DOZENS KILLED by tornadoes in Alabama.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Amazon Packing After House Vote: “Amazon all but told South Carolina goodbye Wednesday after the online retailer lost a legislative showdown on a sales tax collection exemption it wants to open a distribution center that would bring 1,249 jobs to the Midlands. Company officials immediately halted plans to equip and staff the one million-square-foot building under construction at I-77 and 12th Street near Cayce.” Who needs jobs?

UPDATE: Reader Chip Mathis emails: “Does anyone know where the ‘Alliance for Main Street Fairness’ is getting money? They ran a relentless amount of TV and Radio ads over the past couple of months, and I keep reading in news articles that they are a conservative or Tea Party group. Something smells fishy to me. It doesn’t seem like something the Tea Party would care that much about, but attempting to increase taxes by demonizing corporations sounds like it comes straight from a liberal playbook.”

I don’t think they have much to do with the Tea Party. Maybe with Wal-Mart.

IT’S DUMB, BUT SO ARE THE U.S. NEWS RANKINGS: Ranking colleges based on RateMyProfessor.com.

THE DANGERS OF THREAT INFLATION in cybersecurity policy.

RON RADOSH: The Fatah-Hamas Agreement: The Failure of Obama’s Middle East policy, and the End of the ‘Peace Process.’

JEEZ: Golf-ball-sized hail, and one tornado warning after another.

UPDATE: Here’s what’s happening in my neck of the woods. It’s much worse elsewhere, alas.

WHITE HOUSE GETTING DESPERATE on gas prices?

MARKDOWNS ON wireless all-in-one printers.

SADLY PREDICTABLE: “I would kill her. I really mean that. That doesn’t fit with my culture.” Take your culture and shove it, bub. (Picture strategically blurred, but possibly NSFW, which say something ironic about our Taliban-like HR policies . . . .)

UPDATE: A reader emails: “If that’s Haraam, I don’t want to know what’s Haright.”

WISCONSIN UPDATE: UW doctors face penalties for writing sick notes for protesters. “The Wisconsin Medical Society criticized the doctors’ actions, saying they threatened the public’s trust in the medical profession. The Madison School District told teachers who turned in fraudulent sick notes to rescind them by last month or face discipline. The district received more than 1,000 notes from teachers during the protests.” The once-immense authority of the professional classes continues to diminish, at the professional classes’ own hand.

THIS ISN’T GOOD: User information on 77 million PlayStation users stolen, admits Sony. “In a statement on the PlayStation blog, the company confirmed that attackers have obtained details such as users’ name, address, date of birth and password. More worryingly, customers’ credit card details may have also been compromised.” If you can’t protect the data, you shouldn’t collect the data.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED REPUBLICAN, PEOPLE WOULD BE TALKING ABOUT BRINGING BACK PUBLIC FLOGGINGS: And they were right!

REP. TOM COLE: “The president doesn’t know squat about energy production.” Hmm. What exactly is he an expert on?

Plus this: “The president now says his administration is pushing major oil producers to increase oil output in an effort to lower prices. What he really needs is to have someone tell the government of the world’s third largest oil producer to boost output. In case he is unaware, that oil producer is the United States.” Heh.

OH, ABSOLUTELY: Reader Brian Torrez writes: “So now that Obama has released his long form birth certificate is this proof that Andrew Sullivan is Trig Palin’s father?”

THEY SURE DON’T MAKE PYREX like they used to. Surprisingly, that has unintended consequences.

POPULAR MECHANICS: Portraits Of Devastation: Japan After The Tsunami.

Related: Is The U.S. Ready For The Next Big Quake? No.

UPDATE: Link was bad before. Fixed now. Sorry!

TORNADO OVERLOAD: We’re in the basement for a tornado warning, and once again the weather radio sounded off ahead of anything else.

Meanwhile, a reader emails:

An excellent warning service is Weathercall.net . This service is what we use to activate our warning sirens.

For $10/yr, you register your address and if your location is in a tornado or severe storm warning area. When the warning area drops from the Weather Service, Weathercall calls up to 3 phone numbers and 3 email addresses or text messaging addresses.

It’s amazingly fast. I receive automated text messages directly from the weather service, and get calls and emails from Weathercall faster than NWS can automated texts to me. ‘

My wife is the Emergency Manager at a local hospital, and now uses this system for her facility as well.

I haven’t tried that one.

MARKDOWNS on HDTVs. They sure have gotten cheap.

THE POLITICS OF Star Trek.

COCA-COLA’S ROLE in the King & Spalding scandal? Bring on the subpoenas: “Ethics expert Richard Painter yesterday explained there is no attorney-client protection for any message from one client to its lawyers about another client.”

WELL, OKAY THEN: Despite hack attack, ORNL sticking with Internet Explorer.

DONALD TRUMP, NEO-CONFEDERATE? Well, he’s gaining ground on Obama, so it’s time to play that card. Again.

UPDATE: Whoopi Goldberg.

FASTER, PLEASE: Researchers develop non-invasive early diagnostic test for gastric cancer.

HEY, E.T.: CALL BACK LATER. “Financial woes have delivered a serious blow to the search for E.T. One of its best tools, the Allen Telescope Array in northern California, has been put on hold until new funding is located.”

NOT LIVING UP TO THE HYPE: In most U.S. markets, arrival of plug-in vehicles still months (years?) away.