• If universal health care doesn’t scare the shit out of you, just imagine if there was a public option for extinguishing fires, and rescuing kittens from tree branches! Are your panties wet with horror? [Matt Yglesias]
• Next time you play a game of Guess Who, ask this winning question: “Is your person a birther?” If your opponent says “no,” you can eliminate 58% of the Republicans, and then the only people left will be the one black lady and that bald guy with the beard. [Think Progress]
• Ancient Turd Blossom Lou Dobbs just can’t shut up about how Barack Obama was never born, so it looks like it’s time for another Bristol Scale classification! Poopy-Lou is probably a Type Two, “Like a sausage but with cracks on its surface.” [AMERICAblog]
• Nothing says “Happy Friday” like a pregnant woman getting Police-tasered at a Baptism celebration. Thanks for the memories, America! And the court-ordered therapy. [Something Awful/YouTube]
• The RedState furry convention begins TONIGHT! And who will be this evening’s keynote speaker? The famous Waterloo hero Jim “The Duke of Wellington” DeMint, who will discuss the tactical uses of dragoons and other topics concerning modern military strategy. [RedState]
• Your preposterous vocab list for the week. Pop quiz on Monday. [Paul Slansky]

Local athletics club the Washington Nationals is getting “special treatment” from DC, as the city has agreed to pay to keep the Metro running late if baseball games run late. No word yet on whether the same applies if games just feel like they’re taking forever. [DC Examiner] MORE »

Here is an image of the much-anticipated explosion on the Potomac River today that was filmed for some new teevee pilot. It was still confusing to D.C. residents even though they had been alerted beforehand, because why the fuck is a rowboat being blown up? Should be a real winner of a show, although Obama will probably just preempt it every night to read more lies off of his Tellyprompter. [Flickr]

Roll Call has confirmed through anonymous sources that U.S. Capitol Police Officer Karen Emory has been suspended from duty, although it’s unclear whether the measure is related to recent bathroom fires in congressional office buildings. A Capitol Police spokeswoman declined comment on the issue, saying “We don’t discuss personnel matters.” Emory was the reporting officer on at least one of the fires, so clearly she… umm… started all of them and wants to burn down America, office bathroom by office bathroom. [Roll Call]

A U.S. Capitol Police officer investigating the recent wave of Hill fires has been transferred for poor work performance, according to a source. The source claims that the relieved investigator was “on at least one of the fires… a half hour late to the scene.” At his new location, presumably, he will always be on time when senators are burning. [Fox News]

WTF, people? Can’t you smoke your crack at home like the rest of us, and not ditch your smoldering glass pipes in the Senate bathroom garbage? How many little bullshit fires have broken out in stairwells and bathrooms on the Hill in the last 30 days? Anyway, this morning, the matchstick man struck again. The Capitolist sent along a warning issued by the USCP: “There was a small paper fire in a men’s restroom on the Second Floor, SW corner, of the Dirksen Senate Office Building that was immediately extinguished. The building is not being evacuated, but all floors are being checked by U.S. Capitol Police personnel. All floors of the Hart SOB and Russell SOB will be checked as well.” There you have it, crackheads.

The job of a public-relations professional is to make the Client look good, and FEMA flack John “Pat” Philbin certainly pulled that off last week, when he created a “press conference” featuring some very friendly “reporters” who turned out to be his own staffers. Getting a bunch of friendly questions from the “press” is no easy task for a federal agency best known for drowning thousands of poor Americans, so it should come as no surprise that “Pat” Philbin is getting a big promotion! He’s the new director of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — that’s the new-ish umbrella spy/torture agency that now owns the CIA and NSA and all the other intel shops quickly being outsourced to corrupt GOP-friendly contractors. Congratulation, “Pat”! We all look forward to your positive-message work on the promotion of torture and murder and White House-level intelligence cover-ups.

UPDATE: Not so fast, “Pat.” ODNI has revoked the cushy job offer.

FEMA Director of External Affairs Exits Amidst PR Scandal; Lands at ODNI [PR Newser]

During the Hurricane Katrina fiasco, FEMA found out the hard way that sometimes the press just isn’t feeling very charitable towards the incompetent agency. So when they had a press conference today, the Washington Post’s Al Kamen reveals, it’s way better to just make sure the reporters can’t get there, and then to assign various staffers with make-believe roles as pretend reporters. MORE »

* We’re glad to know that Hillary gives someone a boner. [Wizbang] MORE »

People of Southern California who are on fire: Have no fear, for disaster relief (in the form of a human disaster) is on the way! Former FEMA Director Michael “Heckuva Job” “Brownie” “Abortion of a Human” Brown, the guy who hosted a Hurricane Party with fresh margs for himself during Katrina, is hopping on a jet plane to SoCal and will fix you AND your forests. Shit, he might even bring a hose! See, he’s not so incompetent when it’s white people asking for disaster relief.

Brownie, You’ve Got a Heckuva Job [WSJ via Political Machine] MORE »

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