• 300+ number of members of the massive ‘Ndrangheta crime family were arrested today
• 3,000+ number of police it took to nail most of them (not bad for a day’s work, boys; not bad at all) source

• You know, this ad campaign just keeps getting better. First the original, then the sequel, and now these awesome vignettes. All of them based off of real tweets. Here’s our favorite. HuffPo has many, many more. This is what advertising needs to be. source

• It’s his first public appearance in a bizarrely successful campaign. South Carolina’s Democratic nominee for the Senate will address the Manning chapter of the NAACP on Sunday. And he even has some support from the people who initially didn’t know who he was. “The word in the barbershop, the word on the street, the word in the church parking lots is that everyone is pulling for him,” said Manning NAACP President Robert Fleming. Great he has some support, but if he beats Jim DeMint, color us shocked. source

• I’m busy today so notify me asap when NAACP renders verdict: are liberty-loving, equality-respecting patriots racist? Bated breath, waiting …
• Sarah Palin • Tweeting about the anticipated move by the NAACP to denounce the Modern Tea Party Movement* for “explicitly racist behavior.” Not often we say this, but … Palin’s right. Yo, NAACP, what happened to setting the example instead of playing angry reactionary? You guys are a pretty effective weapon in the war on racism, but if you’re using it to play politics, it will not work out for you. It seems as pathetic as boycotting a greeting card that sounds like something it obviously isn’t. source

* – After a little soul-searching and some feedback from fellow readers, we’ve chosen to revert back to referring to the Tea Party Movement as such, leaving “bizarro hippies” as a part of our past and adding the word “Modern” in front of “Tea Party,” which should get around the problem that the name creates – that it disregards and usurps the memory of the original Boston Tea Party. Let’s admit it. It was intended as a lighthearted joke but some readers didn’t take it that way.

• Officer Hardass seems to have missed the point of why he was working the G20 protests in Toronto recently. Note how the officer next to him tried to make cute conversation, but he wasn’t having any of that. About halfway through the video, they showed the officer arresting her. Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow made a good point here: “If the goal of the police at the G20 was to act pissy and escalate minor incidents into major ones in order to assert their authority, mission accomplished. If, on the other hand, their mission was to de-escalate, keep the peace, find rapport, and celebrate the democratic right to protest, this officer is an abject, total failure.” source

• 1 out of every 25 outbreaks since 1998 is due to the zesty dips source

• He’s been here for some time, I’m not going to specify for how long, but he has chosen to return.
• State Department spokesman Philip Crowley • Regarding the fate of an Iranian nuclear scientist, Shahram Amiri, who randomly surfaced in D.C. yesterday after being gone from his home country for a while. Obviously, considering his job, the U.S. probably wanted some intelligence from him. And there’s been speculation that U.S. spies kidnapped Amiri – that’s Tehran’s line. Julius is probably going to stumble into an Iranian embassy any day now. You were wondering why we went on vacation for so long, right? source

• Look Newt, we appreciate the dog and pony show you’ve run for years, giving people reason to speculate on why you might run for president, but come on, you’re not really going to do it. You may say you will, but let’s face facts: You haven’t been relevant since about 1998. And while the presidential talk makes you sound relevant, you’re really not. It gets you press, but we can’t imagine people voting for you over, say, Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee. Are we wrong here? Is Newt really a force to be reckoned with? source

• 25.5% of all consumers have credit scores below 600 – far higher than usual (blame unemployment)
• 17.9% of all consumers have credit cards above 800 – also higher than usual (impressive) source

• » Why this matters: Low scores tend to stick around a long time, as much as seven to ten years, making it hard to recover from bad decisions or worse luck. But it appears that those who stayed afloat during the recession learned an important lesson – paying down debt and spending less is better than having a low credit score.

• Hint: Evangelical Christians LOVE him. While not giving everything away about this guy, he runs a ministry from his prison cell. He became a born-again Christian 23 years ago, while in the midst of a 25-years-to-life prison sentence. He has fans in many corners, fans that make him say things like this: “Here I am, a convicted felon, a murderer, a man undeserving of anything that is good and wholesome. Yet, there are people who have found it in their heart to love me and have concern for me.” So who is it? Click the link to find out. source