The first ran for 16 years, from early 1992, when her husband survived a wave of scandals and emerged as the Democratic nominee for president, and early 2008, when Hillary fell hopelessly behind Barack Obama in their delegate race. For all of that time, Hillary and Bill were the faces of their party and, consequently, faced a relentless, daily, over-the-top assault from the GOP. The precise nature of the attacks differed, but broadly speaking, the Clintons were treated by the right exactly how Barack Obama has been for the past four years.

Which is no coincidence, because the turning point in the right’s relationship with Bill and Hillary came at the precise moment when it became clear there’d be no Clinton restoration in ’08. Suddenly, there was no day-to-day incentive for conservatives to portray them as The Worst Thing Ever To Happen To American Politics. But there was real incentive for the right to begin giving Obama the Clinton treatment, which it's been doing ever since. In the revised right-wing narrative, Bill and Hillary became symbols of a bygone era of Democratic pragmatism and cooperation – “good” Democrats whose legacy Obama was routinely tarnishing with his radical partisan warfare.

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"Aesthetically pleasing" is very subjective.

I was deep into the fifth page of the reader comments of the first installment of Ars Technica's excellent "The State of Smartphones in 2012," when I encountered this observation, which is simultaneously the most illuminating and worthless Internet comment of all time. It was a response to the declaration by Ars Technica's Andrew Cunningham that the "Live Tiles" user interface in the brand-spanking-new Windows Phone 8 operating system was more "aesthetically striking" than the icons of Apple's iOS or the widgets of Google's Android.

(With Live Tiles, the restless smartphone user can expand or shrink the on-screen real estate devoted to a particular app or function, providing a level of configurability alien to the straitlaced universe that iPhone lovers, in particular, are accustomed to. Remember this, for future reference: Windows: freedom! Apple: tyranny!)

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The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed a lawsuit in Illinois this morning against Armslist.com -- a Craigslist style listing site for firearms on behalf of the family of Jitka Vesel, a 36-year-old Czech immigrant who was murdered by a jilted lover. Vesel was fatally shot with .40-calliber handgun purchased illegally on the site. According to the Guardian, Armslist is among 4,000 websites which engage in gun-selling in the U.S.

The suit comes a day after a high profile shooting at an Oregon mall killed three including the gunman.

It is currently totally legal for individual, unlicensed gun dealers --  classified as "private sellers" -- to sell weapons online or at gun shows without carrying out background checks on customers. It's a loophole that "has been widely denounced by gun control advocates," noted the Guardian's Ed Pilkington. However, in the case of Vesel's murder, the killer was a Russian immigrant and lived out-of-state therefore did not qualify to legally buy the firearm from the seller who posted it on Armslist.

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Well, obviously Democrats won the election, holding the White House, increasing their lead in the Senate and picking up seats in the House. But while some Republicans promised to commence soul-searching about why most Americans rejected their message, their right-wing flank, and the plutocrats who fund them, are only getting crazier. That leaves victorious Democrats looking for ways to placate them, instead of looking for ways to exercise their mandate. This seems wrong.

I mean, how do you explain the phenomenon of President Obama winning Michigan by 10 points, and the state GOP's very next political move is passing unpopular right-to-work legislation in a lame duck session, before they concede seats to Democrats (and some less crazy Republicans) in January? That flies in the face of the way the political system is supposed to work. The electorate speaks; their servants listen.

But instead, Gov. Rick Snyder, who once promised not to back right-wing right-to-work legislation, instead backed rushing it through, to applause from his friends at ALEC, Americans for Prosperity and the Koch brothers. The point is to slash wages as well as to defund an institutional pillar of the Democratic Party. No retreat, no surrender.

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A lot of crazy shit has happened since then. Samuel L. Jackson, Werner Herzog, Thandie Newton and an adorable Filipina grandma all did readings that went viral. Corporate publishers tried to buy the book away from tiny, independent Akashic Books for a lot of money, and we said no. Jenna Elfman randomly made a music video, and in return for our not suing her, met up with us in Miami with a plastic baby doll to speak to fans of literature. Time magazine named "Go the Fuck to Sleep" its “Thing of the Year,” presumably in a squeaker win over that bacon-flavored mayonnaise. Sam Jackson and I teamed back up for “Wake the Fuck Up,” a pro-Obama video that reminded America of the importance of voting and vulgarity.

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Right-to-work laws are already in place in 22 states, so do they actually create more and better jobs? We asked some experts to find out and the answer is, well, complicated.

Lonnie Stevans, a professor at Hofstra University who used quantitative models to study the issue, is not bullish on the laws. “Although right-to-work states may be more attractive to business, this would not necessarily translate into enhanced economic verve in the right-to-work state if there is little ‘trickle-down’ from business owners to the non-unionized workers," he told Salon.

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Judd, who says she is considering a run in 2014, is trailing 47-43 percent behind McConnell, who happens to be the most unpopular senator in the country.

From PPP:

Only 37% of Kentucky voters approve of him to 55% disapprove. Both in terms of raw disapproval (55%) and net approval (-18) McConnell has the worst numbers of any of his peers, taking that mantle from Nebraska's Ben Nelson.

McConnell is predictably very unpopular with Democrats (23/73). But his numbers are almost as bad with independents (33/58) and even with Republicans he's well below the 70-80% approval range you would usually expect for a Senator within their own party (59/28).

Among Democrats, Judd is the top choice for the primary, with 29 percent of the vote, compared to Lt. Gov. Jerry  Abramson who came in second at 16 percent.

PPP surveyed 1,266 Kentucky voters for the survey overall, and 585 Democratic primary voters.

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She was 76, I was 32. I had recently started dating the man I would soon marry. When I told Andy that if I had breast cancer, I would feel the way Mary did — that I would be fine with having a mastectomy, I just wouldn’t want to die — he replied “But I like your breasts. You’d try to keep them for me, right?”

The night after my grandmother’s mastectomy, Andy took my nipples into his mouth before we made love in a grand, unusual gesture. “I shouldn’t ignore your breasts,” he whispered. As if he were nervous that they might be gone someday.

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In case you missed it, DeGeneres stars in a new JC Penney’s ad in which the openly gay TV host flagrantly tries to persuade three of Santa’s elves to make more toys for Christmas. While at first glance, a naive viewer might think the ad is a ploy by a crumbling department store to boost holiday business by promising free stuff, the trained eyes at the conservative One Million Moms group know better.

Vulnerable Americans watching their televisions will obviously be brainwashed. Hmm, what should I get Uncle Sid for Christmas this year? I know, homosexuality! JC Penney’s is practically giving it away!

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John Podhoretz and Matt Lewis made the cases for the "just politics" camp in the context of the "fiscal cliff" debate. Democrats, they argue, have deftly outmaneuvered Republicans into spending all their time defending unpopular things that are peripheral to core conservative values. Podhoretz writes in the New York Post that even though Republicans have the superior policy on the Bush tax cuts and the need to cut entitlements, they have the inferior “messaging” and have ended up the “the eat-your-vegetables-and-shut-up party” -- noble and responsible, but doomed.

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When I read those words, a chat conversation between my then-husband and another man, it felt for just a moment like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. I remember putting my hand on my chest, gasping for air, as the world I thought I knew shattered around me.

He was surprisingly conciliatory and accommodating in the divorce negotiations. In the Deep South state we lived in at the time, within 30 days it was final. Our eight-year marriage was over before the indentation from my wedding ring had even faded from my finger.

Because I couldn’t bear the thought of enduring other people’s pity — or ridicule — and because I had two very small children to raise, I made the decision to pack up and move two states away. We’d get a brand-new start, my children and me, away from anyone who knew that we’d once been a different, complete family.

While unpacking my desk in our new home, I came across the transcript of the chat that had brought down my marriage. As I quickly scanned the now-familiar words, something new jumped out at me. The “jailer” made reference to my ex-husband’s website. Website? I googled his screen name.

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Gottlieb's storied career as editor in chief of Simon & Schuster and Alfred A. Knopf, as well as a five-year stint as editor in chief of the New Yorker, has provided him with plenty of firsthand experience in the foibles of literary greats. (He discovered and edited Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" and has edited the work of such authors as John Cheever, Toni Morrison, John le Carré, Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Caro, Barbara Tuchman and Bill Clinton.) Late in life, he launched a second career as a writer, contributing long critical essays to the New York Review of Books and the New Yorker, as well as penning biographies of Sarah Bernhardt and George Balanchine. Deciding that the lives of the Dickens children merited further investigation, he followed his usual method of absorbing all available writings on the topic. An irresistibly readable new book, "Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens," is the result.

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Doing crazy things and then pulling back on them — writing as if they don’t matter, tamping them down so they’re irrelevant, silo-ing them off from the main plot — is a standard “Homeland” tactic. “Homeland” regularly does something bananas to give the audience a thrill and then, weeks later when you re-examine the moment, you find that it has had little to no effect on the thrust of the show’s major storylines and relationships. "Homeland" jumps the shark one episode, but then swiftly steps back to the other side in time for the next.

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This awareness is reflected in many polls. Most populations in the major economies that account for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions have a high level of awareness. Gallup has surveyed people in 111 countries and found that 42 percent found global warming a serious threat. In another poll, a broad majority wanted action on climate change, with majorities in fourteen of fifteen countries, both developed and developing nations, willing to address the matter.

One other poll has found that about half of Americans recognize that particular phenomena such as coastline erosion and flooding, droughts, hurricanes, river flooding, and wildfires are being exacerbated by warming.

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That Hollywood is driven more by market forces than by artistic ones is a cliché so old it’s almost become axiomatic. Blame the collapse of the studio system in the 1960s. Hollywood did just fine when all the major studios were in the business of creating, as well as financing, the films bearing their logos; they even went so far as to seek out new talent, nurture it, and develop it over the course of years. Today, studios are just the money men, and projects are developed by independent production companies — every actor and director has his or her own — and then brought to MGM or Fox or Disney in supplication with the hope of a big, fat bankroll.

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My girlfriend didn’t look too excited. “There are weight limits,” she said. “There’s a lot of things I’ll never do with you, you know. Like hang gliding or zip lining. We’re never going to jump out of a plane together, and I can’t ride a donkey to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.”

I’ll take a pass on falling out of the sky like human confetti or riding a fragrant donkey on a hot August day.What does bother me is when my girlfriend feels excluded or like she’s holding us back from an experience because of her weight.

“First of all, don’t say never,” I told her. “But if we don’t, that’s fine by me.”

Just to avoid an uncomfortable situation, I called ahead to ask if there were weight limits on tube rentals. The woman on the phone sounded confused at first, but when I clarified, she offered some southern-accented sympathy.

“Oh, hon,” she said, “we’ve had some pretty large people come and float with us. We’re all getting bigger, you know.” I thanked her for the consolation.

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Such is the coverage of Sen. Jim DeMint's departure from the U.S. Senate to take over the Heritage Foundation. So many words have been spent on this news. I hadn't planned on weighing in, but after watching all the ways it's being spun as some kind of victory for DeMint and the Tea Party, I had to say: Enough!

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Before I gave thought to beauty, I delighted in my body. I was a strong, brown, passionate child, with lots and lots of words. I talked fast, and I moved faster – through the woods around our Cape Cod home, up trees, into the ocean’s crashing surf. I also felt a lot, finely tuned to the swells of my own heart, as well as others’ wants and hurts. I sensed a deep well at my center, and sometimes it bubbled over. I’d read or think or feel myself into a brimming state, then lie with my back to the ground, body vibrating, heart thudding, mind foaming, fearing I might combust – suffer a supernova of brain and heart, annihilate myself. I also fell down a lot. I banged into walls and trees, and tumbled up and down stairs almost daily. The refrain of my childhood was “slow down, Melissa!” and my nickname “Crash,” but I always got right up — skinned knees, purpled thighs, stinging palms — and brushed myself off, kept going.

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