At the moment, Louisiana is run by Republicans: we have a Republican governor (a terrible one, IMHO) and the party holds a majority in both the House and the Senate. As elsewhere, many of these GOP legislators are first-timers, and they’re pissing off the elders with their arrogance, their Tea Party-naivete, and their frequent ineptitude*.

And yet, there were some good things to come out of the 2011 legislative session that wrapped up in June. I’ll start with the bad, though:

• As of today, there are more obstacles standing between women and safe, legal abortion: “Abortion clinics must give more information to women before they can terminate a pregnancy, including new signs telling pregnant women that they cannot be coerced into abortion, that fathers are liable for child support and that adoptive parents may pay for prenatal care and birth expenses.” [AP]
• New Louisiana residents used to be required to wait six months before receiving a concealed handgun permit. Not anymore.
• And of course, Representative Austin Badon’s anti-bullying bill was defeated on the House floor, which tickled the backward-looking Louisiana Family Forum pink (a very butch pink, I assume).

And on the plus-side: Continue reading

Four storms in the Atlantic? When did this happen? Ack.

Also: for those keeping track at home, we’re just four weeks away from the peak of the North Atlantic hurricane season, which is generally considered to be September 10. Fingers crossed, bags packed….

This is Pete Burns. Remember, from Dead or Alive?

Much has been made of Burns’ love affair with plastic surgery — in fact Pete himself complained about it in court and received a tidy sum in return.

But despite all that, despite the critics and Burns’ own grumblings, it looks like he’s still going full-silicone-ahead.

And you know what? Rock on sister.

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Last week, I stumbled across a nude photo of OJ Simpson.

It was taken decades ago, back when he was still playing football and doing TV commercials and not stabbing people and trying on men’s accessories for juries of peers. (Sorry: allegedly stabbing people.)

I’d seen the nude shot before and wanted to use it for a post, but I wasn’t sure how to frame it. Could I have just uploaded the pic to Tumblr and gone to bed? Probably, but I wanted to make more of it. So naturally, I developed a half-baked theory.

The theory was this: people who pose nude stand a better chance of being acquitted.

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Last week, tweets were flying over a not-so-clandestine meet-up between director Gus Van Sant, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, and actor Taylor Lautner. Since the three were spotted leaving an LA eatery on Wednesday night, there’s been plenty of rumor and speculation about what the three might’ve been up to (apart from not eating).

If the gossip mongers had just asked me, though, I would’ve been happy to tell them. By which I mean, offer some guesses about the topic of discussion:

1. A sequel to My Own Private Idaho. (Working title: My Own Gated Community in Southwestern Boise.) Katherine Keener and Patricia Clarkson play MILFs fighting for control of the neighborhood association. Lautner teaches them heartfelt lessons about life, love, and the perfect pot brownie. Then he kills them.

2. The inevitable Sad Keanu movie, in which Lautner would serve as stunt-double.

3. Robert Pattinson: is he really as nice as people say?

4. Who’s going to be mayor of Millions of Milkshakes?

5. Who’s got invites to Google+? And is it “Google+” or “Google Plus”?

6. How to kill skinny jeans once and for all without causing the return of Z. Cavariccis. (Yes, they’re still here.)

7. Amway.

Of course, it’s possible that Lautner has simply been drafted for the staged reading of Prop 8 transcripts that’s being put together by Mr. Black. Which would be fine, but far less interesting than Amway, IMHO.

In my humble opinion, ladies and gentlemen, we have been deprived of Ed Norton for too long. We have shunned him, and it is time to right past wrongs.

Did he skirt the fringes of douchebaggery early in his career? He certainly did. Did he skim the accretion disk surrounding the black hole of Courtney Love? You betcha. But Norton persevered, emerging as an actor’s actor.

Over the past decade or so, he’s had a few more stumbles. Keeping the Faith. The Incredible Hulk. And of course, Death to Smoochy, which was like watching Paris Hilton cover your testicles in chalkboard paint, then letting her scrape her fingernails across them for an hour and a half while she belts out her rendition of “I’ve Got the Music in Me”. That may sound like a party to some of you, but you are in the minority.

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A quick apology to anyone who might’ve tried to stop by yesterday. I decided I’d get all fancy and switch to a new webhost, and in doing so, I managed to flub the WordPress install/import big time. Ugh, Tuesdays.

I still plan on going through with the change — that is, if I don’t give up on self-hosting altogether and move to WordPress.com. But just between you and me, I think I’m too much of a nerd for that. (See photo for proof.)

By way of apology, here’s a photo of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall eating an ice cream cone:

Straight men, I gotta know: does that do anything for you?