Politico reports:

Ann Coulter was bleeped on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show on Tuesday but the censoring didn’t work and the conservative pundit could be heard using some words not fit for TV—apparently about Sen. John McCain.

Coulter appeared to call the Arizona Republican a “douche bag” on the morning show, in the context of a conversation where she said she preferred conservative principles to mere consistency.

While talking about the senator, Coulter’s audio was bleeped by the show, cutting in and out three separate times, for a total of about 13 seconds.

After the sound returned, Coulter paused, realized that something had happened, and then could be heard asking others on the show, “What did I say? Oh, douche bag.”

“Just blur it all out,” host Joe Scarborough responded, apparently talking to the control room.

How is it that the catchphrase "Git-R-Done" isn't on the front of this box? It seems so simple. "When you've given up on life, but still need to make dinner for the family...Larry the Cable Guy will help U GIT-R-DONE!" Seriously, marketing people...now that this brilliant merger of celebrity and product is finding itself on a shelf at Big Lots, you only have yourselves to blame.

[@DrinkingWithIan]

Nice instance of the pot calling the kettle black, I suppose, when Karl Rove writes for FoxNews.com that Barney Frank is "incapable of feeling shame, regret or a sense of personal responsibility," he probably knows from his own experience as a soulless political hack:

It was because he was going to retire anyway, lost a favorite port town in redistricting and had a tough race last time.

Was this really why Congressman Barney Frank announced today he’s retiring from the House of Representatives?

Perhaps another reason was he’s no longer chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and like a lot of bullies, Mr. Frank found it’s not easy to be stripped of the power to torment and humiliate others.

[...]

Mr. Frank is incapable of feeling shame, regret or a sense of personal responsibility. These are emotions for lesser beings. He’s leaving because of redistricting or to avoid having to raise money or facing those nasty little voters every two years. The House will be a better place for his departure.

While there's something a little strange about the fact that people are all of a sudden into audio cassettes again, now that I'm the owner of a vehicle with a cassette deck again (don't ask), I'd really like to have something to listen to in that once-obsolete format, so if there were some sort of mixtape-trading function here, I'd bring a compilation of only the most scintillating jams to share once I figure out where my tape deck went. The idea of there being some sort of "champion" is weird though:

The San Francisco Mixtape Society is an organization in which people share music through a forgotten medium. CDs are acceptable, but John Verrochi, a founder, says those “who bring cassettes are rewarded with a free drink.” James Brown (not that one), a two-time Mixtape Society champion, credits the Internet for the renaissance: “It’s much easier for people to indulge their inner D.J.”

[NYT Magazine]

• Alex Maldonado

As the number of citations grow and the court options dwindle, Occupy Tucson protestors have taken to avoiding police the same way that primitive man might have avoided predators: They climbed up into trees when the police came by.

Here's a press release from Occupy Tucson's Alex Maldonado:

In a rare direct action/resistance by Occupy Tucson, not seen across the nation thus far, occupiers climbed the trees of Veinte de Agosto Park before the 10:30pm citation time.

At approximately 11pm, the Tucson Police Department notified Occupy Tucson stating that there would be no enforcement, nor citations for staying in the park after hours for the night.

Several writers and two local television news stations were present to document the action, and reaction of TPD.

Could this be the move that could bring both the City of Tucson and Occupy Tucson to the negotiating table or is this a sign of a possible moratorium on citations?

I haven't had a chance to try this myself, but a blog called Food Wishes seems to have figured out the great mystery of how to fix leftover pizza. I've largely given up on trying to get slices anywhere near their original state, so I've generally just gone with eating leftover pizza cold. This doesn't really help most people at work, which is generally where my leftovers go to die, but it's at least worth trying.

[Reddit]

For some reason, for the people of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, the fame of Paula Deen is a great and peculiar mystery, similar to why people choose to live anywhere outside of our nation's major metropolises. However, thankfully, our liberal conscience in audio form got to the bottom of it all. Despite the fact that her calling is to put deep-fried misery on a plate, she reminds people of the kind aunt they never had or something:

"She makes an amazing apple pie!" Michelle Morgan chimed in.

Apple pie, really? I was scratching my head, trying to make sense of the crazy-for-Paula phenomenon. Doesn't everyone have an apple pie recipe?

And then it dawned on me. It wasn't about the pie. It was about Paula.

On stage, Paula started laughing and telling stories. Each of us felt as if she were speaking directly to us. We'd each just pulled a chair right up to her kitchen table.

"She reminds me of my mom," Alison Keen told me. "Just hanging out in the kitchen."

At a time when lots of people live alone, or have fractured families, knowing Paula Deen fills a void for people, even if it's on TV.

"They feel an intense emotional connection, I think," explains food anthropologist Christine DuBois. "She's very natural, very warm." And for some, DuBois says, "she becomes that wonderful neighbor or that grandma who's missing in our lives."

The standard November polling caveat still applies here: none of this really matters, except that millions of dollars in time and manpower will be spent as a result of these sort of polls. However, at this particular moment, it would appear that President Obama should cross his fingers that anyone but Mitt Romney gets the Republican nomination, if Public Policy Polling's numbers can be believed:

Obama trails a hypothetical match up with Mitt Romney, 49-42. That 7 point spread is pretty similar to the 9 points Obama lost to John McCain by in 2008. Romney leads Obama by 11 points with independents and takes an impressive 16% of the Democratic vote.

Obama does have a chance in the state if the GOP nominates someone other than Romney though.

Current GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich can only achieve a tie in the state with Obama at 45% each. Numbers we released last week showed that Gingrich is the first choice of Republicans in the state, but he just can't match Romney's appeal to Democrats and independents. Where Romney has an 11 point advantage over Obama with independents, Gingrich leads him by just a single point with that group. And where Romney gets 16% of the Democratic vote, Gingrich can only get 12%. It's pretty clear who Republicans need to go with if their first priority is defeating Obama.

Gingrich actually isn't the second strongest Republican against Obama. That honor goes to Ron Paul who leads the President by a single point at 44-43. Most striking in Paul's numbers is a 55-28 advantage with independents. We really are finding on most polls that Paul is the strongest candidate with those voters out of Obama and the entire Republican field. Paul did better overall against Obama than Gingrich on both our Pennsylvania and Arizona polls last week.

Obama has clear leads against 2 other Republican candidates: he's up 46-42 on Herman Cain and 47-40 on Rick Perry. Perry's favorability numbers continues to register at astonishingly low levels: only 17% of voters in the state have a positive opinion of him to 67% with a negative one.

While Don Bivens jumped out first in an effort to grab the Democratic nomination for Jon Kyl's Senate seat, it really does look like things are lining up for Richard Carmona to be the chosen one. While there are going to be a significant number of potential voters that won't remember Dennis DeConcini, there has to be some value in an endorsement from the last Arizona Democrat to hold the office.

From the press release:

DENNIS DECONCINI ENDORSES RICHARD CARMONA FOR U.S. SENATE

Today U.S. Senate candidate Richard Carmona, a combat-decorated Army Special Forces veteran, a surgeon, and the former Surgeon General of the United States, won the endorsement of former U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini.

“Rich Carmona has the demonstrated experience and leadership skills needed to ably represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate at a time in our history when it is desperately needed,” said Dennis DeConcini, who represented Arizona in the U.S. Senate from 1977 to 1995. “Arizonans are looking for a leader with independent judgment and the strength to do the right thing, even when that’s not popular. They will find those traits in Rich Carmona.”

DeConcini served as Pima County Attorney before being elected to the US Senate; he is the last Arizona Democrat to win election to the U.S. Senate, and the last Pima County Democrat to win statewide election.

“I am honored to have Dennis DeConcini behind me,” said Carmona. “He is proof that there was a time when Democrats and Republicans in Washington actually worked together to get things done, and it was not long ago. His background in law enforcement, in particular his long-standing efforts to secure Arizona’s border, will be of help to me. His family’s history and involvement in our state speak for themselves. I’m glad to have him on my team.”

Coming back from the holiday, it's probably not the best day to watch a two hour documentary while pretending to work, but if you missed Robert Weide's documentary on Woody Allen that aired on PBS's American Masters this month, you can thankfully catch it online (at least for the time being). The first twenty minutes are embedded below (it jumps to PBS's site for the rest).

Watch Woody Allen: A Documentary Part 1 on PBS. See more from AMERICAN MASTERS.