Fox picks up “sci-fi western with a twist.”

Because of the adoration for and longevity of Firefly, oh and, um, Brisco County, Jr., right?

Saaaaaad.

How hard is this crap? Get divorced before you send love emails to the new chick. Get divorced before you fly off for four days and turn off your state cell phone. This man had a few thoughts of running for president? We can take a divorced president, champ. We can’t take a stupid one–even though for a lot of voters, it takes a lot to prove stupidity. You chose the fastest route. Congratulations, Mark Sanford, you get–new love. Hope it was worth it.

Billy and third wife, 33-years-younger Katie Lee, are splitting. Why am I even surprised?

Sigh. Why do I sigh? Is it the continued bad news from the camp of the artist loved not wisely but too well during all of my high school and college years? Or because it’s actually been five years since he married her–when she was 22–and one of my college roommates said, “She looks like his daughter” and his wife, my other roommate, said “That IS his daughter. This one’s his wife.” Where is MY life going, that five years have gone by in a blink? Or do I sigh simply because I always thought of Christie Brinkley as the problem in his previous marriage, but now that the Piano Man’s got three strikes I have to wonder what’s going on with *him* in these marriages?

Whatever. Sigh.

The Brits bring out a “pointless” knife in response to the wailing over kitchen knives in a country where stabbing seems to be the major means of homicide. I’m not sure the notch in the blade makes it “pointless” rather than actually sort of “double-pointed”–and as Lowering the Bar points out, that “skin-snagging” effect is probably a bug rather than a feature. But what cracks me up the most is that these are obviously meant to be real kitchen knives in every other respect–i.e. an edge sharp enough to dice carrots on the fly. Which makes the title quote, from the knife’s designer, ludicrous. Can’t kill anybody with a pointless knife, eh? Even though it’s sharp enough to slice a tomato, it won’t slice open somebody’s larynx and carotid artery? Okay, then.

And Sony, for back royalties.

That’s a longtime relationship now apparently completely down the skids, if I may be allowed a mixed metaphor.

Could it be true that Joel hasn’t met his financial obligations? Sad and ironic if true; sad and lame if not true.

H/t J.

**SPOILERS** for last night’s House below. (more…)

…Barack and Michelle are “the black Rob and Laura.”

Groan.

Obama expects to “visit” press without taking questions; apparently all oblige him except one.

Asked how he could reconcile a strict ban on lobbyists in his administration with a Deputy Defense Secretary nominee who lobbied for Raytheon, Obama interrupted with a knowing smile on his face.

“Ahh, see,” he said, “I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can’t end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I’m going to get grilled every time I come down here.”

I wanna be your friend, but if you insist on doing your job attacking me, I can’t be your friend any more.

Obama did reveal a juicy tidbit, however: Incoming press secretary Robert Gibbs “got a fist bump from me” because Obama was just so gosh-darn proud that he survived his first press briefing. Aaaww. See, press? If you be good boys and girls, someday, you might get a fist bump too!

I may hurl. Video at Hot Air.

That five bucks in the bucket outside the grocery store today was my last donation to the Salvation Army until they loosen up this junk:

Capt. Johnny Harsh, who has led the Oshkosh Salvation Army for more than three years, has been suspended for disobeying orders and could soon be terminated from the agency.

Harsh, whose wife, Capt. Yalanda “Yoley” Harsh, died unexpectedly in June, said he violated a Salvation Army rule that an officer in the agency may only marry another officer of the organization. Harsh is engaged to a woman who is not affiliated with the Salvation Army. He said they plan to marry in June.

Read on for the other ways in which the organization gets into their officers’ business–no overnight stays in the guest room for this lady because the Salvation Army pays for some of their officer’s housing expenses. I’m of mixed mind about that–the solution seems to be don’t accept funds earmarked for housing from your employer if you don’t want to give them a say in who gets to stay there.

Oh well, the Bean’ll be just as happy if we never poke any bills into the kettle again. He doesn’t yet quite understand how we can give money away and still have some left for ourselves, and though he enjoys the actual act of folding the bill to the appropriate size and turning and twisting it until it slides into the slot, he still decidedly disapproves of the concept. Lighten Up, S.A. I’m now frankly surprised this outfit is still going as strong as it is.

Via Allah, who brings the C-word.

Stupid people/people with authority issues/stupid people vote.

Via Hot Air.

I am sick and tired of reading the ever-changing scenarios under which the government or its component part Treasury will spend the $700 billion of bailout money. Do not buy up bad mortgages. Do not inject government capital into either private or public businesses. Let the banks either foreclose or renegotiate with the mortgaged holders themselves, which is not as far-fetched an idea as you’d think (note to Ed Morissey: Exactly why, if lenders do this, should the taxpayer take the risk instead of the bank investor?). People are already bitching and complaining about their 401Ks tanking in the stock market. The market tanking a bit farther won’t kill them. Either pull your money out and thus help it tank, or leave it in and wait for it to go back up as it always does. Do not bail out the automakers. The word “bailout” should be anathema in a capitalist society. Forget curbing CEO salaries and golden parachutes–just wake up, America, and quit investing your money in the stocks of companies who are willing to hire losers with failures like this on their track records. Let the market punish the guilty–by which I mean YOU, American investors. Stop assuming the stock market works the same way as your corner bank and that it’s some kind of travesty if you can’t get the same amount of money back out that you put in. Realize the risk that it is and take it with your eyes open and take far less of it, if you ask me. Stop this madness before extends to industries all but killed by the autoworkers’ unions and unrealistic ideas of what you can regulate people into doing. Kill it. Repeal the bailout.

Right here.

Via, again, Whedonesque.

I’m busy with too many things to blog properly, but this is a gimme. Allah quotes Politico:

Savvy readers [of her biography] might find cause for concern in Palin’s burning ambition, her ruthlessness or her complete lack of loyalty to political patrons. …

… Palin was encouraged to run for a City Council seat in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1992 by council member Nick Carney and was warmly welcomed into office by then-Mayor John Stein. Within months of taking office, she had voted against a pay hike for Stein and against a mandatory garbage collection ordinance that would have greatly enriched Carney. Four years later, Palin unseated Stein…

The scandals Palin helped prod along [while an appointee of Gov. Frank Murkowski's administration] badly damaged the Murkowski administration. She ran against the governor in the 2006 GOP primary, easily finishing him off.

Palin had her reasons but the pattern is clear. She is invited in by well-established pols, doesn’t get her way and ends up running against the “good old boys” and defeating them handily.

Was it possible that she thought the mayor’s salary was high enough by objective standards and that Wasilla didn’t need the garbage collection ordinance? Was it an understood thing that “encouragement to run” and a “warm welcome” cost her vote on their pet issues? That is not loyalty; that is corruption. Looks to me like an unwillingness to pay back good manners with political influence might be one of the reasons McCain picked her. Will he have to watch his back around her? Looks to me like no, as long as he watches his step around voters. Which is fine by me. If she defects and challenges in 2012, it is the voters who will decide whether she had good reasons to do so.