Midday Late Afternoon Early Evening Overnight Open Thread - "Make Money Now, Ask Me How" Edition [Rajiv Vindaloo]

Yeah, yeah, it's more like the Jay Leno Show's Lead-In of Death to the Overnight Open Thread at this point. Plus I delayed posting it because of the DeLay news (how meta!). I was at an early Thanksgiving family thing, sue me. Pretend you're in California. Unless you are in California, in which case I'm sure you'd rather pretend you were anywhere else.

Wicket Misses His Friend

The Furball Far, Far Away called, said he has a message. I'm not sure what it means; I'm just the middleman.

Meanwhile, If You'd Rather Interact with Slightly Less-Sentient Life Forms

I'm quite obviously on a late-70s/early-80s kick lately. If you've looked out the window any time in the last couple years, you ought to be, too.

Besides, you may need this information tomorrow if your turkey starts giving you any lip.

After the jump, how you could actually get cash this weekend just for reading this blog. Maybe. Conditions apply. But you're tempted now, aren't you? Click ... cliiiiiiiiiick!

(There's also actual political commentary inside, too. If you're into that sort of thing.)

Got an Amex Card? Here's $25 in Free Money, if You Can Be Bothered to Get Off Your Ass Saturday

Click the link, sign up, shop on Saturday, and you get reimbursed up to $25. Easy, as long as you actually have an Amex card instead of one of those Walmart reloadable prepaid Visas like most Morons.

There's just one catch: You have to use it to make a purchase at a "small business". No chains, no franchisees. In other words, you'll have to go somewhere that charges you $7.50 for what you can get at Target for $4. And your dream of walking out of McDonald's with 23 free double cheeseburgers has just been shattered.

This means you're probably not going to be able to get free Valu-Rite Vodka out of this, either. For some strange reason, the finer small alcohol boutiques seem to turn their noses up at the stuff faster than Barack Obama in front of a plate of iceberg lettuce. Can't understand why.

The page says it's limited to the first 100,000 that sign up, but it's been saying that for over a month now and I haven't heard of anyone getting rejected.

Teams Make Basketball History, Nobody Notices

Last night's game between the Skidmore Whoozits and the Southern Vermont Socialist Menace tied the all-time record for length (huh huh huh), lasting seven overtimes. It went on for so long, in fact, that the combined number of points scored was higher than the attendance!

Though that probably would have been true even without the seven overtimes, since these are NCAA Division III teams:

D-III schools compete in athletics as a non-revenue making, extracurricular activity for students; hence, they may not offer athletic scholarships, they may not redshirt freshmen for non-medical reasons and they may not use endowments or funds whose primary purpose is to benefit their athletic programs.

Translation: These kids actually play it for fun. Which is a) boring and b) a one-way ticket to never getting an 8-figure contract and Nike shoe named after you.

Above: Fans feel the tension of last night's nail-biter.

So who won? Hell, I dunno. I already forgot.

Meanwhile, the Political Class Decides to Create Its Own Division III

Did you ever wake up one morning and find yourself thinking, "What this nation needs is more people like David Frum!"? These idiots did.

[No Label]'s goal is to start a centrist equivalent to the tea-party movement on the right and MoveOn on the left. It sees an opportunity based on the defeat of liberal Republicans in recent years and the heavy losses taken by conservative Democrats in 2010.

"I've never seen such a wide opening for a third force in American politics," says William Galston, a Brookings Institution fellow and No Labels adviser.

Really? One would think the electoral massacres of moderates in both parties would indicate there's no opening whatsoever for such a "third force".

Of course, anyone who takes a few moments to read between the lines here will immediately realize this group has no intention of straddling the fence, but instead merely intends to add some front-line cannon fodder to the west side of the field. Named as supporters in the article are such respected conservatives as Debbie Stabenow, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the guy who is not-particularly-stealthily planning to use this charade as his de facto presidential exploratory committee.

In all, the only Republican the WSJ article lists as helping to get this thing off the ground is Mark McKinnon; all the rest are Democrats. (If you feel like being nice, you can throw in Andrew Tisch as a Repub, since he at least occasionally donates to GOP candidates. But most of his donations also go to the donks. And I'm leaving out Dave Morin, ex-Facebook exec, whose ideological allegiances I couldn't quite pin down, because there's lots of Dave and David Morins out there and I got lazy.)

Prediction: They'll merge with the Coffee Party before Valentine's Day.

A Christmas Gift for the Beta Male in Your Life

Because he can always use another friend, and you'd rather it not be you. Put this little guy in the fridge, and every time you open the door, he says hi.

The best part? He only says hello to you in Japanese.

Domo origato, Mister ... ah, screw it. Close the damn door, you're letting the cold out.

Today's MOOT is brought to you by Rancho Cucamonga.

Holy shit, it's dark out there now. Writing is hard!

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Tips? That's the punchline to that old joke about circumcision, right?

posted by Open Blogger at 06:30 PM

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