Politrickin’ is my new favorite word and that Geico lizard line is just damn funny. I’d almost consider voting for the man if he really campaigned like this.

SNL has been giving Hillary a hard time for a while but this sketch takes it to a whole new level.

I love Bjork:

“Did she really just say that?”

That was the question on the lips of my fellow concertgoers at the rousing March 2 Björk show in Shanghai, after the Icelandic singer’s finale performance of the track “Declare Independence.” An impassioned, angry anthem from the recent Volta, the lyrics—“Don’t let them do that to you,” “Protect your language,” and “Raise your flag”—were given an extra charge when, while the backing brass band lulled, Björk whispered close to the microphone, “Tibet, Tibet.”

Such a direct call for Tibetan independence is a shocking gesture by a visiting artist to China, which has ruled its westernmost region since 1951. Although activists argue that Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is the rightful ruler, such discussion is taboo. Indeed, state-run media did not report on Björk’s verboten murmurings, though Chinese language message boards lit up. One typical fan, as translated by the media source, Danwei, asked, “Wow, the nerve! Where’d she get the courage to do this?”

China, as you can imagine, is not happy:

A statement by China’s Culture Ministry said Bjork’s outburst “broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people’s feelings.”

Bjork shouted “Tibet!” after a passionate performance of her song “Declare Independence” on Sunday. The outburst drew rare public attention inside China to Beijing’s often harsh rule over the Himalayan region.

The statement, posted on the Culture Ministry’s Web site, also said “there is no country that admits that Tibet is an ‘independent country.’”

Shanghaiist has a roundup of reactions.

I could almost vote for The Onion’s very NSFW Jimmy Carter:

You better get down on your hands and knees and kiss Jimmy Carter’s rosy-red Georgia-peach-picking ass and beg me to run your f*cking country again, because there’s no way I’m ever gonna come to you f*ck-knobs and politely ask you if I might please be a presidential candidate in your precious f*ckin’ election. So you can just bite my c*ck. I’ve had it with you jerkoffs and your jerkoff candidates.

The profanity gets much worse so I wouldn’t click on this link from work if I were you.

Some say O’Reilly threw a punch while others say he pushed Nicholson. Either way, it sounds like things got ugly in Nashua New Hampshire:

The incident was triggered when O’Reilly–with a Fox News crew shooting–was screaming at Obama National Trip Director Marvin Nicholson “Move” so he could get Obama’s attention, according to several eyewitnesses. “O’Reilly was yelling at him, yelling at his face,” a photographer shooting the scene said.

O’Reilly grabbed Nicholson’s arm, said “move” and shoved him, another eyewitness said. Nicholson, who is 6′8 said O”Reilly called him “low class.”

Secret Service agents came after O’Reilly pushed Nicholson and the agents flanked O’Reily.

Nicholson claims that O’Reilly shoved him several times:

An aide to Barack Obama said talk-show host Bill O’Reilly shoved him several times at the rope line after a campaign event today.

Marvin Nicholson, Obama’s trip director, said the commentator from Fox News Channel pushed him and called him “low class” after Nicholson refused to get out of the way of his cameraman’s shot.

“I’ve worked two campaigns, and I’ve never had a member of the press lay hands on a staff member before,” Nicholson said.

The Factor should be a hoot.

Update 4:47 PM CST:
Gateway Pundit has a photo of the standoff.

Update 4:30 PM CST:
Added video of an O’Reilly interview. Bill’s version is that he “gently removed” Nicholson because he was blocking the Fox camera.

Others Blogging

Firedoglake
Jonah Goldberg predicted it. Glen Reynolds nodded in sage assent. The campaign of Barack Obama will inevitably lead to violence on the campaign trail. ” I seriously think certain segments of American political life will become completely unhinged,” said Goldberg. We scoffed. And yet — it has come to pass

Crooks and Liars
SO BillO thinks he’s above the rest of the press corp and caused a violent incident. FOX calls Marvin —Obama’s body guy. The guy that is always beside Barack Obama. Is Bill O’Reilly going to be stalking any of the Republican candidates today?

Daily Kos
Funny how a big bully like Bill O’Reilly thinks of a taller guy doing his job as “low class.” To the point: Obama refuses to play O’Reilly’s rigged game, and the animosity dates back over a year.

The New York Observer describes the unusual video:

In the vid, Mr. Beck, unshaven and emotionally on edge, speaks directly to the camera for more than seven long minutes about his recent surgery (for what? it’s unclear), how it went awry, and how he was left on the brink of suicide as a result. Mr. Beck, while tearing up at times, called the weekend hospitalization “one of the darkest moments” of his life, spoke of “drug-induced” visions, and said the experience could have been a scene from the horror movie Saw.

“By Saturday night, if they would have come into the room with a handgun and said, ‘okay we can give you some more medication or we can give you this handgun, and you can go ahead and blow your brains out’ I would have honestly taken a handgun at that point and ended it,” said Mr. Beck.

I guess we’ll learn more once he gets back to work:

Well it all started out fine. How it all ended with me in the hospital for 5 days and sent home with patches they give people (I found out later) who are at ‘end of life’ for pain is a journey I would like to forget, but know I won’t anytime soon. Today, New Years Day, is the first time since Christmas that I have been able to even attempt to play with the kids so, needless to say, I am not going to make it back for broadcast this week.

We should see Glenn back on air Monday.

Others Blogging:

Hot Air
He’s always been the “eccentric” of the conservative punditocracy. This won’t do anything to change that. Poor guy; sounds like a bad acid trip with stabbing pain on top.

Gawker
We wish him a speedy recovery, obv, and are excited to see what his righteous, Raymond Chandlerian doctor-hatred will bring forth when he returns to the air. Also we are very seriously (or perhaps ghoulishly) curious as to what the hell this is all about.

John Cox, of the Cox & Forkum cartoon team (2003 Interview), has illustrated a new book that should appeal to BoW readers:

Chuck Sobietti was a seventeen-year veteran of the U.S. military. He’d seen it all - Gulf War I, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan - but nothing in his experience could prepare him for one fateful day in Iraq and its aftermath.

Part political thriller, part war story, and part “classic” action comic book, Matamoros follows one of America’s heroes in the “Long War” - an ordinary guy who discovers that only extraordinary situations exist when the enemy is a protean entity which refuses to adhere to the laws of war or the laws of civilized nations.

Written by Sleet and Darius LaMonica, and illustrated by John Cox of the Cox & Forkum political cartoon team, Matamoros is the first comic book focusing on the U.S. military’s fight against radical Islamists.

Buy the book (It’s only $3.00) and visit the Matamoros blog.

There’s something about these stupid, inconsequential stories that reveal so much about our society’s misplaced values:

An essay that won a 6-year-old girl four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert began with the powerful line: “My daddy died this year in Iraq.”

…”We did the essay and that’s what we did to win,” Priscilla Ceballos, the mother, said in an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW. “We did whatever we could do to win.”

She had identified the soldier as Sgt. Jonathon Menjivar, but the Department of Defense has no record of anyone with that name dying in Iraq. Caulfield said the mother has admitted to the deception.

Priscilla Ceballos is saying that she never claimed the essay was true:

“When [contest organizer Robin Caulfield] asked me if this [essay] was true, I told her no,” Ceballos said. “We never said this was a true story. We do essays all the time. My daughter does essays at school all the time. It never did say it had to be true, but [Robin] said, ‘That’s what we expected.’”

I guess it never said the author had to show good taste, judgment, parenting skills, or proper respect for the fallen either. The bottom line via Scared Monkeys:

THEY DO NOT DIE SO THAT 6 YEAR OLDS CAN WIN HANNA MONTANA TICKETS!!!

Exactly.

Now perhaps the most beloved American film, It’s a Wonderful Life was largely forgotten for years, due to a copyright quirk. Only in the late 1970s did it find its audience through repeated TV showings. Frank Capra’s masterwork deserves its status as a feel-good communal event, but it is also one of the most fascinating films in the American cinema, a multilayered work of Dickensian density. George Bailey (played superbly by James Stewart) grows up in the small town of Bedford Falls, dreaming dreams of adventure and travel, but circumstances conspire to keep him enslaved to his home turf. Frustrated by his life, and haunted by an impending scandal, George prepares to commit suicide on Christmas Eve. A heavenly messenger (Henry Travers) arrives to show him a vision: what the world would have been like if George had never been born. The sequence is a vivid depiction of the American Dream gone bad, and probably the wildest thing Capra ever shot (the director’s optimistic vision may have darkened during his experiences making military films in World War II). Capra’s triumph is to acknowledge the difficulties and disappointments of life, while affirming–in the teary-eyed final reel–his cherished values of friendship and individual achievement. It’s a Wonderful Life was not a big hit on its initial release, and it won no Oscars (Capra and Stewart were nominated); but it continues to weave a special magic. — Robert Horton

The video is gross but very cool. I’m just getting over a bug, and I’m still a little queasy, so watching this wasn’t easy. Bear Grylls really earns his pay.