It's a little bit of a challenge figuring out exactly what subject Michael Steele is an expert in, but we can all appreciate that the long standing felt-ceiling that has keep puppets from commenting on the news has finally been broken.

Former Republican National Committee head Michael Steele has found himself a new role: MSNBC legal analyst, following a series of negotiations with the channel. The “forward-leaning” news network will feature Steele as an expert contributor across its lineup.

Says Steele of the move:

It’s an honor to contribute and engage in the dialogue on MSNBC. I look forward to engaging a diverse audience to share insights and analysis about the people, issues, and events shaping America’s future. I’m sure our discussions will be both informative and a bit spirited!

[Mediaite]

You’ll notice there is no dessert course on the menu posted below, being that decadence of that caliber is beyond the scope of our three-dimensional universe.

Talented pastry chef Tavel Bristol-Joseph is behind this unique tasting dinner at 6 p.m., this Wednesday, May 25, at Hacienda del Sol:

1st course - Scallops with a white chocolate Stilton sauce, citrus salad paired with Bianca Vigna Prosecco

2nd course - Milk chocolate enchilada paired with Michael David Sixth Sense Syrah

3rd course - Dark chocolate marinated beef paired with Bertani Valpolicella

Tickets are $35, and reservations are required. Call 529-3500 for more information.

I can barely finish three tacos from Boca, the taco shop at 828 E. Speedway Blvd. But if there’s anyone out there who can mow through 17 of them and one of the restaurant’s one-pound baked potatoes stuffed with meat and fixings, then this challenge, posted recently on Facebook, is for you:

The BOCA Challenge has been set!!!!!!!!

Will you be the first to beat it?

17 tacos and a papa boca in 45min you finish I buy, you sign the wall and get a shirt you dont finish you owe me $50+tax

As a side note: Is there no end to the weirdness that is Boca’s Exotic Taco Wednesdays? Recent tacos have included kangaroo meatloaf, pheasant and chicken heart as fillings.

I still cringe a little when the Disney logo comes up, considering what they've generally done with the rights to the classic Muppet characters, but at least this first teaser trailer for the reboot of the franchise, simply called The Muppets, has a certain amount of charm. The script was co-written by Jason Segel of Forgetting Sarah Marshall fame, the director co-created Flight of the Conchords, and Bret from the Conchords wrote the songs, so I think there's room for a reasonable amount of optimism, right?

Also, yes, I'm aware that I'm a thirty five year old man excited for a new Muppet movie.

The Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest petitioned the Arizona Supreme Court today to block a proposal by Gov. Jan Brewer to deny state-subsidized health-care coverage to low-income Arizonans.

Tim Hogan, executive director of the Center for Law in the Public Interest, said in a court filing that the Brewer administration’s plan to cut health-care spending flies in the race of the Healthy Arizona proposition approved by voters in 2000.

“This Court must uphold the law that Arizona voters approved in 2000,” Hogan wrote. “If it fails to do so, countless Arizonans will be denied health care to which they are entitled. If the Governor and legislature truly believe the only way to balance the budget is by reducing eligibility to the Proposition 204 population, then they should make their case to the people of Arizona who approved Proposition 204 in the first place. Absent approval of the voters, the Governor and the legislature lack the authority to repeal Proposition 204.”

GOP lawmakers balanced the state budget by cutting more than a half-billion dollars from health-care programs earlier this year, but gave Brewer discretion over how to slash the spending.

While she hasn’t attempted to take health-care insurance away from Arizonans who are currently covered under the Healthy Arizona proposition, Brewer has proposed denying healthcare insurance to any childless adults below the federal poverty level who apply in the future, as well as parents who earn between 75 percent and 100 percent of the federal poverty level.

While nearly everyone in America has made up their mind about Barack Obama and filters any information about him through that lens, there's still something cool for me in a president who makes sure he grabs a Guinness during his trip to Ireland.

There was no particular reason to watch the Billboard Music Awards last night (as far as I know, the awards are based on sales and popularity, so basically you're giving awards to people who are already winning at life), but Beyoncé seems to have taken a strange and fascinating artistic turn on her newest single "Run The World (Girls)" and has seemingly an unlimited amount of technology and money at her disposal, so at least her performance was interesting, even if the rest of the broadcast was an immense waste of time.

After hearing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie refuse to answer a question about evolution, Slate's Jacob Weisberg wonders if Republicans are losing their grip on reality:

Christie is not part of the natural constituency for Darwin-denial. He's an intelligent man, a lawyer, a fiscal rather than a social conservative. But Christie is also someone who might want to run for president someday, or be selected as someone's running mate. For those purposes, he must constantly ask himself the question: Am I about to say something to which a white, evangelical, socially conservative, gun-owning, Obama-despising, pro-Tea Party, GOP primary voter in rural South Carolina might object? By this standard, simple acceptance of the theory of evolution becomes a risky stance. To lie or to duck? Christie chose the option of ducking while signaling his annoyance at being put in this ridiculous predicament.

Moments like this point to a growing asymmetry in our politics. One party, the Democrats, suffers from the usual range of institutional blind spots, historical foibles, and constituency-driven evasions. The other, the Republicans, has moved to a mental Shangri-La, where unwanted problems (climate change, the need to pay the costs of running the government) can be wished away, prejudice trumps fact (Obama might just be Kenyan-born or a Muslim), expertise is evidence of error, and reality itself comes to be regarded as some kind of elitist plot.
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Like the White Queen in her youth, the contemporary Republican politician must be capable of believing as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Foremost among these is the claim that it is possible to balance the federal budget without raising taxes. Most Republican politicians are intelligent enough to understand that with federal revenues at 14.4 percent of GDP and expenditures at 25.3 percent, it is, in fact, impossible to close the fiscal gap with spending cuts alone. But GOP candidates acknowledge this reality at their peril. Grover Norquist, the right-wing lobbyist and former collaborator of Jack Abramoff's, has appointed himself chief enforcer of the party's anti-tax catechism. If Republican candidates won't sign his no-new-taxes pledge, Norquist and fellow inquisitors at the Club for Growth threaten them with excommunication, social death, and the punishment of being "primaried" by a well-funded conservative challenger.

Reality-denial is not limited to the Republican inability to utter words like evolution and revenue. The long-range forecasts in the Paul Ryan plan, which show spending falling to 3 percent of GDP to allow for additional tax cuts, express an impossible libertarian fantasy. So too does the current Republican effort to bring this utopia about by refusing to raise the federal government's credit card limit. It is not a matter of conjecture, but something closer to a universal understanding among economists, that failing to raise the debt ceiling could cause another global economic crash. The plutocratic populist Donald Trump recently answered this objection on behalf of the party. "What do economists know? Most of them aren't very smart."

[Slate]

So, you've predicted a monumental global event that didn't quite pan out. What now?

First thing: change the website to scrub any reference to the failed prophecy:

Second plan on the agenda: Go door to door and rip the page from the Bible that has Deuteronomy 18:20 on it.

[HT: Buzzfeed]

Has everyone voted to determine who's going to compete in this year’s Iron Chef Tucson event? If not, you can do so over here.

Imagine the possibilities! Will Allen Yap of OM Modern Asian Kitchen drop a curry smack down? Can Steven Schultz of Red Sky and Luna Bella dominate with techniques from around the globe? Or will Ryan Clark of Lodge on the Desert—who, by the way, lists cooking for Jennifer Aniston as one of his accomplishments—go all farm-to-table on our asses?

The two day event—which features food and drink galore as well as the Iron Chef competition—takes place Saturday and Sunday, June 25 and 26, at Loews Ventana Canyon. Tickets are available here.