Meanwhile...

No, yours truly did not win the record-breaking $587 million Powerball jackpot, hop on a chartered 747 filled with Brazilian supermodels, cocaine, beer and Hostess snack cakes and proceed to forget all about DDSS or anything having to do with politics or Mitt Romney's ongoing realization that money can't buy you a presidency. Nope, I've just been busy. It happens.

- The Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act goes into effect today, hopefully soothing millions of eardrums that have been blown out by highly compressed and amplified commercials featuring the late Billy Mays selling Oxycontin...ahem...Oxy Clean.

- A petition demanding that Texas and other former Confederate states be relinquished from cold grasp of the Union failed to impress the president. However, a new petition demanding the construction of a Death Star by 2016 is set to pique his interest. Somewhere on the astral plane, the ethereal form of Ronald Reagan is glowing with otherworldly delight. Somewhere else on this earth, George Lucas just ordered his lawyers to prepare legal briefs.

- A recent study confirmed that white Americans will be in the minority by 2043, provided that coming Mayan apocalypse proves to be a wash and that Republicans haven't transformed the country into a dystopia based on a certain Margaret Atwood novel with a permanent GOP majority.

- Speaking of which, the folks over at the Drudge Report aren't taking Django Unchained sitting down. I don't particularly care for Quentin Tarantino's idea, nor do I care for Jamie Foxx's role. On the other hand, I don't care for arch-conservative hacks throwing themselves deep into the Ni-Clang Event Horizon just because their (overblown) fears of being revenge-killed by empowered Negros is now immortalized on the silver screen.

- The United States of America is still staring down the fiscal cliff, very much in the same way Wile E. Coyote stares at the ground below while the roadrunner gives him the "#1" sign. It looks like Congress won't get to go home for Christmas until the president and John Boehner come to an agreement.

- U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice would have made a great Secretary of State. Word has it that Senator John Kerry is one of the leading names being floated around, but no one's getting confirmed until John McCain finds a way to filet the president over Benghazi.

- Former Senator Alan Simpson attempts Gangnam-style politics, promptly apologizes afterward. Sorta.

On a sadder note, this happened. Prayers go out to all of the victims' families.