NASA announced yesterday that astronaut Mark Kelly will launch into space in 2015 to begin a one-year stint at the International Space Station. The mission will be the longest in history for an American. The space agency explained that it would take that long to beg another nation to give Kelly a ride home.
Time Magazine released its nominees for the 2012 Person of the Year. The list includes Aung San Suu Kyi, who assumed her seat in the Burmese House of Representatives this year after enduring 15 years of house arrest for her opposition to the military dictatorship in that country. Also nominated was Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who survived a bullet to the head from Taliban insurgents angered by her advocacy of education for girls. Ms Suu Kyi and Ms. Yousafzai face stiff competition, however: nominee Sandra Fluke had to contend with being called names by Rush Limbaugh because of her advocacy of forcing someone else to pay for her birth control pills.
UN Ambassador and potential Secretary of State nominee Susan Rice met with Senators this morning to answer questions about her role in the aftermath of the September 11 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. When asked why it took so long to schedule this meeting, Ms. Rice said she was waiting for the White House to furnish her talking points.
Following the meeting, South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham said, “I am more disturbed now than before,” to which a White House spokesperson responded, “You certainly are.”
The Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence rose in November to its most optimistic level since February 2008. In an unrelated story, a recently published SEC
Study Regarding Financial Literacy concluded that Americans “do not understand the most elementary financial concepts.”
Angus T. Jones, the actor who plays the “half” in Two and a Half Men, said on a video produced by the Forerunner Christian Church that the show is “filth” and that viewers should stop watching. Jones first suspected the show was not entirely wholesome when, during the most recent episode, double entendres about vagina sizes, penises, the clitoris, and cunnilingus occurred – all in the first 50 seconds.
Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi issued a decree last week, expanding his powers by declaring his actions immune from judicial review. “This edict is absolutely essential to ensure the courts don’t interfere with administration policy,” Morsi explained. “Unlike President Obama, I can’t count on John Roberts.”
Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, resulting in violent clashes. I didn’t know they had Black Friday in Egypt.
Bunker Hill Community College, a public institution in Charlestown, MA, displayed a painting depicting President Obama as a crucified Jesus Christ. The exhibit is groundbreaking because, for the first time on record, liberals approved of a religious display on government property.
The White House released a statement yesterday, timed to coincide with cyber-Monday, threatening that failure by Congress to act on President Obama’s tax proposal could ruin the Christmas shopping season – or, as the White House called it, the non-denominational, multiethnic, gender-neutral, environmentally-friendly pre-winter solstice capitalist exploitation season.
Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com.
