visiting infusion of comic genius) or a lying adulterous scumbag.
Louisville Cardinals basketball fans are elated because guard Russ Smith is going to return for his senior year.
Anyone who’s watched Russ knows he can do some amazing things with the basketball. (Look at all the games he led the team in points.) But we also know he can do some amazingly stupid things with the basketball. (Look at the five overtime loss against Notre Dame.) Russ seriously thought about entering the NBA draft, and I’m sure the general managers were looking at the stupid things.
I was at the national championship against Michigan in Atlanta game and screamed “No, Russ!” when Louisville was up by eight with 2:36 left and a fresh 35-second shot clock, and Russ put up a bad shot from beyond the three-point line. All he had to do was hold onto the ball, let the clock run down and set up a play for a better shot. I just kept thinking, “If Louisville loses, this is where it happened.”
Plus, I suspect he also didn’t want to leave Louisville after the disappointing game he had in the national championship. Only nine points, and lots of bad shots, including the one above.
The extra year under Coach Rick Pitino should add a lot more maturity to Russ’s game. And look at the team they’ll have. Three starters returning: Russ Smith, Chane Behanan and Wayne Blackshire. The Final Four MVP Luke Hancock is back. Kevin Ware’s leg will be healed. Two departing starters, but Montrezl Harrell is back at forward or center, and a really good recruiting class is coming up.
And if things go right, Russ gets into his third Final Four, and has a chance to defend the national championship. Put it all together, and that makes him a definite first round draft choice in 2014.
In the meantime, let’s wallow in the 2013 victory, with Dick Vitale and the ESPN America feed out of the U.K.
Apparently, this is what Republicans consider outreach to women (from TPM):
A former intern for Mitt Romney‘s presidential campaign was arrested Tuesday and charged in federal court with cyber stalking and internet extortion for allegedly obtaining nude photographs of young women and using them to blackmail his victims into sending more nude pictures.
Adam Savader, 21, who is also a former intern of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign, contacted 15 victims between May 2012 and February 2013, according to affidavit by FBI Special Agent Michael T. Garland. Savader would allegedly contact his victims via text message from a Google Voice number, telling them he had nude pictures and threatening to send them to their parents or post them online unless they sent him more.
Many of the victims, some of which have not been identified, either went to the same college as Savader or grew up in the same area as Savader, who is from Great Neck, New York.
On Twitter, Savader describes himself as “Formerly @PRyan’s sole intern on @MittRomney’s campaign and a @newtgingrich campaign staffer.” His Twitter avatar is a picture of him with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).
In exchanges with a woman identified in the affidavit as Victim 3, for example, Savader allegedly threatened to send nude pictures of her to the Republican National Committee as well as her parents, sorority, and internship. “Victim 3 estimated that on some days she would receive approximately eighty text messages,” the affidavit reads.
Several of the victims reported that their Gmail accounts had been compromised prior to receiving the threatening messages.
In another example, Victim 4 received the following text message from a Google Voice number on Oct. 30, 2012: “WAIT! Listen to me. If we don’t have a deal I will send the pictures to those people. Is that what u want? remember what’s at stake. do u want ur family and everyone in DC to see ur tits? Just agree to e-mail me a pic of u in a bra.”
We already mentioned Adam Savader, the former intern to Newt and Mitt who hacked naked pictures of female college students and then tried to extort them to give him more nude pictures. Well, by Savader’s account he was frequently the guy in the Ellis the Elephant suit from the book written by Callista Gingrich!
NO, WAIT! IT GETS BETTER!!!
(Is that your trunk, or are you just happy to see me?)
Yep. That’s pretty much it.
Not fast enough for you? Then here are all six episodes Star Wars episodes, from “The Phantom Menace” to “Return of the Jedi,” every frame, in five minutes:
Couldn’t follow it? Then “Use the force!”
Here’s how out of it I am. I didn’t know Glenda Jackson had quit acting! Well, I knew I hadn’t seen her in a movie in years, but just the thought that a two time Academy Award winner for Best Actress (“Women in Love,” 1971; “A Touch of Class,” 1973) is totally out of the business astounds me.
Even worse, I didn’t know she’s been a Minister of Parliament in the U.K. for 20 years!
And then I find out she went of the floor of Parliament and did a savage rhetorical autopsy on Margaret Thatcher when everyone else was eulogizing the former PM.
Here’s the speech:
Wow! Jackson left a lot of sputtering Conservatives in her wake!
