As I write this my sense of humor is intact and waiting, as always, for something funny to happen.  I can get tickled at the least little thing--adorable babies and clumsy dogs and tripping on sidewalk cracks--and I can howl at even the worst, god-awful jokes.  I can't explain them and I've never been able to repeat them with any kind of comedic skill, but I know funny when I hear it.

I can say without even having to think about it that I've never laughed at a thing Rush Limbaugh has said or done.  I don't get him.  His performances are like those of a mean, out-of-control drunk who thinks everything coming out of his mouth is either hilarious or golden.  He begins every riff quietly, taking his time, pausing, letting his words sink in, and builds to an awesome, wiggly, crazed crescendo.  Oh, my God.  Electrifying to dittoheads and the uninitiated.  Wow!  But to those of us who have been exposed to his antics for decades, they're nothing more than the usual carefully calculated theatrics.  Ho hum.

That's what makes his latest rantings against a Georgetown University law student fighting her college's policies on insuring birth control aids so mystifying.  His initial comments about this young female student were so breathtaking in their vile putridity, the reactions against them were, at last,  refreshingly awesome and swift.  Hundreds of thousands of people protested his words.  Even his usual defenders could be seen slinking away from the ten-foot pole they wouldn't use to touch them.  Yes!  Limbaugh is a pariah!

Last week, New York City released Teacher Data Reports for every teacher in its system. This week, I got my own teaching numbers: last semester's teaching evaluation scores. Getting my numbers was a good thing for me personally; they were very high, and my bosses tend to reward that.

We don't need an Andrew Breitbart eulogy here, and I wouldn't be qualified to write one.  I've been reading them all day though.  Elizabeth Spiers, the young editor trying her best to save The New York Observer from extinction, writes one here that, I think, captures the tone.  Josh Marshall has a short and interesting piece as well.  The two dovetail nicely.

Sen. Rick Santorum, who is campaigning to become America's second Catholic president, disagrees from the bottom of his gut with the first Catholic to hold the office.

In October, he told a Catholic university audience that when he read the 1960 speech in which John F. Kennedy said: "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," he "almost threw up." More recently, he elaborated on his dyspeptic condition in an ABC television interview, calling JFK's credo "an absolutist doctrine that was abhorrent at the time of 1960."

But the Baptist ministers who witnessed Kennedy's speech surely felt differently. In the 1960s, evangelical leaders were not concerned that Kennedy was too secular; they were concerned that he was too Catholic.

Read the full article at CNN.com

While they were busy writing endless columns on such things as Obama’s manliness, whether or not Americans should wear jeans or whether or not Monica Lewinsky would bring down the nation, America’s famed band of “conservative intellectuals” failed to notice that the

Rick Santorum didn't win in Michigan yesterday.  That's the good news. The bad news is that Mitt Romney did.  In a better world, the vote would have been for "NotOnYourLife", but we've come to accept that even those destined to be harmed the most by that bunch will vote for the one who promises to hurt them hard enough to leave scars.

Olympia Snowe is calling it quits as a Senator.  Apparently, she wants to rededicate her life to "help give voice to my fellow citizens who believe, as I do, that we must return to an era of civility in government driven by a common purpose to fulfill the promise that is unique to America."

WASHINGTON – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had breakfast today, leading most foreign policy experts to agree that Iran is now more dangerous than ever.

Reports from Iran state that Ahmadinejad dined at 8 a.m. on pita bread, feta cheese and assorted fruits. Sources from within Iran have stated this breakfast is a sure sign that Iran now is fully nuclear capable and prepared to begin a full-scale nuclear war against the United States and Israel.

Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum sparked a media firestorm on Saturday when he accused President Barack Obama of promoting a "phony theology...not a theology based on Bible."

To many, his accusation smacked of the old smear--whispered through right-wing email chains--that Obama is a covert Muslim. In response to such concerns, Santorum publicly expressed his confidence in Obama's Christian faith. "If the president says he's a Christian," he assured reporters, "He's a Christian."

But what Santorum means by "Christian" is a bit different from the way most Americans understand it. He may acknowledge that the President worships Jesus Christ, but he regards Obama's Christian faith as polluted by secular and liberal ideals. And not just Obama's. Santorum believes that most of mainstream American Protestantism has been corrupted in both doctrine and practice.

Corrupted by whom?

The video above efficiently trims the discussion to one hour. The debate proceeded as I expected.

I can't think of a time when I've ever agreed with Cal Thomas.  I confess I don't seek him out, but when I see him on an occasional Op-Ed page I'll read him just to see what he's going to say that's going to infuriate me.  I'm rarely disappointed.

So as he sat on a panel at this year's CPAC and said what he said about Rachel Maddow, I wasn't shocked.  He was at CPAC with his own peeps. It was cool.
 

According to GM's last proxy, the U.S. government still owns 32% of the company.  So it's pretty sad to see that one the eve of reporting it largest ever annual profit ($8 billion) the company is freezing pay, cutting bonuses and ending pension benefits for salaried workers. Meanwhile, CEO Daniel Akerson's has been targeted to receive cash and stock worth $9 million a year.

Anyone on television talking about how they're being persecuted for their religion is not being persecuted. How do I know this?

Because they are on television.

Hello, women of the Republican Party:  Democratic female of the liberal persuasion here.  I know it looks like we couldn't be any farther apart when it comes to ideology, but I know us.  I know when it comes to the big issues--our futures and the well-being of the ones we love--we're sisters under the skin.

(Breaking news:  President Obama just moments ago provided a brilliant compromise to the contraceptive controversy, as I mention at the end of this piece.  I wrote this before he made the announcement, but the arguments still hold and they bear remembering.  These are the kinds of battles we'll go on fighting, and a major victory such as today's doesn't mean the war is over.  Not by a long shot.)  

Two big stories in the foreclosure mess today, both of them depressing.  The first, via Atrios, was broken by Bloomberg and reveals that Fannie Mae, which owns billions worth of underwater mortgages, canceled a program where the agency, as the holder of the debt, would write down the principal due on underwater mortgages to bring them more in line with present home values because executives were

The brilliant Ramona and Destor have been especially brilliant this week on the Catholic bishops' outrage at having to pay for full employee health insurance. Destor is so smart about the church and state principles involved, and Ramona so good on the women's-health issues, that I have nothing left to add but my own personal experience. I am a former employee of the Catholic Church.

Being a Straight White Male is great. It really is. I mean, the number of perks I get solely for being a Straight White Guy is just ridiculous. Did you know we Straight White Men get free ice cream on Tuesdays? Our choice of flavors. It’s fabulous.

But life as a White Male is not all good jobs, unlimited rights and privileges and free ice cream on Tuesdays. It is mostly, mind you, but it’s not everything.

Effective August 1, thanks to a provision in the Affordable Care Act, most working women will have their contraceptives fully paid for, without a co-pay. That's the good news. The bad news (you knew there had to be bad news, right?) is that the unenlightened among us see it as nothing more than an unconscionable threat against virile manhood.  Especially Catholic virile manhood.

Your religion, should you choose to have one or choose to hang onto the one you were born with, is your own.  I will never take it away from you and would prefer that you not try to force it on me.  Our society, however, is not entirely your own or mine.  It is ours and we sometimes have to make rules for it.