3. Google of the day: In honor of Les Paul’s birthday, the search engine created a playable (and recordable) guitar doodle. Listen to it play Beatles songs!

4. Reason of the day for emo high-schoolers to get out of bed: Actor Logan Lerman taking a twitpic of Emma Watson on the set of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”

5. Guilt-ridden site of the day: Shamebegone.com, a new site that claims to “specialize in digging you out” of your shame spiral “by doing the hard writing for you — whether it involves long-unanswered emails, missed birthdays or apologies for social messes.”

For a price, of course.

On the Blaze, Beck’s news website, Kevin Balfe, Beck’s primary ghostwriter, has responded today by calling Huckabee a liar. Because, he argues, Michelle Obama and Mike Huckabee do want to literally take candy from babies’ mouths:

Michelle Obama is heading up an effort to combat childhood obesity. One of the first major initiatives of this campaign was the “Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010.” Here is what Huckabee said about it at the time: “By passing a bill that addresses the nutritional quality of school lunches, an important step is being taken to give children choices that will make them healthier and more productive.”

Ok, great, so he likes the law…but what does that law actually do? Well, according to USA Today: “it gives the USDA the authority to set nutritional standards for all foods regularly sold in schools during the school day, including vending machines…”

To translate, the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT will have DIRECT CONTROL over whether or not certain foods–say a Milky Way bar–can be put into a vending machine at a public school.

With me so far?

Ok, so now for the big reveal…the Huckabee Lie. In his public statement attacking Glenn, here’s what he claims:

“I’m no fan of [Michelle Obama's] husband’s policies for sure, but I have appreciated her efforts that Beck misrepresented—either out of ignorance or out of a deliberate attempt to distort them to create yet another ‘boogey man’ hiding in the closet that he and only he can see. The First Lady’s approach is about personal responsibility—not the government literally taking candy from a baby’s mouth.”

Actually, Governor, no. I know you‘re so immune to political spin that you probably don’t even recognize it anymore, but THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THIS ACT THAT YOU SUPPORT DOES.

I know the definition of the word “literally” has drifted a bit since Joe Biden took office, but unless this bill calls for jackbooted USDA thugs to storm into public schools and rip Milky Ways directly from the mouths of … babies who are in school for some reason, then no, this act does not actually take candy from babies.

There is, in fact, absolutely nothing in this bill stopping any public school student from bringing an entire crate of delicious candy bars to school and eating each and every one of them during recess. Our freedom to begin the process of eating ourselves to death as early as possible is still safe!

While Balfe characterizes the bill, and Obama’s campaign in general, as “federal intervention in local issues like school lunch nutrition,” the USDA already “intervenes” in school lunches (the National School Lunch act is more than 60 years old) and sets nutritional standards for government-subsidized meals. (Of course, demanding healthier school lunches without giving schools a lot more money to spend on food is pretty unrealistic but on the other hand LIBERTY DON’T TREAD ON ME FOUNDERS FREEDOM etc. etc.)

Huckabee’s crime? He supports Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative, because modern-day culture-warrior right-wingers do actually think encouraging healthy behavior for children is an infringement on liberty. And because of that suppot, Huckabee is clearly a left-wing Nazi Progressive — “like John McCain” — who conspired with McCain to … sabotage the Romney campaign, in 2008. (???)

Beck and Huckabee are actually both in the same business — TV and related marketing ventures — and, for now at least, hustle on the same channel. Huckabee is a Fox talk show host, (the fact that he seems to enjoy being a Fox talk show host may yet save us from his presidency) and Beck is soon leaving his daily hour-long history lecture and therapy session.

So Huckabee responded to Beck with a post on his PAC’s website. And it is a very entertaining response. It does not really pull any punches:

This week Glenn Beck has taken to his radio show to attack me as a Progressive, which he has said is the same as a “cancer” and a “Nazi.” What did I do that apparently caused him to link me to a fatal disease and a form of government that murdered millions of innocent Jews? I had the audacity—not of hope—but the audacity to give respect to the efforts of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign to address childhood obesity. I’m no fan of her husband’s policies for sure, but I have appreciated her efforts that Beck misrepresented—either out of ignorance or out of a deliberate attempt to distort them to create yet another “boogey man” hiding in the closet that he and only he can see. The First Lady’s approach is about personal responsibility—not the government literally taking candy from a baby’s mouth. He seems to fancy himself a prophet of sorts for his linking so many people and events together to describe a massive global conspiracy for pretty much everything. Sadly, he seems equally inept at recognizing the obvious fact that children are increasingly obese and that we now see clinical evidence of diseases in children that as recent as 20 years ago were found only in adults, such as Type 2 diabetes. The costs to our nation are staggering in increase health care expenses, but it even effects national security with now 75% of young men between the ages of 17 and 24 are unfit for military service primarily due to obesity! His ridiculous claim that John McCain and I collaborated and conspired in the 2008 campaign is especially laughable. Is he not aware that McCain and I were competitors—not cohorts? Beck needs to stick to conspiracies that can’t be so easily de-bunked by facts. Why Beck has decided to aim his overloaded guns on me is beyond me. But he ought to clean his gun and point it more carefully lest it blow up in his face like it did this time.

I think Huck wrote this himself, in a hurry (it’s clearly unedited), which is pretty funny, and probably not the sort of thing a man running for president would be allowed to do.

Obama has spent the past year advocating for healthy living choices and encouraging elected officials, school groups, food producers and parents to help develop solutions to America’s obesity epidemic. 

Christie voiced his support for the first lady’s obesity initiative on Face the Nation this weekend:

I think it’s a really good goal to encourage kids to eat better. You know, I’ve struggled with my weight for 30 years, and it’s a struggle. And if a kid can avoid that in his adult years or her adult years, more power to them, and I think the first lady’s speaking out well.

Meanwhile, Huckabee — who also battled with weight loss in the past — said, “Mrs. Obama was calling attention to a serious problem, not calling for government intrusion.”

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