Congressjerk Darrell Issa So Grateful Rudy Giuliani Finally Impugned Obama's Patriotism

• Now that ex-mayor and forever scumbag Rudy Giuliani has finally, for the first time ever, raised the question of whether Barack Obama really and truly loves America -- because that question has never been asked before -- some Republicans couldn't be happier:  

  Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Sunday that the media is unfairly questioning Republicans about Rudy Giuliani's recent claim that President Barack Obama doesn't love America, and insisted that the public should "thank" the former New York City mayor for his comments.

  Those comments for which Congress's most notorious car thief Darrell Issa is so grateful would be Giuliani's comments last week that he doesn't believe Barack Obama loves America because, you know, wink wink, followed by Rudy's doubling down insistence that he wasn't being racist because Obama's mama was white, ya see?

  "The reality is that Rudy has taken our debate -- and I think we should thank him for this part of it -- back to national security, to the key element that the president should be focusing on," Issa said, before carefully parsing Giuliani's words in an effort to soften them. "Rudy Giuliani said he 'didn't believe'. He didn't say the president 'wasn't,' he said he 'didn't believe.' Now the reality is that I do believe that the president believes strongly in America, I just think he views America differently."

  Oh, ok. Guess that makes all the difference, right? Maybe Issa should form an investigative committee on semantics, just to be sure.

• Bummer for those of us who were hoping John McCain might find himself fighting in a good old fashioned brawl for his Senate seat in 2016. Tea Party hero Rep. David Schweikert has been hinting that maybe he's just the guy to primary McCain from the right, but alas, it seems his wife won't let him:  

  [H]is wife, Joyce, has made her position on the matter clear to him.

  "You never stop sort of thinking about what you want to do with your life, but my wife is not thrilled with the idea of running for the Senate," Schweikert, R-Ariz., told The Arizona Republic on Friday. "And that was sort of the first hurdle that needed to be dealt with. I would like to keep her around."

  Asked if the family decision about a Senate run was final, Schweikert elaborated: "It's not definitive, but she has put her foot down, saying 'Why, when we have so much to do right now?'"

• The gendered backlash to Marilyn Vos Savant's (correct) answer to the Monty Hall Problem:

  In September 1990, Marilyn vos Savant devoted one of her columns to a reader’s question, which presented a variation of the Monty Hall Problem:

  “Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say #1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door, say #3, which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door #2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?”

  “Yes; you should switch,” she replied. “The first door has a 1/3 chance of winning, but the second door has a 2/3 chance.”

  Though her answer was correct, a vast swath of academics responded with outrage. In the proceeding months, vos Savant received more than 10,000 letters -- including a pair from the Deputy Director of the Center for Defense Information, and a Research Mathematical Statistician from the National Institutes of Health -- all of which contended that she was entirely incompetent: [...]

  The outcry was so tremendous that vos Savant was forced to devote three subsequent columns to explaining why her logic was correct. Even in the wake of her well-stated, clear responses, she continued to be berated. “I still think you’re wrong,” wrote one man, nearly a year later. “There is such a thing as female logic.”

•  An excellent read about typewriters and the guys who keep them working:

  Well aware of his status as a walking anachronism, [Paul] Schweitzer, 76, now fixes approximately 20 typewriters a week. Some of them are used as props for movies or television shows recreating eras he was a part of, a fact that makes him laugh when he happens to see his machines while flipping through reruns. Schweitzer’s clientele, recorded in two boxes of handwritten notecards behind his desk, includes several high-profile names, including noted typewriter aficionado Tom Hanks. [...]

  He is believed to be among the nation’s last typewriter repairmen, and he largely rejects computers, iPhones, laptops, and even credit cards in his workplace. Like a speaker of a vanishing language, he laments the loss of his tribe.

  “There are fewer and fewer of us that do this,” he said. “Years ago, if you looked at the yellow pages, there were six pages of typewriter companies in Manhattan. Now, there’s us.”

  As the 19th century teetered into the 20th, the clank of typewriter keys went from solo to symphony. They were the weapon of choice for professional writers, the business elite, people with things to say and the need to say them quickly. They unintentionally provided a passageway for women to tread into workplaces from which they had long been banished, and greatly expedited the rate at which human thought could be translated into ink. An 1867 issue of Scientific American marveled at the “machine by which it is assumed that man may print his thoughts twice as fast as he can write them.”

• The winter weather was so extreme in the town of Harlan, Kentucky, where police apparently had nothing better to do than post this Police in the town Harlan, Kentucky, apparently had nothing better to do and "adorable" message to the town:  

  Police in the small, rural town of Harlan posted a Facebook message Wednesday about Elsa.

  They wrote: "Suspect is a blonde female last seen wearing a long blue dress and is known to burst into song 'Let it Go!' As you can see by the weather she is very dangerous."

  Because weather. Get it? Clap ... clap ... clap.

• Our friends at Happy Nice Time People have the latest Duggar dirt for you, as yet another season of19 Kids And Dear Sweet Jesus, Woman, It's OK To Stop, Really It Isbegins:

  ZOMG, did you hear?? Jill and Derick asked for, BUT DID NOT RECEIVE ANY, Dr. Pepper at their baby shower!! This is what passes for Duggar gossip in the tabloids between seasons. But don’t worry—19 Kids and Counting is back to quench your thirst for glacial reality TV action and whitewashed religious extremism.