This is kind of sweet. Jimmy Fallon and the Roots join Mariah Carey for a laid-back version of her Christmas hit, performed on musical toys.

Dave Brubeck almost got kicked out of Conservatory when it was discovered that he couldn't read music. After several teachers came forward to plead his case, he was allowed to graduate as long as he promised to never teach piano. He died a legend yesterday at 91. R.I.P.

Time Out
	Artist: Dave Brubeck

The latest episode of Absurdity Today, the independent news parody series hosted by political satirist Julianna Forlano, covers Hostess selling its assets, vulture capitalism's rein of terror against Americans, the creeping surveillance state, the Lincoln movie's ending, and the end of Aspergers Syndrome. All in 2 minutes flat. Enjoy!

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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."

[Workers bury the body of an unidentified garment factory fire victim. Reuters]

Documents found among the ruins of the Bangladesh garment factory where over 100 people perished during a fire last month, show that Wal-Mart worked with at least five different suppliers there this year. Further, in 2011, the retail giant decided against aiding factory upgrades that could have stopped fires like the deadly blaze.

Bloomberg News reports:

Wal-Mart said the Tazreen Design Ltd. factory near Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, was no longer authorized to produce merchandise for the company and that it had cut ties with one supplier that kept using the facility. It’s not clear if any other suppliers continued to use the factory, which Wal-Mart had de-authorized before the blaze, the company said.

Purchase orders, shipment statements, inventory reports and other documents show that two New York-based suppliers for Wal- Mart and a third in California had sourced merchandise from Tazreen. Two companies in Bangladesh also manufactured apparel there for Wal-Mart, the records show. As recently as September, five of 14 production lines at the factory were making shirts and pajamas for Wal-Mart, an income report shows.
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The Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity photographed the documents. The group passed them on to the Worker Rights Consortium, a labor-rights monitoring group based in Washington, which provided the documents to Bloomberg News. Suppliers cited in the documents include Topson Downs, of Culver City, California. That supplier subcontracted work to Bismillah Sourcing, a Bangladesh firm.

Also among the documents, an e-mail correspondence between a Wal-Mart buyer and IDG (Tazreen produced shorts for Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club brand through IDG) "highlighting the pressure the world’s largest retailer puts on its suppliers."

In a January e-mail, Wal-Mart's buyer requests and early delivery of 266 pairs of shorts from IDG for a new store opening, and IDG complied. Numerous other documents show that "tens of thousands" of the same pairs of shorts were made at Tazreen for IDG since at least the first quarter of 2012.

In 2011, Walmart reportedly decided against aiding factory upgrades that could have stopped fires like the deadly blaze at the Tazreen garment factory.

During an April meeting, Bangladeshi suppliers reached out to retailers of their garments with a plan that would help upgrade their facilities to make them more fire-proof -- other retailers approved the plan -- only to have it fall through when Wal-mart and the Gap refused to pay higher prices to make such upgrades feasible.

This stuff just writes itself, which is, of course, what Louie Gohmert hopes for.

While Democrats run out the clock in order to force Republicans to act like grownups, the House of Representatives is busy, busy, busy doing the people's business. Today's agenda? Vote on a Senate bill to remove the word "lunatic" from Federal Law. I note for the record that they did not also vote to remove the word "idiot", which is probably a good thing.

According to The Hill, the bill passed almost unanimously. Gohmert's "no" vote was the only vote against it. Only a lunatic could defend keeping the word lunatic in federal law, right?

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) was unapologetic for his lone Wednesday vote against a bill striking the word "lunatic" from U.S. law, and said the word should be used more often to describe many of the people in Washington, D.C.

"I don't have a problem with 'lunatic' being used in the federal law, and apparently I was the only one here on the floor," he said shortly after the House approved the bill.

"In fact, it occurred to me that not only should we not ... eliminate the term 'lunatic' at a time when we are facing national bankruptcy if we don't get serious about our issues, but we should also use the term to identify those who want to continue doing business as usual around this town," he added. "It's time we got serious."

Maybe Gohmert thought he would be excluded from coverage under federal law if they quit using that word and struck it from existing law. Someone should have told him he'd still fall under the idiot designation.

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Michigan State Police say they were forced to use pepper spray and arrest at least four protesters who were opposing right to work legislation at the Michigan Capitol on Thursday.

Michigan State Police Inspector Gene Adamczyk told the Detroit Free Press that a number of protesters tried to rush the state Senate floor.

"When several of the individuals rushed the troopers, they used chemical munitions to disperse the crowd," Adamczyk said. "It would be a lot worse if someone gets hurt and I failed to act."

WILX reported that the Capitol building had been locked and at least four protesters were arrested during the incident. WILX reporter Brian Johnson estimated that there were around 500 protesters in the building.

Video posted by Michigan Senate Democrats showed Republican state Senator Tonya Schuitmaker angrily gaveling the Senate session into recess as the crowd became rowdy.

"Additionally, Republicans have called in countless State Police officers again today to guard their offices and question the public as they enter the Capitol to protest the Republican agenda," the Democrats wrote. "Frankly, if you have to bring in a massive police presence in order to conduct business at the State Capitol, it might be time for Republicans to rethink what they’re doing."

After initially calling the union-busting right to work legislation "too decisive," Republican Gov. Rick Snyder on Thursday said that he would sign the bill if it came to his desk. The measure is expect to pass because Republicans control both the state Senate and state House.

"The goal isn’t to divide Michigan," he said at a press conference. "It is to bring Michigan together."

Snyder said that he now supported the legislation because it was about the "freedom to choose" and "fairness and equity in the workplace."

Democratic lawmakers and unions, however, claimed that the bill would lower wages and reduce benefits for workers.

"Gov. Snyder campaigned on a promise of unity, but instead he’s ushering in an era of divisiveness across Michigan by launching an attack against working families," U.S. Representative Gary Peters said in a statement on Thursday. "By trying to jam this through a lame duck session, Gov. Snyder is trying to prevent voters from seeing how he is dividing Michigan instead of working to ensure the future of our state during this fragile recovery."

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via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Love made history in Seattle on Thursday.

In the predawn darkness 300 couples got licenses that will allow them to marry their same-sex partner.

The event began at 12:01 a.m. as men and women stood in line to take advantage of the marriage law that the Legislature passed early this year and voters approved in November.

They formed an eager, festive crowd, with couples young and old braving a night-time chill and wee-hours wait for the chance to make history at the normally dull King County Administration building. Supporters cheered for them with roses, coffee, hand-warmers and serenades of "Going to the Chapel."

The licensing marathon was expected to last more than 18 hours. By 6 a.m., more than 300 licenses had been issued.
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Nationally known sex-advice columnist Dan Savage and his partner were also among the first couples to pick up a marriage license.

"It's really a remarkable journey we've been on and such a remarkable sea change," he said. "And not just for gay people, but straight people have changed, too. It's gotten better for us because straight people have gotten better about us."

King County issued 1,889 marriage licenses to heterosexual couples during July. It expects to equal that number in the first three days of licensing.

"The marriages will be the real fun," said George Bakan, editor-in-chief of Seattle Gay News. On the other side of James Street, City Hall will play host to 142 marriage ceremonies on Sunday, the first day that same-sex couples can get hitched.

Dan Savage is planning something special on Sunday at City Hall.

On Sunday, Dan Savage, gay columnist and founder of the It Gets Better Project, plans to host a mass same-sex wedding inside Seattle City Hall, reports Towleroad. Savage teamed up with set designer Jen Zeyl to create beautiful, intimate settings more than 140 couples wanting to get married at City Hall, and will be orchestrating the mass weddings free of charge.

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Fox News host Dana Perino engaged in some victim blaming on Wednesday when she declared that women who had suffered from violence should "make better decisions."

The conservative hosts of Fox News' The Five on Wednesday continued their week-long effort to defend gun culture in the wake of a murder/suicide involving NFL football player Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, by claiming that "bedding" and vehicles were more deadly than guns.

"This isn't an issue about gun control," co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle insisted. "This is an issue about domestic violence and a man who had a troubled past; had a history documented of being, unfortunately, sadly, abusive to women; an inability to be able to control his temper and his emotions; a lack of impulse control."

"I'm glad you brought that up," Perino remarked. "On the same day that Jovan Belcher committed this crime, there was a man who beat his wife with a baseball bat and killed her. Okay? He wasn't a pro football player, he doesn't drive a Bentley, didn't make millions of dollars. But on the same day -- that's why I think talking about the gun culture so-called issue is actually a copout and not dealing with the real issue about mental health, anger management and domestic violence."

"Can you name me one person you know that saved their lives by a handgun?" liberal co-host Bob Beckel asked.

"Bob, I think that skirts the issue that women are victims of violence all the time," Perino replied.

"Should have guns," co-host Greg Gutfeld interrupted.

"Or maybe make better decisions," Perino added.

"Why don't we just strap a gun on everybody and walk around the street?" Beckel quipped.

"It'd be safer," co-host Eric Bolling asserted.

"Beautiful!" Gutfeld exclaimed.

(h/t: Media Matters)

This is interesting news, particularly riding on Dick Armey's acrimonious split from FreedomWorks. It would appear that the TeaBirchers have opted for the public relations route since the electoral one isn't working out so well for them. Via CNN:

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina will resign from his Senate seat as of Dec. 31 to take over as head of the Heritage Foundation, his office announced Thursday.

"I honestly believe that I can do a lot more on the outside than I can on the inside," DeMint told reporters at Heritage Thursday.

I'll just bet he believes that, too. He has been nothing but a force for evil in the Senate, and swore he'd only serve two terms anyway. Cutting him off now is just an early exit to lay a foundation for The Great Tea Party Takeover of 2016. (Laugh. That's a joke.)

Esquire's Charles Pierce holds nothing back:

Nobody better personifies the casual cruelty, the reckless disregard for the general welfare, the heedless contempt for the idea of a general political commonwealth, and the deep fealty to the rising power of oligarchy in this country than does DeMint, who first rode into the Senate by arguing, among other things, that gay people should not teach in the public schools. And no institution embodies those same qualities, which fairly define modern movement conservatism, than does The Heritage Foundation, which is little more than a talking-points mill at which the primary intellectual debates seem to center on who will write this week's crapola of the op-ed page of The Washington Post, and who will be appearing with Piers Morgan that night. Heritage's claim that it is a font of serious policy ideas dies with the fact that it is now going to be run by the biggest loon in the pond. This is a match made on a plane somewhat lower than heaven.

At any rate, DeMint will head off to the Heritage family, leaving a hole for Nikki Haley to fill in the Senate. The choices look as loco as DeMint. ThinkProgress has a cast of characters that might make us all wish DeMint was back in the saddle. Rep. Joe "You Lie" Wilson is probably the most well-known, but the more likely pick is Rep. Tim Scott, who may possibly be even more insane than DeMint.

Several reports are identifying Scott as DeMint’s preferred choice to replace him, and for good reason: the freshman congressman has already proven to be nearly as extreme as DeMint himself. In 2011, he voted to extend billions of dollars in subsidies to big oil companies, arguing that taxpayer-funded money going to companies that reap billions in profits was “fair.” And during the last fight over the debt ceiling, Scott floated the possibility of introducing articles of impeachment against President Obama. While a State Senator, Scott helped to defund South Carolina’s entire HIV/AIDS programs, including the elimination of the state’s AIDs Drug Assistance Program.

Choose your favorite popcorn flavor, sit back, and watch the fun. What's in the water there in South Carolina, anyway?