Link-Yo-Rama

Radley Balko: Robert Byrd

So if I’m correctly reading the various tributes to Sen. Robert Byrd floating around the web this morning, I’m supposed to celebrate how the man atoned for his bigotry earlier in life by devoting the rest of his life to public service . . . where he used other people’s money to build monuments to himself.

That this could be considered a form of redemption says all you need to know about what the political class considers important.

Politico: Sarah Palin: Marijuana is a 'minimal problem'

WSJ: Private Bus Line Seeks to Profit on MTA Cuts

Mr. Azumah, the president, owner and sometimes-driver of TransportAzumah, thinks he can make money running buses along three routes that the MTA plans to shut down this weekend as part of deep service cuts to fill a yawning deficit. The MTA says it was losing almost $2 million a year on the X90, X25 and X29 express bus routes.

"They're figuring out how much subsidy they have to back the operation," Mr. Azumah said. "I'm figuring out how much I need to make at the farebox."

...

He sees opportunity because he says he isn't burdened with the MTA's expensive union rules, debt payments and legal mandates, such as providing transportation for the disabled. For example, the $5.50 fare for the X90, which Mr. Azumah will keep the same, covered just over one-quarter of the MTA's estimated $19.04 cost per rider on the route.

He plans to decrease the X25 fare to $3 from $5.50, and raise the X29 fare by 50 cents to $6.

The Onion: New Pixar Employees Required To Watch Adorable Sexual Harassment Video

WSJ: A Machine Before Its Time

This was the problem. For all their honed athletic instincts, batters could never overcome the human urge to bail when they saw a puff of smoke coming from the business end of a cannon. That is, when the machine actually fired. Batters actually spent far more time waiting for someone to reload the cannon.

Texas Congressional nominee wants to impeach Obama, opposes UN

Now Democrats have refused to provide her any support, Time reports, accusing her of racism because of her connection to the LaRouche movement — which is an interesting allegation, considering that Rogers is African-American. Maybe someone should have looked at her picture before leaping immediately to the race-baiting smear. They would have been better off questioning her sanity.

Vanity Fair: Penn Jillette Is Willing To Be A Guest On Adolf Hitler's Talk Show

I may be the only person who goes on Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck and says the exact same shit. I am so much more socially liberal than Olbermann will ever be. You can’t believe how pro gay and pro freedom of speech I am. I’m way out beyond anyone on the Left. And as for fiscal conservatism and small government, I’m so much further to the right than Glenn Beck. Nobody is further left and further right than me. As I’m fond of saying, if you want to find utopia, take a sharp right on money and a sharp left on sex and it’s straight ahead.

...

Absolutely there is. When I disagree with Obama, people always say, “Well, you’re a big Bush guy then.” And I’m like no, I didn’t like Bush either. I disagree with Bush and Obama on all the stuff they agree on, which is pretty much everything. They both want to kill people, they both want the government to be bigger, and they both want less freedom for individuals.

...

The only difference between Obama and Bush is that Obama is killing more people. He’s about double the numbers now. Can you imagine if McCain had won and did precisely what Obama has done, with every speech and every political maneuver overseas? There’d be riots in the streets about the people we’re killing. And yet because it’s Obama, and he’s better looking and better at reading the teleprompter, we let him get away with it.

Gov. Charlie Crist checks a Florida beach for signs of oil