Or something like that. Anyway, everyone’s real upset over the (quickly fading) neon-green Spring Street bike lane that runs past L.A.’s City Hall, because it… impedes the film industry’s ability to mimic Real America. If only other cities had enormous financial incentives to lure TV and movie production outside of L.A.!

Meet Stella, the very handsome rescue cat! Stella is adventurous and outdoorsey. But she is not a fan of jogging, and so her owner was ticketed this week “on suspicion of tethering his cat to a rock after the pet refused to go jogging with him.” Cats. What can you do.

Ask for something stupid, get something stupid. STUPID MOON. YOU’RE WELCOME TO IT.

From policy advisers to campaign strategists, more than two dozen veterans of the Bush administration have flocked to Romney’s campaign…. Romney’s chief political strategists, Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens, are veterans of both Bush-Cheney campaigns. Romney campaign adviser Kevin Madden was a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney effort in 2004, then was a spokesman for Bush’s Justice Department….. Romney has named 24 “special advisers” in national security and foreign policy, 16 of whom served in diplomatic or political roles under Bush…. On judicial issues, Romney is advised by at least three top veterans of Bush’s Justice Department. Romney’s education advisers include Margaret Spellings.

— It’s almost like everyone’s trying to collect a paycheck and stay fresh while waiting out an unwinnable year.

“If you’re taking a special cake knife to cut the cake, please ship it or put it in your checked bag. Wired bouquets are allowed through the checkpoint, along with rice, birdseed, sand and candy coated almonds.”
 — Enjoy your last pat-down as a single lady!

If you’re one of the ten people on the Internet who haven’t read the new Wired cover story that went online last night, you probably should join the rest. It describes how, beginning in 2001, when warrantless wiretapping by the NSA began, they started with recording “320 million calls a day.” Which we began to learn about in 2005. Oh, do you already feel bad about the way the materials for your iPhone are gathered? Well, feel worse! Because AT&T; provides the government secret access to your billing records. (So does Verizon.) And now the government is building the computing and storage infrastructure to really start analyzing and keeping all of the phone calls and emails ever. I think they usually say “this ends badly”?

As we settle into the long, cold, dark days that come with the final slog through winter, we — your pals from The Awl and The Hairpin — will be bringing you some of our favorite casserole recipes (and crockery recommendations). But these won’t be just any old casseroles! No, no, that won’t do at all. These are fancy casseroles — or at least, not-gross ones.

Ave and happy Ides of March! If you haven’t been too busy being ware today, perhaps you might be interested in making a thematic vegetarian casserole or side dish to celebrate one of the more thrilling days of the calendar? What do you mean you’re not thrilled by the Ides of March?? Are you… defective in some way?

As a longtime Ides enthusiast — I once translated “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” into Latin for an Ides of March dinner party I hosted — it’s my pleasure to bring to you a recipe for this Roman Bean Casserole, which is just what Asclepiades would have ordered if she could have. It’s essentially a fancied-up version of baked beans and boy oh boy oh boy are they ever good! I serve them as a side dish with BBQ and vinegar greens, but you could certainly add some meat into the mix to create a one-dish supper (sliced sausage would be tasty, if I may make a suggestion). Friends, Roman Beans, Countrymen… lend me your casseroles, and let’s do this!

The first thing to do is to drain and rinse three 15 oz cans of Roman beans. You absolutely can use dried beans that you’ve reconstituted (constituted?) for this if you’re a person who prefers to do such things. I myself cannot ever seem to make dry beans work out for me and so I stick with cans, but perhaps you have the magical fruit touch! In which case, be my guest. You’ll need 1 pound of dried beans to equal three 15 oz cans.

Then you’ll want to mix up a fine sauce to pour over these beans of Roman origin. First the wettish things:

1 clove of garlic, crushed or finely minced
1 small yellow onion, diced
¼ cup molasses
2 tablespoons brown sugar*
¼ cup pomegranate molasses (apple cider vinegar is the normal person’s substitute for this, but we’re not normal people, now are we? No, we are not. We are people who make thematic bean dishes on the Ides of March. Pomegranates, by the by, are very Roman.)
¾ cup vegetable broth, either from the store or your freezer
4 tablespoons — or about half a 6 oz can — tomato paste
Tabasco, a couple’a good shots

* If you opt to use the pomegranate molasses, you might want to consider cutting the brown sugar by half. You might not though! It’s really up to you to decide if you want things a little or a less sweeter.

Then to the wettish things you’ll stir in some dryish stuff:

1 teaspoon mustard powder
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon thyme

The combination of the pomegranate molasses, smoked paprika and thyme are what, in my opinion, make this dish so special. You still get all the sweet awesomeness of traditional baked beans but with a little something that makes it sophisticated, and therefore fancy. Which is what we’re aiming for here. Fancy. And thematic.

Put the beans in a lidded casserole dish, then pour the sauce over them, stirring well to combine. Cover and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. If baked beans are too saucy, bake uncovered for another 15 minutes.

Jolie Kerr should be stabbed 33 times for this nonsense.

“When ‘Hunger Games’ heroine Katniss Everdeen appears before a cheering crowd in a cape and headdress wreathed by flames, she earns the lasting nickname of the ‘girl on fire.’ But any ordinary person hoping to achieve such a fiery fashion statement without risking burns will have to wait for today’s clothing to catch up with tomorrow’s technologies.”

“I might have used a different word than ‘liquidation’ to describe what’s being done to the UAW and the American working class. Maybe ‘emasculation’ is more to the point.”
 — Oh good, Harper’s money-daddy Rick MacArthur is writing for free on the Internet again. (Previously.)

Because why not, here are two Tesla coils covering Lynyrd Skynyrd’s classic rock standard. Will the two Tesla coils remain together as a musical duo, or will one decide to experience the larger acclaim of solo stardom while the other descends into a harrowing maelstrom of addiction and debauchery? Only time will tell. [Via]