Nice:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

Your free press hard at work. Meanwhile, Dana Milbank is still whining about the Internets asking questions.

Via TPM:

Despite lots of recent evidence to the contrary (see, e.g., Michelle Bachmann and Norm Coleman), I cling to the idea of Minnesota as a place that produces good politicians in a climate of genuine decency.  I’ve got high hopes for Franken.  Very.

In William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition, there’s an online community formed around mysteriously found video (the Footage), which was being released in bits and pieces online.  I always wondered if there were real world examples of that – and it turns out, yes:

If there is no known footage of [early 20th century dancer Vaslav Nijinsky], where was this archival footage coming from? From the New Yorker article:

“Because it turns out, these aren’t films. They are computer-generated artifacts, made by Christian Comte, a French artist who has a studio in Cannes.

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You’ve seen this, right?  Fox sure does “accidentally” turn a lot of Republicans into Democrats at the most opportune times.

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Best movie review I’ve read in a long time.  Ever, perhaps.

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Astana’s Chris Horner won’t be at the Tour de France this year, and he plainly explains why.

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Few quicker ways to piss off a cop (and find yourself in manufactured trouble) than to ask for his badge number.  Funny, that.

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I understand why they blurred out “fucktaco”, but “ballsack”?  Really?  In any event, I must be 12, because I found the whole thing quite amusing.

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Health insurers defrauding their clients?  Well I never . . .

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) gets on the Big Brother/REAL ID bandwagon:

I’m sure the civil libertarians will object to some kind of biometric card — although … there’ll be all kinds of protections — but we’re going to have to do it. It’s the only way.

As Lauren Weinstein puts it:

Isn’t that last sentence what Darth Vader said to Luke when trying to get his son to join him, just after revealing his relationship?

Here we go again. At least in regards to certain topics, when it comes to Congress, it’s:

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!

Sometimes – too often – it is. And this Democrat is tired of it.

could just as easily have been the US’s “Freedom Filter”. And may yet be, if you keep thinking of the children.

More about China’s “Green Dam”.

Yes, I understand that I’m late to the game, but this is just too good to not share:

Not Maher’s biggest fan here, but he absolutely nails it, starting two minutes in:

“Democrats are the new Republicans.” Indeed.

The only time I’ve ever seen something close to this in DC was when they lit up the National Cathedral a couple of years ago – and people came out in droves. I’d love to see some artists make a go of it, here. We’re not exactly lacking in suitable surfaces . . .