Harry's Place

Bob Molinaro of The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports:
Think tickets to big sporting events are pricing out the average American? For the Rolling Stones’ June 24 concert at D.C.’s Verizon Center, some floor seats go for more than $3,000 apiece, while the unwashed are being offered upper-deck tickets in the $200 range – binoculars not included.
I imagine [...]

The greatest country singer of all, dead at 81.

What are your favorite George Jones songs?

The state-controlled Syria Times reports:

The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cannot be described as a President of the Syrian State only, but he is a great leader for Syria, an Arab leader and a national hero as well.
This comes because he has qualifications that make others unqualified enough to assume the power of the Syrian presidency. [...]

First you repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”
Next thing you know, you get videos like this from US soldiers in Afghanistan:

Apparently it’s a parody of/tribute to a video by the cheerleaders for the Miami Dolphins football team.
(I feel some sympathy for what must have been the culture shock of the Afghans looking on in the background, [...]

I don’t know if Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan is trying burnish his Generation X credentials, but he has cited Rage Against the Machine– “which sings about the greed of oil companies and whose Web site praises the anti-corporate Occupy Wall Street movement”– as one of his favorite bands.
Unsurprisingly, guitarist Tom Morello doesn’t love [...]

See here.

I won’t be watching, but knock yourselves out.
My only observation is (without hearing their song), if these women don’t win, something is fundamentally wrong with the world:

Speaking of Cranbrook, the exclusive prep school that Mitt Romney attended, I was reminded of my favorite scene from the movie 8 Mile, set in Detroit, in which Eminem plays a white working-class rapper who is harassed by a rival rapper, a privileged black guy posing as a lower-class thug.
In the final rap battle between [...]

Now that Socialist Francois Hollande has been elected president of France, two great questions come to mind:
1. Will he be able successfully to reverse Sarkozy’s austerity program, reduce unemployment and produce sustained economic growth?
2. Is the woman at the left of the photo playing the clarinet and the accordion at the same time?

Then:

Now: