Here are scenes from the protests yesterday against an aging dictator who is stubbornly clinging to power despite his people’s yearning to be free — okay, the analogy is pretty facile. Still: “Hundreds of thousands of women gathered in cities across Italy yesterday to protest at Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s incorrigible sexism and in particular his fondness, in the words of his estranged wife, for consorting with minors — a penchant that may see him charged with sex-related offences in the coming week. Some of the protesters, who were demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation, carried banners that said: ‘Italy is not a brothel.’”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9oVf1arcyE

Sorry, what’s that? Unfortunately, our friend on the air was taken to the hospital for tests after this incident. The news is muddled on this — if it’s simply misspeaking, it’s very funny. If it’s actually a medical incident? That’s horrible.

Liberal Media Writes Valentine To Obama

Man, the Wall Street Journal is totally going soft on the president. If we can’t expect the nation’s most duplicitous editorial section to warn us of the dangers of our Kenyan socialist secret Muslismist leader, who will tell the people the truth? Oh, right, Fox News and stuff.

• Thing to get: a cast iron skillet

• Thing to ponder: gay panic and The Mechanic

• Thing to enjoy: the Wikileaks Fashion Cables

• Thing to learn: how to play the harmonica

• Thing to catch up on: the Egyptian revolution

• Thing to not deliberately misinterpret for your own advantage: the Bible

• Thing to pity: Doritos addiction

• Thing to avoid doing no matter how badly you want to, because even though it sounds pretty cool it is a VERY BAD IDEA: jump the baggage carousel at JFK

Photo by Orangeadnan, from Flickr.

“Mild-mannered male squid turn into furious fighting machines when their tentacles brush a chemical on the surface of squid eggs, a finding that could give insights into how aggression works.”
 — If you’ve ever wondered how or why the guys in Cool Hand Luke somehow turned eating eggs into the ultimate challenge of competitive machismo (I have always marveled — it’s so great!), a recent study of squid behavior may point to an answer. Eggs. They tap into some deep Iron John

type stuff.

Just hit play on both at the same time. But hey, remember that time that there was a new Lady Gaga video and I almost couldn’t even get a blog post out of it? It was a big pile of meh. Bet I’d feel different if I were 15. Anyway, there’s an exclusive deal with Target where you can get it for free, if you don’t mind doing business with people who fund Michele Bachmann. (I do!)

Even if it didn’t feel like the Fridayest Friday we’ve faced in some time, I would still probably put up this video of the bears of Katmai, Alaska, because, you know, bears. But also? OH MY GOD WHAT A FRIDAY. It’s like, if we don’t keep moving, we will somehow be dragged back into Thursday. Anyway, this video is pretty good, actually. But be sure to turn off the sound, because it is set to some kind of new-agey folk crap that will make you want to kill anyone who plays acoustic guitar and whoever is currently performing as Mannheim Steamroller. Chin up, kids, we’ll make it to the weekend yet.

You know, with the redesign of any web property comes reader outrage, anger, threats of leaving and even some actual leaving. That’s normal! Sometimes it’s effective in shifting an audience, or getting a new one. Sometimes it’s good for the community to have its say, and work it out on its own. But the comments on this Gawker post are not, I don’t think, par for the course for a website after a redesign.

Egypt: “The army also assured the ‘honourable’ protesters that they won’t be persecuted by the army when the crisis is over.”

Los Angeles: “City Atty. Carmen Trutanich is throwing the book at dozens of people arrested during recent political demonstrations…. Some of the activists arrested, including eight college students and one military veteran who took part in a Westwood rally last year in support of the DREAM Act, face up to one year in county jail.” (via)

Dear Scientists,

“A teenage wrong-way driver was killed when his car crashed into a truck loaded with highly-flammable margarine…. ‘Basically, margarine is oil and it burns quite well,’ Mark McKinnon, Georgia Department of Transportation spokesman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.”

Huh! Talk to us about this “highly-flammable” spread, in words of science! (via)