KIELBASA QUEEN, COME ON DOWN:  I don't watch America's Got Talent, and haven't listened to Howard Stern since I was in high school and WYSP played rock music, but, yeah, putting the two together for $15M/year would at least get me interested in reading the recaps and hunting down clips online.

CANIS SEMPER FIDELIS: Today is Veterans' Day. Do you know who loves soldiers more than you do? Soldiers' dogs. Mental Floss compiled an archive of dogs welcoming soldiers home.

HT: Deadspin.

11/11/11, 11:11:11:  It's a big day for lovers of binary and the Corduroy Appreciation Club.

PENN STATE, 2011, AND WHITMAN MIDDLE SCHOOL, 1994: This is a long post, one my colleagues at ALOTT5MA HQ will recognize as falling in the category of "Ahem I Have Something To Say 'Bout Something." If you're looking for the Isaac Spaceman that is trying to make you laugh, you might want to skip it, because this one is about Penn State.

SO IS THIS MAH-VAH-LEOUS OR NOT? Billy Crystal has tweeted that he'll be hosting the Oscars. No confirmation from the Academy or outside news sources yet, but that would be the least surprising and safest news imaginable.

DAD, THEY ALL COME FROM THE SAME ANIMAL: Understanding the periodic availability of McRib as a pork commodities arbitrage:

The theory that the McRib’s elusiveness is a direct result of the vagaries of the cash price for hog meat in the States is simple: in this thinking, the product is only introduced when pork prices are low enough to ensure McDonald’s can turn a profit on the product. The theory is especially convincing given the McRib's status as the only non-breakfast fast food pork item: why wouldn't there be a pork sandwich in every chain, if it were profitable?

Some wonderful, magical animal...

8 > 409:  The Board of Trustees of Pennsylvania State University has voted unanimously to fire head football coach Joe Paterno, effective immediately.  The University's president, Graham Spanier, has resigned.

We do not yet know all the facts to assess in full Paterno's moral culpability in the child rape scandal, but I feel like we know enough to know that tonight's decision was necessary.