Earlier today the Voice brought you news of Colin Beavan. Beavan, who calls himself a "newly self-proclaimed environmentalist," is competing against Charles Barron and Alan Bellone, amongst others, for a Central Brooklyn Congressional seat on the Green Party ticket.

Beavan became known via No Impact Man, a life experiment/blog chronicling his decision to live in New York without making an environmental impact. During Beavan and his family's 12-month trial, they definitely did hearken back to simpler times by avoiding paper products (including TP! OMG!) and electricity.

We wanted to give Beavan the chance to talk to us about his campaign and indulge our predilection for potty humor. Anyway, click here to see what he had to say...

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Hey, college students!

If you weren't already bummed that 53 percent of you will likely face joblessness or underemployment upon graduation, or that university is a big waste of time and money, we have even more bad news for you.

Unless Congress gets its shit together -- which it probably won't because it's Congress -- interest rates for federally backed Stafford loans will totally swell from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent July 1, according to the Associated Press.

For some 7 million U.S. undergrads, that means that tuition would go up $1,000.

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Today in "Traditionalists Hating Technology," local literary darling Jonathan Franzen, author of the popular novels Freedom and The Corrections, has come out in opposition of e-books. Speaking at the Hay Festival in Cartagena, Colombia, Franzen told reporters that he believes the impermanence of the e-book format will eventually result in fewer great works of literature.

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American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis, who is only the second most annoying novelist on Twitter, doesn't mince words. He's generally full of Very Definitive Opinions about movies, TV, and other culture stuff, and last night he cottoned onto a new subject: bullying.

Contentious, isn't it, in the age of "It Gets Better"?

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Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday at a conference at MIT that if he had it his way, he'd slash half the teaching staff of city schools. CBS doesn't have a whole lot of context for the quote, but read it and weep:

"If I had the ability to just design the system and say ex cathedra this is what we're going to do you would cut the number of teachers in half and weed out all the bad ones."

He went on:

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Earlier this week, Mayor Bloomberg made a speech where he said has his "own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world." The speech was covered by Hunter Walker on the New York Oberserver's Politicker NY blog, along with this modest gem from the mayor: "I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom's annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have."

Now, the mayor's words have led to an international incident of epic proportions: they've been given the Taiwanese animation treatment.

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C.S. Muncy

Diaz at an anti-gay marriage rally this past summer.

Now that state Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. has officially lost the fight against gay marriage in New York, he's on to the next thing: Walmart. Diaz released a statement regarding Walmart's absence in NYC in light of this past weekend's strong Black Friday sales. In short: sucks about the pepper spraying and violence; congrats to Walmart for the great profits; now let's get a Walmart in the city ASAP. Diaz's statement in full, emphasis ours:

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This is what Chris Barron of GOProud, the gay Republican group, had to say about those students at UC Davis getting pepper-sprayed. We knew that the pepper spraying moment had become a meme, but we weren't expecting this sentiment to crop up so quickly.

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Today in news you can use (to amuse yourself while you learn something, too), there is evidence that early man (and woman) spoke like Yoda. Meaning: Not necessarily full of wisdom, but using a subject-object-verb (SOV) word order -- for example, "I you like" or "Me cookie want," as opposed to the Cookie Monster's "Me want cookie." Researchers also believe that all human languages came from one form, spoken in East Africa some 50,000 years ago, and that one form was Yoda-speak. Yoda-speak, that form was?

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In a non-shocking un-turn of events today, Chris Christie announced today that he will continue to not be running for president. In the process, he set himself up for some truly unfortunate fat jokes. He told everyone to get the hell off the beach made a wisecrack or two about his non-campaign: "New Jersey, whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me," he said.

But then he referenced his proverbial gut and we're surprised we haven't seen more mean-spirited jokes about it?

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