The line is open. Closing out:
* DEATH PANEL MYTH WON'T DIE: Great article. Of course. The more you tell the wackjobs "death panels" aren't part of Obamacare, the more they take it as proof they must exist. That being said: Of course we need more counseling about end-of-life care and a reduction in the inordinate amount of health care spending devoted to those final days. Call me a death paneler if you wish.
* NATIONAL CATHEDRAL TO HOLD SAME-SEX WEDDINGS: News when this prominent church joins the parade for human rights, even if same-sex marriage is legal in Washington, D.C. From the New York Times:
The cathedral’s dean, the Very Rev. Gary Hall, said, “We have a lot of gay and lesbian Christians. What the National Cathedral is saying by doing this is we want to give faithful lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender people the same tools for living their lives faithfully that straight people have always had, and marriage is one of those tools. This comes out of even more of a theological understanding, for me, than it does out of a political agenda.”
PS — A gay Latino will be the Obama inaugural poet.
* KA-CHING NO MORE: Benton cops bust five businesses for operating illegal slot machines. Maybe if they called them electronic games of skill ......?
* WLFITU: That is an acronym for Worst Life Form In The Universe, dreamed up by Charles Pierce, a gifted funny man who blogs on politics at Esquire.
The year is only a week or so old, and already there have been some impressive scrambles for the exalted title of WLFITU, but most of them, remarkably, have produced a clear winner. So take a bow, newly sworn Congressman Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who may already have locked up Rookie Of The Year. Seriously, in the WLFITU standings, this guy is Andrew Luck.
Saddam involved in 9/11; lady parts are combat disqualfication; no relief for hurricane victims. Yep, that's a heckuva an opening week. Pierce kindly includes a link to us in his roundup.