"Bengals WR Jerome Simpson flips over a Cardinals defender..."

"... and into the end zone to score one of the prettiest touchdowns you'll ever see."

"Christianity Remains Dominant Religion in the United States."

"This Christmas season, 78% of American adults identify with some form of Christian religion. Less than 2% are Jewish, less than 1% are Muslim, and 15% do not have a religious identity. This means that 95% of all Americans who have a religious identity are Christians."

A new Gallup poll.

The FedEx publicity nightmare YouTube video that has over 6 million views...

... in less than 5 days:

"Next time Holder speaks, someone should run to a judge for a TRO."

"And file a race-discrimination suit against whoever’s hosting him. Every single time...."

That's mainly a joke, but this isn't:

... I anticipate that South Carolina (and Texas) will take the preclearance decisions to a three judge court in DC, with direct appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.  I further expect that in this litigation, South Carolina (and Texas) will argue, among other arguments, that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional...

If review is expedited — which seems likely — the Supreme Court will be looking at this question and perhaps striking down the provision during the 2012 campaigns. Which party would be helped by that issue? Democrats will be positioned to preen about their concern for racial equality, and that puts Republicans in the position of championing the importance of leaving states alone to do things their own way, which — for some people at least — is a reminder of the bad old days when there clearly was discrimination and some states — mainly the states that are now stuck with the preclearance procedure — pontificated about "states' rights."

Nevertheless, I think the Republicans will be better off if this becomes an issue. First, people who reflexively impose that "bad old days" template are probably already voting for Democrats. Second, huge majorities of Americans support voter ID requirements, which means that few people buy into the race pandering. Third, playing the race card backfires once people clearly see that's all that's going on. And fourth, there really is something screwy about treating a few states differently from the other states, and if if a high-profile Supreme Court case makes people notice this strangeness, they'll be suspicious of the politicians and lawyers who strain to make the argument that it's right.

"The Worst-Dressed Man in the World."

An impressive achievement, is it not? Of course, it's easy to be bad. But it's not easy to be the worst.

"Five years ago, a relatively unknown (and unhinged) director began one of the wildest experiments in film history."

"Armed with total creative control, he invaded a Ukrainian city, marshaled a cast of thousands and thousands, and constructed a totalitarian society in which the cameras are always rolling and the actors never go home."

Life on the project has a way of sucking people in. Since 2008, more than a few crew members stopped pretending this was a temporary gig and have moved to Kharkov. Most are fresh out of film school, but several have left behind serious careers. Some moved their families to Kharkov. Others started new families right here....

"The Movie Set That Ate Itself" by Michael Idov. (This essay was pointed out in David Brooks's "Sidney Awards" column, which talks about a couple other things that I'd blog if it were not Christmas Eve Day. They are too horrible to mention today.)

ADDED: But Instapundit just mentioned one of them.

"Tommy [Thompson] was beside himself that [Scott] Walker was so dogmatic."

"We had lots of conversations about this — about how it was going to do nothing but cause chaos, and it was bad for the state. Businesses aren't going to move here in the middle of all this conflict."

A Democratic Wisconsin state senator talks to The Progressive's Ruth Coniff about his purported conversations last winter with Tommy Thompson about Scott Walker.

"After a certain point, Walker quit taking Tommy's phone calls... I think Tommy was giving him advice he didn't want to hear."

Democratic State Senator Bob Jauch says that during the crisis, after he and 13 other state Democrats had fled the state to stall a vote on the collective bargaining issue, he spoke with former officials in Tommy Thompson's administration who said Thompson was trying to persuade Walker to reach a deal. "I heard it from three different people who talked to him," says Jauch....

"I said, 'Tommy, you and I could have solved this whole thing over a cup of coffee.'" Jauch says. "Tommy put his hands on my shoulders and said, 'Bob, it would have been a pot of coffee, but absolutely we could have solved it.' " ...

"Tommy Thompson spent his career unifying Wisconsin," Jauch adds. "It has to be stressful for him to watch Governor Walker divide the state."

Hmmm. Jauch is a Democrat, and Tommy Thompson is running for for office right now (trying to get the U.S. Senate seat Herb Kohl is vacating). Thompson — as the linked article notes — is getting criticized from the right for being too moderate. It doesn't help Thompson's candidacy to have Democrats slathering him with love. Read the whole article. There are more quotes from Democrats who think Thompson is just dreamy compared to Walker.

By the way, if Walker is ousted in a recall — highly unlikely, in my view — I'd like to see him vie for that Herb Kohl Senate seat.

And look: Scott Walker was proclaimed "Governor of the Year" by Governors Journal.

Barbara Walters to Barack Obama: "If you were a superhero and you could have one super power, what would it be?"

Ridiculous premise for a question. He is a superhero.

Of course, Obama is smart enough to whip out the official, mentally healthy answer: "Flying." Only creepy people say "invisibility." Why am I saying that? Listen to the great old "This American Life" segment "Invisible Man vs. Hawkman."

ADDED: "If you could be any superhero, who would it be?" is one of the tricky job interview questions the Wall Street Journal has in its article today: "How to Ace a Google Interview/Brain teasers like the ones used for hiring by the Internet giant are spreading to other picky employers." What's the right answer to these questions? Who knows? What superhero? Uh... JobGettingMan.

Weird interview questions have become a meme, like a joke or a viral video. It's catchiness, rather than proof of their effectiveness, that keeps them in circulation at many companies....

The deep, dark secret of human resources is that traditional job interviews don't work very well.

By the way, I have an answer that would ace the Google question, which is: You're suddenly shrunk to the size of a nickel and thrown into a blender. "The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?"

I'd say: What is the basis of my knowledge of what's going to happen 60 seconds into the future? Every blender I've ever seen reacts instantly and only when somebody pushes a button. There must be person who threw me in the blender who is also informing me of what he intends to do in 60 seconds. But why would someone this evil tell me the truth? But whether he's lying or not, he's interested in what I will do in the next 60 seconds, rather like you, the interviewer, are interested in what I'll do in the next 60 seconds. Presumably, desperate flailing is not what will get me this job, keep evil blender truthteller from killing me, or influence the mysterious lying blender guy to let me out, so I think I should do a fascinating dance. I would tell a long, fascinating story, like Scheherazade — who delayed her execution — but I'm assuming there's a fairly soundproof lid on the blender, so I'm resorting to dance. Wanna see?

Gingrich and Perry fail to make it onto the primary ballot in Virginia.

What a screwup! You have to get 10,000 signatures....

Perry’s campaign told state election officials it had submitted 11,911 signatures, and Gingrich’s campaign said it submitted 11,050 signatures. State party officials spent Friday night validating the signatures.

... valid signatures.

Whatever happened to Ian of Ian & Silvia?

"I don't think we were playing very well back then, but it didn't matter... Folk was huge, and the shows were permeated by an incredible energy."

Here's "Four Strong Winds." Judge for yourself.

Here's his new memoir. He looks like Ronald Reagan on the cover, but he's doing that Reagan-ing in Canada, where he was born.

I didn't like going from being a top-of-the-pile folk duo to a discredited schlock act, from prince and princess of the whole thing to nothing. I got pretty angry about it. Around 1970 Sylvia and I went to see the Flying Burrito Brothers at a little joint in Manhattan. They were loud and out of tune, but we could see that they were going somewhere, and I was stewing because I thought we were much better than they were.

Even though they weren't very good! Ian "got drunk" and "yell[ed] at Sylvia." Aw.

They were the model for Mitch and Mickey in "A Mighty Wind"... weren't they?

Oh, that's not the right way to begin Christmas Eve Day!

That first post. False internet trash. Let me start over with this, which Meade just IM'd me.

ADDED: "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is perhaps the last song Christians should embrace. Not only is it bereft of every reference to Christianity short of the word "Christmas," it refers to goddesses from another religion: "through the years, we all will be together if The Fates allow."

The Moirae, Moerae or Moirai (in Greek Μοῖραι – the "apportioners", often called The Fates), in Greek mythology, were the white-robed incarnations of destiny... They controlled the metaphorical thread of life of every mortal from birth to death, and it was impossible for anyone to act over his own destiny....

Supposedly, the original lyric actually was "if the Lord allows," and "The Fates" were swapped in to make it secular... which is offensive to anyone who believes in the religion of the ancient Greeks.

If someone broke his boundaries, thus getting more than his ordained part, then he would be punished. By extension moira was one's portion or part in destiny which consisted of good and bad moments as it was predetermined by the Moirae (Fates) and it was impossible for anyone to get more than his ordained part.

Are you trying to get more than your pre-ordained allotment? If so, you will be punished. Perhaps some Americans today really do believe in that ancient dogma... without the goddess imagery to make it feel profound and scarily beautiful.

When Ariana says "simply no there there" about a white hot story about a GOP presidential candidate, that's the definition of "false Internet garbage"...

Which is what the Perry campaign called Glen Maxey's self-published book "Head Figure Head: The Search for the Hidden Life of Rick Perry":

Initially, Maxey was collaborating with a reporter ("The Journalist") for a "National News Outlet" – unidentified in the book, but outed last week by Politico as Jason Cherkis of the Huffington Post. It eventually became clear that Cherkis' story was unlikely to be published. (Despite editorial and legal clearance, Ariana Huffington spiked it, last week telling Politico's Ken Vogel, there was "simply no there there.")

The unseen Frank Lloyd Wright house.

This is how close we got to Samara when we were in West Lafayette, Indiana the other day.



This just looks closer:



But here's a delightful 10-minute video interviewing the original owner of the house in the house where he still lives:

Bill Clinton had Newt's number.

And he played him!

Clinton is the master!

"There's a very militant atheist movement that's trying to drive out vestiges of the truth."

"They're trying to deny the truth that this nation is founded on Christian principles... These people, atheists, a number of them... are bound and determined to drive away from any public place any manifestation that Americans are God-loving people... This is not fair, this is not just."

The atheists in the "War on Christmas" take up a beachhead... in Santa Monica.

"The Democratic-controlled Senate" and "the Republican-controlled House of Representatives" do that "payroll tax cut" they've been fussing over.

But I just want to talk about CNN's grammar. In an effort to avoid saying "Democrat" for "Democratic," CNN has said "Democratic" when it makes no sense. "Democratic" is only an adjective, and Democrats are annoyed when Republicans use "Democrat" as an adjective instead of "Democratic," but when you want a noun, you need to say "Democrat."

I could imagine thinking an adverb was needed with "-controlled," but then it would be "Democratically-controlled" and "Republican-controlled" would lack parallelism. But you don't use an adjective to modify an adjective, and
"-controlled" is obviously an adjective.

CNN is overcorrecting itself out of fear of lapsing into the conservative shibboleth "Democrat" for "Democratic."

ADDED: Test my point with another example, used with "-controlled": A school controlled by parents could be called a "parent-controlled" school. You wouldn't dream of calling it a "parental-controlled" school. You might consider "parentally-controlled" (and wouldn't you drop the hyphen?). "Parentally controlled school" wouldn't be grammatically wrong, but it would have the wrong meaning. It would be a school that was controlled in a parental fashion by who-knows-who, not a school controlled by parents.