Friday Update - Senseless Edition

(The Boy wants me to take him to the new Bat Man, er, Dark Knight movie this weekend, and I wasn't too enthused right off the, ah, bat, because everybody and his cousin will be going this weekend, and I really don't like crowds.  But then I heard something so wonderfully bizarre that now I have to see this movie.  It seems the villain's name in the movie is "Bane."  And this bad guy is a real bad ass bad guy.  The wonderful thing about all this is that Rush Limbaugh is rupturing veins in his pudgy little face, full of righteous rage over the fact that the Hollywood elite is out to get Mitt Romney.  Get it? "Bane," Bain, as in Bain Capital?  What a putz.  But I digress ...)

• Well, the country has sadly had to face another senseless shooting this morning.  Some douchebag went into a crowded movie theater (unfortunately during a showing of "Dark Knight") in Aurora, Colorado and started shooting, killing 12 people.  And of course politicians have to respond to stuff like this, to calm the worried populace.  I particularly love the way the Right interprets the causes of this madness.  After the Columbine shooting, Tom DeLay blamed it on science textbooks that teach evolution.  After the Virginia Tech massacre, Newt Gingrich blamed it on Halloween costumes, among other things.  And now Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said Friday that the shootings that took place in an Aurora, Colo. movie theater hours earlier were a result of "ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs" and questioned why nobody else in the theater had a gun to take down the shooter.  Break out the tin foil hats.
• Do you realize that Glenn Beck has a radio show and is still on the air?  Wow, ain't that America?  On Beck's Thursday show, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Lunatic) started spitting and oozing Islamaphobic attacks against a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying  that Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Beck got all foamy at the mouth and one-upped her by accusing Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), one of two Muslim Representatives in Congress, of being a "mafia hitman."  Good to know that utter insanity is alive and well on the airwaves. Even the OrangeMan is aghast.
• Funny law news:  George Zimmerman says it was "God's Plan" for him to shoot and kill Trayvon Martin.  God is expected to be called to testify in the defendant's behalf during the upcoming trial.
• I ordered a book from Amazon.com the other day, and the UPS guy knocked on my door the very next day with my book.  It was incredible.  How do they do that?  Well, it seems it's just going to get better.  Amazon has plans for same-day delivery of anything and everything you need.  Retirement heaven!  We'll never have to leave the house again!  Mark Morford reports.
• John McCain said the other day that he didn't pick Mitt Romney for his running mate in 2008 "because Sarah Palin was the better candidate."  Well heck, I guess that says it all.