Dec/081
More Fun With Blagojevich
These are tough times in America, but the corruption scandal that is Rod Blagojevich is the gift that keeps on giving.
Sitting across from C in a cafe today, she started laughing for no reason. I asked her what was so funny, and she said she was reading an article about the embattled governor's nomination of Obama's Senate replacement.
Sure sounds boring, right? Not if you read this as the Blagojevich would have spoken it in private,or as C read it to herself... with f-bombs galore! Try it yourself, it's lots of fun:
GOV. ROD BLAGOJEVICH (ILL.): The people of Illinois are entitled to have two United States senators represent them in Washington, D.C.
As governor, I am required to make this appointment. If I don't make this appointment, then the people of Illinois will be deprived of their appropriate voice and vote in the United States Senate.
Therefore, I am here to announce my intention to appoint an individual who has unquestioned integrity, extensive experience, and is a wise and distinguished senior statesman of Illinois. This man actually once was an opponent of mine for governor.
(LAUGHTER)
So I'm here today to announce that I am appointing Roland Burris as the next United States senator from the Illinois.
Roland Burris is no stranger to the people of our state. Between 1979 and 1992 he served the people of Illinois as the state's comptroller and the state's attorney general. He has had a long and distinguished career serving the people of Illinois. He will be a great United States senator.
And now I'd like to ask everyone to do one last thing. Please don't allow the allegations against me to taint this good and honest man.
Ladies and gentlemen, Roland Burris.
Still don't get how it's supposed to work? SNL has you covered.
[Image via Buzzfeed.]
Sep/080
My Gal
Tina Fey strikes a pro-NRA Palin pose.
Cutting piece in this week's New Yorker on Palin as veep candidate.
In summary: Because my candidate, unlike your winking/blinking Vice-Presidential candidate, who, though, yes, he did run as the running mate when the one asking him to run did ask him to run, which that I admire, one thing he did not do, with his bare hands or otherwise, is, did he ever kill a moose? No, but ours did. And I would. Please bring a moose to me, over by me, and down that moose will go, and, if I had a kid, I would take a picture of me showing my kid that dead moose, going, like, Uh, sweetie, no, he is not resting, he is dead, due to I shot him, and now I am going to eat him, and so are you, oh yes you are, which is responsible, as God put this moose here for us to shoot and eat and take a photo of, although I did not, at that time, know why God did, but in years to come, God’s will was revealed, which is: Hey, that is a cool photo for hunters about to vote to see, plus what an honor for that moose, to be on the Internet.
Brings a grin to the faces of the snarky and well-educated, and witty and funny in its own right ... but really -- isn't this just mocking people who support Palin because they have trouble relating to or understanding the other candidates?
Sure, maybe that's worth mocking -- the last 8 years certainly point to a need for increased mockery -- but Obama is saying that he wants to be a unifying force in America. Taking Obama at his word, this is the sort of article that those on the Left need to stop writing. Then again, maybe sarcasm, inside jokes and poking fun at blue-collar America and those who didn't have an opportunity for much of an education is still fair game. For that, all well-heeled citizens can do is offer thanks to McCain's irresponsible nomination of an under-qualified running mate, intentionally-scribbled signs at the RNC, attack ads by McCain that even Karl Rove, the Sith Lord himself, says are irresponsible and go too far. While we on the Left tremble at the thought of losing the election in November, at least we can share a laugh today.
For his part, comedic genius Chevy Chase weighed in on Tina Fey's spot-on portrayal of Palin on last Saturday's SNL:
I thought it was extraordinary how well she played her and much she looked like her. . . Personally, I felt we didn't need the Hillary stuff -- I'd like her to go even harder. I want her to decimate this woman. This woman, I can't believe there hasn't been more about it... It's just unbelievable to me this woman is actually running for Vice President!
Good talk, Chevy. Now don't let your mother smell that beer on your breath.
Sep/080
What A Rough Week
Apocalypse Now
In more-or-less chronological order, here's a list of some of the ridiculous and troubling events that happened last week...
- Fannie May and Freddie Mac are bailed out by the Federal government. $500 billion dollars to take control of these quasi-governmental institutions, ruined in the "mortgage crisis." As an astute poster on digg.com mentions, why is it that there's no money for universal healthcare, yet the government can scrape together half a trillion dollars in no time flat to bail out financial institutions?
- United Airline's stock dropped from nearly $12.50 a share to $3 a share... for no good reason. Here's what happened: Google News' software found an old article in the Chicago Tribune about a 2002 United bankruptcy-court filing. As the old article wasn't properly dated, it was posted by Google News as though it were new news. Software used by stock traders to automatically buy and sell stock found the article and started to sell. And sell. And sell. This automated sell-off, combined with the Tribune article and pre-existing fears about the weakness of United's stock amid ongoing trouble in the airline industry caused the rumor to spread like wildfire. When the dust cleared later in the day, trading of United stock had been frozen at $3. The price went back up to $10.60 a share, but the damage had been done. $1.14 billion had been lost -- gone, evaporated, *poof*.
- McCain caught Obama in the polls. Sure, the RNC provided a bump, but the larger cause for the bump is most troubling. All Palin, all the time. She has minimal experience, her primary interaction with the public was a well-delivered speech written before her nomination, and until a Thursday interview with ABC, she refused to answer questions (for good reason; the VP should probably know what the Bush Doctrine is, at least well enough to BS an answer). Yet because she's a pretty woman selling herself as a religious frontier-mom, she's polling through the roof. McCain v. Obama? The actual contest? Who cares. In the popularity contest that is the Presidential election for much of America, Palin's revisiting her role as Prom Queen. Issues and experience be damned.
- David Foster Wallace hanged himself at home in Claremont, CA. I've read some of his essays, and had just started his masterwork, Infinite Jest. Only twenty pages in, I was already wondering how anyone could walk through life with such thoughts rattling around in one's head. It seems that over time, not even he could handle it. The greatest young author of the last hundred years is gone, dead at 46. Some who knew him offer tribute.
- A freight train and passenger train collide, head-on in California. At least 23 dead. Possible cause of the accident? One of the engineers may have been texting with teens interested in the railroad, as an education/public service task, just before the accident -- the worst of its kind in the region.
- Syria invades Lebanon. (Sadly, I'm guessing you may have heard about it here first.)
- Hurricane Ike pummels the Texas coast.
- The financial sector continues its slide to the bottom. Can the banks fall further? Apparently yes. "Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself on Sunday to Bank of America for roughly $50 billion to avert a deepening financial crisis, while another prominent securities firm, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy protection and hurtled toward liquidation after it failed to find a buyer. . . . But even as the fates of Lehman and Merrill hung in the balance, another crisis loomed as the insurance giant American International Group appeared to teeter. Staggered by losses stemming from the credit crisis, A.I.G. sought a $40 billion lifeline from the Federal Reserve, without which the company may have only days to survive." Alan Greenspan, the former Fed Chief who could have done a lot to minimize this problem by raising interest rates a touch while he was still in office, now says that the economy is in a "once-in-a-lifetime" crisis. For a better understanding of what's going on and how we got here, Paul Krugman provides insight.
- To end on a positive note, Tina Fey and Amy Pohler did a great job leading off this year's SNL season opener.
[Photo via Waxin' and Milkin']