North Korean state-run TV has launched a campaign to rid the country of long hair.

The hair campaign comes as North Korea's dictatorship struggles to tighten its control over information, monitor its population and dictate cultural tastes. It is directing men to wear their hair "socialist style," deriding shabbily coifed men as "blind followers of bourgeois lifestyle."

North Korea's state-run Central TV even identifies violators by name and address, exposing them to jeers from other citizens. "We cannot help questioning the cultural taste of this comrade, who is incapable of feeling ashamed of his hair style," the station said Monday, showing a Mr. Ko Gwang Hyun, whose unkempt hair covered his ears. "Can we expect a man with this disheveled mind-set to perform his duty well?"

Florida's Justice Department: Not just about enforcing the law anymore!

A senior assistant state attorney general was hit with pepper spray and mugged after he called an escort service to a hotel, police said. Assistant Attorney General John Rimes was beaten and robbed of about $500 on Thursday while staying at the Hilton Tampa Airport Westshore, according to a Tampa police report released Monday. Rimes, 54, was treated at St. Joseph's Hospital until Sunday, hospital officials said.

The police report states that two women arrived at Rimes' hotel room late Thursday after he called an escort service for female companionship. Police said Rimes had $200, but the women told him he needed more. He went to an ATM and withdrew $300. After Rimes returned, someone knocked on his hotel room door. Rimes saw a well-dressed man through the peephole and opened the door, police said. That's when the man used pepper spray on Rimes, beat him and took the money, police said.

The women left, and guests who were affected by the spray called security, the report said.

FDR's grandson writes in the Boston Globe about the "outrage" of using FDR to sell Social Security privatization.

As a former Wall Street lawyer, my grandfather fully supported the opportunity of every American to have fair investment opportunities. But Social Security was -- and is -- something different. It was -- and is -- the guaranteed basis of a secure retirement. The risk is that future retired Americans will lose that assurance if the guaranteed benefit is eliminated. Drastic changes that divert the payroll tax to privatization will almost certainly eliminate that guaranteed benefit by crippling the ability to pay benefits, imposing trillions of dollars of new costs on the government and creating massive federal debt. Privatization threatens to bring about the collapse of the entire Social Security system.

Tell me this doesn't sound like a description of a second-grader doing Show-and-Tell:

In another presentation, Senator John Thune of South Dakota introduced senators to the meaning of "blogging," explaining the basics of self-published online political commentary and arguing that it can affect public opinion.

Bush, actin' presidential.

Such a character, that president of ours!

LAMB: The longer you're in this White House, with all those that have gone before you, do you see ghosts of past Presidents?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I quit drinking in '86. (Laughter.)
LAMB: I mean, do you feel the history of the place?

Ed Rendell and Mitt Romney make one of the stupidest Superbowl bets in... well, in the history of Superbowl betting.

Back in the (crazy) saddle again:

Rumble is former Republican U.S. Senate candidate/nightmare Alan Keyes is eyeing a bid for governor.

Let us pray for deliverance.

That's the Chicago Sun-Times praying for deliverance, not me. I'm looking forward to it.

Someone is selling a large Frosted Flake on eBay. For $64.14.

If that's not a sign of the apocalypse, I don't know what is.

(Worth noting: the seller cautions against trusting the "unoriginal joker" who's copying the seller's idea and selling a flake "of a lesser statue by far." It's unclear whether he meant "a lesser stature," or, in fact, "a lesser statue." Or perhaps "a lesser statute." Because who can tell with these eBayers?)

New USPS motto: "Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, yadda yadda yadda. And, well, okay, maybe snow."

Nice quote from Jamie Rubin, via Thomas Friendman:

If you took all three major parties in Britain - Labor, Liberals and Conservatives - "their views on God, guns, gays, the death penalty, national health care and the environment would all fit somewhere inside the Democratic Party," said James Rubin, the Clinton State Department spokesman, who works in London. "That's why I get along with all three parties here. They're all Democrats!"

A couple of months ago I mentioned to a friend that I was impressed with the way U.S. soldiers were handling themselves in interviews, and wondered idly if they were getting media training. Turns out, they are. Neat article.