It’s Tuesday and it still feels like spring. I think I’m starting to get used to this weather. So, are we ready for an open thread?
P.T. Barnum said there’s a sucker born every minute and I guess he’s right about that:
Instead, two glass vials purportedly containing the ghosts of two dead people sold for $1,983 at an auction that ended Monday night.
The “ghosts” were put up for bidding by Avie Woodbury from the southern city of Christchurch [New Zealand]. She said they were captured in her house and stored in glass vials with stoppers and dipped in holy water, which she says “dulls the spirits’ energy.”
She said they were the spirits of an old man who lived in the house during the 1920s, and a powerful, disruptive little girl who turned up after a session with a spirit-calling Ouija board. Since an exorcism at the property last July led to their capture, there has been no further spooky activity in the house, she said.
The short political career and fantastical flameout of Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY29):
Massa’s conspiracy theory is not only at odds with his own remarks from last week, they’re also belied by the record. The ethics inquiry was initiated in early February. In order for the conspiracy theory to be true, Democratic leaders would have needed to know at the time that a Massa vacancy would improve the arithmetic on the final health care vote. It’s far-fetched, to put it mildly.
We’re also starting to get a better sense of what, exactly, his “salty” language constituted. Massa believes the ethics investigation stems from a comment he made to aide at a New Year’s Eve wedding party, when he apparently told a male staffer that “what I really ought to be doing is fracking you.” (Whether this is actually the basis for the investigation is unclear.) He also acknowledged an incident from his Navy years when he walked in on a male roommate masturbating, and offered to “help with that.”
Regardless, after initially taking responsibility for his own “difficulties,” Massa has now decided that his missteps are his party’s fault, and he’s lashing out wildly in the hopes of punishing his perceived Democratic enemies. That will apparently include Massa joining Fox News’ Glenn Beck on the air today, for a full-hour anti-Democratic, anti-reform tirade.
His story has changed from day to day and now has turned into a massive conspiracy theory against him by the Prince of Darkness, Rahm Emmanuel (include a fight while both were naked in the shower). I feel mostly just sad about this. I’ve actually met Eric Massa (he attended the first Netroots Nation, then Yearly Kos conference) and impressed a lot of people with his passion, especially for health care reform. I’m really not sure why the right is embracing him but the right accepts a lot of discredited and dishonest figures so I guess he fits right in, then.