In which you and I get to pay for something that’s “free.” Again.

While Emily of course questions the timing of this new Newt Gingrich revelation, there’s a greater mystery to be solved:

The real question here, though, is how a man who looks to be made of Legos kept (or keeps, for all we know) managing to convince women to have sex with him. I know power is supposed to be sexy, but let’s face it, power is not sexy enough to make up for Newt Gingrich. Nothing is. Not even the mental image of Daniel Craig shirtless on a pile of chocolate cake. The man has jowls. By all account, he has Princess Leia chained up in a metal bikini behind his desk. He probably has remnants of last night’s dinner trapped in his neck folds. Ladies, why?

Compare to, say, Matthew Jerome’s observation last spring:

Right now, in a Republican primary, Newt has all the sex appeal of a school bus fire.

Gingrich is a mere ten years older than I am, which gives me either hope or nausea. Not that there’s much difference between the two, really.

We’ve got some serious generation gap (a phrase that probably should have died in the 1960s) in play these days. First, Emily on her fellow Millenials:

My generation isn’t particularly easy to please. We’re cynical assholes with a penchant for aggrandizement and an inability to recognize the difference between global citizenship and self-promotion (no, read that. It’s amazing). Which might be part of the reason that the first Millennial to rise to power on Earth is a sociopathic 28-year-old North Korean dictator with his father’s fashion sense and nuclear capabilities.

Not that my demographic cohort is all that damned wonderful:

What the Boomers as a generation missed (there were, of course and thankfully, many honorable individual exceptions) was the core set of values that every generation must discover to make a successful transition to real adulthood: maturity. Collectively the Boomers continued to follow ideals they associated with youth and individualism: fulfillment and “creativity” rather than endurance and commitment. Boomer spouses dropped families because relationships with spouses or children or mortgage payments no longer “fulfilled” them; Boomer society tolerated the most selfish and immature behavior in its public and cultural leaders out of the classically youthful and immature belief that intolerance and hypocrisy are greater sins than the dereliction of duty. That the greatest and most effective political leader the Baby Boom produced was William Jefferson Clinton tells you all you need to know.

“Mea culpa,” said the narrator, admitting to having helped the Big He into the White House.

All we need now is a Gen X representative to denounce both upper and lower slices of the sandwich. Then again, obsessive media hand-wringing notwithstanding, I suspect none of this really qualifies as “news,” that inter-generational resentment likely has existed as long as man has had generations; there’s got to be a centenarian out there somewhere who’s still bitter because his grandparents were somehow complicit in the Panic of 1873.

It gets harder, so to speak, to defend Medicare when stuff like this is going on:

According to data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Medicare has spent more than $240 million of taxpayer money on penis pumps for elderly men over the past decade, and will surpass a quarter of a billion dollars this year for costs since 2001.

The cost to taxpayers for the pumps more than quadrupled during that period, from a low of $11 million in 2001 to a high of more than $47 million in 2010. And these represent only the costs for external devices, technically classified as “Male Vacuum Erection Systems,” not implantable devices or oral drugs.

Of course, if you’re a judge, you can afford your own.

Approximately half the population can’t ever qualify for this sort of thing for the obvious biological reason. (Actually, more than that, since women tend to live longer than men.) Me, I’m inclined to agree with this woman:

Our government, which couldn’t find a single taxpayer funded program we couldn’t live without, subsequently cut a huge check to a bunch of dudes who feel their penises are too small. Dudes on Medicare. Because, goddam it, if they aren’t entitled to giant junk just for paying into the system for fifty years. But don’t touch the program because, if you do, seniors are going to be thrown off cliffs in droves or something.

I suppose they can always trot out a poster geezer for erectile dysfunction, the sort of guy who’d threaten to throw himself off a cliff if he couldn’t stand at attention. I wish him a nice trip.

The lovely and talented Emily from Naked DC analyzes this whole Herman Cain kerfuffle:

This is all kinds of super lame. Unless there’s a sex toy or an intern or a cigar or, for that matter, like thirty women he’s been hanging around with privately on the campaign trail, this really isn’t going to matter. Plus, it’s not like anyone was under the impression Herman Cain was making it to the big leagues, anyway. It doesn’t really make sense to keep hammering at this story unless someone’s really trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Justin Bieber is having a better day in terms of sex scandals.

Incidentally, she’s not about to blame Democrats for this:

The lack of creativity and innovation in these accusations leads me to believe we’re definitely dealing with a GOP inside job. Liberals always get way better stuff, like that time you were trolling Chuck E. Cheese in a tiger costume holding a bottle of Maker’s Mark, not that time you got a little too close to your secretary and threatened to get all crazy.

Not to mention the fact that I’ve never had a secretary, but let’s not mention that fact.

Neiman’s is selling this lovely little Diane von Furstenberg wrapsie from DvF’s Fall 2011 collection:

If your immediate thought is “Didn’t I just see this on the First Lady?” you’re thinking along the same lines as I am, but apparently we’re both wrong:

To be precise:

The dress that the First Lady is wearing isn’t actually an original Diane von Furstenberg at all. It’s this knock-off of this particular DvF dress made by internet retailer ASOS — the ASOS Midi Body-Conscious Dress in Metallic Stripe, priced at a budget-conscious $71.88 (though it’s currently sold out).

This is normally where my Cheap Bastard mechanism kicks in, and I point out that Mrs O saved four hundred American dollars by buying the fake. Which is true, but that’s not the point. This is:

It’s the fact that it’s a knockoff of DvF, a well-known and well-respected American designer, that’s really the problem. You see, Diane is the President of Council of Fashion Designers of America, and has used her position to champion design protection for designers who have been victims of copyright infringement, such as this ASOS knock-off of her own design. She has been instrumental in supporting legislation that would define fashion as a form of copyright-protected art and give recourse to designers whose work is stolen, copied and sold for cheap. She’s even written extensively on the subject for major American newspapers.

Then again, if you look at the back of the DvF original — see the Neiman’s link — it’s really hard to spot the stab marks.

Pizza, you say? Forget about it. Herman Cain’s strength is cornbread:

I’m starting to like Herman Cain more and more, not because I’m in ardent agreement with any of his policies, but because every time the man opens his mouth, entire public university American Studies departments melt down. Only Herman Cain has the capacity to put an entire segment of the journalist population on heavy anti-depressive medications. Only Herman Cain can re-purpose the Democrats’ own race-baiting language to serve his needs.

With the exception of the need for a running mate:

If Michele Bachmann had held off the voices in her head for two more months, they could have run on the same ticket and then everyone in America who identifies as a “progressive” would be stockpiling canned food and rubber pellet guns and preparing for the apocalypse.

Incidentally, before you ask, I would just as soon not have sugar added to my cornbread. But that’s just me.

“He’s got the hair, she’s got the shoes,” points out E. M. Zanotti in suggesting a Palin/Trump ticket:

The 2012 GOP field is full of people who we aren’t sure have met civilization yet. A number of them have names more typically found in Harry Potter books. Only one of them spent his high school years in a Dungeons & Dragons themed rock band where he played keyboards inside of a giant cocoon. The worst thing that could happen is that any of them would win the nomination. At this point, the GOP could nominate a tuna melt and it would have as good if not better chance of beating Barack Obama. So I say, why not nominate Sarah Palin and Donald Trump? At least the campaign would be entertaining.

Just think: crazy accents, giant hair (the blow drying bill for that ticket would be astounding), they’d be mostly self-funded, and together, they could drive even the most even-tempered person insane. It can’t really get better.

I’m guessing this isn’t the tuna melt in question.

The Little Village Academy on the west side of Chicago no longer allows students to bring their own lunches: you eat what they serve, or you do without. E. M. Zanotti finds this curious at best:

This is problematic for a number of reasons, least of which is probably that a one-size-fits all government brainchild is destined to fail at solving a complicated problem. Anyone who’s ever met a kid knows that kids are weird. It’s a full time job, sometimes, for parents, to figure out how to ensure a child gets necessary nutrition while skirting a number of irrational food phobias. My brother once ate nothing but baked potatoes for six months.

And there’s precedent for that failure, too:

The King of replacing school lunches with healthy food, TV chef Jamie Oliver, has seen his health-i-fying plans meet with disaster. Oliver, who claimed to change the eating habits of an entire British town by forcing the local elementary school to adopt a million-dollar school lunch program, actually managed to ensure students received higher-calorie, higher-fat meals than before (most of which were worse than McDonald’s Happy Meals), and having a heavily negative impact on students scores, especially among low-income students. Turns out when kids didn’t like the food they received, they didn’t eat it.

Finding audio to accompany this story was a (probably forbidden) piece of cake. From the Conception Corporation’s infamous “Rock and Roll Classroom,” a 24-second ad [mp3, 567kb] touting the wonders of the school’s in-house eatery; you’ll hear the title of this piece therein.

Emily Zanotti, noting the addition of Roland Burris to the list of candidates for Mayor of Chicago:

At some point, there will be more candidates on the ballot for this race than there will be actual people eligible to vote in the election.

What, are the cemeteries empty? Chicago never runs short of voters.

One of these days I’m going to have to come up with a “Why We Love E. M. Zanotti” category. This time, she cracks wise on a Next Mayor of Chicago poll in which Rahm Emanuel is the front-runner. Pointing to a Chicago Tribune reference to Emanuel’s days as a ballet dancer, she declares:

If you have a picture of him in tights, I’ll trade you a dozen cupcakes for it. It’s a good deal. I make f***ing awesome cupcakes.

Judging by the subsequent update to her post, I’m guessing she spent part of last night baking.

No one seems to know why Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele is looking for meetings with foreign diplomats. When I first read about this, I assumed it was an extension of the Peter Principle:

Peter suggests that a manager who finds himself saddled with an incompetent employee has the ability to get rid of that employee without firing him. Peter suggests a lateral arabesque, or giving an incompetent employee a longer title with less responsibility. This way the employee still feels important, but is kept away from the flammable material, so to speak.

On the other hand, Steele is the chairman; how likely is it that he’d pass this judgment upon himself?

So there has to be something else at work here. In the absence of a better explanation, I’m going with E. M. Zanotti’s take:

[F]oreign dignitaries and diplomats can’t vote and definitely can’t give money to American elections. Steele should at least know that, considering my mom used to receive direct mail from the RNC during the Clinton years showing Al Gore surreptitiously taking game show checks from monks in China. Unless Steele’s planning on honing his connections so that once he takes over as President the transition is smooth (or, worse, trying to confuse the sh*t out of people who don’t speak English), we’ve got an unnecessary waste of funds here. Or, of course, he could just be forming up the Justice League.

Typical DC-centric approach. Where are the Avengers when we need them?

Everybody’s gonna want to move:

Illinois, which is in its worst financial position ever, will raise the income-tax rate in January to address its deficit, Governor Pat Quinn’s budget director said.

Lawmakers will likely increase the personal tax to 5 percent from 3 percent, generating $6 billion of new revenue, the budget director, David Vaught, said in an interview.

This will probably be billed as a two-percent increase. It isn’t.

Perhaps they can blame this on Deficit Inattention Disorder:

The legislature failed to address the deficit this year because of the pending November election, [Vaught] said.

Obviously they have their priorities in order.

(Via E. M. Zanotti.)

Finally, what I’ve been waiting for all summer: commentary on the tanning tax, from E. M. Zanotti:

[A]side from the fact that I, too, oppose the tanning tax — though on an admittedly principled basis only (my legs could blind someone) — last I heard the sun was still a free source of healthy, skin-frying UV rays and will prove just as much of an efficient vehicle to skin cancer.

On the other hand, I’d be most amused if someone managed to get this thing zapped by reason of disparate impact.

E. M. Zanotti is talking here about Levi Johnston, but I figure there are scores, perhaps hundreds, of people fitting this particular description:

Americans must stand up for their right to NOT have to deal with every talentless attention whore trying to get rich and famous by marketing their weird lives for public consumption unless they promise to fight it out on the Springer stage.

I figure, though, the best we’re likely to get is a WGAS button on Facebook.

Evanston, Illinois is not having any of that “pants on the ground” crap:

Wearers of saggy pants that dip too low could be in violation of city decency standards under an ordinance that moved forward in Evanston Monday night.

Members of Evanston’s Human Services Committee voted in favor of a redefinition of public nudity. Under the proposed ordinance, nudity would be defined as “the showing of the human male or female genitals, pubic areas or buttocks, or female breasts with less than a full opaque covering of any portion thereof below the top of the nipple.” Women breast-feeding in public are exempt from the definition.

The way this looks to me, your pants can sag as much as you (or they) please so long as you don’t expose any of the verboten skin areas.

E. M. Zanotti, who does not live in Evanston, comments:

What’s slightly more interesting about this proposal is the discussion that ensued in the meeting, excerpts from which include the fact that this is designed to “prevent the long-term health effects” of nudity, none of which I can think of immediately other than a particularly embarrassing sun burn, and Alderman Jane Grover, who looks like your mom, is a dedicated bikini wearer. Just so you’re aware, a bikini “covers all the right parts.”

Well, not my mom. Still, this seems inarguable:

Knowing that your pants could fall down at any time and reveal your lack of an ass to the world in the middle of a major intersection should be punishment enough.

On the upside, there’d be no chance of getting kicked by Barack Obama.

“Silverfin,” you may remember, was proposed as an alternate name for the Asian carp, a species deemed both invasive (by scientists) and tasty (by marketers).

Well, even without that particular brand, it’s getting an airing in one tony Chicago eatery:

The Palmer House chef is turning carpe diem into carp dine-in, turning today’s Great Lakes crisis into tomorrow’s plat du jour.

For the last two weeks, [Phillip] Foss has been serving the fish as a no-risk, complimentary appetizer. Starting this week, he’s asking people to pay for it; his appetizer-size “daily preparation” of Asian carp costs $12.

The ever-tasteful E. M. Zanotti expounds:

It turns out, Asian carp are way tastier than their American counterparts, because American carp eat the crap that’s settled at the bottom of their watery home, Asian carp have nearly no PCB contamination since they don’t eat other fish, and they are definitely sustainable because they’re a parasite species — meaning, of course, that they have a zombie-like commitment to infestation, resistant to your best efforts to kill and/or maim them. And people in Canada and Europe eat it, and they’re more sophisticated than us. Plus, it’s pricey. And if there’s anything that will convince douchey West Loop diners that what they’re eating is special, it’s the price tag.

So what are we waiting for? Heck, we eat tons of “Tilapia,” which is a bottom feeder. That means that, in addition to other food, Tilapia eat other fish’s poop. Sure, not all of the Tilapia you buy in restaurants and at the market subsisted on a steady diet of waste matter — and, to be honest, that’s probably nothing compared to what your more highly sentient, industrially-farmed food animals eat — but, the point is, if you can market a poop-eating fish like Tilapia as tasty, healthy and sustainable — all of which it actually is — into being the fifth most heavily consumed sea product in the country, you can work the same magic with the creepy Asian carp.

Chef Foss thinks “Shanghai bass” might be a good alternate name for this fish. I’m thinking “lolcatfish.”

There’s a zombie on your lawn, and the nearest sunflower is somewhere in deepest Kansas. What steps do you take?

Answer: Doesn’t matter, so long as you’re wearing these:

These are the Psychobilly “Zombie Stomper” platforms from Iron Fist, which despite their meaty appearance are described as “vegan.” (Must be the rather green, um, fleshtones.) Cheap and silly, not necessarily in that order; I would love to see E. M. Zanotti in these.

Let’s see. I can sit here in the darkness and congratulate myself for my moral superiority for a whole sixty minutes, totally overlooking the fact that there are untold millions who would consider themselves fortunate to have lights at that hour of the night, or I can blow off the whole deal and speculate as to the motives of the proponents.

Easy choice, really, and this Facebook update from E. M. Zanotti makes it even clearer:

Telling a major city to go dark during Earth Hour is probably not the best idea, Chicago. Have you SEEN that Batman movie? Don’t you KNOW what happens?

And the Bat-Signal, after all, is a light against a dark sky. Not exactly Q.E.D., but close enough.

As part of her ChicagoNow debut, E. M. Zanotti asserts “I once had my boobs ogled by John McCain,” and provides what she describes as “photographic semi-evidence”:

Oh, he was looking, all right. Guaran-damn-teed, as we used to say. Consider this video capture, previously seen here:

At least the man has some redeeming social value.