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Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard makes her solemn end of days proclamation.

via

Ms Gillard has recorded a short video for Triple J's breakfast show, as part of their "end of the world" celebrations. The world is supposed to end on December 21, according to interpretations of the Mayan calendar.

"My dear remaining fellow Australians," Ms Gillard begins in the clip. "The end of the world is coming. It wasn't Y2K, it wasn't even the carbon price."

The Prime Minister took time out from her preparations for Friday's COAG standoff to film the clip in Melbourne on Tuesday.

The jokes were a joint effort between the radio station and Ms Gillard, thus explaining the mix of pop culture references and political spin.

"Whether the final blow comes from flesh eating zombies, demonic hell beasts or from the total triumph of K-pop, if you know one thing about me it is this: I will always fight for you to the very end," Ms Gillard says in solemn tones.

Finishing the video, the Prime Minister observes: "At least this means I won't have to do Q&A again."

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Still reeling from the presidential election results, Mr. Burns takes a few minutes to explain the upcoming fiscal cliff.

Montgomery Burns: "Think of the economy as a car and the rich man as the driver. If you don’t give the driver all the money, he’ll drive you over a cliff. It’s just common sense."

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Bob Costas, the longtime sportscaster for NBC, had some choice words for the gun culture in America at tonight's halftime of the Eagles-Cowboys game. Costas' remarks will infuriate conservatives and gun nuts. He cited this piece (In KC, it's no time for a game) by Fox Sports' Jason Whitlock, who expressed contempt for the NFL's decision to have Kansas City play on Sunday after the murder-suicide..

BOB COSTAS: Well, you knew it was coming. In the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in Kansas City, that most mindless of sports clichés was heard yet again: something like this really puts it all in perspective. Well, if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf-life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games.

Please, those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective. You want some actual perspective on this?

Well, a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock with whom I do not always agree, but who today said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article.

“Our current gun culture,” Whitlock wrote, “ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead."

“Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions, and their possible connection to football, will be analyzed. Who knows?"

“But here,” wrote Jason Whitlock, “is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”

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TPM caught this exchange earlier in the audio podcast but it's since gone up at YouTube (full version here). I've excerpted the bit on Politico.

via David Taintor at Talking Points Memo

New York Times polling guru Nate Silver took aim at Politico’s brand of reporting on Friday, saying the Washington-based news outlet covers politics like sports but “not in an intelligent way at all.”

Reflecting on Politico’s pre-election criticism of his FiveThirtyEight model, Silver told Grantland’s Bill Simmons on his “B.S. Report” podcast:

What was remarkable to me is that you had some, like, journalist for, um, Politico, or something … who, like, tweeted … ‘All Nate’s doing is averaging polls and counting electoral votes?’ … ‘That’s the secret sauce?’ It’s like, well, yeah, and the fact that you can’t comprehend that very basic thing … that says more about you than, than about me, right?”

The tweet Silver is referring to came from Politico’s Jonathan Martin, and actually reads: “Avert your gaze, liberals: Nate Silver admits he’s simply averaging public polls and there is no secret sauce.” Martin linked to a piece by his Politico colleague Dylan Byers, who wrote the definitive piece of Silver skepticism during the 2012 cycle. In the piece — headlined “Nate Silver: One-term celebrity?” — Byers considered the possibility of Silver’s star power dimming if Mitt Romney became president.

Avert your gaze, liberals: Nate Silver admits he's simply averaging public polls and there is no secret saucepolitico.com/blogs/media/20…

— jmartpolitico (@jmartpolitico) October 29, 2012

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Leave it to Charles Krauthammer, and Fox News, to compare the so-called 'fiscal cliff' negotiations to the terms of surrender that ended the Civil War. Krauthammer ended with the thought that Republicans should just walk away because they were in such a strong position of leverage when the economy heads back into a tailspin as a result. This is the type of mindset that not only the conservative pundits have but also some Republican politicians. The smarter among them though realize the folly of Krauthammer's pontificating and are looking for a deal --any deal-- that won't get them lynched by their own supporters. They know Obama has them in a bind and are looking for a face-saving option.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It's not just a bad deal, this is really an insulting deal. What Geithner offered, what you showed on the screen, Robert E. Lee was offered easier terms at Appomattox, and he lost the Civil War. The Democrats won by 3% of the vote and they did not hold the House, Republicans won the house. So this is not exactly unconditional surrender, but that is what the administration is asking of the Republicans.

This idea -- there are not only no cuts in this, there's an increase in spending with a new stimulus. I mean, this is almost unheard of. What do they expect? They obviously expect the Republicans will cave on everything. I think the Republicans ought to simply walk away. The president is the president. He's the leader. They are demanding that the Republicans explain all the cuts that they want to make.

We had that movie a year-and-a-half ago where Paul Ryan presented a budget, a serious real budget with real cuts. Obama was supposed to gave speech where he would respond with a counter offer. And what did he do? He gave a speech where he had Ryan sitting in the front row. He called the Ryan proposal un-American, insulted him, offered nothing, and ran on Mediscare in the next 18 months.

And they expect the Republicans are going to do this again? The Republicans are going to walk on this. And I think they have leverage. Yes, for Congressional Democrats it will help them in the future if Republicans absorb the blame because we will have a recession. But Obama is not running again unlike the Congressional Democrats. He's going to have a recession, 9% unemployment, 2 million more unemployed, and a second term that's going to be a ruin. That is not a good proposition if you are Barack Obama.

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Bill O'Reilly brought on pseudo-psychiatrist Keith Ablow last night to explain the whole 'Gangnam Style' phenomenon to him. Or at least that was the purported reason. The result was the usual idiocy, mixed with a fair bit of xenophobia. In other words, regular fare for the old white farts who watch O'Reilly who are just as befuddled by modernity as O'Reilly seems to be. Why would Americans be listening to a song “without intelligible words", where they have no idea what the meaning is, sung mostly in a foreign language by a fat little Korean bouncing around like he was riding a horse?

O'Reilly asked "What's going on?"

Ablow responded, as only Fox News contributors can: "I think what this fellow is tapping into... is the fact that people don't want any meaning right now. It is just is sort of like a drug and that seems to be what most people seem to want right now. Not reality, not feeling, not meaning."

O'Reilly: "So it means nothing but it's got a nice upbeat to it but you can do the pony and ride around."

Ablow: "The meaning is that it means nothing."

So there you have it. A song has no meaning because a couple of middle-aged white guys says it doesn't.

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The Morning Joe crowd got a big laugh over John Heilmann's seeming word stumble this morning, with Scarborough in particular busting a gut. In the subsequent re-airs, and on the web this part was edited out, as first noted by TV/Newser

via Greg Mitchell

John Heilemann, very early on Morning Joe today, in a discussion about opposition to Susan Rice, suggested that Sen. Lindsey Graham is, essentially, a "woman." This was in the context of Sen. Kelly Ayotte replacing outgoing Joe Lieberman in the "three amigos" grouping (McCain, Graham, Lieberman). Heilemann said that now two of the three are actually "women." Well, Joe Scarb had a good laugh about it right on camera and then they moved on. And, as Mediaite just noted, that bit was pulled when the segment was re-aired after 8 a.m.

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Author and Defense Analyst Thomas Ricks' interview on Fox News this morning was a brief affair. Ostensibly brought on to talk about Benghazi, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and Republicans like John McCain criticisms of her, Ricks quickly gave his opinion that the matter was "extremely political, partly because Fox is operating as the wing of Republican Party."

And with that Jon Scott abruptly ended the interview, thanking Ricks for coming on.

Fox: When you have four people dead including the first US ambassador in more than 30 years, how do you call that hype?

Ricks: How many security contractors died in Iraq, do you know?

Fox: I don't.

Ricks: No, nobody does, because nobody cared. We know that several hundred died, but there was never an official count done, of security contractors dead in Iraq. So when I see this focus on what was essentially a small fire fight, I think number one, I've covered a lot of fire fights, it's impossible to figure out what happens in them sometimes. And second, I think that the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican party.

Fox: All right. Tom Ricks, thanks very much for joining us today.

Ricks: You're welcome.

The Human Rights Campaign began running this tv ad on Sunday.

MORGAN FREEMAN: "Freedom, justice and human dignity have always guided our journey toward a more perfect union. Now, across our country, we are standing together for the right of gay and lesbian Americans to marry the person they love. With historic victories for marriage, we've delivered a mandate for full equality. The wind is at our back but our journey has just begun. Join us."

From The Advocate:

In conjunction with the ad, HRC president Chad Griffin issued the following statement: “This year proved to be a pivotal turning point in the movement for marriage equality, and now we press onward with renewed vigor and public opinion squarely on our side. As we continue the march toward full equality in legislatures and the courts, it is crystal clear that the prospect of an equal future is no longer up for debate; the question now is how soon it will arrive. While we celebrate today, we will keep fighting until full equality has reached every single person in every corner of this vast country.”

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Anyone who thinks Alan Grayson is going back to congress neutered after his loss in 2010 would be sadly mistaken. If anything his activities over Thanksgiving seem to indicate he's more ready to fight than ever.

Video and text by WKMG, Orlando.

ORLANDO, Fla. -U.S. Rep.-elect Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) joined a Walmart worker as she walked off her job in St. Cloud as part of a nationwide protest against the country's largest employer.

Grayson joined Walmart associate Lisa Lopez on Thanksgiving night to protest what employees says is the store's retaliation against workers who speak out for better job conditions.

On "Black Friday," Grayson also joined a walkout at a Walmart in Orlando.

Union-backed groups OUR Walmart and Making Change at Wal-Mart, along with watchdog group Corporate Action Network, are calling on the retailer to end what they call retaliation against employees who speak out for better pay, fair schedules and affordable health care.

Photo of @alangrayson with #WalmartStriker Lisa as she walked out of the store in Orlando, FL tonight. twitter.com/ForRespect/sta…

— ForRespect (@ForRespect) November 23, 2012